The IMPACT Blog

How Bill Ragan Roofing Tripled Revenue with Endless Customers

awinter@impactbnd.com (Alex Winter) — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 13:42:27 GMT

If you’re like most local service businesses, marketing probably feels like an uphill climb. It’s hard to make work, even harder to measure, and almost impossible to make interesting.

Bill Ragan Roofing in Nashville has found a way to change that. Through radical transparency and consistent education, they’ve redefined what local marketing can look like. What began as a traditional roofing business has become something few would expect: a trusted voice in the roofing world, known nationally for honesty, creativity, and long-term success. Taffy Ragan, General Manager and Owner, and Matt Carter, Content Manager, have turned an old-school trade into a digital content powerhouse.

Their story goes beyond roofing. It shows any business how to win the marketing marathon without losing its soul. In this episode of Endless Customers, you’ll hear how they did it, what they learned, and how you can use their approach to drive leads, connections, and growth in your own business.

What sparked Bill Ragan Roofing's marketing transformation?

Every success story starts with a spark, and for Taffy, that spark happened somewhere she didn’t expect: a marketing conference in San Diego. Picture it: a room full of agencies, speakers, and brands talking about the future of digital marketing. Taffy raised her hand and said what a lot of local business owners think but rarely admit out loud. “We’re a roofing company,” she told a consultant. “It’s boring.”

The consultant smiled and said, “Have you ever heard Marcus Sheridan speak?” She hadn’t, but she made a note of the name. Back home in Nashville, she picked up They Ask, You Answer and read it cover to cover. Halfway through, she handed the book to her husband, Bill, and said, “You need to read this.”

That book flipped a switch. “I was going to Google, asking it questions all the time,” Taffy remembered. “So when I read Marcus’s book, it just made sense. We needed to be the ones answering the questions people were searching for.”

So she got to work. She started writing articles herself. Covering topics like roof repairs, replacements, and even common mistakes to avoid when hiring a contractor. She trained her team to help, pushed through writer’s block, and kept publishing. The first few pieces didn’t make waves, but the philosophy behind them did. “We started thinking differently,” she said. “We stopped trying to sell and started trying to help.” That’s where the magic happens.

Still, she quickly realized something: this couldn’t just be a side project. “It’s not something you do on top of your normal job,” she said. “It needed structure, strategy, and someone to own it full-time.”

Then came 2019. At an IMPACT event that year, Taffy finally met Marcus in person. During a Q&A session, she asked him how to really make They Ask, You Answer, now Endless Customers work inside her company. His answer was simple, and it changed everything. “You can’t do this alone,” he said. “You need a Content Manager.”

That moment became the turning point. Taffy went home, made a plan, and decided to stop treating marketing like an afterthought. She reached out to IMPACT, signed up for coaching, and began what she now calls their Endless Customers journey, the process that would eventually turn Bill Ragan Roofing into one of the most recognizable roofing brands in the country.

Adding a content manager to the team

When Taffy started looking for a Content Manager, she wasn’t just hiring for a position; she was looking for someone who could take her vision and bring it to life every single week. That’s where Matt Carter came in. Matt had always been a writer. He loved words, storytelling, and connecting ideas, but he didn’t yet see how those skills could build a business. “I was a writer without a plan,” he said with a grin. “Then I found out there was a whole world behind writing; strategy, SEO, analytics, and actually using content to drive revenue. That was new to me.”

When he joined Bill Ragan Roofing, he didn’t step into a company half-convinced about the process. “There’s no ifs, ands, or buts,” he said. “This is what we’re doing.” Taffy had already made the commitment, which meant Matt’s first day wasn’t about persuasion; it was about execution. And execute he did.

At first, the pace was fast. “It’s like being thrown into the deep end with a map and a life vest,” Matt joked. IMPACT coaching paired him with mentors who guided his growth every step of the way. “It wasn’t just, ‘we’re going to do it for you,’” he explained. “It was, ‘go start doing stuff, and we’ll coach you through it.’” That hands-on approach gave him ownership from day one. “It’s drinking through a fire hose, but the roadmap made it seamless.”

As weeks turned into months, Matt’s role evolved far beyond writing blog posts. He learned how to track analytics, interpret data, and optimize articles for search. He discovered the power of video and began scripting YouTube content that would later rack up thousands of views. “At first, I thought SEO was just a bunch of keywords,” he laughed. “Now I see it’s about aligning with what people actually want to know.”

Over six years, that roadmap transformed Matt from a writer into a full-fledged digital marketer and, in many ways, the voice of the company. “Even now,” he said, “I’m still learning things constantly. Continuing the journey I started six years ago.” That mindset of continuous improvement is part of what keeps Bill Ragan Roofing ahead of competitors who are still figuring out how to even start.

How they built company-wide buy-in for content

Step inside Bill Ragan Roofing’s office, and you’ll immediately notice something that tells you this team means business. Between Matt’s office and the videographer’s space hangs a large, laminated Endless Customers Scorecard™. It’s not tucked away or collecting dust; it’s front and center, filled with notes, dates, and bright red checkmarks that mark each milestone they’ve hit along their journey. You can feel the pride in every stroke of that marker.

That scorecard represents more than a list of accomplishments. It’s a living record of accountability, a visual reminder of how far they’ve come. “We were dead serious about it,” Taffy said with a smile. “They told us it would take a year and a half to two years. We did it in one.”

That kind of commitment doesn’t happen by accident. It came from leadership buy-in at every level. Taffy didn’t just talk about alignment; she modeled it. Weekly meetings became the heartbeat of the company. Sales and marketing started showing up with shared data, discussing what content was driving leads and which videos were closing deals. When a salesperson heard a new buyer question, they didn’t just handle it on the spot, they sent it to Matt for the next blog or video. That’s where the real cultural shift happened.

Over time, this rhythm created something powerful: trust within the team. The roofers trusted marketing to deliver qualified leads, and marketing trusted sales to use the content they created. “We started speaking the same language,” Matt said. “Once that happened, everything got easier.”

By the time they officially graduated from the program, the change was obvious, not just in the data, but in the energy of the team. The office buzzed with momentum. People weren’t guessing what was working anymore; they could see it. And that kind of clarity, as any business leader knows, is worth its weight in gold.

What content made the biggest impact?

One of Matt’s biggest discoveries was how powerful educational content could be, especially around insurance. “Insurance is confusing. It’s a dirty industry, kind of like roofing itself,” he said. Articles about deductibles, claims, and payment processes started pulling in traffic and credibility.

But at first, they went too broad. “We were getting calls from everywhere,” Taffy shared. “A woman from Alberta, Canada, left us a one-star review because we wouldn’t repair her roof.” They even got invited to do a roof in London. That’s reach, alright.

Eventually, they localized their content, targeting Nashville homeowners specifically, and saw consistent traffic growth month after month. “It went from 235 visitors to thousands,” Taffy said. “It was like watching a snowball grow.”

Their YouTube channel exploded, too, drawing both homeowners and other roofing professionals. “People at industry events tell us they use our content to train their teams,” Taffy said proudly. “We’ve got insurance adjusters referring us because they learn from our videos.” Now we’re talking.

How does Assignment Selling turn content into revenue?

The Endless Customers System™ is not just about publishing articles or videos. It is about changing how your business sells, moving from chasing to attracting. That is where Assignment Selling comes in. You use educational content to prepare buyers before they ever meet with your sales team. At Bill Ragan Roofing, this is now standard.

Taffy put it plainly: “We create one-to-one videos and send them to customers with articles that will help them before we even visit. It shortens the sales cycle and builds a connection.”

These videos are short, personal, and human. The rep speaks directly to the homeowner by name and references the exact project or question. “Hey Susan, before we meet tomorrow, I thought you might find this helpful.” The message includes links to clear articles about roofing costs, materials, timelines, and what to expect during installation.

By the time the rep arrives, the buyer already feels familiar with the person who is visiting. They have heard their voice, seen their face, and learned from their content. The early minutes of the appointment feel easier because the homeowner already has context.

Enter Josh, a newer rep on the team. Within his first few weeks, he landed an $80,000 contract. It was his first sale. He simply followed the Assignment Selling playbook.

“The homeowner came through a search for ‘how much does a metal roof cost in Nashville,’” Matt said. “Josh sent him a video comparing metal and asphalt roofs, followed by an article on what to expect during installation. After that, the guy was ready to go.”

Josh did not rely on pressure. The content did the heavy lifting and gave the homeowner the confidence to decide. “By the time I got there,” Josh later told Taffy, “it did not even feel like selling. It felt like helping.” Not bad, right?

That is the power of Assignment Selling. It is not about closing faster. It is about showing up to a conversation where the buyer already feels equipped and supported.

Today, every salesperson at Bill Ragan Roofing uses the same approach. Each rep has a content library to pull from, with videos, articles, and guides that match different stages of the buying journey. If someone asks about cost, they send the pricing article. If a homeowner is nervous about warranties, there is a clear explainer video for that.

The result is simple. Shorter sales cycles. Fewer objections. Higher close rates.

When marketing and sales operate from the same playbook, buyers feel it. As Taffy said, “We are not chasing people anymore. They come to us ready to buy.”

How the #FunRoofer campaign boosted brand recognition

A few years into their content journey, the Bill Ragan Roofing team noticed something interesting in their analytics. Website traffic was growing, content engagement was strong, but when it came to direct searches for their brand name, something was off.

“Our competitor had around 300 direct brand searches,” Taffy recalled. “We had 35. That’s when I said, Okay, we have a branding problem.”

People were reading their articles, watching their videos, and learning from their content, but they were not yet connecting the helpful roofing company online with the name Bill Ragan Roofing. The challenge was not awareness of what they did, it was awareness of who they were.

So they decided to get creative. Taffy and Matt brought in a marketing consultant named JD to help them find new ways to get in front of Nashville homeowners. JD spent time learning about the team, their voice, and their culture. He quickly landed on the perfect hook: Bill himself.

Bill Ragan has always been known for his big personality, warmth, and sense of humor. So instead of doing stiff or overly polished radio spots, they leaned into that energy. They built the campaign around their trademarked hashtag, #FunRoofer, and let Bill be Bill.

The spots were short, quirky, and funny. They sounded more like stories than ads. One fan favorite had Bill reminiscing about dropping his ice cream at a street vendor, only to have a raccoon swoop in and steal it. “Folks, I can’t make this stuff up,” he says, laughing. “Things happen in life. That’s why we have a lifetime workmanship warranty.”

The story made people smile. It also tied directly back to what mattered most, quality and reliability. “It was so different from what anyone else in our industry was doing,” Taffy said. “We stopped trying to sound corporate and started sounding like ourselves.”

Matt worked closely with JD to make sure the radio campaign matched their digital brand voice. “We’ve got more than 400 pieces of content online,” Matt said. “We wanted to make sure nothing contradicted that. The radio needed to feel like an extension of what people already experienced on our website and YouTube channel.”

That consistency paid off. Calls started to increase, and the name “Bill Ragan Roofing” began popping up in more searches. Homeowners would mention hearing Bill on the radio, sometimes quoting the commercials word-for-word. The brand that once struggled with visibility was now everywhere.

The campaign didn’t just bring in new leads. It made the company more recognizable, approachable, and memorable. “People would call and say, ‘You’re the fun roofer!’” Taffy laughed. “And that’s exactly what we wanted.”

Today, the #FunRoofer campaign continues to evolve, blending humor with authenticity in every format, from radio spots to social clips. It is proof that even in a serious industry like roofing, personality sells.

The result? More calls. More recognition. More roofs.

The measurable impact of consistent content

When Taffy and Matt first started working with IMPACT back in 2019, they were already creating content but didn’t yet have the structure to make it drive consistent results. “We had a few articles up, and some were performing okay,” Taffy said. “But there was no system. We were just hoping for the best.”

That changed fast once they committed to the Endless Customers System™. Over time, their content machine started humming. They hit publishing goals, trained the team, and aligned sales and marketing around one clear vision: education first.

The results? Nothing short of remarkable.

Since 2019, Bill Ragan Roofing has tripled its revenue. “This year will be the biggest in company history,” Taffy said proudly. “And not just in revenue. Our bottom line is stronger than ever.”

That growth didn’t come from luck. It came from consistency. Even when the roofing industry slowed last year, they kept their momentum. “We were able to sustain it because of the foundation we built,” Taffy said. “A lot of businesses couldn’t.”

What’s most impressive isn’t the numbers, it’s the resilience behind them. The systems, habits, and mindset they built gave them staying power. They don’t panic when the market dips or competitors get louder. They just keep showing up with helpful content and honest communication. “That’s what playing the long game looks like,” Taffy said.

Their journey reveals five lessons every business can apply right now:

1. Hire a content manager.

If you want this to work, you need someone dedicated to it full-time. It’s not something you squeeze in between emails. It’s a real role with real impact.

2. Make the scorecard visible.

Success happens when progress is visible. Keep your team accountable by tracking wins and milestones where everyone can see them. It builds energy and pride.

3. Localize your content.

Reach is great, but relevance wins. National traffic doesn’t help if those leads can’t buy from you. Focus on your region, your buyers, your community.

4. Bring sales and marketing together.

When your revenue team meets regularly, magic happens. Content becomes a shared tool, not a marketing side project. The sales team uses it to close, and marketing uses their feedback to create even better resources.

5. Play the long game.

Taffy said it best: “You’ve got to be willing to play the long game.” Building authority takes time. But once the trust is there, everything else gets easier: sales conversations, referrals, even hiring.

What Bill Ragan Roofing built is something every business can build too. It’s not a secret formula or a one-time campaign. It’s a commitment to consistency, transparency, and teamwork.

And here’s the part I love most: their success didn’t just make them more profitable. It made them more confident, more connected, and more proud of what they do every day.

How do I start building a content system like this?

If there’s one takeaway from Bill Ragan Roofing’s journey, it’s that content isn’t a marketing tactic; it’s a business transformation tool. It can turn an everyday local company into an industry leader. But only if you commit.

As Matt put it, “Do you want to get left behind?”

Start small, stay consistent, and keep your focus on education over promotion. Because when you help people make smarter buying decisions, you don’t just earn clicks, you earn customers for life.

If you’re wondering, “How do I start building a content strategy that actually drives sales?”, our team can help.

We’ve guided hundreds of local and national brands through the Endless Customers System™, helping them align sales and marketing, hire the right talent, and turn content into revenue.

Talk to our team today to see how the system can work for your business.

Connect with Taffy Ragan and Matt Carter

Taffy Ragan leads Bill Ragan Roofing in Nashville with a steady mix of heart and accountability. She championed the Endless Customers System™ inside the company, aligning sales and marketing around honest, educational content and a visible scorecard that kept the team moving together. Under her leadership, the company scaled significantly while staying true to its homeowner-first values. Taffy’s day-to-day focus is simple. Build a culture that teaches, serves, and grows on purpose.

Connect with Taffy on LinkedIn

Matt Carter turns homeowner questions into content that actually helps. He joined Bill Ragan Roofing as a writer and grew into the team’s content and digital marketing lead, publishing hundreds of articles and videos that power search, sales conversations, and Assignment Selling. Matt collaborates with the revenue team, builds content libraries reps can send before appointments, and keeps messaging consistent across web, YouTube, and even radio. His mantra is clear. Teach first, sell easier.

Keep Learning

Watch: SEO Is Out. Answer Rank Is In. Now What?
Learn: What is the Right Way to Get Started with Endless Customers?
Free Assessment: Is Your Marketing Ready for the Next 5 Years?

FAQs

How long does it take to see results from content marketing?
Most businesses start seeing steady traffic growth within 6 to 12 months. The more consistently you publish helpful, search-focused content, the faster your visibility and lead quality improve.

Do I need a Content Manager for this to work?
Yes. Someone must own content full-time to keep it consistent, measurable, and aligned with your sales goals. When it is everyone’s job, it quickly becomes no one’s priority.

What if my industry isn’t “interesting”?
Every buyer has questions, and that is your opportunity. Even “boring” industries win when they focus on being helpful, transparent, and easy to understand.

How often should we publish?
Aim for at least three high-quality articles or videos per week. Consistency beats volume every time. Publishing regularly builds momentum, strengthens visibility, and keeps your audience coming back.

How Businesses Can Use AI to Scale Video

awinter@impactbnd.com (Alex Winter) — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 14:12:47 GMT

Buyers today expect clear answers, quick responses, and a personal touch. They don’t just want to read about your product or service. They want to see it, hear it, and understand it through video. The challenge is that most teams already feel stretched thin. Creating the amount of video buyers now expect can feel impossible when calendars are packed, resources are limited, and not everyone is comfortable on camera.

That reality sparks a bigger question for many business leaders: Can AI avatars help businesses scale video production without losing the human connection buyers expect?

That’s the exact conversation I had with Cathal Canavan, Head of HeyGen for Agencies, in this episode of the Endless Customers podcast. Together, we explored how businesses are using avatars to scale video production, overcome language barriers, and reduce the roadblocks that keep people from pressing record. Most importantly, we explored how to accomplish all of this without compromising the human connection that buyers still expect.

Your story matters more than the tech

Before we ever got into avatars or features, Cathal grounded the conversation in something simple. Every business has a story to tell. That story might be about the work you do, the clients you serve, the progress you’ve made, or the people behind the scenes who make it all happen. Technology is just a vehicle. Video, in particular, is a tool to help you communicate that story with more clarity, consistency, and reach.

That perspective resonated deeply with me because it’s exactly how we approach content at IMPACT. The goal is never the flash of the tool; it is the trust it can build. A camera, an avatar, or even a social platform is only valuable if it helps you share what is true and helpful with your audience. When tools make your story clearer, they serve the buyer. When they become the focus instead of the message, they fail, no matter how impressive the features look on the surface.

Businesses often get stuck chasing the latest marketing tactic or shiny new software, thinking that will win attention. But what actually earns trust and drives growth is the simple act of telling your story in a way that answers questions, removes confusion, and helps people feel confident in their decisions.

Think about it like a movie trailer. The trailer only works if it gives you a sense of the story and leaves you wanting more. No one goes to see a film because the trailer had great editing software behind it. They go because the story hooked them. Business video works the same way. The tech matters less than the clarity and emotion of the story you are trying to tell.

AI avatars don't replace people. They help you show up more often

One concern I hear regularly is that avatars will replace the real people on your team. Cathal addressed this directly: “People initially think that avatars are here to replace humans. That’s not correct at all.” There will always be moments when live, on-camera presence matters. But there are just as many times when getting on camera is hard. Calendars clash. The studio is booked. Or you just need to get a message out today.

That is where avatars step in. They keep your presence alive when you cannot be there in person. They also remove the friction that stops busy teams from producing video in the first place. As Cathal explained, “They want more video. They want it faster. They want it cheaper. They want to be more creative. And that’s where HeyGen comes in.”

I feel this same pressure every week. The demand for video keeps growing. Avatars are not a replacement for me or for our coaches. They are a way to scale our impact without stretching the team too thin.

One story Cathal shared stuck with me. A cat psychologist in Germany was limited to publishing content in German. Her market was small. With HeyGen, she created an avatar and now publishes in 150 different languages. It is still her story. It is still her expertise. But she can now reach audiences who never would have found her otherwise.

As someone who grew up in video production, I know how challenging and expensive translation can be. It usually requires voice talent, heavy editing, and more rounds of review than you want to count. Lip sync is often off, and the final result feels clunky. The fact that a video can now be translated with voice cloning and synced lips is more than interesting. It is a bridge to real growth for companies selling in more than one region.

Trust and transparency with AI

Can avatars build trust? Yes, when you use them with honesty. On this point, Cathal and I are completely aligned. Buyers are smart. They can usually tell when a video has been translated or when an avatar is standing in for a person. Being upfront about it builds confidence instead of doubt.

Cathal shared two examples that made the point clear.

The first was translation. “Maybe you have a video of a CEO speaking in English, and you want to translate it to Spanish. We will do the translation, we’ll do a voice clone, and then we’ll do a lip sync.” In situations like this, telling people the video has been translated helps them understand what they are seeing. It does not weaken the message; it strengthens credibility.
The second example came from a telecom brand in Australia. They used Gen Z avatars in TV ads and openly explained why. It allowed them to keep customer costs low. “They made it into a really humorous campaign. And the results have been pretty fantastic,” Cathal said. It worked because they told the truth, tied the choice to a clear benefit, and delivered the message in a way that matched their brand.

That is the heart of it. When you explain the why, people lean in. When you hide it, they pull back. At IMPACT, this is exactly how we teach transparency in the Endless Customers System^TM. No smoke. No mirrors. Just clarity, honesty, and trust.

How businesses are using AI avatars in their sales and marketing

Cathal and I explored a range of use cases that show how avatars make video more practical for busy teams.

One of the biggest is sales enablement and training. Teams can record short clips that help reps handle common questions. In fast-moving industries, content gets outdated quickly. With an avatar, you can update scripts in minutes without booking studio time or waiting for edits.

Proposals and pitches are another smart application. As deals progress, a short personalized video keeps momentum alive. Speak directly to the full committee, not just your main contact. Use names, restate the problem, and hit the three points that matter most. Then invite a reply. As Cathal put it, “It’s the leave behinds. It’s the take home assets.” A one-minute video gets watched in Slack or email. A long PDF usually sits unread.

Avatars also make multilingual outreach faster. Sales teams can test messages in different languages and find traction in new markets without the heavy lift of traditional translation.

In regulated industries like pharma and healthcare, precision is everything. Cathal shared how some clients generate a persona, such as a doctor, and use tightly scripted one-to-one clips. These are labeled clearly so the recipient knows exactly what they are seeing. The message stays compliant, consistent, and professional.

FAQs and pricing support is another area where avatars shine. Avatars make it easier to keep those videos fresh, especially for teams who are hesitant to get on camera.

And then there are interactive avatars, which might be the most exciting development. “Our interactive avatar or live avatar,” Cathal explained, connects directly to a knowledge base. A visitor can type or talk to it, and the avatar responds in real time. This means simple questions get answered right away without booking a full demo. That saves time for both the buyer and the sales team, and it gives people help in the moment they need it most.

For me, the common thread across all of these use cases is clear. Video beats PDFs almost every time. People will watch a 60-second clip long before they will read a five-page document. Avatars make it possible for teams to deliver those clips consistently, even on the busiest days.

What's next for HeyGen and AI video?

When I asked Cathal to share what is coming, he summed up their focus in three words: quality, consistency, and controllability. Those are the benchmarks that guide every product decision.

The week we recorded this episode was a big one for their team. They rolled out a full rebrand, launched a new “video agent” product, and announced the acquisition of a company called Alisa. The video agent tool lets you type a prompt and generate a complete video in minutes. It can use your avatar or a stock one, add music, B-roll, and animations, and then give you full control to edit the final cut.

As someone who writes scripts constantly, I was especially interested in the built-in scripting help. For many teams, the hardest part is not recording but writing. This feature lowers that barrier and helps you get started faster.

Cathal also emphasized balance. On one hand, their research and engineering teams keep pushing the models forward with better lip sync, faster rendering, and new capabilities. On the other hand, they know that many agencies and businesses are now building their services directly on top of HeyGen. That makes stability just as important as innovation. “People are building their entire businesses based on HeyGen,” Cathal told me. Reliability is not optional.

From my perspective as a partner, I see the impact firsthand. Scripting tools reduce the blank-page panic. Better sync improves watch time. Faster renders keep projects moving. And a stable platform ensures we can rely on it week after week.

The future of AI video in business

So what does all this mean for teams of different sizes?

Cathal’s take was straightforward. “AI is accelerating how everyone does things. Everyone has to move quicker, adopt new things, change their approaches.” The demand for video will only grow, and buyers will continue to favor clips that feel personal and useful.

We are also seeing a shift in style. One customer tested polished green screen avatars against clips designed to look like user-generated content. The UGC-style clips won on social. As Cathal put it, “The ones that feel the most authentic are the ones that perform the best.” Buyers connect with a phone-shot look when the message is clear and the delivery feels natural. That does not mean production quality no longer matters. It means the right kind of quality matters—human pacing, a direct voice, and a clear next step.

On this point, Cathal and I completely align. The tools will continue to evolve, but the principle stays the same. Use them to help people understand. Use them to help people decide with confidence. That is the heart of storytelling. That is how you build trust.

How do you get started with AI avatars in your business?

If I were starting fresh, I would keep it simple.

Begin by picking one part of the buyer journey that could use a boost. Maybe it’s a short welcome video for booked meetings, a quick answer clip for a top question, or a proposal summary for a prospect. Start small and build from there.

Think about where a real person matters most and where speed and scale matter most. Use people in the moments where presence makes the difference. Use an avatar when the goal is quick updates, translation, or producing content at scale.

Keep your scripts short and plain. Let the questions your buyers already ask guide you. One problem, one clear answer, and one next step is enough. Decide up front how you will handle transparency. If a video has been translated or if a persona is filling in, say so. That openness builds confidence instead of doubt.

Measure the basics as you go. Track watch time, replies, booked calls, or changes in sales cycle time. Share the wins with your team so they can see the impact and gain confidence. Then make a habit of revisiting monthly. These tools move fast. What felt out of reach last time you checked may already be simple today.

In the end, this is not about flashy features or shortcuts. It is about helping people. Tell the truth. Teach with clarity. Show your face, whether live or through an avatar, and give buyers the confidence to move forward. That is how trust lasts.

Using AI avatars to increase trust, not risk it

Endless Customers has always been a system built on trust: talk about what others won’t, show what others avoid, and sell in a way that helps people decide with confidence. AI avatars do not change that. When used with care, they can actually reinforce it.

Cathal said something that continues to stick with me: “Make human connection at scale.” That is really the point. Tools will keep changing. Teams will keep adjusting. But the power of a clear and honest story will not fade.

When you use avatars to serve buyers, you create more opportunities for the conversations that matter most.

If you are curious, start small. Test one use case. Be open about how you are using the tool. Track the results. Share what you learn.

Need help getting your team aligned on the role of AI in sales and marketing? Our coaches work with businesses every day to cut through the hype, focus on what works, and put these tools to use in a way that drives results. Let’s talk.

Connect with Cathal Canavan

Cathal Canavan is Head of HeyGen for Agencies, partnering with marketing and creative teams to integrate AI video into sales, service, and content operations. His focus is simple: help agencies and in-house teams publish more helpful videos, in more languages, with less friction. Cathal leads the HeyGen Agency Program and speaks frequently about AI video use cases and product updates, such as interactive avatars and video agents.

Keep Learning

Watch: AI for Businesses: 6 Steps All CEOs Should Take
Read: 5 AI Marketing Tools That Stand Above the Rest
Learn: How to Build a Brand That AI Loves
Free Assessment: Is Your Marketing Ready for the Next 5 Years?

FAQs

Do buyers trust AI avatars?
Yes. When businesses are transparent about using them and tie the choice to clear benefits. If you explain why you’re using avatars (speed, accessibility, or personalization), most buyers see them as a value-add rather than a gimmick.

Will avatars replace real salespeople?
No. They’re best used to supplement human presence, not replace it. Avatars can handle repetitive or time-consuming tasks, freeing sales teams to focus on deeper conversations and building relationships.

What industries benefit most from avatars?
Any industry with high video demand such as sales, SaaS, healthcare, training, and global companies that need multilingual content. These teams often struggle to scale video quickly, and avatars help them produce consistent, personalized messaging at speed.

How do I avoid making avatars feel “fake”?
Keep scripts clear and conversational, disclose usage, and focus on solving buyer problems, not showing off features. The more authentic and audience-focused the content feels, the less distracting the technology becomes.

How to Sustain Endless Customers for Long-Term Growth and Success

ghenderson@impactplus.com (Ginger Henderson) — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 16:51:16 GMT

You're doing your homework and you see how Endless Customers could change the way your team earns trust and closes revenue. What you need now is confidence that the system will last inside your company after the kickoff.

At IMPACT, we’ve coached teams through this exact moment. The companies that sustain Endless Customers treat it like an operating system. They assign ownership. They build a cadence. They measure usage in sales. They train new hires into the system.

None of that happens by accident. It is planned and managed.

This article outlines the parts that keep the Endless Customers System™running and the safeguards we put in place so your team does not lose momentum.

What Sustains Endless Customers?

When leaders worry about sustainability, it often comes down to the same fear that’s common with any initiative: it will start strong and then fade. Endless Customers endures when the right structures and habits are built into daily operations.

Here are the elements that keep it alive long after the kickoff.

A single owner with authority. Someone inside your company must own the system. This person sets priorities, protects the cadence, and keeps leadership, sales, and marketing aligned. We call this your Trust Champion. They make sure the right tasks happen on time.
A shared content backlog created with input from sales. Sales hears buyer questions every day. That is your roadmap. Capture and prioritize those questions so your calendar is full of topics that move deals forward.
A clear publishing cadence you can keep. Most teams start with a weekly article rhythm and a simple, consistent video plan. We recommend publishing three articles and two long-form videos each week, with the addition of two short-form videos. Always maintain a rolling backlog of six to nine pieces using a first-in, first-out approach. That way, vacations, sick days, or other disruptions never stall progress.
Assignment Selling as a standard step. Content only matters in the sales process if buyers see it. Every rep needs to assign specific pieces before calls and proposals, with context that sets expectations. This is taught, practiced, and reinforced until it becomes normal behavior.
A revenue team meeting that builds alignment. Marketing, sales, and your Trust Champion meet on a set schedule, at least once a month. These meetings are where the team shares recent wins, surfaces buyer questions, reviews how content is being used in sales conversations, and agrees on the next set of priorities.
Onboarding that teaches the system. New hires learn how content is planned, how video is used, and how to assign resources to buyers. If onboarding omits Endless Customers, the system erodes each time the team changes.

What Makes Sustainability Hard?

Teams lose momentum when certain habits never take hold. The most common breakdowns are:

Leadership’s attention drifts to the next big initiative.
Sales stops using the content in live conversations.
Content topics lose relevance because they no longer come from sales.
New hires join and never learn how the system works.

Left unaddressed, these breakdowns add up until the strategy looks like it stalled. The good news is, each one has a straightforward fix if you catch it early.

How Does A Planning Session Reset Alignment?

Every 90 days, Endless Customers teams step back for a Planning Session. Leadership, sales, and marketing come together to reconnect to the long-term vision, review performance, and set the most important priorities for the next quarter. Each focus area has a clear owner and outcome, so accountability is never in doubt.

The Planning Session is the rhythm that prevents drift and keeps Endless Customers alive year after year.

How Does a Scorecard Keep You Honest?

During each Planning Session, your team grades itself on the ten prompts of the Endless Customers Scorecard. The prompts align with the five components of the system and make clear whether the work is showing up in daily behavior.

This keeps progress visible and ensures the system is being lived inside your company.

How Can We Keep Momentum Year After Year?

The real test comes after the first 90 days. What matters is whether the system becomes part of how you work after year one or fades into the background. The companies that sustain Endless Customers long-term share a few practices:

Update older content. Reviews, pricing, and product details change. Revisit content every 6–12 months, or sooner if information becomes outdated.
Reinforce Assignment Selling. Sales teams need ongoing coaching so content usage remains a daily behavior.
Keep leadership engaged. Executives should continue asking for the Scorecard, joining revenue team meetings, and showing visible support.

These practices turn Endless Customers from an initiative into a culture. That culture is what lasts. The structures are clear, but sustaining them often takes outside guidance and accountability.

Ready to Build for the Long Term?

If you are worried about what happens after the kickoff, or if you have already tried to implement Endless Customers and struggled to keep momentum, the Endless Customers Coaching and Training Program is what we’ve found truly keeps organizations accountable.

It ensures that you set the structures, roles, and rhythms that prevent drift and make growth sustainable.

At IMPACT, we have guided hundreds of companies through getting back on track with their growth goals. With the right plan in place, you can move forward with confidence, knowing your investment will last.

How a Refresher Alignment Day Reinvigorated an Entire Organization

awinter@impactbnd.com (Alex Winter) — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 14:46:33 GMT

Alignment is a word we hear a lot in business, but too often it stays at the surface. A meeting here. A pep talk there. Then everyone drifts back into their silos. The truth is, real alignment means the entire organization, not just sales and marketing, working from the same playbook of trust and transparency.

That raises a big question for leaders: How do you move from talking about alignment to actually living it in every department of your company?

In this episode of Endless Customers, I sat down with Ryan Shutt, CEO of Southwest Exteriors, and Allison Riggs, Executive Coach at IMPACT, to explore that question head-on. Together, we unpacked how Alignment Day can:

Break down silos between teams that rarely talk to each other
Create a safe environment for employees to admit what’s really happening with customers
Build habits like role-playing that keep the buyer experience consistent across the company

The conversation highlights something every business leader needs to hear: Alignment is not a one-time meeting. It’s a culture shift that only lasts if you keep practicing it together.

The honest moment that set this story in motion

Every real transformation starts with a moment of discomfort, and Ryan was willing to go there right away. He admitted, “What we thought was happening in our sales process was not.” For him, that was more than just a disappointing surprise. “It was really a gut check for me, one as a leader and then two as somebody who’s saying, hey, this is who we are.” Then he added the line that every leader dreads having to say out loud: “We really weren’t that person.”

That realization cut deep. It takes courage to stand in front of your people and admit that the values you’ve been promoting aren’t actually being lived out day to day. It’s easier to gloss over it, to tell yourself the issues are isolated, or to point the finger at someone else. Ryan didn’t do that. He named it. Then he invited his team to help him fix it.

The problem, as he explained, was partly structural. Endless Customers had been treated as a sales-and-marketing initiative instead of an organizational mindset. “I had never had accounting in the room to talk about Endless Customers. I had never had our installation team in the room.” By keeping the conversation in a corner of the company, he unintentionally created limits on how far the culture shift could go.

If the sales team promises one thing, but accounting or operations delivers something different, trust cracks open. It’s like saying, “We’re all about clarity and transparency,” but then sending a customer a confusing invoice. The intent may be good, but the inconsistency erodes credibility. That’s what Ryan was up against, and facing it meant acknowledging that alignment had never truly reached every department.

Why top-down buy-in matters

When I asked Allison why leadership buy-in is so important, she didn’t hesitate. Most companies, she said, see Endless Customers as a marketing strategy. They figure if marketing produces more content, they’ll get more leads. That thinking keeps the work locked in one department. It might even deliver short-term results. But eventually it stalls.

Endless Customers is not a tactic. It’s a cultural shift. “When you actually start to live and breathe the Endless Customers journey, you see that it really is a holistic change within the organization,” Allison explained. That means it touches everything: how you talk to buyers, how you set expectations, how you hold people accountable, how you train your teams, and how leaders show up every single day.

Leaders set the tone. If a CEO isn’t fully bought in, everyone knows it. Employees pick up on hesitation. They notice when standards aren’t enforced. And they take their cues from the top. Without visible, vocal commitment from leadership, the energy fizzles out. The marketing team may keep producing content, but sales won’t use it. Operations won’t adapt their processes. Accounting won’t see how their role fits. Slowly, the whole thing grinds to a halt.

On the other hand, when leadership owns it, everything changes. Buy-in is more than signing off on a strategy deck. It’s the CEO standing up and saying, “This is who we are. This is what we’re doing. And I’m accountable for making sure we live it.” That kind of commitment has a ripple effect. It creates a safe space for employees to speak honestly about what’s working and what isn’t. It motivates managers to hold the line. It transforms Endless Customers from an idea into a standard of behavior across the company.

What is Alignment Day, and what actually happens?

Alignment Day is not a seminar where people sit back and take notes. It is an active three-hour working session that gets the entire organization into one room to reset, refocus, and recommit
. The time is structured, but the conversations are anything but surface-level.

At its core, the day revolves around three questions that sound simple but cut straight to the heart of how a business operates:

Defining Endless Customers in practice: not just theory, but what it looks like in real buyer interactions.
Asking “Why now?”: clarifying the urgency of building trust in today’s buyer-driven market.
Role clarity: every participant identifies how their role builds or breaks trust and commits to next steps.

By the end of the session, the group doesn’t just understand the language of Endless Customers. They see how it applies to their specific roles. A content manager understands how their articles impact a sales call. An installer sees how their interactions in the home either reinforce or undermine the promises made on the website. Even accounting realizes how clear billing or a proactive email builds the same trust that great marketing campaigns do.

Teams also walk away with a clear grasp of the frameworks that make Endless Customers actionable: The Big 5 (the most common buyer questions around cost & price, problems, comparisons, reviews, and best in class) and The Selling 7 (the types of videos that shorten sales cycles and build trust). But more than theory, Alignment Day connects the dots between those frameworks and the customer journey; from the very first click to the final invoice and beyond.

The goal is not to talk about trust. It is to build trust into the daily habits of how the company operates.

The moment Allison called an audible

Ryan’s team came into Alignment Day prepared. They had read Endless Customers. They were engaged. The energy in the room was positive. But partway through, Allison picked up on something most leaders might have missed. The sales and install teams were not aligned on how things were actually being done. Questions started popping up that revealed doubt: Is that really what happens? Is that what we tell customers?

Allison could have ignored it. She could have stayed on script, finished the exercises, and left with polite nods all around. Instead, she hit pause. She told the group, “We cannot go any farther until we address what is happening here.”

She set up a live role play on the spot. One person from sales walked through how they positioned the product in front of a homeowner. They would tell homeowners, “We use stainless steel screws when we install your windows.” Someone from the install team responded with No, we don’t. Within minutes, the disconnect became obvious.

On the surface, it sounded like a minor detail. But think about the homeowner’s perspective. They were promised one thing during the sales process, and then something different showed up on site. That tiny inconsistency could erode all the trust the company worked so hard to build.

What struck me most wasn’t just the detail; it was the way the team responded. No one shut down. No one snapped back defensively. As Ryan put it, “There were no barriers. There was no fear of like, if I say this, there is going to be a repercussion.” That didn’t happen by accident. Ryan had already set the conditions. Everyone read the book before the session. Everyone knew this was a space for honesty. And Ryan had made it clear he would listen, not judge.

For Allison, stopping the agenda was a risk. Coaches often feel pressure to deliver a neat, packaged experience. But she leaned into the uncomfortable moment. Later, she explained her thinking: “You brought me here for a reason. I am not doing my job if I let you get away with the things you have always gotten away with.”

That choice, to stop, call the audible, and surface the real disconnect, was the turning point. It transformed Alignment Day from a nice team-building exercise into a true reset. It showed the team that living Endless Customers isn’t about glossy presentations. It’s about real conversations, hard truths, and fixing the details that matter most to buyers.

What breakthrough moments can happen during Alignment Day?

The session sparked a lasting shift. The team now conducts weekly role-plays through each stage of the client journey. After a few weeks, they will move to a quarterly cadence. They also record calls and in-home presentations with an AI tool. That gives them real interactions to study.

Ryan’s advice here is clear. “If you are not role-playing, start.” He added that role-playing is not about explaining what you would do. It is about having the real conversation out loud. The words you use matter. The order matters. The handoff matters. When you practice those pieces, you find the friction and fix it together.

I love this part because it is simple and repeatable. You do not need expensive tech to start. Pick a moment that matters. A first call. A price conversation. An install walk-through. Put two chairs at the front of the room. Let a salesperson play the homeowner for fun. Then swap roles. Keep it kind. Keep it honest. Fix the words. Fix the steps. Fix the promises.

We also talked about price transparency. Ryan said it loud and clear. Posting price ranges and cost drivers was scary. Peers told him he would lose his job if he did it. They did it anyway. He also warned leaders to have patience. This is not a faucet you turn on for instant leads. This is a system that builds trust and shortens sales cycles over time.

I asked what else was hard. He said the pride cycle. Teams stop doing the small things that make the system work. A scoreboard falls off the wall. A weekly article slips. A video sits in a draft folder. Then old habits creep back in. His response was simple. Talk about the pride cycle openly. Put reminders up. Keep the cadence. Keep the faith.

How Ryan keeps the energy alive

A one-time event does not change a culture. The daily work does. Ryan records weekly videos to the team. He shares progress, values, and simple reminders about what Endless Customers looks like at Southwest Exteriors. He set non-negotiables. Role-playing will continue. Quarterly sessions are planned. The team knows what to expect, and they can see the work is not going away.

He also talked about the value of a third-party voice. Leaders repeat a message for months, and it can fade into the background. When a coach or outside expert says the same thing, people hear it fresh. That is not a knock on any leader. It is just how teams work.

What practical steps can leaders take right now?

Conversations like the one we had with Ryan and Allison are inspiring, but inspiration doesn’t move the needle unless you act on it. If you want to create the same kind of alignment in your own organization, here are four practical moves you can start making right away.

1. Bring everyone into the trust conversation.

Alignment can’t live in a single department. If only sales and marketing are in the room, you’re missing the people who send invoices, schedule jobs, or walk through the front door of a customer’s home. Every touchpoint with a buyer either builds or breaks trust. Invite accounting, operations, and installation into the conversation. When the whole team sees how their role connects to the customer journey, you stop operating in silos and start working as one unified voice.

2. Practice live, not just in theory.

Most companies talk about how they’d handle buyer questions, but very few actually role-play those conversations. That’s where the gaps and inconsistencies hide. Pick the critical moments, introducing price, handling objections, walking a homeowner through an install, and role-play them in real time. Record calls and meetings when possible. Then review them together and refine the scripts, the handoffs, and even the tone of voice you use. You’ll be surprised how much clarity comes from hearing the actual words spoken out loud.

3. Share price ranges and cost drivers openly.

Yes, it’s scary. Yes, your competitors may see it. But your buyers already know to ask. If you don’t provide clarity, they’ll look elsewhere. By teaching customers how pricing works in your industry, you take the mystery out of the process. Share typical ranges, explain what drives costs up or down, and point out the trade-offs that matter most. The result is fewer surprises, fewer awkward stalls late in the sales cycle, and clients who feel respected rather than misled.

4. Set the rhythm and keep it.

Culture change doesn’t happen in a single workshop. It happens in the cadence of what you do next. Commit to weekly content that educates buyers. Build a routine of weekly or monthly role plays. Schedule quarterly alignment sessions that pull the whole team back together. Have leadership send short video updates to reinforce progress and keep the conversation alive. The pride cycle, where teams drift back to old habits, only takes hold when rhythm is lost. Keep the rhythm steady, and trust becomes part of daily life.

When you put these four moves into practice, you’ll start to see alignment not as an event, but as a way of operating. And once your company runs this way, buyers will notice the difference.

Ready to run your own Alignment Day?

Here’s how to take the first steps toward true alignment in your own business:

Pick a date. Put it on the calendar and make it a priority.
Invite everyone. Sales, marketing, operations, accounting, and installation, every department plays a role in building trust with customers.
Ask the team to read the book first. Give people a shared language and context before the meeting starts.
Set the tone. Make it clear this is a safe and honest space. As Ryan showed, alignment only works when people know they can speak without fear of judgment.

And if you’re thinking, this sounds powerful, but I don’t know if we could pull it off on our own, you don’t have to. If you need help running an Alignment Day and want a guide who knows how to unlock these breakthroughs, talk to us at IMPACT. We’ve facilitated Alignment Days for companies of every size and industry, and we’d love to help you create the same lasting clarity and momentum in your organization.

Connect with Ryan Shutt and Allison Riggs

Ryan became part of the Southwest Exteriors team in December 2015, bringing with him a wealth of experience in marketing and leadership gained from other prominent home improvement companies. His unwavering dedication is focused on guiding the company towards establishing itself as a household name within the expanding San Antonio market. At the core of his endeavors, you will find a profound passion for excellence, an unyielding commitment to client satisfaction, and a strong emphasis on building a high-performing team.

Allison Riggs is a Head Coach at IMPACT. She trains sales, marketing, and leadership teams to embrace a culture of radical transparency within their organizations, empowering them to become the most trusted voice in their space.

Email Allison at ariggs@impactplus.com
Connect with Allison on LinkedIn

Keep Learning

Watch: Sell Better: How to Close Deals Efficiently and Effectively
Read: 5 Reasons You're Losing Deals to Competitors (And How to Fix Them)
Free Assessment: Is Your Marketing Ready for the Next 5 Years?

FAQs

What is Alignment Day?
Alignment Day is a three-hour, company-wide workshop designed to reset your team around transparency, role clarity, and buyer trust. It’s not a lecture—it’s interactive, hands-on, and focused on getting every department speaking the same language. The outcome is simple: your business leaves with a shared playbook for how marketing, sales, and operations will work together to drive revenue. (That’s where the magic starts.)

Do I really need every department involved?
Yes. Alignment only sticks when the whole company is part of it. That includes departments leaders often overlook like accounting, operations, and customer service. Every buyer touchpoint, whether it’s a billing question or an installation schedule, shapes trust. If one area falls out of step, the entire buyer experience suffers. Bringing everyone in early builds unity and accountability from the start.

How often should role-playing happen?
In the beginning, weekly practice is best. It builds muscle memory and makes new behaviors feel natural in real buyer conversations. Once those habits are in place, quarterly sessions keep alignment fresh and prevent old patterns from creeping back in. Think of it like training for a sport—the reps matter most early on, but tune-ups keep you sharp.

What’s the hardest part of maintaining alignment?
The toughest challenge is what we call the “pride cycle.” After early wins, teams sometimes slip back into old ways of working, with less collaboration, less accountability, and more siloed thinking. The antidote is rhythm: a consistent cadence of role-playing, planning sessions, and leadership check-ins that keep everyone grounded in the system. Alignment isn’t a one-time event; it’s an ongoing discipline.

Common Mistakes Businesses Make When Implementing Endless Customers

ghenderson@impactplus.com (Ginger Henderson) — Sun, 14 Sep 2025 04:00:00 GMT

The kickoff was promising. Leadership nodded, marketing got to work, and content started flowing.

But now, a few months in, something’s off.

Sales isn’t using the content. Conversations feel disconnected. The weekly publishing rhythm feels more like checking a box than building momentum. What once looked like buy-in is starting to look like polite compliance.

If that feels familiar, you’re not alone.

This is the phase where some Endless Customers implementations stall. Not because the strategy doesn’t work, but because a few critical habits haven’t taken hold. The good news? Every breakdown you’re seeing is a signal that points to what needs fixing.

This article will help you spot the most common breakdowns, understand what’s really behind them, and show you how to course-correct before momentum slips away completely.

What Are the Signs of Stalled Implementation?

If your team has started implementing Endless Customers but progress feels slow, these signals can help you see where traction is breaking down:

Sales isn’t using content in conversations or referencing it in meetings
Revenue team discussions are siloed by function instead of aligned around buyer trust
The content being published doesn’t reflect the real questions buyers are asking
There’s no visibility into what’s being created or how topics are chosen
Success is being measured in traffic and impressions instead of usage and trust
Leadership has gone quiet, and the early momentum has started to fade

None of this means the strategy isn’t working, but it does tell us certain habits haven’t taken root yet. Once you can name what’s missing, you can rebuild momentum in the right direction.

Seven Common Mistakes That Stall Progress

These are the common problems we see, and how we recommend fixing those issues.

Mistake 1: Treating content as a marketing output

When content becomes a checkbox for marketing, the strategy loses its force.

Endless Customers content is a trust-building asset. It exists to answer real buyer questions, to prepare prospects for better conversations, and to shorten the time it takes to close. That only happens when sales sees it as essential.

Start by changing how content is created. Sales should help prioritize what gets written. They should be able to review it, shape it, and understand when and why it’s being published. Their input should come early, during planning and prioritization, not tacked on at the end.

If content is for buyers, then sales must be its first test.

Mistake 2: Measuring the wrong things

Content that ranks well but never shows up in a sales conversation is a missed opportunity.

If the strategy is working, sales should be reaching out for content daily. Not because they’re told to, but because it helps them move deals forward.

Make sure you’re tracking what matters:

How often is content being shared in real sales situations?
Which pieces of content are referenced on calls or in proposals?
Are prospects bringing up content they’ve read on your site?
Can sales reps clearly explain how the content helps them do their job?

If those answers are fuzzy, your metrics are misaligned. Reframe success around usage, trust, and outcomes.

Mistake 3: Skipping Assignment Selling

This one shows up quietly. The content exists. It’s technically available. But no one is assigning it with intention.

Assignment selling can’t be a passive act; it needs to be a deliberate move in the sales process. It sounds like this, “Before our next call, I’d like you to read this article. It will answer a few questions I know are coming, and it’ll help us use our time well when we talk again.”

That’s very different from dropping a link with no context. And it makes a massive difference in how buyers engage.

If your team hasn’t been trained in this skill, start now. Model what good looks like. Create scripts and email templates. Role-play the handoff. Treat it as a core sales behavior.

Mistake 4: Leaving sales out of the content calendar

The content manager owns the calendar, but they should not create it alone.

Every revenue team meeting should include content strategy as a standing topic. Sales should bring in what they’re hearing on calls: objections, hesitations, gaps in buyer understanding. Those signals are gold.

Ask these questions in the room:

What questions are buyers asking that we haven’t answered yet?
What content do you wish you had for your next proposal?
What feels outdated, missing, or off-track?

When sales brings the insights and marketing turns them into trusted assets, the whole company moves in sync.

Mistake 5: Relying on SME help without a plan

It’s easy to say “just talk to the subject matter experts.” It’s harder when they’re busy, skeptical, or unsure how their input will be used.

Your SMEs don’t need to love content. But they do need to understand that their insight is critical to building trust with prospects.

Make the ask clear and focused. Explain how the piece will help them save time, improve conversations, and close more deals. Schedule the call, record the conversation, and guide them through it. Then follow up with the finished piece and show them how it’s being used.

When SMEs see their voice reflected, and hear sales thanking them for it, they’re more likely to lean in the next time.

Mistake 6: Publishing without ownership or rhythm

Even the best content strategy will stall without a steady process behind it.

To lead effectively, your content manager should be responsible for:

Content planning and prioritization
SME interviews and drafts
Review and publishing timelines
Internal distribution and training
Tracking, usage, and reporting

When this role is under-resourced or undefined, the work gets stuck. And once it slows down, it’s hard to get momentum back.

Give your content manager the space and support to lead. Then hold the team accountable to their lead.

Mistake 7: Leadership fades into the background

This one is quiet, but it’s often the most damaging.

If the CEO championed the strategy at the start but has since stepped back, the signal to the team is clear: this was a temporary initiative, not a cultural shift.

Leaders don’t need to micromanage the content strategy, but they must stay visibly invested. Ask about content in team meetings. Use it in conversations with clients. Share what you’re learning from it. Celebrate small wins when they happen.

If the team sees content as “a marketing thing,” it’s because leadership has allowed that framing to settle.

Endless Customers works when trust is a company-wide value. That starts and continues at the top.

How Do I Fix My Company's Misalignment?

Every misstep is a clue. Every gap in the process shows you what needs more clarity, more training, or more ownership.

When something isn’t working, look closer:

Are the right people in the room?
Is the content solving real buyer problems?
Is anyone modeling the behavior you’re asking for?

Fix what’s visible. Then build the system stronger than before.

We created the Endless Customers Coaching & Training Program to help you through these situations, and most of all, bring clarity.

Clarity creates movement. Movement leads to results. And that’s what Endless Customers is built to deliver.

Need more help? Learn about Alignment Day With IMPACT, and fix or prevent breakdowns before they start, align your culture around this strategy, and set your team up for real traction.

What Is The Endless Customers Game Plan?

ghenderson@impactplus.com (Ginger Henderson) — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 04:00:00 GMT

The Endless Customers Game Plan is a shared tool your team builds and uses together to drive aligned action every 90 days. It brings your company’s strategy down to the ground, into real conversations and real outcomes.

If you’ve made the decision to bring Endless Customers into your organization, you’ve already taken a major step.

You’ve recognized that your buyers now expect clarity, transparency, and useful education throughout the decision-making process. You’re ready to step up and become the most trusted voice in your market.

We’ve seen what happens when teams align around a shared mission and commit to showing up consistently. The businesses that win are the ones that create a system for action, build internal ownership, and keep trust at the center of everything they do. If you’re willing to lead differently, the results are absolutely within reach.

That’s why the Game Plan matters.

In this article, we’ll break down what the Endless Customers Game Plan is, why it matters, who should own it, and how to use it to drive clarity, alignment, and consistent progress every quarter.

The Role of the Game Plan in Endless Customers

Endless Customers is built on four trust-building behaviors:

Say what others in your space aren’t willing to say.
Show what others in your space aren’t willing to show.
Sell in a way others in your space aren’t willing to sell.
Be more human than others in your space are willing to be.

The Scorecard helps you see how well your company is living those behaviors across sales, marketing, and leadership. The Game Plan takes that awareness and turns it into a focused 90-day execution strategy. One that your team can actually own.

Every 90 days, you use the Scorecard to identify your biggest gaps and clearest opportunities. Then you build your Game Plan to close those gaps with intention. You identify three to five Focus Areas that will drive meaningful progress toward your long-term goals and vision.

Who Should Own the Game Plan?

The Game Plan should not live with one department or sit with one person. If it does, it will fail.

Ownership belongs to a small cross-functional group. At a minimum, this includes the CEO, the head of marketing, the head of sales, your content manager, your videographer, and someone in a system owner role (often the Trust Champion).

This group is responsible for building the plan, communicating it to the wider team, and reporting on progress every quarter.

What a Real Game Plan Looks Like

Here’s how the structure works:

Shared Vision
You start with a clear picture of what success looks like 18 to 24 months from now. These are specific, measurable business outcomes that reflect where you’re trying to go.
Current State
Next, you document where you are today. This includes metrics like lead volume, close rate, content output, sales process readiness, and team capacity. No filters. No spin.
Focus Areas
Then you define three to five areas that will get your team closer to the vision. Each Focus Area includes a desired outcome, a named owner, a deadline, and action steps with clear expectations.

Focus Areas might include launching a new website, creating 30 Big 5 articles, implementing Assignment Selling, building out a sales dashboard, or publishing two new videos per week.

Metrics That Matter
You choose KPIs that reflect progress on your trust-building and revenue goals. These often include inbound SQLs, form fills, average deal size, publishing cadence, and sales cycle length.
Accountability Cadence
The plan is reviewed and updated every 90 days. Wins are celebrated. Gaps are addressed. Focus resets. Nothing drifts.

Why the Endless Customers Game Plan Works

It brings focus. It forces decisions. It sets a rhythm. And it gives your team permission to say, "Not now" to work that doesn't move the needle.

Teams that work from a Game Plan don’t get lost in busywork. They know exactly what matters, why it matters, and who owns it. Instead of reacting to issues as they come up, they are proactively building toward outcomes.

This clarity changes team culture. Over time, it sharpens execution and builds confidence.

Who Should Not Own It

The Game Plan doesn’t belong with a junior hire, an external partner, or anyone who can’t drive decisions. It’s strategic work that needs protection, visibility, and follow-through. If the person leading it can’t set priorities or keep things moving when business gets noisy, progress will stall.

It must be championed by decision-makers who can prioritize, resource, and protect the work.

Where to Go From Here

You don’t need to figure out the Game Plan on your own. In fact, some teams struggle when they try. They know the importance of alignment, but without structure, accountability, and outside perspective, the work gets pushed aside.

That’s where our Endless Customers Coaching & Training Program comes in. Your coach will guide your team through building its first 90-day Game Plan, step by step. Together, you’ll define the right Focus Areas, assign clear ownership, and set up a cadence that actually sticks.

When you work with a coach, you’re practicing the habits of high-trust companies: clarity, alignment, and consistency. And with every quarter, those habits compound into momentum your whole business can feel.

7 Ways You Should be Using AI for Content Marketing in 2025

wsmith@impactplus.com (Will Smith) — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Your buyers want straight answers and an easy next step.

Point AI at those moments and you’ll be able to move faster than most teams that are still guessing on how they want to use AI in their workflow.

These 7 practical AI plays are grounded in the principles of the Endless Customers System™ and lean on The Big 5 topics (Cost, Problems, Comparison, Reviews and Best Of)

1. Turn Customer Questions into a 90-Day Content Plan

Start with what your prospects are already asking.

Drop a handful of recent sales, service or customer support call notes/transcripts into ChatGPT and prompt:

“Act like a content strategist. Below are real customer questions.

Find and list each question once.

Tag it as Cost, Problems, Comparisons, Reviews, or Best of

Rate urgency 1-5 (5 = must answer before purchase).

Suggest the best format (blog, video, calculator, etc.) and a plain-language title.

Return a table with: Category | Question | Urgency | Format | Title

Limit to 25 rows.

Next, propose a 12-week publishing order starting with the highest-urgency items.”

Run this prompt whenever you collect a new batch of questions, and your next 90 days of Big 5-aligned content will build itself. In four minutes, you’ll have a 12-week calendar sorted by urgency to present to your team and get after.

2. Use AI for First Drafts, Humans for the Finish

AI will quickly fill a blank page, but it can’t sound like you without help. It needs your stories, voice and proof points.

Give the model your style guide, a high-performing article as a sample, and a tight brief. Cap its drafting time at 15 minutes. Then let your team’s writer polish the tone, drop in real examples, and add relevant links that build trust.

Allow the machine to clear the blank page and your team to add the heart.

This combination turns a long draft that takes all day into something publishable before lunchtime. AI gives you speed; humans supply the story, nuance, and trust signals that buyers need. Keep that division of labor clear and you’ll be able to publish faster without sounding like everyone else on the internet.

3. Help People Find You, No Matter How Search Changes

As search evolves and buyer habits shift, the job is still the same: show up with honest answers your audience is looking for.

AI makes that easier by sifting through live search data and surfacing the exact phrases your prospects use, whether they’re typing into Google, talking to a voice assistant, or skimming an AI-generated answer.

Once a month, pull a 30-day query report from Google Search Console.

Drop the top 100 phrases into ChatGPT, and prompt it to: “cluster these by buyer intent and flag any queries that didn’t exist three months ago.”

Use that output to refresh headlines, add missing sub-topics, and revise relevant examples for clarity. Keep doing this on a consistent cadence and your content not only stays visible, but is useful, and (most importantly) trustworthy.

Do this monthly and you’ll never wonder which headline to tweak first.

4. Improve Accessibility and Inclusivity

AI tools can automatically generate captions, alt text, and translations, making your content accessible to broader, diverse audiences. This not only expands your potential market but also enhances your brands’ reputation by demonstrating commitment to inclusivity and social responsibility.

Add the following 2 items to your publish checklist:

Auto-caption every video before you hit publish.
Write descriptive alt text for each image as you upload it.

A quarterly review of your pages will help keep you honest and avoids any regulation change that may catch you off guard.

5. Automate Content Distribution

Use AI tools to identify the perfect audience, optimal platforms, and ideal timing for distributing your content. No more guessing.

AI helps your content reach exactly who it needs to, when it matters most. AI not only identifies the right distribution channels but can continuously monitor and adjust campaigns based on performance, ensuring your distribution strategy stays effective over time.

6. Sharpen Your Analytics

Most teams are swimming in metrics, unsure of what to tackle first.

To sharpen your analytics, you’re going to need help. You can ask ChatGPT to interpret report screenshots, but if you have HubSpot, start utilizing the built-in AI found across the platform. From out-of-the-box templated dashboards that surface what is working to predictive models that, when set up properly, can flag the issues that may come up in the future.

Depending on your subscription, that means:

Marketing gets content and campaign analytics that point to next-best actions.
Sales sees AI-driven lead and deal-scoring, plus pipeline forecasts that are realistic.
Service leaders watch ticket trends and resolution predictions updated in real time, so they can stay ahead of demand.

Not a HubSpot expert, but still need deeper insights? The new HubSpot - ChatGPT deep research connector allows any authorized user to ask in plain-language questions, allowing your data mining to be conversational. Questions like: “Which blog posts generated the most SQLs last quarter?” or “What percentage of leads that download our latest e-book turned into SQLs within 30 days, and which traffic source contributed the most?” will yield near-instant answers based on your live CRM data. FYI: Permissions do carry over, so your team will only see what they’ve been granted access to and your data will not train external models.

The payoff is real: in 2025, 92% of top-performing marketing teams credit AI-powered analytics for their competitive edge and companies using AI in three or more marketing functions report a 32% jump in ROI year-over-year.

Data is only useful when it helps you determine what to do next. AI that is built into your platforms does exactly that, turns your raw metrics into clear priorities so your team is ready to move faster.

7. Quickly Convert Your Learning Center into a Two-Way Conversation

Integrating conversational AI and chatbots on your website or social media platforms boosts user engagement by instantly answering questions, guiding visitors to relevant content, and nurturing leads.

AI-driven chatbots can offer personalized recommendations and capture valuable insights about user needs and preferences, turning casual visitors into engaged followers and customers.

One of the fastest ways to accomplish this, if you’re a HubSpot user, is HubSpot’s Customer Agent. You can train your new agent on articles, PDFs, and even public URLs that live in your Learning Center. This AI-assistant/agent then keeps that knowledge fresh with a weekly re-crawl. After training, place the agent wherever your buyers hang out, live chat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger etc. Now, every “What’s the warranty?” Or “How do I compare plans?” gets an instant, informed and source-linked answer.

But wait, it gets better.

This agent isn’t set-it-and-forget-it functionality, it shows where queries were resolved, deflected and most importantly, where the knowledge gaps occur. Not sure what to write about next? Check your agent for where you should focus first. Ultimately, you will end up with fewer hand-offs, faster response times and higher satisfaction scores without adding headcount, or burning out your team.

Stay Ahead with AI

AI is the new baseline and the teams that use it the best will be the clear winners. Use these seven plays and you’ll spend less time guessing and more time educating,

Feeling overwhelmed with AI? We can help.

We work with businesses to help them improve their sales and marketing — and part of that is knowing how and when to use AI to improve your outcomes.

Talk to a member of our team to get started.

YouTube Shorts vs. Long-Form: How to Balance Both for Maximum ROI

Austin Mock — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:00:00 GMT

You already know YouTube is a great platform for reaching buyers. Lately, though, every conversation seems to circle back to YouTube Shorts.

Colleagues keep saying their feeds are packed with these bite‑sized vertical clips, and audiences can’t get enough of them. So, which format should your team lean into?Shorts and long‑form each do a different job, and your greatest ROI comes when they work together.

In this article, we’ll break down exactly how to make that happen, step by step.

Why YouTube Shorts deserve a permanent spot in your marketing strategy

Think of Shorts as your brand’s introduction. Make them quick, friendly, and impossible to ignore. They’re a low‑commitment invite that stops the scroll and lets viewers sample your expertise in under a minute.

Use them to surface a pain point, offer a glimpse of the fix, and leave people hungry for the deep dive.

Here is why Shorts deserve a permanent spot in your mix:

Massive discovery engine. Shorts live in a separate vertical feed and get algorithmic preference. They get exponential eyeballs at minimal cost.
Frictionless creation. A phone, a hook, and sixty seconds. That’s it. Ideal for rapid testing of angles, offers, and personality.
Mobile‑first attention. Your buyers are scrolling between meetings. Meet them there.

Four reasons long-form video still wins the sale

Shorts spark curiosity, but curiosity alone rarely signs a purchase order. When prospects are weighing real dollars (or their reputation), they look for deeper proof.

Long-form videos give you the runway to teach, demonstrate, and answer every silent objection, so viewers finish feeling confident and ready to act.

Here are four reasons to focus on long-form video on YouTube:

Depth builds trust. Ten‑minute demos, case studies, or videos that explain cost in your industry let viewers see the full picture and your expertise.
SEO staying power. Long videos can rank for years, gathering compound traffic from search and suggested videos.
Higher monetization ceiling. Multiple ad breaks, merch call‑outs, and detailed CTAs increase lifetime value.
Community magnet. Subscribers stick around when they feel informed, not teased.

How to use Shorts and Long-Form together on YouTube

When you treat Shorts and long‑form as teammates, you meet buyers at every point in their journey. Here’s a simple playbook you can follow without adding extra hours to your workflow:

Start with long‑form. Record a 5‑ to 10‑minute video that teaches, demonstrates, and answers every silent objection. Be radically transparent. Cover pricing, drawbacks, and real‑world results that most competitors avoid.
Spin off Shorts from the same topic. Clip key moments (or shoot fresh vertical takes) that spotlight a single pain point or intriguing question. End each Short with a direct link or CTA to watch the full video.
Cross‑pollinate nonstop. Use end screens, pinned comments, and playlists to bounce viewers back and forth. The goal is a friction‑free loop that keeps them learning (and converting).

Follow this cadence and you’ll create quick wins that spark curiosity and deeper assets that seal the deal.

Repurposing workflow for zero burnout and maximum output

Small marketing teams don’t have time to reinvent the wheel for every platform. Repurposing lets you squeeze more value from each long‑form video, multiplying your output without multiplying your workload.

Start with the long script. Highlight every “aha” moment.
Clip 3–5 vertical snippets at 15–60 seconds each.
Hook hard. Open each Short with motion, a bold claim, or a face.
Cross‑link. Pin a comment in the Short driving to the long video; add an end screen in the long video that points to your hottest Short.
Batch & schedule. Record on Tuesday, edit Wednesday, schedule a month’s content before Friday.

YouTube metrics that move the needle

How do you know if your strategy is working? Track these metrics, then double down on what moves viewers closer to a purchase:

Shorts: 2‑second retention, likes per 1,000 views, click‑through to channel.
Long‑form: average percentage viewed, subscriber growth, and assisted revenue.
Hybrid health: the number of viewers who land on a long video after watching one of your Shorts—the clearest signal your funnel is working.

Common pitfalls (and how to dodge them)

Vanity‑view delusion. High Short views with zero downstream traffic? Your hook entertains but doesn’t match buyer pain.
One‑and‑done uploads. Shorts decay fast; post at least three per week.
Not optimizing the edit. Vertical clips need custom subtitles and punchier pacing. Don’t just slice your widescreen edit.

Ready to launch your hybrid video engine?

By executing the perfect blend of Shorts and long-form video on YouTube, your video strategy will be headed for greatness.

Still feel like you need some help with this?

That’s where we come in. At IMPACT, we coach businesses just like yours in the Endless Customers System™–a proven approach that puts video at the heart of your sales and marketing. We’ll help you build a YouTube presence that educates buyers, builds trust, and drives real revenue.

If you're ready to stop guessing and start growing with YouTube, let’s talk.

5 Steps To Create an Effective YouTube Marketing Strategy

Austin Mock — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 04:00:00 GMT

It wasn’t long ago that business leaders asked, “Should we be on YouTube?” In 2025, the better question is: Can we afford not to be?

Today’s buyers want to see the people behind the brand. They want real answers, quick demos, honest comparisons. They want proof.

And there is no better platform to deliver all of that than YouTube.

If you’re on the Endless Customers journey, you already understand that building trust is the goal. YouTube accelerates that trust.

It lets you show what others in your space won’t.

It humanizes your team. It makes your brand the go-to teacher buyers rely on.

But you can’t get there by winging it. You need a strategy. A plan your whole team believes in. One that leads to consistent, meaningful content.

Here’s five steps for how to build one that works.

1. Start With Why: Set Shared Goals as a Team

YouTube can be a lead engine, a brand builder, a sales shortcut, or all three. But only if you define its role up front.

Start by bringing together your marketing and sales leadership. Have an open discussion to define success. What would “winning” look like a year from now? Are you trying to generate leads, shorten sales cycles, build brand authority, or all of the above? What would make this channel worth the investment of time and resources?

Once the goals are clear, decide how you’ll measure them. Is it video views? Watch time? Subscribers gained? Number of deals influenced by video? Having these metrics in place helps you course-correct quickly and stay focused.

2. Align Sales and Marketing From Day One

Here’s a mistake we see all the time: marketing runs ahead with video content, but sales isn’t involved. The result? Videos that don’t get used, and therefore have absolutely no impact on revenue.

Your sales team is a goldmine of video topics. They hear firsthand what prospects are worried about, what objections stall deals, and what questions pop up over and over. Those insights should drive your content calendar.

Here’s how to build real alignment:

Hold weekly or monthly brainstorms. Get your revenue team (chosen members of sales, marketing, and leadership) to surface top buyer questions and align on priorities.
Have your marketing team watch sales calls. This is one of the most powerful ways to align your team around what buyers actually care about. Watching calls gives marketing direct access to real objections, language your prospects use, and the emotional tone of the sales conversation. It also helps them create content that sales reps will actually use, because it's based off of what buyers are already asking.
Track usage and results. Use tools like Vidyard or HubSpot to see which videos are being watched during the sales process, and which ones are driving action.

When sales sees their input turned into content, they’re more likely to use it. When marketing sees usage data, they can create better, more targeted videos. Everyone wins.

3. Assign Clear Ownership of Your YouTube Strategy

Even the best strategy falls flat without clear ownership. If YouTube is everyone’s job, it’s no one’s job.

You've seen it before. A new initiative gets brought up in a meeting, everyone gets excited, but then no one is given ownership. A few months later you think, "Oh yeah. What happened to that?"

YouTube is no different.

Assign a single point person to own the strategy. At IMPACT, we recommend hiring a full-time videographer. Their responsibilities should include:

Managing the content calendar
Coordinating and executing filming
Editing the videos
Uploading and optimizing videos
Reviewing analytics and reporting on performance

If you’re serious about video, a full-time videographer is one of the highest-ROI hires you can make. They’ll keep your team consistent, your message sharp, and your buyers engaged. You’ll finally have someone who wakes up thinking about how to make your business look and sound its best.

4. Choose the Right Types of YouTube Videos

Don’t chase viral hits. Oftentimes we see that the most simple videos can be the most effective. Start with videos that move the needle in your sales process.

Here are a few of our favorite proven videos that build trust and answer real buyer questions, from The Big 5:

Cost videos explain not just how much something costs, but why it costs that much. They help buyers self-qualify and prevent sticker shock later.
Problem videos dig into common issues or pitfalls, showing that you’re honest about what can go wrong and how to prevent it.
Here's a great example:
Comparison videos help buyers make informed decisions between options, like your solution vs. a competitor’s. Just remember to be completely honest and transparent.

A huge part of choosing the right video is understanding your audience. You have to make sure you obsess over your buyer and what they are thinking to create videos that really resonate with them.

5. Commit to a Sustainable Video Upload Cadence

If you have a full-time videographer, aim for two videos per week. This is the cadence we recommend inside the Endless Customers System because it’s frequent enough to build real momentum without overwhelming your team.

But if you can’t make that hire yet, start with a rhythm that’s sustainable. One video per week (or even every other week) is better than overcommitting and burning out.

Batch filming is the key to making this all work. Instead of scrambling to shoot and edit every few days, plan regular filming days where you capture 3–4 videos at once. This keeps you ahead of schedule and allows your team to focus on other work in between.

Short-form clips are another smart play. Repurpose moments from your long-form videos into 30–60 second vertical clips that work on Shorts, Instagram Reels, or TikTok. These quick hits attract new viewers and feed the algorithm without doubling your workload.

YouTube rewards consistency. So do your customers. Whatever your cadence, commit to it and build from there.

Ready to Get Serious About Video? Here’s Your Next Step

YouTube can feel overwhelming. You’ve got a business to run, a team to manage, and leads to close. It’s easy to put video on the back burner, to say “we’ll get to it someday.”

The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to catch up.

Your buyers are already searching. They’re already watching. And if your brand isn’t there to meet them with clear, helpful, honest videos, you’re leaving trust (and revenue) on the table.

You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to start. Build a strategy. Get alignment. Hire the right people. Hit record.

We’ve seen businesses transform their growth by committing to video the right way. By doing so, they became the most trusted voice in their space.

Let’s talk about how Endless Customers can power your video journey.

What is Endless Customers?

ghenderson@impactplus.com (Ginger Henderson) — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 04:00:00 GMT

Endless Customers is the system that helps your business become the most known and trusted voice in your market.

You’re likely here because something’s off. Traffic is down. Deals are stuck. Your team’s working harder than ever, but results aren’t keeping up.

Buyers have changed. They research on their own, expect instant answers, and ghost the moment they feel uncertainty. Buyers now complete 80% of their decision before they talk to you.

Meanwhile, Google and AI are serving up answers without sending anyone to your site. And polished marketing doesn’t cut it anymore. Buyers are skeptical, burned out, and hungry for honesty.

To win their trust, you need to show up differently.

“It’s how you become undeniable in your space—no matter what AI, Google, or your competitors throw at you.”

That’s where Endless Customers comes in.

Keep reading to learn:

Is This Just They Ask, You Answer Rebranded?
What Are the Four Pillars of a Known and Trusted Brand?
The 5 Components of Endless Customers (And How to Strengthen Each One)
How to Implement Endless Customers
Coaching & Training for Endless Customers
Additional Endless Customers Resources

Endless Customers is the next evolution of They Ask, You Answer—expanded, leveled-up, and built for the world we live in now.

We took everything that made They Ask, You Answer powerful and added the systems, structure, and cultural playbook required to scale trust across your entire company.

Yes, the foundation is still the same: obsessively answering your buyers’ questions with radical honesty. But Endless Customers takes it further. It gives you the blueprint to:

Structure your sales team to teach instead of pitch
Turn your website into your best-performing sales rep
Build internal content machines that never rely on outsourced fluff
Use trust as your ultimate competitive advantage

It’s a cultural operating system for growth in the AI era.

Endless Customers doesn’t just tell you what to do, it builds the systems that ensure you actually do it, consistently and at scale. It’s content-led, but culture-powered. It works because it changes how your entire team thinks, communicates, and earns buyer trust.

Endless Customers turns content into a revenue generating system. One that earns attention, builds belief, and brings the right buyers to you before they ever consider a competitor.

What Are the Four Pillars of a Known and Trusted Brand?

To become the most known and trusted brand in your space, you must do what your competitors won’t. That means saying the things they avoid, showing what they hide, selling in a way that puts the buyer first, and leading with humanity instead of corporate polish.

The brands that buyers trust most don’t follow the crowd. They act differently; more boldly, more transparently, and with a relentless focus on what buyers really want. These are the behaviors that help them earn trust early and often, making them the obvious choice in a sea of sameness.

“When you act like everyone else in your industry, you become invisible to your audience.” — Marcus Sheridan

Let’s look at the four behaviors that separate forgettable companies from the ones buyers can’t stop talking about.

1. Say What Others Won’t Say

The greatest threat to your growth is your silence.

Say What Others Won’t Say means being radically transparent about pricing, problems, and fit, even when it’s uncomfortable. When you answer buyers’ toughest questions before they ask, you earn their trust early.

If you avoid hard questions, buyers assume you're hiding something. That silence creates doubt, and doubt kills deals.

This looks like clear, honest pricing content, “who we’re not a fit for” pages, and comparison or alternatives articles that help buyers self-qualify.

The biggest mistakes? Sugarcoating or withholding pricing, refusing to compare yourself to competitors, or publishing safe, generic content that avoids taking a stand.

But when you dodge the tough questions, buyers fill in the blanks, and usually not in your favor.

When you lead with transparency, you disarm doubt and build trust before the first call. Say what others won’t, and silence stops being your biggest risk. It becomes your most powerful advantage. Clarity, especially when it’s uncomfortable, is what separates the brands buyers trust from the ones they forget.

2. Show What Others Won’t Show

Buyers start forming trust the moment they see your face and hear your voice, even before the first call.

Show What Others Won’t Show means using real, unscripted video to reveal your people, your process, and your product. Authentic visual content builds trust faster than words ever could.

When buyers can’t see you, they fill in the blanks. And if they can’t picture who they’re working with, they’ll move on.

This pillar shows up in 80% videos that answer common questions, team bios that introduce the humans behind the business, and walkthroughs that demystify the customer experience.

The biggest missteps? Stock visuals. Over-polished scripts. Treating video like a one-and-done campaign. Hiding great content behind your website instead of meeting buyers where they already are.

When you show what others won’t, hesitation fades. Buyers feel like they already know you. And trust follows naturally.

3. Sell in Ways Others Won’t Sell

Buyers don’t want a closer. They want a coach.

This pillar reshapes how your sales team shows up. Endless Customers shifts the focus from persuasion to preparation, helping reps guide buyers instead of pushing them.

The best salespeople today aren’t winging it or selling with charm alone. They walk into meetings confident, informed, and backed by content that’s already laid the groundwork. We help your team get there by embedding educational content into every step of the sales process, from the first touch to the final decision.

The biggest breakdowns happen when content is optional, sales skips the training, or trust-building gets labeled a “marketing thing.” Instead, sales teams learn how to use content to educate before the call ever happens, reduce friction in the funnel, and close faster by creating clarity.

Reps stop guessing. Buyers stop hesitating. And content stops gathering dust.

4. Be More Human Than Others Are Willing to Be

People don’t trust logos. They trust people.

This pillar is about showing up with honesty, personality, and a little vulnerability. Not every video needs polish. Not every message needs perfect lighting. Buyers connect with people who care, and they trust brands that feel human, not corporate.

When your voice feels stiff or overly rehearsed, buyers tune it out. But when it sounds like a real person, they lean in.

You’ll see this in videos from leadership that aren’t scripted, stories from team members in their own words, and a brand tone that sounds like a conversation instead of a press release.

The biggest mistakes? Overproducing content, hiding your people behind the brand, or treating authenticity like a marketing trend.

Real human connection builds real trust. It starts with access; letting buyers see who they’ll work with and what they can expect. When buyers can picture themselves working with you, trust follows. And when trust is there, the decision becomes easy.

The 5 Components of Endless Customers (And How to Strengthen Each One)

While the Four Pillars describe how trusted brands behave, the five components are the systems that make those behaviors scalable and consistent.

If the Pillars are your strategy, these are your structure. The Four Pillars describe how the best businesses behave, but without the right systems in place, those behaviors won’t stick. That’s where the Five Components come in. These are the execution engines that bring Endless Customers to life across your entire company.

Each one is critical. When you strengthen all five, your business becomes a trust-building machine.

1. The Right Content

Buyers can't trust what they can't find.

You need content that directly answers the questions they care most about: pricing, problems, comparisons, reviews, and best-ofs. These are the topics they search before they’re ready to talk, and they’re the ones that build trust fastest.

You can’t build trust without answering real buyer questions openly, clearly, and often. That means obsessively publishing The Big 5: cost, problems, comparisons, reviews, and best-ofs.

If buyers can’t find clear, honest information from you, they’ll find it from someone else. And once they trust them, you’re out.

This looks like a content calendar built from actual sales questions, weekly production of articles and videos, and content co-created with sales and subject matter experts—not outsourced fluff.

The biggest mistakes? Outsourcing content creation to someone who’s not an expert, publishing fluff or “me-first” updates, or ignoring the hard topics like pricing, problems, and competitors.

To strengthen this, build your content calendar from real sales questions, aim for at least three pieces of content per week, and train internal SMEs to own their expertise on camera and on the page.

Consistent, honest content turns your website into the most trusted brand in your space.

2. The Right Website

Your website should be your best-performing sales rep, not just your prettiest one.

It’s not a brochure. It’s where trust is built or broken. It should answer your buyers’ most important questions, guide them to the next step, and make taking action feel effortless.

If your site is heavy on polish but light on utility, your buyers won’t stick around. They want to self-serve. They want answers now. Your job is to make that feel easy and obvious.

This looks like a clean navigation built around buyer priorities, high-converting pages for every stage of the funnel, and a homepage that earns trust, not just attention. It also means learning centers, pricing pages, and video libraries that help buyers educate themselves before they ever reach out.

The most common mistakes? Designing for branding instead of buyer usefulness, burying your best content, and optimizing for clicks without thinking about conversions.

To strengthen this, organize your content around buyer questions, make sure every key page has a clear next step, and turn your homepage into a trust-building tool, not a digital billboard.

A site built for buyers becomes your hardest-working sales rep. It builds trust 24/7, even while your team sleeps.

3. The Right Sales Activities

Your sales team can’t just rely on charm and follow-ups. They need to lead with content.

In Endless Customers, the sales process is about preparing. The best reps educate their prospects instead of pitching them. They use content to build trust before the call, during the deal, and long after the close.

Buyers want to feel informed and in control. When sales leads with education instead of persuasion, trust becomes the differentiator that wins deals.

This looks like Assignment Selling® used in every stage of the buyer journey sending targeted content before calls, using content to filter out bad-fit buyers, and tracking what’s been read in the CRM to adapt your approach.

The biggest mistakes? Sales and marketing misalignment, reps ignoring content created by their own team, and falling back on “just checking in” as a follow-up strategy.

To strengthen this, train every rep on how and when to use content. Make Assignment Selling part of your sales process. And track content usage so you can improve with data—not guesses.

When sales leads with teaching, not pitching, trust becomes your greatest closer.

4. The Right Technology

Your tech stack shouldn’t slow you down. It should power your consistency and make trust measurable.

In Endless Customers, tools aren’t the strategy. They’re how the strategy scales. The right CRM, CMS, video platform, and reporting tools help you publish content efficiently, track how buyers engage, and prove what’s actually driving revenue.

But more isn’t better. Tools only work if they’re aligned. Misaligned systems waste time, hide insights, and confuse your team.

This looks like your CRM, CMS, video platform, and reporting tools working together to show exactly what content is moving deals forward. It means workflows that support, not stall, your marketing, sales, and leadership teams.

The most common mistakes? Buying flashy tools without a strategy, failing to train your team on how to use them, and reporting on vanity metrics that don’t connect to revenue.

To strengthen this, align your tools around shared goals, report on content performance and its impact on trust and sales, and use automation to support, not replace, the human experience.

The right tools amplify your effort, bring clarity to your results, and help trust scale with your team.

5. The Right Culture of Performance

None of this works without buy-in.

Endless Customers is a culture shift. If your team doesn’t believe in trust-first behavior, the whole system stalls. You need more than one champion. You need an organization obsessed with earning buyer trust.

This means shifting your mindset from marketing initiative to company identity. It’s about getting leadership, sales, and marketing to move in lockstep—not just for leads, but for long-term trust.

This looks like every team member creating or using content, shared ownership of results, and quarterly scorecards that track execution, not just activity. It’s about building habits, reinforcing them, and never letting trust take a backseat.

The biggest mistakes? Treating trust-building like a side project, failing to involve sales and leadership from day one, or chasing speed over consistency.

To strengthen this, involve leadership early, make content everyone’s job, and use quarterly Planning Sessions to track your scorecard and reset your focus.

A culture that values trust over tactics is what keeps the system working, long after the kickoff call fades from memory.

Want to see how you’re doing across all five components? Use the Endless Customers Scorecard to get your trust-readiness score.

How to Implement Endless Customers

Endless Customers isn’t just a new way to think but a system built for action. Implementation starts with a cultural reset, then moves into execution, iteration, and performance. Here’s how it all works:

What is Alignment Day?

Alignment Day isn’t a kickoff call. It’s a cultural reset.

It’s the moment leadership, sales, marketing, and subject matter experts get in the same room, often for the first time, and align around a single mission: becoming the most known and trusted voice in your space.

This is where the real transformation begins.

Most companies that fail with Endless Customers don’t fail because the strategy is wrong. They fail because the team never believed in it. Marketing starts creating content. Sales ignores it. Leaders assume everyone’s on board. But without a shared understanding of why this matters, the system dies quietly.

During Alignment Day, the team learns why Endless Customers exists and how buyer behavior has changed. Leaders stand up and make their commitment visible. Sales and marketing get on the same page about goals, language, and expectations. Resistance is voiced and addressed.

And maybe for the first time, people hear the truth about why growth has stalled.

This isn’t just marketing’s job. It’s everyone’s job. And Alignment Day is when that clicks.

For many teams, it’s the first time they see their role differently. The first time they understand that this isn’t just about generating leads, but it’s about becoming the company that buyers trust most.

It’s not a moment of hype. It’s a moment of clarity. And when that happens, everything else starts to move.

What Is the Endless Customers Game Plan?

The Game Plan is your first 90-day roadmap. It’s how you turn belief into momentum and keep your team from getting lost in good intentions.

After Alignment Day, it’s easy to get excited. But energy without direction leads to chaos. This plan gives your team a clear focus: what content to create, who’s doing what, and how progress will be tracked.

It starts with the first batch of buyer-focused content topics, built from real sales questions. It defines who’s responsible for producing, reviewing, and publishing. It outlines how sales will use that content in real conversations, and how results will be measured and improved over time.

It creates feedback loops, sets review rhythms, and builds habits. It makes consistency possible.

The Game Plan isn’t optional. It’s how you avoid “random acts of marketing” and align the whole team around one outcome: building trust that scales.

It’s owned by your Endless Customers coach, backed by leadership, and executed across marketing and sales. It’s your first real test of whether your team is ready to walk the talk.

What Is an Endless Customers Planning Session?

Every quarter, your team steps back, not to slow down, but to sharpen the way forward.

You start with the past: What did we say we’d do? What actually happened? The scorecard becomes your mirror. You look at the content that moved the needle, what fell through the cracks, and what sales used in real conversations.

Then, the present: Where are we now? What are we learning from our buyers? Sales shares what they’re hearing, what’s resonating, and what objections are stalling deals. That feedback becomes fuel for the next wave of content.

Leadership doesn’t sit on the sidelines. They’re in the room, reinforcing priorities, unblocking progress, and making sure the strategy stays tied to business outcomes.

And then, the future: What’s next? A new Game Plan is set. Priorities are realigned. Roles are clarified. If the Scorecard needs to evolve, this is the time.

It’s not just about tracking progress. A planning session should be about celebrating. You call out wins. And not only the big numbers, but the small moments that prove the culture is changing.

A rep who used content masterfully.
A subject matter expert who filmed their first video.
A team that shipped two pieces of content every week without fail.

Planning Sessions make sure the system lives. They give the team rhythm, clarity, and confidence to keep building trust, quarter after quarter.

What Is the Endless Customers Scorecard?

If you’re not measuring trust, you’re losing it.

The Scorecard is the heartbeat of Endless Customers. It gives your team visibility into what’s working, what’s not, and what’s driving revenue. Without it, culture slips and assumptions take over.

The tool includes 10 core prompts, two for each of the five components, that act as both a health check and a roadmap. Each prompt asks: Are we living this principle in our content, our sales conversations, and our daily behavior?

You score it honestly. Quarterly. As a team. Sales, leadership, marketing—everyone sees the results. Everyone owns the next step.

The prompts are intentionally simple. They exist to spark conversation, surface friction, and focus attention where it’s most needed. Progress comes from confronting the truth.

Used consistently, the Scorecard becomes more than a report. It becomes a ritual. A shared moment of clarity that keeps the system alive.

And when it’s done right, it stops being “how are we doing?” and becomes “here’s how we win.”

What is Assignment Selling?

When your sales process is built on persuasion instead of trust, buyers feel it. And they walk.

This shows up through Assignment Selling.

Assignment Selling is a structured approach where sales reps send content before calls to guide buyers through their questions. It makes content part of the sales process, not a bonus. Reps send key articles and videos before every call, track engagement in the CRM, and step into meetings with trust already built.

Most buyers will engage with 7 to 13 pieces of content before they ever talk to sales. When reps guide that journey, trust compounds, and deals move faster.

The biggest mistakes? Making content optional, skipping rep training, or treating trust-building like marketing’s job alone.

Reps aren’t just closers. They’re educators. And the better they teach, the less they have to convince.

Coaching & Training for Endless Customers

Implementing Endless Customers is about changing how your team thinks, sells, and grows together.

That kind of shift doesn’t happen through software. Or another playbook. It happens through coaching.

Coaching is what turns a strategy into a system. It’s how teams stop spinning their wheels and start building habits that last.

And this isn’t consulting. Your coach doesn’t just show up with advice and vanish. They’re embedded in the work.

Your coach helps you:

Build a content machine that never stops shipping
Train your sales team to use content to teach, not pitch
Install scorecards and dashboards to keep progress visible
Work through resistance and misalignment as it shows up (because it will show up)

Endless Customer coaches are focused, persistent, and obsessed with one outcome: helping you become the most known and trusted brand in your space.

This kind of coaching is what makes the difference between good intentions and real transformation.

Marketing Agency vs. In-House Team: What’s Best For Your Business?

rruffolo@impactbnd.com (Bob Ruffolo) — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 20:15:00 GMT

Are you getting ready to make your first real investment in marketing and not sure which path to take? Or maybe you’ve been working with an agency for a while and something feels off. Perhaps they're not delivering like you hoped, and now you’re wondering if it’s time to make a change. Should you find a different agency? Or is it finally time to build your own in-house team?

These are big decisions that will shape how fast and how well your business grows.

At IMPACT, we’ve lived both sides of this equation. For years, we operated as a full-service marketing agency with clients who outsourced all their marketing to us. Then, in 2018, we made a fundamental shift. Instead of doing marketing for companies, we began coaching and training businesses to build their own in-house marketing teams. That transformation gave us a unique perspective.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the pros and cons of both in-house marketing teams and marketing agencies so you can see the full picture. You’ll walk away with the clarity you need to choose the right path for your business.

A Reminder of What Marketing Must Accomplish Today

Before we dive into agency versus in-house, let's establish what marketing needs to do for your business in 2025.

Today, roughly 80% of the buying process happens before a buyer ever reaches out or even appears on your radar. Your marketing has to do the heavy lifting early in their journey. It needs to help them find you, grab their attention, answer the key questions they're asking during research, and position your company at the top of their list when they start comparing options.

The only way that happens is through content.

If you want your company to show up in search results, social media feeds, and AI recommendations, you need to be publishing content. Real, educational, authentic content that answers the questions buyers are already asking. We're talking articles, videos, podcasts, YouTube content, short-form social videos, and resources on your website.

That's what gets indexed, shared, and surfaced by platforms. AI models like ChatGPT are trained on existing internet content, which means companies producing the most useful content have the most influence on those AI-generated answers.

Content is the foundation of great marketing because buyers want to self-educate. They want to do their own research, on their own time, without speaking to a salesperson. Content is what guides their thinking and builds trust in those crucial early stages.

Bottom line: Your content needs to win that first 80% of the buyer's journey. Companies that take marketing seriously think like media companies.

The Case for In-House Marketing Teams

Let's start with why we believe most businesses should prioritize building their marketing capabilities internally, especially when it comes to the most important element: content creation.

Why In-House Content Creation Always Wins

Here's our clear stance: Content is always best when it's created in-house.

It doesn't matter if you're a solo entrepreneur, a five-person team, or a large company with a full marketing department. Content is always better when it comes from inside your business.

Why? Because no one knows your business like you do.

No one understands your customers' pain points the way you do
No one can explain your product, service, or process with the same insight
No one can speak with your authentic voice or share your real stories
No one knows the little moments that make a difference to your buyers
No one understands what your competitors fail to explain

That depth of knowledge is what sets your content apart, and it's nearly impossible for someone outside your business to capture it authentically.

The Problem with Most Agency Content

One of the biggest problems with outsourcing content to most marketing agencies is how the relationship is structured. Most operate on a deliverables-based retainer where you pay for a set number of articles, videos, or social posts each month. This model prioritizes volume over quality.

The focus becomes getting things done and approved, not making them great. Content creation often gets pushed down to junior staff juggling multiple clients and tight deadlines. The result? Generic, checkbox content that lacks depth, clarity, and originality.

With AI tools like ChatGPT, this problem is getting worse. Many agencies now use AI to generate content more quickly. What you end up with reads fine at a glance but feels generic and forgettable. It lacks the insights, stories, and nuance that come from experience. Worse, it's content that could be written for any company in your industry. Nothing sounds uniquely like you or demonstrates deep understanding of your buyers.

That kind of content doesn't move the needle. It doesn't rank well, get shared, or help your sales team close deals faster. It just fills space and becomes a monthly expense that creates busywork instead of growth.

The Financial Case for In-House

From a cost standpoint, hiring a full-time content manager is often more efficient than staying on a high-ticket content retainer. Here's why:

Long-term cost efficiency: A full-time content manager costs less than premium agency retainers over time

Compound learning: In-house creators become more fluent in your messaging, more responsive to your team, and more strategic about what content actually drives leads

Integration with sales: They understand how your sales team works and can create content that directly supports the sales process

Speed and agility: No approval processes, client calls, or communication delays—just immediate response to market opportunities

What About Freelancers?

Not every business can hire a full-time content manager right away. If you're considering freelancers, here's how to make it work:

You must stay the content creator. This means getting your thoughts out of your head—into writing, video, or voice notes. A good freelancer can help polish, structure, optimize for SEO, and prepare for publishing, but you need to be the source of ideas, stories, examples, and perspective.

You can't hand it off completely. You still need to review and approve every piece of content before it goes live.

View it as a stepping stone. The goal should be to bring someone in-house as soon as possible. A full-time content manager is one of the best investments a business can make in its marketing.

When Agencies and Outsourcing Make Perfect Sense

While we strongly believe content creation should stay in-house, there are plenty of situations where working with agencies or freelancers is a smart move.

Technical and Specialized Tasks

Paid Media Management Running ads on Google, Meta, YouTube, and LinkedIn requires deep platform knowledge, constant testing, and ongoing optimization. Good paid media agencies have the tools, experience, and dedicated focus to get you results faster than building this expertise in-house.

Website Design and Development Unless you're a large company, you probably don't need full-time designers or developers on staff. For major website projects, redesigns, or migrations, experienced agencies can save time and reduce risk.

Technical SEO Performance optimization, site structure improvements, and technical SEO audits require specialized knowledge that most businesses don't need full-time.

Advanced Integrations AI chatbot implementations, complex CRM setups, and other technical integrations are perfect for specialized agencies or freelancers.

Graphic Design For branding projects, social graphics, brochures, or ad creative, agencies can provide expertise without the overhead of a full-time position.

The Key Difference

Notice what these tasks have in common? They don't require someone to deeply understand your buyers, your sales process, or your company culture to be effective. You can get high-quality work without the outsourced provider needing to become an expert in your business.

Use outside help to supplement your team, not replace it. Agencies and freelancers should handle technical execution while you maintain strategic control and content creation.

Making the Right Choice for Your Business

Every business is different, so there's no one-size-fits-all answer. However, there are frameworks you can use to evaluate what makes sense for your specific situation, budget, and growth stage.

Start Here: Assess Your Current Situation

If you're just starting out:

Begin with content creation in-house (even if it's just you)
Outsource technical tasks like website development and paid ads
Plan to hire a content manager as your first marketing employee

If you're currently working with an agency: Ask yourself these questions:

Are they creating content that sounds authentically like your business?
Do they understand your sales process and create content that supports it?
Are you seeing measurable results in lead generation and deal velocity?
Could you achieve better results for the same investment with an in-house hire?

If you're scaling an existing team:

Prioritize bringing content creation fully in-house
Consider outsourcing specialized technical work that doesn't require deep business knowledge
Invest in training your team on marketing fundamentals

Budget Considerations

Small Budget (Under $5,000/month):

Handle content creation yourself
Use freelancers for technical tasks like website updates
Consider a part-time content creator as you grow

Medium Budget ($5,000-$15,000/month):

Hire a full-time content manager
Outsource paid media management
Use agencies for major website projects

Large Budget ($15,000+/month):

Build a complete in-house marketing team
Selectively outsource specialized technical work
Consider agencies for overflow work or specialized campaigns

Red Flags: When to Avoid Agencies

They promise to "handle everything" without involving you
They can't show you specific, measurable results for similar businesses
Their content samples sound generic and could apply to any company
They're reluctant to share their actual process or show you behind the scenes
They discourage you from learning about marketing yourself

The One Thing Every Business Leader Must Understand

No matter what size your company is, someone inside your organization needs to understand what good marketing looks like.

If you're a business of one, that person is you. As you grow, it might be a marketing leader. But someone has to know what great marketing looks like, what good content sounds like, and what drives results.

It's a giant mistake to say "I don't need to learn this, I'm just going to hire someone who does." That's the fast track to wasting money and time. Whether you're managing an in-house team or working with agencies, you need enough knowledge to:

Set clear expectations and goals
Recognize good work from mediocre work
Ask the right questions during reviews
Make strategic decisions about budget allocation
Hold people accountable for results

By reading articles like this and taking the time to learn, you're already on the right path. Keep going. The more you understand, the better your marketing will perform.

Your Next Steps

If you're leaning toward building an in-house team:

Start creating content yourself to understand the process
Document your brand voice, key messages, and content themes
Plan your first marketing hire (likely a content manager)
Identify which technical tasks you'll outsource initially

If you're considering working with an agency:

Focus on agencies that specialize in technical execution, not content creation
Maintain control over your content strategy and creation
Set clear expectations and measurable goals upfront
Plan your transition to more in-house capabilities over time

Regardless of your choice:

Commit to learning marketing fundamentals yourself
Prioritize content creation as your most important marketing activity
Measure results consistently and adjust your approach based on data
Remember that great marketing requires both strategic thinking and consistent execution

The path you choose, agency, in-house, or hybrid, matters less than your commitment to creating authentic, valuable content that serves your buyers throughout their journey. Make that your north star, and the tactical decisions become much clearer.

Use the information we shared above to help you determine the best solution for your organization. However, should you realize insourcing your content is the way to go, we're happy to help you get started.

How to Use Content in the Sales Process (To Close More, Faster)

cduprey@impactbnd.com (Chris Duprey) — Fri, 02 May 2025 04:00:00 GMT

Content isn’t just for marketing.

When used in the sales process, content becomes your greatest trust-building tool. It helps:

Answer the hard questions
Speed up the sales cycle
Disqualify bad fits
Make the rep feel less like a pitch machine and more like a guide

Sales conversations shouldn’t start at zero. When you assign content, the buyer shows up ready for a back-and-forth, valuable conversation.

Done right, content can help buyers self-educate before your first meeting, which elevates the quality of your conversation. Instead of wasting 15 minutes explaining your pricing or process, you’re uncovering needs, exploring fit, and solving problems faster.

Bottom line: If you’re not using content to sell, you’re working harder than you have to.

The 3 Moments Where Content Has the Most Impact

1. Before the Call

Use content to prepare the buyer:

“What to expect” videos
Pricing articles
Explainer videos

This creates alignment and cuts down on repetitive questions.

Pre-call content is the easiest way to raise the floor of your first conversation. When a buyer shows up already knowing what you charge, how the process works, and what makes you different, you skip the warm-up and go straight to the real conversation.

It also helps them feel more in control. They don’t walk into a call blind. They walk in informed and curious, ready to engage, not just listen. That changes everything.

And maybe most importantly: it helps you disqualify people early. If a buyer doesn’t engage with your pre-call content, they might not be ready. And that’s a win, because now you know.

2. In the Call

Use content to anchor the conversation:

Pull up a cost breakdown article and walk through it
Use a video to explain a complex process

Let content do the heavy lifting so you can stay focused on the buyer.

Content in the call should reinforce it. A great article or graphic can simplify a complex message and make your conversation more actionable.

When a buyer sees pricing, process, or proof visually (in real time) it hits differently. The trust goes up. The resistance goes down. And the close gets closer.

3. After the Call

Reinforce the conversation and handle remaining questions:

Follow-up articles
Product comparisons
Customer testimonials

This keeps momentum going between meetings.

Buyers often need to bring others into the decision. Post-call content helps them tell your story clearly, accurately, and confidently.

Every call should end with a next step, and content can bridge the gap between those steps. When buyers leave a conversation and still have doubts or confusion, the deal slows down. Great follow-up content closes that gap. It keeps things moving. It gives the buyer tools to keep selling (even when you’re not there).

How to Assign Content the Right Way

If you want content to actually drive results in your sales process, you can’t just “drop a link.” You have to assign it like it matters.

Here’s the assignment framework:

What — Be specific. Tell them exactly what you're sending. Don’t bury the lead.
Why — Connect it to their world. Why should they care? What will they get from it?
When — Set a deadline. Make it clear this is meant to be reviewed before the next step.

This isn't about pushing content for the sake of it. It’s about creating alignment and preparing for a better conversation.

Example assignment email:

“To help you get a clear picture of what this process will look like, I’m sending you two key pieces of content.

The first is a video that shows you the entire process of a fiberglass swimming pool being installed. You're going to see what it looks like when it arrives at your home, the excavation of the hole, the pool going in the ground, the patio going in around it, and the cleanup. This way, when we talk on Friday, you're not going to ask, “So what does this process look like?”—you’re already going to know.

The second is a guide that covers the most common questions and decisions you’ll face, like: Should I get a heater with my pool? What's the best type of heater? Should it be gas? Should it be electric? Should it heat and cool my water? Should I get a cover? What's the best type of cover? And so on.

Based on this, Mr./Mrs. Jones, will you take the time to review these two things before our call on Friday?”

The goal is to make the buyer feel like you’re giving them something of value, not just sending homework. When they see the purpose behind the content (and the payoff for engaging) they’re more likely to follow through.

The tone should be helpful, not transactional. Clear, not pushy. And it should always reinforce the idea that you’re here to guide, not pressure.

How to Measure If It’s Working

You’ll know your content is working when:

Buyers show up asking deeper questions
Sales cycles shorten
Reps report fewer objections and repeated explanations

To get more precise, track:

Open and click rates (if emailing content)
Time-to-close on deals where content was assigned
Rep feedback in your CRM or sales coaching platform

Want to go deeper? Look at where in the sales process content is being used, and what’s missing. That’s how you uncover new opportunities to optimize and scale your content strategy.

Content is for More Than Just Marketing

Content doesn’t belong on your website alone. It belongs in your sales process. Used right, it educates, builds trust, qualifies buyers, and makes your reps’ jobs easier.

Start assigning content with purpose, and watch your pipeline move faster.

Want this engine humming across your whole team? The Endless Customers System™ gives you the frameworks and coaching to weave buyer-centric content into every stage, so trust compounds and revenue scales. Let’s talk about making that happen.

Why Buyers Now Control the Sales Process (And What You Should Do About It)

cduprey@impactbnd.com (Chris Duprey) — Thu, 01 May 2025 11:30:00 GMT

Today’s buyer is more informed, more skeptical, and more in control of the process than ever before.

By the time they talk to sales, they’ve done the research.

They’ve compared options.

They’ve read reviews.

In many cases, they’ve already made up their mind or at least narrowed the field.

Buyers today don’t just want access to information, they expect it. They’re not starting from scratch. They’re showing up to conversations with a short list and high expectations.

75% of buyers prefer a rep-free buying experience.

This shift has fundamentally changed the power dynamic in sales. Your role in sales is to support. The best sales teams understand this and build everything around enabling a smarter, faster, more confident buying decision.

The Old Sales Playbook No Longer Works

The traditional sales approach of gatekeeping information, pitching features, and controlling the flow of conversation feels manipulative in a buyer-first world.

Buyers don’t want to be “closed.” They want to be understood and assisted.

What used to work:

Leading with your pitch
Holding back pricing
Forcing demos before giving answers

What works now:

Radical transparency
Real answers to real questions
Empowering buyers with content and clarity

The old playbook was designed to protect the seller. The new one is built to empower the buyer.

When you make information easy to access, when your conversations are led by questions, and when your process puts the buyer’s needs first, trust builds faster. And trust closes deals.

Editors Note: If you're looking to create a sales process that makes your buyer feel confident, The Endless Customers System™ helps you weave the needed habits into daily reality. Get the frameworks to reward curiosity, systemize coaching, and lead from the front so better culture becomes business as usual and learn about how it works.

What Buyers Expect From You Now

Today’s buyers expect:

Fast, clear answers to their questions
Transparent pricing and process info
Relevant content that speaks to their situation
Salespeople who listen more than they talk

And if you don’t provide it? They’ll find someone who does.

The bar is higher. But the opportunity is bigger.

Buyers want to move fast. But they want to feel safe doing it. They want confidence in the solution, clarity in the process, and connection with the person guiding them.

Meeting these expectations is about being honest, responsive, and obsessed with helping them make the right decision.

How to Win in a Buyer-Controlled World

Winning in a buyer-controlled world means letting go of control and replacing it with clarity, consistency, and trust.

It means redesigning your sales process around the buyer’s decision-making journey and training your team to be a guide.

Here’s how to do that in four key moves:

1. Build Trust Early With Content

Create content that:

Answers the tough questions
Disqualifies bad fits
Speeds up the buyer’s process

Make this content easy to find and assign it before sales calls.

When you deliver clarity up front, you earn permission to go deeper later. Content becomes the trust-building engine that fuels better conversations.

Buyers should never have to ask for pricing, reviews, or comparisons. That content should be ready, relevant, and delivered proactively. When done well, it accelerates qualification and creates a better buying experience before the first call.

2. Use Assignment Selling

Let buyers educate themselves with strategic content before the meeting. Then use the call to ask better questions and co-create the solution.

Assignment Selling flips the typical sales process on its head. Instead of starting cold and spending the first 15 minutes covering the basics, you walk into a conversation with an educated buyer who’s ready to dig in.

And it’s not just about efficiency. A salesperson who equips and respects the buyer’s autonomy earns the right to lead the next step. That’s how modern trust is built.

Pro Tip: Start with a “What to Expect” video. It sets tone, pace, and trust from the start.

3. Coach Reps to Be Guides, Not Pitchers

Train your team to:

Ask great discovery questions
Stay in the moment
Stop talking once the buyer starts thinking

A great rep in 2025 is a listener who helps the buyer gain clarity.

This mindset shift requires coaching. Reps need to know that listening isn’t passive, it’s a skill. Curiosity isn’t soft, it’s strategic. And pitching before understanding isn’t just ineffective, it’s disrespectful in the eyes of a modern buyer.

The best reps today are equal parts consultant, translator, and coach. They guide. Not by leading the buyer to a specific conclusion, but by helping the buyer find their own.

4. Create a Sales Process That Mirrors the Buying Journey

Rebuild your stages around buyer behavior. Make every step about helping them move forward to a solution for them. Not checking boxes in your CRM.

Example Stage Shift: From “Proposal Sent” to “Buyer Confirmed Understanding of Proposal and Timeline”

Too many sales processes are built for internal visibility over buyer progress. That’s a problem.

When your stages reflect what the buyer has done (approved budget, involved a decision-maker, requested a proposal) you suddenly have a pipeline that tells the truth.

This allows you to:

Coach with confidence
Forecast with clarity
Remove friction from your buyer’s path

Build your process around what the buyer needs to feel, say, or decide at each step. Then train your reps to meet them there.

Let Your Buyers be In Control

You don’t need to take control back. You need to thrive in a world where buyers already have it.

Meet them where they are. Earn trust through transparency. And guide them like a partner.

The Endless Customers System™ shows you how to earn that seat. Learn to serve transparent answers, build trust at every click, and guide prospects the moment they’re ready. Start here!

What Are Self-Service Tools (Pricing Calculators, Assessments, + Other Examples)

jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker) — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Self-service enables buyers to independently navigate key aspects of the purchasing process—from information gathering to making decisions—without being forced to speak to a human.

A recent study should make any company pause when considering its sales process. According to Gartner, 75% of buyers would prefer to have a “seller free” sales experience.

Yes, 75%.

And this number is growing too.

This means self-service tools are no longer a nice-to-have on your website. They're now a must-have if you want to earn trust, accelerate the sales process, and generate better-fit leads.

Buyers today expect to do more of their research independently. They’re looking for a buying process that requires minimal interaction with a salesperson—what we call a "touchless buying experience." This means they prefer to research, compare, and even make purchasing decisions on their own terms, only engaging with sales when they’re fully ready and comfortable.

They won’t wait for a response, they refuse to jump through hoops, and they expect the process to be easy and frictionless. And when they do reach out, they expect a seamless transition from their independent research to a productive sales conversation.

If your team isn’t ready to meet your buyers where they are, by giving them what they want, when they want it, and how they want it, you risk losing them. And once they’re gone, they’re not coming back.

That’s exactly why self-service tools are a core part of the Endless Customers System™, a proven system for helping businesses become the most known and trusted brand in their market. These tools empower buyers to take action and gain clarity—all before ever talking to sales.

Now, let’s dig into the five types of self-service tools, why they matter, and examples that bring each one to life.

1. Self-Assessment Tools

These tools, like quizzes or scorecards, allow buyers to assess their needs and challenges. They provide personalized insights and recommendations, empowering prospects with clear next steps before ever speaking to your sales team.

Self-assessments help buyers understand where they are today and what they might need next. These interactive quizzes or evaluations are often framed around readiness or risk.

They’re powerful because they educate, engage, and qualify all at once. Tools like ScoreApp make building assessments simple.

A standout example:

Bahler Brothers Patio Design Quiz matches users with ideal styles.

If you’ve ever struggled designing or redesigning your outdoor space, you will appreciate how fun and informative this single-page self-selection tool is.

After you land on the page, you’ll select which option you like from a group of visual pattern choices, and the page will then automatically scroll you into the next section, keeping track of your progress all the while.

Once you reach the end, you provide your contact information and immediately receive which style you’ll most likely enjoy for your patio. Mine was Rustic, and they’re spot on.

Other types of self-assessment tools may include:

Financial Health Check: A financial advisory firm could create an interactive tool that asks prospects about their income, expenses, savings, and investments. The tool would then provide a "financial health score," highlighting areas for potential improvement.
Home Energy Audit Tool: A company in the home improvement space could develop a self-assessment tool that evaluates a homeowner’s energy consumption. By answering questions about insulation, appliances, and energy habits, users would receive a report on their energy efficiency and specific actions they can take to save money.
Cybersecurity Risk Assessment: An IT security company could create a tool that asks businesses about their current cybersecurity measures, such as password policies, employee training, and network protections. The tool would generate a risk score and recommendations for enhancements.

The possibilities are endless.

When these tools are done correctly, prospects will often refer back to their “score” when talking with your sales team. Furthermore, your sales team is able to see their “score” before the first sales meeting, again making the usage of such a tool a massive win-win.

2. Self-Selection Tools

Self-selection tools guide users to the best-fit product or service. Think of them as the digital equivalent of a smart salesperson asking the right questions.

They work by simplifying decisions and increasing buyer confidence. These tools use logic to recommend the right solution based on user input. Recommendation engines and guided selling tools are perfect fits here.

A standout example:

Rancilio's coffee machine selector tool

Coffee machine marker Rancilio offers an incredibly helpful comparison tool for selecting the right coffee machine. You start by selecting whether you are looking for an espresso machine or bean-to-cup machine.

Next, you choose the volume of coffee you’re planning to make each day (fewer or more than 50) and whether you want the machine to carry milk on demand.

This takes you to a screen where you can view all the different products available with the specs you chose, or you can get in touch with one of their specialists to walk you through which machine might best suit your needs.

The tool helps you figure out your own needs while guiding prospects closer to a buying decision.

Other types of self-selection tools may include:

Paint Color Picker: An interactive tool where users input room type, lighting, and desired ambiance to get tailored paint color recommendations.

Health Insurance Plan Selector: A tool that guides users through selecting the best health insurance plan based on their medical needs, budget, and family size.

SaaS Product Chooser: A tool that helps businesses or individuals determine the best software plan or package based on the features they need, the number of users, and the type of work they do.

By offering an unbiased self-selection tool, you’re demonstrating that you’re the most trustworthy source in your market. When used properly, your sales team will often hear, “I took that tool on your website and I already know what I want.”

That’s music to a salesperson’s ears.

3. Self-Configurator Tools

Got a complex product or service? Let your buyers build their own solution.

Configurators allow users to explore options, features, and pricing—all without a sales pitch. They keep users engaged and help them visualize what they’re buying. The key is simplicity: great configurators clarify, not complicate.

If your offerings are customizable, configurators help buyers make better choices faster.

A standout example:

Yale Appliance's pro range configurator. IMPACT client Yale Appliance is one of the premier appliance sellers, installers, distributors, and educators in the United States.

Website visitors can find information on just about any household appliance they can think of. The extensive learning center can guide buyers to make the most informed decision possible.

From pricing information to reviews and professional assessments — it’s all there.

That being said, one popular tool they offer is their Pro Range Configurator.

You can select a range size, fuel type, burner type, burner configuration, colors, and other features.

You select the materials that’ll go into your pool and any add-ons, such as an automatic vacuum or cascade.

Other examples of self-configurators:

Custom Cabinet Configurator: A tool that helps homeowners design kitchen or bathroom cabinetry by choosing dimensions, materials, finishes, and additional features like soft-close drawers or pull-out shelves.

Landscape Design Tool: A configurator for landscaping companies that allows clients to design their outdoor space by selecting plants, paving materials, water features, and garden layouts.

Insurance Policy Configurator: A tool that guides users in building a custom insurance policy by selecting coverage options, deductibles, and additional riders.

You’ve heard the famous phrase, “If you build it, they will come.” In the case of self-configurator tools, it’s more like: “Let them build it, and they will come.”

4. Self-Scheduling Tools

These let visitors book meetings or demos with your team without the email back-and-forth.

Self-scheduling tools reduce friction, speed up the sales process, and let buyers take action the moment they’re ready. Tools like Calendly, HubSpot Meetings, and Chili Piper are popular for good reason.

A standout example:

Yale Appliance takes self-scheduling even further by allowing you to schedule a showroom visit and even choose the salesperson you’d like to work with by reading about their expertise and their bio ahead of time.

Other examples of self-schedulers:

Doctor Appointment Scheduler: A tool that allows patients to book appointments with doctors, specialists, or therapists based on their availability, preferred location, and urgency of the visit.
Financial Advisor Meeting Scheduler: A tool that lets clients book meetings with financial advisors based on their availability and choose between in-person or virtual sessions.
Client Onboarding Scheduler: A tool for businesses to schedule onboarding sessions with new clients, ensuring that both parties can choose times that align with their availability.

Self-scheduling tools give potential customers a sense of “I’m in control”—and as we’ve discussed before, this is exactly what every buyer wants.

Control means trust, and trust means more sales.

5. Self-Pricing Tools

If your buyers are asking "How much does it cost?" (and they are) don’t make them wait.

Self-pricing tools are calculators or estimators that give buyers a clear sense of what they might pay. They’re bold. Transparent. And still surprisingly rare.

But they work. Pricing content is consistently the most read and shared, and for good reason. Buyers want to know what they’re in for.

A standout example:

River Pools' pricing calculator. River Pools, which sells and installs fiberglass swimming pools, has an incredible self pricing tool to help you find the perfect swimming pool.

In just a few steps and clicks, you can become a more informed pool buyer and also plan ahead for hidden costs that might come with additional options and add-ons that come with a project this big.

At the end of the process, you input your info and the quote gets sent right off to you in just a few minutes — no tricks or strings attached.

Other examples of self-pricing tools:

Lawncare project estimator: A tool that let’s people estimate how long their lawn project may cost.
Home improvement project estimator: Roofing, painting, plumbing repairs, window replacements — a tool that lets people estimate how long their home improvement might be.
Software estimate: A tool that gives people a range of how much their software may cost them based on the specific needs they may have and the tiers you offer.

Key Tips for Effective Pricing Estimators

A common mistake with pricing estimators is failing to educate prospects about their choices. If buyers are presented with options—such as different patio stones—without clear photos and explanations, confusion follows.

Don’t assume prospects know more than they do. Include “learn more” links, videos, or articles to guide them, just as you would in a live sales conversation.

Also, you don’t need to provide an exact price. A price range is often sufficient.

Adding features like “monthly payment” or financing options can further enhance engagement and build confidence.

When companies get excited about implementing pricing estimators, the next question is often, “Where do we start?”

You have two main options:

A customized solution tailored for your business
An out-of-the-box solution that you can quickly integrate into your site

Both have their merits, but if your budget allows, a custom-built tool is the better route. This is a service we offer at IMPACT, as part of our coaching and training program to help businesses become the most known and trusted brand in their market with the Endless Customers System™, with numerous case studies to prove its success.

Self-Service is The Future

Self-service tools are foundational to turning your website into your best 24/7 salesperson.

Sooner than later, they will be table stakes for all businesses that want to keep up with today’s buyer.

These tools are essential parts of the Endless Customers System™ that helps turn you into the most known and trusted brand in your market. They let you lead the conversation by meeting buyers where they are, before your competitors even show up.

So the real question isn’t, “Should we add self-service to our website?”

Really, it’s, “Why haven’t we done this already?”

Many of our IMPACT clients have used self-service tools to empower their buyers and drastically increase leads and sales. If you want to learn more about implementing the Endless Customers System™ and self-service tools on your website, schedule a call with an advisor.

How to Choose Marketing Metrics That Actually Drive Sales

rruffolo@impactbnd.com (Bob Ruffolo) — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 13:00:00 GMT

Marketing is one of the biggest investments your company makes. You’re hiring people, running ads, creating content, optimizing your website, producing videos, sending emails, managing social media, investing in PR—the list goes on. And in today’s competitive environment, none of it comes cheap.

Many marketing teams are tracking the wrong metrics. Numbers that look good on a dashboard but have no connection to sales.

Too many companies pour time and money into marketing without a clear line of sight to revenue. They focus on vanity metrics (traffic, clicks, and social engagement) because they’re easy to measure. Meanwhile, sales teams struggle to convert leads, and leadership questions the ROI of marketing efforts. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

The good news? You can fix this. And it starts with tracking the right stuff.

As the CEO of IMPACT, I’ve helped businesses move beyond surface-level metrics and build marketing programs that actually fuel growth. In this article, I’ll walk you through how to identify the numbers that truly matter, how to build a marketing dashboard that reflects real business impact, and how to create alignment between marketing and sales so that every effort drives revenue.

By the time you finish reading, you’ll know:

How to identify the single most important marketing metric for your business and why MQLs and SQLs should be your primary focus.
How to track MQLs and SQLs over time using tools like HubSpot and diagnose where leads get stuck in the pipeline.
Why most attribution models fail and why trust, not a single touchpoint, is what ultimately drives sales.
How to evaluate marketing metrics like website traffic and social engagement, and determine whether they’re useful indicators or just vanity numbers.
How to separate vanity metrics from meaningful ones so you can focus on what actually generates revenue.

If you’re investing heavily in marketing, you deserve to see a return. Let’s make sure you’re tracking the metrics that move the needle.

Marketing metrics start with sales goals

If you’re like most businesses, your marketing dashboard is packed with data—traffic, email open rates, social engagement, and lead volume. It looks impressive, but do those numbers actually tell you if you're going to hit your revenue target?

The real issue is that marketing often tracks success in a vacuum. Teams celebrate website traffic spikes or a growing email list without a direct connection to revenue. Meanwhile, sales teams are left wondering, "Where are the real buyers?"

If you want your marketing to drive growth, flip your thinking. You need to work backward from sales.

Instead of asking, What should marketing achieve?, ask:

How many new customers do we need this quarter?
How many proposals or deals does that require?
How many sales conversations are needed to get there?
What marketing efforts will drive those conversations?

At IMPACT, this shift changed everything. We had a quarterly goal of signing 15 new Mastery clients, one of our core offerings. We worked the numbers:

To close 15 clients, we needed about 25 proposals sent.

To generate 25 proposals, we required 40 qualified sales opportunities (not every proposal lands).

To get 40 sales opportunities, we needed 100 initial sales appointments, which meant marketing’s job was to generate those 100 calls.

That became our most important marketing metric: sales appointments. Not traffic. Not social shares. Not general inquiries. If an effort didn’t contribute to driving appointments, it wasn’t a priority.

So, what’s your most important marketing metric?

It depends on how your business converts customers. Ask yourself: “What is the final outcome marketing is responsible for delivering?”

If your company has a sales team, marketing’s primary metric is often the number of sales-qualified conversations generated. That could be booked demos, appointments, or proposal-ready leads.

If your business is e-commerce or self-service, marketing’s metric might be purchases completed, free trials started, or accounts created.

Whatever it is, your most important marketing metric should be a single, measurable outcome that directly moves the business forward. Not impressions. Not engagement. Not brand awareness.

When you identify and track the right marketing metric, everything changes. Campaigns become more focused. Budgets become more efficient. And marketing’s contribution to revenue becomes undeniable.

What if we have multiple products or services?

Many companies push back on the idea of choosing just one marketing metric, saying, We have multiple products and services. We have different goals across different departments. How can we pick just one?

The reality? Most businesses do not have the resources to invest heavily in multiple product lines at once. Instead of spreading marketing efforts too thin, focus on your primary product or service, the one that, if scaled, would have the biggest impact on the company.

If you asked the CEO, If we could only scale one product or service dramatically, which one would it be?, most leaders would have an answer. That’s the one that should drive your marketing strategy.

For most businesses, the smartest move is to take all available marketing resources—budget, content, ad spend, and team focus—and direct them toward moving that one main number.

That said, if your company is large enough to have dedicated marketing teams for different product lines, each team may have its own key metric tied to its line of business. In that case, your organization may track multiple primary numbers, but each team is still focused on moving one specific outcome.

For the majority of companies, though, simplification is the key to growth.

A great framework for this comes from EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), which many companies use to clarify their focus. In EOS, leadership defines a single, measurable number in their Vision Traction Organizer (V/TO), the one that matters most for company growth.

If your company runs on EOS, you likely already have this number defined. And if you don’t, take a step back and ask: What’s the one metric that, if we move it, moves the entire business forward?

By choosing a primary marketing metric tied to this bigger goal, everything else becomes clearer, and marketing efforts become significantly more effective.

What about lead quality? Defining your sales qualified lead (SQL)

Having a quantifiable marketing metric is important, but quality matters just as much as quantity. A hundred leads mean nothing if they’re not the right leads. This is where SQLs come into play.

An SQL isn’t just any lead, it’s one that meets a standard high enough that your sales team sees value in pursuing it. If marketing floods sales with low-quality leads, sales teams waste time chasing dead ends. On the other hand, if marketing focuses on generating fewer, higher-quality leads, sales teams become more efficient, deals close faster, and revenue grows.

So, how do you define an SQL?

At IMPACT, we developed a clear standard for what makes a lead sales qualified:

They understand our core philosophies They Ask, You Answer and Endless Customers: If a lead comes in with no knowledge of our frameworks, they’re not ready for a coaching conversation.
They’ve actively engaged with our brand: Maybe they’ve attended one of our events, watched Marcus Sheridan speak, or joined IMPACT+. Passive leads don’t become great clients.
They fit our ideal client profile: We evaluate the size, industry, and business model to ensure they’re a good fit for both our coaching approach and services.
They are ready to invest: An SQL isn’t just interested; they have the budget and timeline to move forward with a coaching engagement in the near future.

Only if a lead meets all of these criteria will we pass them to sales. Otherwise, if they don’t, marketing keeps nurturing them until they do.

How to define your SQL

Your SQL definition will depend on your business, but here’s how to build one:

Start with your best customers. What common characteristics did your most successful clients or customers have before they bought? What actions did they take before becoming a deal?
Collaborate with sales. Ask them: What makes a lead worth their time? Which leads usually close, and which ones waste effort?
Look at behavioral engagement. Did they book a demo, download a high-intent piece of content, or engage in a meaningful way? What actions typically indicate strong intent?
Factor in fit. Do they match your target industry, company size, budget, or other key criteria?

Most companies that rely on a sales team should make SQLs their most important marketing metric because marketing’s job isn’t just to generate leads, but to generate leads that will close.

By tightening your SQL definition, marketing and sales become more aligned. Sales gets better leads, marketing gets credit for revenue impact, and the entire business moves faster.

What about leads that aren't sales-ready yet? Defining MQLs

Not every lead that enters your pipeline is ready for sales. Some people are still in research mode, exploring options, or simply not the right fit. This is where Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) come in.

An MQL is a lead that has shown interest in your business and engaged with your marketing efforts, but they’re not ready to be handed off to sales yet. They need more education, nurturing, or time before they become a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).

The difference between an MQL and an SQL

Think of your SQL definition as the standard that makes a lead worthy of a salesperson’s time. But before they reach that stage, they go through a marketing qualification process.

Here’s the key difference:

MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)	SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)
Shows interest but isn't ready to buy	Meets the criteria for a serious sales conversation
Engages with content, downloads resources, and/or attends webinars	Has expressed clear intent—requested a demo, asked about pricing, or engaged with sales
May not fit your ideal customer profile yet	Fits your target industry, company size, budget, and readiness timeline
Needs more education before making a decision	Sales is confident they can move the lead forward

How to define an MQL for your business

Your MQL criteria should be based on real data from past leads who eventually became customers. To define yours, ask:

What actions do buyers take before they’re ready for sales? Do they consume a certain amount of content? Download a high-intent resource? Engage in a conversation with marketing?
What behaviors indicate strong interest? Someone who downloads a pricing guide is further along than someone who reads a blog post. A webinar attendee may be more engaged than someone who likes a LinkedIn post.
What disqualifies a lead? Just because someone fills out a form doesn’t mean they should be an MQL. Do they meet basic fit criteria—industry, company size, job title?

At IMPACT, we consider someone an MQL when they’ve engaged with high-value content, such as an in-depth guide or a workshop, and demonstrated repeated interest by visiting key pages, attending events, or watching a webinar. They also need to fit the general profile of our best customers, even if they’re not quite ready to commit just yet.

If a lead checks those boxes, we consider them an MQL. But they’re not an SQL until they meet our full qualification criteria, which means marketing keeps nurturing them until they’re sales-ready.

Moving MQLs to SQLs

So how do you turn an MQL into an SQL? This is where lead nurturing comes in.

Not every lead is ready to buy today, but if you continue engaging them with the right content, emails, and offers, you guide them toward becoming an SQL. This could mean:

Sending case studies to show them how companies like theirs succeeded.
Offering a consultation or demo at the right moment.
Providing answers to their biggest concerns (pricing, implementation, ROI).

Can we really track what led to a sale?

Marketing teams love attribution. We want to know exactly which blog post, ad, or webinar tipped someone into becoming a customer. It feels like we should be able to trace the path.

The truth? You’ll never know the full story.

Sure, Google Analytics or your HubSpot portal might tell you where someone came from. Maybe they landed on your website from an organic search, clicked a LinkedIn post, or came in through a paid ad. But what really led them to you? Maybe:

They saw your content in their feed five times before they clicked.
A friend mentioned your company in a meeting three weeks ago.
They watched a YouTube video you posted months ago and just now took action.

These are all invisible touchpoints. The ones no platform tracks but often carry the most weight in a buying decision.

Most of what drives trust and buying decisions can't be measured

We track what we can, but that doesn’t mean we’re seeing the most important influences. Think about it:

A buyer searches for a topic, clicks your article, and reads it. What made them search in the first place?
A prospect Googles your brand name and lands on your site. Who or what put your name in their head?
Someone signs up for your webinar. Did a trusted peer mention you last week?

Most attribution models focus on the last thing a person did before converting (last-click attribution) or the first thing that got them in the door (first-click attribution). But the real decision-making process happens in between. And that middle part, the way trust builds over time, isn’t something an algorithm can measure.

Want better attribution? Ask your customers

If you want to know what actually influenced a sale, talk to your customers.

Make it a habit to ask during sales calls or onboarding:

How did you first hear about us?
What made you decide to reach out?
What content, events, or interactions helped you make your decision?

You’ll start spotting patterns that no attribution report will ever show you. At IMPACT, we’ve heard things like:

“I’ve followed you for years—read your book, saw your videos, and when I finally had budget, I knew exactly who to call.”
“A friend told me about your company, and then I started seeing your content everywhere.”
“I saw Marcus Sheridan speak at an event, then started following your blog, and now we’re ready to move forward.”

None of that would have shown up neatly in an attribution report. That's trust in motion.

Trust is built through repetition

People don’t buy from companies they don’t trust. And trust isn’t built in a single, trackable moment.

It’s built over multiple subconscious impressions, seeing your name repeatedly in different places, getting value from your content, and hearing about you from peers.

They see your name in search.
They scroll past your content on LinkedIn.
They hear your name in a conversation.
They click after seeing you five times.

This is why being consistently visible in the market matters more than perfectly tracking clicks and conversions.

What to focus on instead

Instead of chasing a perfect attribution model (which doesn’t exist), focus on:

Showing up everywhere your customers are. Be impossible to ignore.
Delivering value long before they’re ready to buy. People remember the companies that helped them, not the ones that just sold to them.
Asking customers what actually influenced them. The best data comes straight from the source.

Attribution software won’t give you the full picture. Trust and awareness, not clicks, are what ultimately lead to sales.

Now that we’ve established that trust—not a single marketing touchpoint—is what leads to sales, the next step is understanding which marketing metrics actually signal growth and which are just distractions. That’s where useful vs. vanity metrics come in.

Are all marketing metrics created equal?

By now, it’s clear that MQLs and SQLs are the marketing metrics that truly matter. They’re the ones that tie your work directly to revenue. But what about everything else? Website traffic, email click-through rates, ad impressions—do they even matter?

The short answer is yes, but only if they contribute to generating MQLs and SQLs.

Too often, marketing teams get caught up in tracking everything without understanding what actually moves the needle. The key is knowing which numbers are indicators of success and which ones are just noise.

It’s important to know the difference between a useful metric and a vanity metric. A useful metric is a number that, when improved, increases the number of MQLs and SQLs. A vanity metric is a number that looks good on a report but doesn’t meaningfully impact revenue.

Let’s break it down with some examples:

Website traffic: Useful or vanity?

It can be a powerful metric if it leads somewhere.

Traffic can be a useful metric when it increases while maintaining or improving conversion rates. More of the right visitors = more MQLs = more SQLs. That’s when it matters.

But it would be considered a vanity metric if you’re driving traffic from the wrong sources that don’t end up converting (like ranking for irrelevant keywords or getting a surge from an unrelated press feature); then it’s just noise. Despite a big number, there’s no business impact behind it.

We’ve seen this firsthand at IMPACT. At one point, our blog was pulling in 700,000 visits per month. Huge traffic. But many of those visitors weren’t a good fit. After refocusing on content that attracted qualified buyers, traffic dropped, but SQLs increased. And that’s what actually mattered.

Social media engagement: Useful or vanity?

It depends on who’s doing the engaging and why.

Social media engagement is a useful metric when it helps you reach more potential customers and drive meaningful interactions. A high-performing LinkedIn post, for example, can expand your reach among potential buyers and nudge them further into your ecosystem.

It would be considered a vanity metric if engagement comes from the wrong audience, such as people outside your target audience, in industries you don’t serve, or in regions you don’t operate. Then it’s just noise. For example, if you sell to enterprise executives in the U.S., but all your engagement comes from people outside that audience, it’s not helping sales.

A strong social presence can signal credibility to potential buyers. If they see others engaging with your brand, it reinforces trust. But fake engagement or irrelevant followers won’t move the needle.

How to track SQLs and MQLs (without getting lost in the data)

Once you’ve defined what an MQL and SQL look like for your business, the next step is tracking them consistently and making adjustments as needed.

To track MQLs and SQLs properly, you need a system that helps you:

Capture lead activity—What pages they visit, emails they open, and actions they take.
Score and qualify leads based on engagement and fit.
Show where leads are getting stuck in the journey from MQL to SQL to customer.

That’s where your CRM becomes the most powerful tool in your marketing tech stack.

Let’s take HubSpot as an example. It gives you everything you need to build a full-funnel lead tracking system that not only captures activity but also helps you take action.

Start by setting clear rules using custom properties. What if a lead views your pricing page twice, downloads a high-intent guide, and fits your ICP? You can have HubSpot tag them as an MQL automatically. From there, it can trigger workflows—like enrolling them in a nurturing sequence or assigning a follow-up task to sales.

Want to know when a lead is getting hot? Use predictive lead scoring or set up your own rules to weigh key behaviors—like demo requests or repeat visits to your case studies.

And instead of guessing where your leads are dropping off, you can follow them in a visual pipeline using Lifecycle Stages. You’ll see exactly when someone moves from Lead to MQL to SQL to Opportunity to Customer—and where they’re getting stuck.

On top of that, attribution reports show which blog posts or campaigns are actually creating SQLs, so you can double down on what’s working. And when an SQL gets created, your sales team can get a real-time Slack alert or task notification, so they never miss a high-intent lead.

If you already use HubSpot but aren’t leveraging these features, or if you want help setting up an MQL/SQL tracking system, we’d be happy to help you implement it.

Track the metrics that move the needle

At the end of the day, marketing isn’t about more dashboards or chasing numbers, it’s about driving real business growth.

And that starts with knowing exactly which metrics matter. MQLs and SQLs are the metrics that matter most because they connect directly to revenue. Everything else—website traffic, social engagement, email clicks—is useful only if it helps generate more qualified leads and moves them toward becoming customers.

So, as you evaluate your marketing efforts, ask yourself the questions that actually matter:

Are we tracking numbers that actually impact sales?
If we improve this metric, will it lead to more SQLs or MQLs?
Are we prioritizing trust and long-term brand visibility over short-term vanity wins?

The best marketing teams aren’t just measuring everything; they zero in on the numbers that move revenue.

Your next move

If you’ve been drowning in marketing reports, trying to find which numbers actually lead to revenue, now’s the time to shift your focus.

Define your most important metric. Align your MQL and SQL criteria with your sales team. Build a tracking system that connects activity to revenue—and stop wasting time on anything that doesn’t.

You’ve already made the investment in marketing. Now it’s time to make sure every effort leads to real growth.

Start by defining your most important metric, track what moves the needle, and cut out any noise. If you need help building a marketing system that does exactly that, let’s talk.

Getting Started with The Big 5™

rruffolo@impactbnd.com (Bob Ruffolo) — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 14:00:00 GMT

If you’re serious about building trust and generating qualified leads through your content, The Big 5™ is where it all begins.

At IMPACT, we believe that if a customer has a question, you should have an answer, and that answer should be easy to find on your website.

These five content topics, Cost and Price, Problems, Versus and Comparisons, Reviews, and Best in Class, are the questions today’s buyers are already searching for. They’re the questions they ask your sales team. The questions they type into Google. The questions that, when answered with honesty and clarity, turn you into the go-to authority in your space.

We’ve seen this work time and time again. Why? Because most companies aren’t willing to openly address the questions buyers actually care about. The ones that educate them, remove doubt, and move them forward in the buying journey.

When you do answer those questions, buyers notice. You build trust. You stand out. And you become the company they want to work with.

This is the foundation of the Endless Customers System™. It’s about showing up when and where your buyers are asking questions and doing it better than anyone else.

But once you understand the "what" of The Big 5™, the next big question is: How do you start creating these types of content?

That’s what this article is here to teach you.

Let’s walk through the practical, step-by-step approach to getting your Big 5 content off the ground.

How to find the right buyer questions to answer in content

Your sales team already knows exactly what buyers are asking. They field the same questions over and over again—on discovery calls, in email threads, and even during onboarding. These are patterns worth capturing.

Start by making this a standing part of your Revenue Team’s meeting agenda. Instead of a one-time brainstorm, consistently ask your sales reps:

What questions do you answer on every single call?
Which questions come up early in the buyer’s journey?
What objections slow down or derail deals?

This collaborative rhythm ensures your content stays aligned with what your audience is actually asking right now.

But don’t stop there.

AI can help you scale this process and uncover patterns you might miss. Drop your call transcripts into tools like ChatGPT or other AI summarizers and ask it to identify common themes, questions, and concerns. Scan your CRM notes and support tickets. Look at search console data. The more signals, the better.

These are the topics your buyers are begging you to cover and the ones that will make your content actually matter. Even better? Your sales team will be bought in from the start because they helped shape the content.

Begin your content strategy by addressing cost and your core offering

Before you try to answer every buyer's possible question, begin where it matters most: your core offerings.

What product or service is your flagship? What do you sell most? What’s at the heart of your business?

Start by asking your team: What questions are buyers asking about this? What’s stopping them from saying yes? What do they need to understand to move forward with confidence?

Now, pair that with one of the most powerful topics in The Big 5™: Cost.

Buyers are searching for pricing info. They want to know what to expect, how much they’ll spend, what affects the price, and what makes something more expensive or more affordable.

Being honest about cost doesn’t mean giving exact numbers. It means giving buyers the context they need to make smart decisions.

Here are some examples of titles for your content:

“How Much Does [Service/Product] Cost in 2024?”
“What You Need to Know About Pricing for [X]”

Take River Pools and Spas. They published an article titled “How much does a fiberglass pool cost?” That single page has generated over $35 million in revenue and transformed their business. The secret? Radical transparency. They answered what no one else would.

At IMPACT, we recommend you start with cost and price content, especially for your core offerings. This helps your team focus on what they know best, and it builds the kind of trust that moves deals forward fast.

Once you’ve covered cost, your next move is simple: Identify your most-asked buyer questions and start building content that answers them.

Start creating content, build your backlog, and publish consistently

Once you’ve gathered your vetted list of buyer questions and aligned on your initial focus, particularly around your core offerings and pricing, it's time to create.

You don’t need to overthink it. Start by creating content that answers one question at a time. Whether it’s an article, a video, or a podcast episode, the goal is simple: Help the buyer make a more confident decision.

Get your marketing and sales team working together here. Marketing can take the lead on structuring and publishing, while sales can supply real-world stories, language, and examples from actual conversations.

Before you hit publish, aim to build a backlog of 5–10 pieces of content. This gives you breathing room and consistency, two essentials for a sustainable publishing cadence. (Especially when unexpected priorities pop up.)

From there, commit to publishing at least three new pieces of Big 5 content each week. Don’t get caught in the trap of waiting for everything to be perfect. Publish, learn, iterate.

And don’t stop. This is not a one-and-done effort. The best companies build a system that fuels their marketing and sales for years, not weeks.

Why video and audio content builds trust faster

Throughout this article, we’ve talked about The Big 5™ as content, not just articles. That’s intentional.

While much of The Big 5™ has traditionally been considered the written word, we’re actually talking about all content formats. Think bigger than just a blog post or a page on your website—this content should be showing up on your social platforms, YouTube channel, newsletter, podcast, and more.

Video, especially, is becoming a bigger piece than it’s ever been before. Buyers crave transparency, and video delivers a level of personality and clarity that builds trust fast. It lets them see and hear your team, your voice, your body language, and your confidence.

If you start with written content, repurpose it into video or audio formats to reach buyers in their preferred learning style. For example, take a pricing article and turn it into a YouTube video or podcast episode. Then embed that video into the original post to boost both visibility and usefulness.

Every topic of The Big 5™ can be adapted into:

YouTube videos
Podcast episodes
Webinars or livestreams
Short-form video for LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube Shorts

Determining the right format will depend on your audience. If they’re active on YouTube or social media, short videos might be the best way to earn attention. If they prefer in-depth information, a 10-minute video breakdown or podcast interview can do the trick.

We’ve seen companies in complex industries take one simple video—no script, no studio, just a camera and a whiteboard—and turn it into a lead-generating asset. One team created a comparison video that directly answered common buyer questions. It now ranks for valuable keywords, brings in steady traffic, and is used in the sales process to move deals forward faster.

When in doubt, start with video. It’s easier to repurpose across platforms and often more impactful in building trust.

How to create each of The Big 5^TM Content Types

You’ve got your list. You’ve picked your format. Now, it’s time to go deeper. Here’s how to approach each content type within The Big 5™ with clarity and confidence.

1. Cost & Price

Buyers are constantly searching for pricing details, but most companies avoid the topic. That’s your opportunity.

And no, you don’t have to list exact prices. A reasonable range or a breakdown of pricing factors can be just as helpful. When you provide that kind of clarity, buyers feel informed and respected. They’re not left guessing or, worse, assuming the worst.

Be upfront. Don’t just explain what your product or service costs; explain why it costs that. Help your buyers understand the factors that drive pricing up or down so they can make informed decisions.

Break it down like this:

What drives the cost up? Is it premium materials, expert-level service, white-glove delivery, or ongoing support?
What brings the cost down? Could it be simplified features, alternative packages, or self-service onboarding?
Why are some providers more expensive? Highlight where that premium comes from—better warranties, deeper expertise, faster delivery, or more support.
Why are others so cheap? Be honest about how cutting corners in production, service, or materials impacts long-term results.
Where does your company’s pricing fall in the landscape, and why? Show how your pricing reflects your position in the market and the value you deliver.

You can also explain your industry’s pricing tiers—low-end, mid-tier, high-end—and where you fit.

The format works across any content medium. Video, audio, or written, this type of transparency is what buyers crave.

When you educate buyers on pricing, you're not just selling, you’re empowering them to choose wisely.

Want to understand why cost content matters so much? Check out our full breakdown in What is The Big 5^TM and Why Does it Work?

2. Problems

Buyers are trying to avoid making the wrong decision. They’re Googling their symptoms, weighing options, and trying to figure out what could go wrong. That’s where Problems content comes in and where most companies shy away.

When you write content that addresses common issues, challenges, or red flags, especially the ones your buyers are already thinking about, you become a trusted guide instead of a biased seller. This includes problems with your industry, your type of solution, and yes, even your own offering.

Start with the real concerns your sales team hears:

“What happens if this doesn’t work?”
“Why didn’t this go well with my last provider?”
“Are there risks I should know about?”

You can also tackle misconceptions or false promises buyers encounter elsewhere. For example, “Why Managed IT Services Sometimes Fall Short” or “Common Pitfalls When Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency.”

Be honest. Own your limitations. And when something isn’t a good fit, say so. This kind of transparency doesn’t scare off the right-fit buyers, it attracts them.

You don’t build trust by pretending to be perfect. You build it by being real.

Want to learn why addressing problems builds authority so fast? Check out our full breakdown in What is The Big 5^TM and Why Does it Work?

3. Versus and Comparions

Your buyers are already comparing their options. You can either ignore it or step up and help them navigate the choice.

Versus and comparisons content is for buyers deep in decision-making mode. They’re asking questions like:

“Which option is right for me?”
“What are the trade-offs?”
“What’s the difference between [A] and [B]?”

That’s your cue to lay it all out honestly.

Start by picking the comparisons your sales team gets asked about most—whether it’s competing vendors, different solutions, or even different product tiers within your own lineup. Then, walk buyers through the pros and cons of each.

Don’t pretend to be neutral if you’re not. If your solution is one of the options, disclose that. Then, offer the clearest, most useful breakdown you can. Buyers will respect your honesty, and they’ll trust your insights.

Visuals go a long way here. Use tables, lists, or side-by-side breakdowns to help readers scan and evaluate quickly.

If you’re not comparing, someone else is, and your buyer is already listening.

Want to dive deeper into the power of comparison content? Check out our full breakdown in What is The Big 5^TM and Why Does it Work?

4. Reviews

Before anyone buys, they look for reviews. But they don’t just want the five-star fluff, they want the real story. That’s where you come in.

Review content gives you a chance to talk honestly about the products, services, or tools your buyers are considering. That might include what you sell or what they’re evaluating alongside it.

Here’s how to do it well:

Be specific. Talk about who a product is a good fit for and who it’s not.
Share both pros and cons. No one trusts a “perfect” review.
Include real feedback from clients or internal use cases if available.
Explain how the product or service compares to others in the market.

This content can take the form of written articles, recorded videos, or audio reviews. Repurpose them on social media, in sales conversations, and on your website to guide buyers through key decisions.

Real reviews aren’t just helpful, they’re proof you’re not afraid of the truth.

Want to understand why review content builds massive trust? Check out our full breakdown in What is The Big 5^TM and Why Does it Work?

5. Best in Class

When buyers are early in their research, they search for “best of” content: “Best accounting software,” “Best local landscaping companies,” “Top IT firms in Texas.” It’s how we all start narrowing our choices.

This content works because it captures early-stage traffic and positions your brand as the helpful voice that knows the market.

Start by writing about the top providers in your space (including your competitors). Don’t worry; your buyers will find them anyway. If you guide the conversation, you earn their trust faster.

Be fair. Use consistent criteria to evaluate your picks. And if you include yourself, explain why and for whom you’re the right fit.

This isn’t about selling. It’s about serving.

Which brands buyers trust most? They’re the ones willing to talk about the competition.

Want to understand how “best of” content builds credibility and reach? Check out our full breakdown in

Use your content in sales, not just marketing

This isn’t content for content’s sake. The Big 5™ should be woven into your sales process because when used correctly, it becomes one of your strongest sales enablement tools.

Coach your team to:

Send content before meetings as part of Assignment Selling. This prepares the buyer and saves valuable time on calls.
Use articles and videos during the sales process to answer tough questions or clarify complex topics.
Follow up with content that reinforces key takeaways and keeps the conversation moving forward.

Think of each Big 5 piece as a virtual sales assistant. It works 24/7, building trust and removing friction without the need for a live rep.

When used consistently, this approach can:

Shorten the sales cycle
Reduce repetitive conversations
Increase close rates and deal sizes

And most importantly? It gives your buyers the confidence to say yes. If content isn’t making your sales team’s job easier, you’re doing it wrong.

From first draft to full system: Your big 5 game plan

The Big 5™ is not a short-term campaign or a one-off initiative. It is a long-term approach to building trust through honest, helpful content.

When you consistently answer real buyer questions, you bring sales and marketing into alignment. You also create forward motion and give buyers the clarity they need to take the next step.

Most businesses shy away from topics like pricing, common problems, and direct comparisons. That’s exactly why this type of content stands out. It removes uncertainty, builds confidence, and helps buyers move toward a decision.

Now that you know how to identify the right topics, work with your sales team, and create in a range of formats, start with one article that addresses cost or a core offering.

Then, build your backlog, publish consistently, and keep going.

How Paid Ads Can Amplify Your Endless Customers Efforts

rruffolo@impactbnd.com (Bob Ruffolo) — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 05:00:00 GMT

Most businesses look at paid ads like a shortcut to fast leads. They pump money into Facebook, Google, or LinkedIn, expecting sales to skyrocket overnight. When the leads don’t pour in, they assume ads just don’t work.

Paid ads don’t work when you treat them like a quick-fix growth hack.

If you’re using the Endless Customers System™, you already know that marketing isn’t about gimmicks; it’s about becoming a known and trusted brand. Paid ads should amplify your trust-building efforts, not replace them.

When done right, paid ads accelerate the content, video, and messaging you’ve already built. They help more of the right people find you faster.

In this article, you’ll learn:

Why paid ads fail when they’re used the wrong way
How to use ads to support the 4 Pillars of a Known and Trusted Brand
The best timing for running ads within the Endless Customers System™
Smart ad strategies that fuel long-term growth, not just short-term wins

Let's dig into why most paid ads miss the mark and how to make sure yours don't.

Why most paid ads fail

There are two ways businesses typically approach paid ads:

The "Lead Grab" Mentality: Run ads to a landing page, collect emails, and hope people buy.
The Trust-Building Approach: Use ads to reinforce your expertise, drive buyers toward education, and position yourself as the go-to authority.

Most businesses choose #1 because it promises instant gratification. But in reality, if someone clicks your ad but doesn’t trust your brand yet, the odds are they’re unlikely to buy. Ultimately, you’re paying for attention without earning trust, and that’s a fast way to burn through your ad budget.

Ads should support your trust-building strategy

If you’re implementing Endless Customers, you already understand the power of the 4 Pillars of a Known and Trusted Brand because it’s built on principles that today’s buyers actually respond to:

Say what others aren’t willing to say
Show what others aren’t willing to show
Sell in ways that others aren’t willing to sell
Be more human in ways others aren’t willing to be

Your ads should reinforce these principles rather than just chase transactions. Every ad should draw buyers deeper into the trust-building experience, giving them a clear sense of how you think, how you help, and why you’re different.

The right way to use paid ads in the Endless Customers System™

1. Amplify content that builds trust

Instead of pushing “Buy Now” messages, use paid ads to get trust-building content in front of more people.

Start by promoting content that answers the biggest, most important questions buyers are already asking. That’s where The Big 5™ comes in:

Cost & Price: “How much does [your product/service] cost?”
Problems: “What are the downsides of [your solution]?”
Versus & Comparisons: “[Your product] vs. [competitor product], which is better?”
Reviews: Honest assessments of your offerings.
Best in Class: Helping buyers find the best solution, even if it’s not yours.

These aren’t fluff topics. They’re the exact questions buyers are Googling before they ever talk to your sales team. When you run ads to this type of content, you’re not just creating visibility, you’re building trust before the first conversation.

Here’s what that looks like in action: Instead of running a generic “Get a Quote Now” ad, a home renovation company could run Facebook ads promoting an article titled, “How Much Does a Kitchen Remodel Cost? (Real Pricing Examples).” This gives potential customers the chance to educate themselves before reaching out, so when they do, they’re far more ready to buy.

2. Retarget visitors with content, not just offers

Most businesses use retargeting ads to blast people with "Hey, buy this!" messages, over and over again. It’s repetitive, transactional, and usually ignored.

There’s a better way.

Retarget visitors with additional relevant educational content that answers the next set of questions your buyers are likely asking, that moves them further into trust.

This strategy keeps the conversation going and keeps your brand positioned as the one that actually helps.

Here’s how that might look: Let’s say someone reads your article, “How Much Does a Fiberglass Pool Cost?” Instead of chasing them with a “Get a Quote!” ad, you retarget them with a YouTube ad featuring a customer testimonial about what it was like to buy and install that same pool.

Now they’re hearing from someone just like them. They’re seeing your product in action. And they’re getting closer to saying yes, without feeling sold to.

This isn’t just about nurturing leads. It’s about showing buyers that you’re different from the noise. You’re not chasing the sale, you’re building the relationship.

3. Use ads to answer objections before the sales call

What slows down your sales process? Usually, it’s buyer hesitation, questions, concerns, or flat-out objections that haven’t been addressed yet.

Run ads addressing those concerns head-on before your team ever gets on a call.

When you know the top 3–5 objections your sales team hears regularly, you know exactly what your next ads should cover. Create videos, articles, or product demos that speak directly to those concerns, and run targeted ads to get that content in front of the right people.

This doesn’t just inform leads. It makes your sales conversations smoother, faster, and way more productive.

Here’s how this might look: A SaaS company that often hears, “Is your software hard to use?” could run YouTube or LinkedIn ads promoting a short video titled “How [Product Name] Works: Step-by-Step Demo.” Now the buyer sees the interface, understands the experience, and gets clarity before ever talking to a sales rep.

Objection addressed. Doubt reduced. Trust increased.

It’s like sending your sales team into the conversation with a head start, and who doesn’t want that?

4. Boost high-intent pages with search ads

Display and Social Ads are great for building trust and visibility. But when it comes to capturing ready-to-buy traffic? That’s where Google Search Ads shine.

Use them to target high-intent keywords, searches that signal a buyer is deep in the decision-making process and looking for a clear next step. These are your bottom-of-the-funnel moments, and they deserve hyper-relevant content in return.

Don’t waste this opportunity on vague top-of-the-funnel terms. Focus on the ones that show intent to buy.

The difference in strategy looks like this: A company selling CRM software shouldn’t waste ad dollars on a generic phrase like “Best CRM Software.” Instead, they should bid on searches like “[Product Name] vs. [Competitor Name]” or “[Product Name] Reviews.”

These buyers already know what they’re looking for. Your job? Help them make that final decision, and make it easy to choose you.

5. Support a long-term sales cycle with ads

Endless Customers isn’t about quick wins, it’s about creating a brand people trust before they ever buy.

That’s where paid ads can do serious work.

Instead of going straight for the conversion, use paid ads to guide buyers through an intentional, multi-week or months-long journey. Especially in industries with longer sales cycles, consistent, value-driven touchpoints can keep your brand top-of-mind while trust continues to build.

You’re not just nurturing leads. You’re conditioning the market to see you as the go-to authority, the brand that actually helps.

Let’s say you’re selling a complex product or service. Instead of pushing an aggressive “Book a Demo” ad to cold audiences, build an ad sequence that nurtures leads over time, like this:

Week 1: Promote a blog post answering a key buyer question
Week 2: Retarget with a short video featuring a customer testimonial
Week 3: Retarget with a downloadable resource
Week 4: Offer a low-commitment CTA like “Watch Our Demo” or “See How It Works”

Each step builds trust, answers a question, and moves them closer to a decision.

FAQs about running paid ads with the Endless Customers System™

Still sorting out the best way to put ads into action? These are the questions we hear most from businesses implementing the Endless Customers System™ and how to approach them without burning time or budget.

1. When is the right time to start running ads?

Start ads only after you have a strong content foundation. If you don’t have educational content in place, such as Big 5 articles and videos, ads will struggle because they’ll be driving traffic to an unproven system.

You need to build the value first. Then scale visibility with ads.

2. How much should I budget?

A good starting point is $1,500–$5,000/month. That’s enough to gauge what’s working and refine your targeting without going all-in too soon.

Once you start seeing traction, especially with retargeting and content-focused campaigns, you can scale up with confidence.

3. Should I use lead-generating ads or send people to my website?

It depends on the stage of the buyer.

Cold audiences: Drive traffic to your site, specifically to high-value educational content. This is how you start building trust from day one.
Warm audiences (retargeting): Lead-generating ads can work well when prospects have already engaged with your content and are familiar with your brand. At that point, they’re more likely to fill out a form or take the next step.

Don’t skip straight to lead capture. Earn the click first, then the conversion.

4. What platforms work best?

Different platforms serve different stages of the buyer journey. Use each one for its strengths:

Google Search Ads: Capture high-intent buyers.
Facebook & Instagram Ads: Build trust and retarget.
YouTube Ads: Educate and create authority.
LinkedIn Ads: Great for B2B audiences.

The key isn’t being everywhere. It’s being strategic with where and how you show up.

Turning ads into a trust-building machine

Paid ads can be powerful, but only when they’re used the right way. If you treat them like a shortcut to sales, you’ll be disappointed. But if you treat them as a way to amplify your trust-building strategy, that’s when things start to click.

To recap, here’s how to align paid ads with the Endless Customers System™:

Start with content. Your ads are only as effective as the content they lead to. Build a strong foundation first, then turn on the traffic.
Use ads to educate, not just promote. Focus on answering questions, addressing objections, and guiding buyers forward.
Retarget with value. Stay top-of-mind by offering testimonials, tools, and next-step resources, not pushy offers.
Match the platform to the intent. Social and display ads are great for awareness. Search is where you capture high-intent buyers. Use each one strategically.
Think long-term. Ads aren’t just for quick wins, they’re for accelerating trust, shortening sales cycles, and fueling sustainable growth.

When you run ads this way, you don’t just generate clicks. You create momentum. You build credibility. And over time, you earn what every business wants most: Buyers who trust you before they ever talk to sales.

When done right, paid ads don’t just get clicks, they create endless customers.

How to Create Content That Stands Out and Converts More Customers

Allison Riggs — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

With over 7 million blog posts published daily, breaking through the noise to reach the right audience is harder than ever.

Having worked with countless teams trying to get their content to "click," I’ve seen the same mistakes repeated time and again—companies churning out content that's more about them than the people they’re trying to help.

Here’s the reality: Most content fails. A staggering 96.55% of online content gets zero traffic from Google.

Why? Because it doesn’t solve real problems or connect with the audience in a meaningful way.
Instead, it’s often self-centered—focused on the business, highlighting what they do and why they’re great—without considering what buyers truly need to make informed decisions.

Great content goes beyond just informing—it resonates. It solves problems, tells compelling stories, builds trust, and delivers real value.

But creating this kind of content takes intentionality.

It’s not just about generating traffic—that’s a leading metric, not the goal. The true goal is to guide people through their decision-making process, answer their questions, and ultimately help them take action (whether that’s with you or not).

Adapting to changing audience behavior

In recent years, the way people consume and trust the content they consume has changed. AI and community platforms like Reddit have transformed how audiences seek answers, gravitating toward sources they feel are unbiased and authentic.

Not long ago, if I had a question—whether it was about dinner, a vacation spot, or how to fix something—I’d instinctively turn to Google. Today, I rely on ChatGPT for quick, personalized answers.

Gone are the days of keyword-stuffed articles or writing solely to rank on Google. Success today is about being genuinely helpful and trustworthy—and that’s where businesses must focus to stand out.

What kind of content actually stands out and converts?

Content that stands out doesn’t focus solely on making a sale; it educates the reader. The primary goal is to provide an unbiased solution to their problem.

By giving readers a clear understanding of their challenges and potential solutions, you build trust and equip them with the information needed to make an informed decision.

This type of content answers questions honestly and thoroughly, ensuring readers feel they’ve received the full picture. It’s not about holding back or pushing for a sale—it’s about delivering value and answering questions in the way they deserve to be answered.

Standout content addresses topics that others might shy away from. It addresses difficult or overlooked issues within the industry and presents fresh, actionable solutions. This approach not only differentiates your content but also positions your brand as a trusted authority, naturally leading to conversions as a byproduct of the education and value provided.

How to measure whether your content resonates with your audience

While metrics like traffic, leads, and engagement are important, they don’t fully determine whether your content stands out.

To gauge success, ask yourself:

How well does your content answer your audience’s questions?
Does it provide open, honest, and thorough responses?

Standout content goes beyond surface-level answers. It leaves no room for doubt or further searching. When your audience feels they've received a complete answer and no longer need to look elsewhere, you know you’ve hit the mark. It’s not just about offering information; it’s about making your audience feel like they’ve found exactly what they need.

Additionally, standout content often explores topics others avoid. By diving deep into unspoken issues and offering real, actionable solutions, you build trust and establish authority, fostering stronger relationships with your audience.

I recently worked with a company facing a dilemma involving a major manufacturer in their industry.

The company, a prominent leader in its industry, recently faced significant backlash after making a controversial decision that left customers questioning their trust. The manufacturer provided a government agency with unrestricted access to their products, a move that many felt was a breach of privacy and security.

Most companies in the industry chose to stay silent. But one company took a different approach. After a year of silence, they recognized their customers’ concerns and decided to address the situation openly. They created content that directly acknowledged the controversy, explained the facts, and addressed the myths. They also provided actionable solutions.

This approach was bold but effective. By being open about the issue and offering solutions, they not only eased customer concerns but also positioned themselves as a trusted resource. They showed they were willing to tackle difficult conversations, which ultimately built trust.

This example highlights a challenge many industries face—avoiding competitor discussions. But your customers are already comparing you to your competitors, whether you like it or not. By monitoring competitors’ content and conversations, you can ensure you’re addressing any misinformation or misconceptions in your industry. This helps you lead the conversation and build deeper trust with your audience.

Key elements to differentiate your content

To differentiate your content from competitors, especially when you're answering the same questions or targeting the same audience, focus on these key elements:

Be unbiased: Present information impartially, offering a balanced perspective. When your audience trusts that you’re presenting both the pros and cons, they’re more likely to value your advice.
Offer clear next steps: Don’t just answer a question—guide your audience toward actionable next steps. This doesn’t always mean “work with us”; it could be directing them to another resource or a deeper dive into the topic.
Fully answer the question: Avoid vague responses. Ensure your content thoroughly addresses the question, leaving no room for confusion.
Provide multiple ways to consume the content: People engage with content differently. Whether it’s a blog post, video, or guide, offer a variety of formats to meet your audience where they are.
Solve problems, not just inform: Don’t just educate—solve problems. If your content helps your audience overcome challenges, it adds value and establishes your authority.

By incorporating these principles, you can create content that stands out, builds trust, and drives meaningful engagement.

Why doesn’t everyone create standout content?

The answer is simple: Fear.

Many companies hesitate to create content that truly resonates because they’re afraid of giving away too much. There’s this tendency to hold onto information, almost like a gatekeeper, as if keeping it locked behind closed doors gives them more control over the conversation. The logic is that if customers can find the answers they need on a company’s website, why would they need to contact the business? And if they don’t reach out, the company might miss the opportunity to sell.

But here’s the truth: Holding back limits trust and credibility. By freely sharing knowledge, you position your business as a trusted resource. This transparency builds relationships that outlast any sales pitch.

Shifting this mindset requires a change in perspective, starting with leadership. For many companies, this begins with leadership truly buying into the idea of helping people first and selling second. It’s easy to say that you're in the business of helping others, but living it is another thing entirely. Leadership needs to set the example, showing that the company’s collective knowledge and experience aren’t just meant for internal use or a select group of clients. They’re meant to be shared with anyone who could benefit from them.

Think about it—companies often boast about decades of experience on their website. So, why not share that wealth of knowledge? Instead of hoarding expertise, businesses can make the decision to be transparent and open. By doing so, they not only build trust but also guide people through their buying decisions, helping them make the best choices for their needs. Whether it’s a pool company, an IT service, or a payroll provider, people are looking for guidance, not just a pitch.

By freely sharing knowledge, businesses have the power to impact far more people, helping them solve problems and guiding them toward the right decision. It’s not just about holding onto information for the sake of controlling the conversation—it’s about realizing that the more you give, the more people you can help. And when you help people, they’ll remember you when it’s time to buy.

How can companies create standout content?

Creating standout content begins with understanding your audience and mapping out their buying journey, even before they’re ready to purchase. To do this effectively, you need to focus on four core elements:

Understanding your audience
Mapping the buying journey
Incorporate storytelling
Think beyond the product

Let’s break each of these down.

1. Understanding your audience

Start by understanding who your audience is. But let’s be clear—this doesn’t mean creating complex, fictional buyer personas with detailed, magical characteristics. Instead, focus on the real, tangible traits of the people who will buy your product.

What are their pain points?
What problems are they trying to solve?
What questions are they asking in the process of figuring things out?

Understanding this allows you to create content that directly speaks to their needs, addressing their worries and concerns at every stage of their journey.

2. Mapping the buying journey

Your content shouldn’t just align with your sales process, which typically begins when someone is already in the consideration or decision-making phase. Instead, you need to start much earlier—at the point where the potential customer first becomes aware of their problem.

Think about all the questions, fears, and doubts they might have as they start to recognize the pain. These are the questions they might research online, ask their friends, or look for answers within their community. All of these should inform your content strategy.

By capturing their attention early in the process, you can nurture them as they move from awareness to consideration and finally to making a decision.

3. Incorporate storytelling

Storytelling is essential to making your content memorable and relatable. Humans have always learned and connected through stories, whether it’s mythology, family tales, or modern entertainment. Storytelling is in our DNA.

When you incorporate stories into your content, you give people a way to connect with your message emotionally. People don’t just want facts; they want to understand how your product or service fits into the bigger picture of their lives and solves their problems. A compelling story allows them to see themselves in that narrative.

This is why concepts like Donald Miller’s “Building a StoryBrand” resonate so well with audiences. When you position your brand as the guide in someone’s journey (with your customer as the hero), you don’t just offer solutions—you create a deeper, more meaningful connection.

4. Think beyond the product

Your content shouldn’t just focus on your product or service—it should emphasize the transformation your audience will experience by solving their challenges. Approach your content with the intent to educate and provide value, even before someone is ready to make a purchase. This builds trust and establishes your company as a credible authority in your industry.

By sharing the knowledge you’ve accumulated and telling your own stories, you can demonstrate both expertise and empathy—two powerful ingredients for creating lasting relationships with your audience.

By focusing on these four elements, you’re setting the stage for content that not only captures attention but also nurtures prospects through their entire buying journey.

4 Tools to help you create standout content

Great content starts with understanding your audience and mapping their journey. However, leveraging the right tools can streamline the process and ensure you create content that is both impactful and efficient.

Here are some tools and resources you should consider incorporating into your content creation strategy:

1. Custom GPTs

One of the most innovative ways to create standout content is by building a custom GPT. Tailored AI tools can be trained on your industry, products, and customer insights to help generate highly relevant, personalized content ideas and solutions.

For example, you can train a GPT to reflect your company's tone of voice, address specific audience pain points, or assist in brainstorming blog topics and scripts. By customizing AI tools, you can make content creation faster and more aligned with your audience’s needs.

2. Tapping into community platforms

Platforms like Reddit are often overlooked but can be goldmines for content ideas. These community-driven spaces are where people ask real, raw questions as they seek help or share their experiences. This is especially valuable in industries like home services, where potential customers may search for solutions to common problems in forums.

For example, you can find questions such as “How do I fix [specific problem]?” or “What should I expect when [service]?” These insights can inspire content that directly addresses these pain points and positions your business as a trusted expert.

3. Keyword research tools

Keyword research remains critical to understanding what your audience is actively searching for. Tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush reveal search volumes, trends, and related keywords, enabling you to optimize your content for search engines while aligning with customer intent. This ensures your content is both visible and valuable.

These tools also help you identify gaps in your content strategy by showing you which topics are underrepresented in your industry.

4. Keywords Everywhere extension

For quick insights while browsing, the Keywords Everywhere browser extension is an excellent resource. It displays related search terms, search volume, and other helpful metrics directly in your browser. For example, when you type a question into Google, it will show you similar questions being asked and the volume of searches around each. Making it easy to validate content ideas and identify the types of questions your audience wants answered.

While these tools are powerful on their own, their real value lies in how you use them together. For example:

Start by exploring community platforms like Reddit to identify raw, real questions from your audience.
Validate those ideas using keyword research tools such as Ahrefs or Keywords Everywhere.
Use a custom GPT to help you expand on those topics in a tone and style that resonates with your audience.

By combining your audience insights with these tools, you can create content that not only captures attention but also drives meaningful results. The key is not just using tools for the sake of it but integrating them into your overall strategy with a clear focus on serving your audience’s needs.

Be bold, stay curious, and trust the process

Creating standout content that resonates with your audience and drives performance doesn’t require complex strategies or tools—it starts with simple, intentional steps.

A quick win you can implement today is to end every piece of content with a clear, next-best step. Whether it’s a blog, video, or social media post, guide your audience on what they should do next. For example, direct them to read another blog, download a resource, contact your team, or watch the next video in a series. This small but powerful action helps keep your audience engaged, builds trust, and moves them along their journey with you.

Think of it this way: Great content should never leave your audience wondering, “What now?” It should always provide direction. Your content should inspire and enable your audience to take that next step confidently.

Finally, if you’re just starting to create content, remember this: There’s no such thing as too much content. Industries evolve, questions change, and the way people seek answers shifts over time. If you feel like you’ve run out of topics, it’s often a sign you’re avoiding the content that needs to be written.

Be brave and write what your audience truly needs to hear—even if it feels vulnerable or uncomfortable. Great content is about courage and connection.

Always ask yourself: If I were on the other side, would this content provide the answers I need? If the answer is yes, create it.

When you put your audience first, your content will naturally perform better, and your brand will stand out as a trusted resource.

Looking for the They Ask, You Answer Playbooks or Tools? Read This First.

rruffolo@impactbnd.com (Bob Ruffolo) — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 17:00:00 GMT

If you landed here, chances are you’ve read They Ask, You Answer and you’re looking for the playbooks or downloads we mentioned in the book - the ones that lived at impactbnd.com/playbooks or impactbnd.com/downloads. Those playbooks and tools were designed to help you take the ideas from the book and put them into action, step by step.

But a lot has changed since They Ask, You Answer was published in 2019.

The digital landscape has evolved. Buyer behavior has shifted. AI has transformed how companies create content, sell, and scale. And so, those original playbooks and tools, while helpful at the time, no longer reflect the strategies or standards we use today. They were outdated, and to be candid, not many people were using them. So, we took them down.

But we didn’t stop there.

We’ve since released a new book, Endless Customers (formerly They Ask, You Answer), which reflects everything we’ve learned over the past five years. It’s more current, more actionable, and built to help businesses like yours become the most known and trusted brand in your space.

If you’re ready for the next step, here’s what you should do:

1. Start with the Book

Get your copy of Endless Customers here:

👉 Buy the Book

This is the foundation. It lays out the entire system, updated for today’s buyer and today’s tools.

2. Download the Companion Guide

We created a free, detailed companion guide that includes tools, templates, and frameworks to help you get started with the Endless Customers System™.

👉 Access the Companion Guide

It’s what the original playbooks were meant to be, only better, smarter, and far more useful.

3. Explore More Updated Resources

Here are some of the latest tools and articles that can help you move forward with confidence:

You’ll also find more guides, training, and tools inside our Learning Center, where we continue to publish and update resources every week.

We’re glad you’re here. If you’re serious about putting these strategies into practice, Endless Customers is the path forward. Let’s get to work.

7 Marketing Tools for Small Business Growth in 2025

scasstevens@impactbnd.com (Stephanie Baiocchi) — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 15:28:59 GMT

I recently had coffee with a friend who owns a small business and doesn’t have much experience with marketing. He is a professional coach with a lot of good business ideas and his one-to-one work was so effective that he wanted to expand. We started talking about how he could grow his newsletter and I asked, "How many people receive your newsletter now?” He said it was a few hundred.

I asked what he used to send the newsletter and he said “My email.” I eventually learned he was manually pasting newsletter content from a Word document into a single Gmail email and sending it to one person at a time. Every week.

I asked, “Where do you store all the email addresses of people who want to receive your newsletter?" He said his “contact list.”

After some more questioning, I learned he meant the contact list on his phone. I was shocked that this was something someone would do. He was equally shocked when I showed him there was a tool that would let him save a bunch of email addresses and individually send them all a newsletter with one email. Showing him HubSpot’s email tools and CRM was just as mind-blowing to him as his current method was to me.

I start with this story to share that sometimes I have this curse of knowledge working for a marketing company. Not all small businesses have a lot of marketing knowledge.

In 2025 especially, many small businesses are struggling. Today’s buyers are more hesitant than ever to make a purchase. They are scared of being scammed or, worse, just making a poor choice.

Businesses aren’t just competing against each other—they’re also competing against indecision. The key isn’t just proving that you’re better than competitors—it’s demonstrating that you are trustworthy and have their best interest in mind, not just your bottom line.

The right marketing tools can bridge that gap, helping you build trust, connect with consumers, simplify your process, and deliver results.

However, navigating today’s marketing technology landscape can feel like standing in a “Tools R Us.” Especially with the rapid emergence of AI technology, there are just so many options available that it’s hard to know where to start.

How do you find the time to stop and learn what you should be using? You don’t want to waste time trying out a bunch of tools, but on the other hand, you want to make your processes more efficient.

We often say things like, “You should require your team to research AI tools and figure out what they can use,” but looking at the hundreds of tools available, and knowing the landscape will only continue to grow, can be paralyzing.

Selecting the right marketing tools is like trying to pick the best toothpaste from a wall of options. They’re all toothpaste. They all do relatively the same thing, right? How can you possibly choose one over another?

With more than 14,106 marketing tools available—a staggering 27.8% year-over-year growth according to Scott Brinker’s Marketing Technology Landscape—it can feel like you’re in that toothpaste aisle wondering where to start or what to prioritize.

As we navigate the overwhelming landscape of marketing tools, especially in the era of AI, it’s essential to focus on what will truly move the needle for your business. It’s easy to get distracted by the sheer number of options available, but a strategic approach starts with the basics. For small businesses, the foundation lies in clean, organized data and efficient processes. Once that foundation is set, the right tools can amplify your efforts and accelerate growth.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at seven essential tools that can streamline your marketing, enhance your strategies, and help you stay ahead of the competition.

Editor’s Note: Heads up — This article includes affiliate links for HubSpot and Vidyard, and IMPACT may receive compensation from them. This in no way affects the examples/tools featured.

7 marketing tools to propel small business growth

Whether you’re looking to optimize your email lists, improve communication, or analyze data more effectively, these tools are designed to work in harmony with your existing marketing, empowering your business to thrive in 2025 and beyond.

1. HubSpot

Referring back to the story at the beginning, one of the most impactful steps small businesses can take to enhance their marketing efforts is organizing their email lists within a centralized platform. HubSpot enables you to communicate effectively with your audience, ensures compliance with legal opt-in requirements, and allows recipients to manage their preferences with ease.

HubSpot Marketing Hub is a comprehensive, multifaceted tool that you can start using for free. From email marketing and conversational bots to list segmentation and social media management, HubSpot Marketing Hub does it all. In my experience, it’s one of the easiest platforms to learn, making it accessible to anyone, regardless of technical expertise.

For small businesses, HubSpot offers an additional advantage: It grows with you. Instead of starting with a beginner-focused tool and later migrating to a more advanced platform, HubSpot allows you to scale seamlessly, consolidating all your marketing efforts in one place. With its extensive integration ecosystem and compatibility with tools like Zapier, HubSpot can work seamlessly with the platforms you already use.

While all of this sounds great, it’s important to note that HubSpot’s wide range of features can feel overwhelming at first. Figuring out the right plan for your needs may take some time. Fortunately, experts like us at IMPACT are here to help you identify the best HubSpot plan for your business.

Getting started is the most important step. To maximize your return on investment (ROI) with HubSpot, it’s important to stay organized. My best tip for this is to implement a clear naming convention for lists, campaigns, and assets from the moment you get started. Decide whether you’ll include dates, event names, or use abbreviations for recurring items. Consistency will save you time and keep your HubSpot environment tidy as your business grows.

Finally, don’t overlook the value of HubSpot’s community and learning Academy. These resources, which are included for any paying customers, are invaluable for small businesses, offering guidance and support to help you succeed.

HubSpot offers a free version as well as paid tiers such as Starter ($20/month), Professional, and Enterprise. There’s a plan for every budget and business size, making it a flexible and scalable solution for your marketing needs. Need help choosing?

2. Canva

Canva is a game-changer for small business marketing. Gone are the days of needing to master the Adobe Creative Suite just to edit a photo or create a professional design. Canva makes visual content creation accessible for anyone—no design experience is required.

The human brain processes images around 60,000 times faster than text and 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual. This is why using images and visual elements can elevate your messaging, enhance engagement, and help build trust with your audience.

Canva makes it easy to create eye-catching, branded visuals without outsourcing to a designer, allowing you to move quickly and efficiently. Consistent, on-brand colors and designs communicate professionalism and reinforce your brand identity.

What sets Canva apart is its user-friendly and powerful features that simplify design work for small businesses. The background remover allows you to quickly eliminate backgrounds from images, a task that would typically require more complex tools like Photoshop. Canva also offers a broad selection of templates for social media posts, animated stories, and videos, allowing you to create dynamic, engaging content instead of just static images.

For businesses that need to design across multiple platforms, Canva’s Pro version makes resizing designs effortless, adjusting content to fit various formats with a single click. The Brand Kit feature in the Pro version keeps your logos, colors, fonts, and other brand assets organized in one place, ensuring consistency across all your designs. Additionally, Canva allows you to generate and integrate QR codes directly into your designs, streamlining the creation of marketing materials or paying for another tool to create QR codes.

With so many templates and options available in Canva, it can be tough to stay focused on the job at hand. I recommend going into Canva with a goal of something you need to create. Don’t just wander around aimlessly or hours later you’ll be so deep in the templates you’ll need a ladder to get out. There’s just too much at your disposal to scroll through all of it. You have to have a plan when you get started or you’ll likely get overwhelmed by the options.

Canva also integrates with various tools allowing you to streamline your workflow. You can even share your designs directly to Slack or other platforms with a simple click.

To maximize ROI with Canva, keep in mind you can upgrade and downgrade your account as needed. You also have the ability to pay for specific elements when necessary, instead of an entire plan. For example, if you only need a Pro feature like a particular font or image, you can pay for that one element without committing to the entire Pro plan.

Canva offers a free version with plenty of features to get started. For more advanced options they also have a pro option for $12 - $15 per month, as well as custom enterprise pricing for teams of 20 or more.

3. Vidyard

Building trust with your audience becomes effortless when you put a face to your brand. Video offers a unique opportunity to let potential customers see, hear, and know you before any in-person interaction, establishing familiarity and trust from the start.

Vidyard is a versatile tool for sharing trust-building marketing content on your website, in emails, and even for sales conversations and internal communication.

Vidyard also provides robust video analytics, so you can track the performance of your videos and adjust your strategy based on real data. This helps you refine your approach and improve your video content over time.

While Vidyard has many powerful features, small businesses may encounter challenges with limitations on the number of videos they can produce and branding restrictions, especially in the free version. However, Vidyard integrates seamlessly with popular marketing platforms like HubSpot, making it an excellent choice for businesses already using these tools. The integration enhances your video strategy and data tracking, providing greater value with minimal disruption.

To maximize ROI with Vidyard, encourage your sales team to use it as well. They can send personalized video messages to prospects, helping to build relationships and close deals faster. Additionally, make sure to regularly analyze video performance and use the insights to refine your content strategy and maximize engagement.

Vidyard Chrome Extension is 100% free! As your video content needs expand, Vidyard's paid plans start at $59 per user per month, unlocking additional features and customization options.

4. ChatGPT and DALL-E

AI is no longer a concept of the future—it's here and transforming the way businesses operate. With tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E, you can get simple tasks done faster and unlock new creative opportunities. These tools go beyond content writing; they’re also great for brainstorming, ideation, and exploring topics you might not have considered before.

What sets ChatGPT and DALL-E apart is their ability to adhere to specific voice, tone, and branding guidelines, ensuring that the content aligns perfectly with your brand’s identity. You can even create a custom GPT tailored to meet your unique business needs. Plus, having image and text generation in one makes the content creation process even faster.

Despite the impressive capabilities of these tools, small businesses may face a challenge: taking the AI-generated content at face value. While these tools provide a strong starting point, the output often requires refinement to truly capture your brand's voice and ensure its effectiveness (and not sound like a robot wrote it!).

AI features are increasingly being incorporated into various platforms, and ChatGPT and DALL-E can be easily integrated with tools like HubSpot through APIs or Zapier, enabling smooth workflows and better overall efficiency.

To maximize ROI with ChatGPT or DALL-E, be sure to ask the tool to ask you questions to dig deeper into your ideas and get more targeted content. For even better results, check out our webinar with Cary, where we dive into how to get the most value from ChatGPT and DALL-E.

The typical cost structure starts with a free version, with paid plans ranging from $20 per month to $200 per month, plus team pricing options. This flexibility makes it accessible to businesses of different sizes and needs.

5. Pixel Compress

Large images can significantly slow down the performance of your website and emails, resulting in longer page load times and a negative user experience. Research from Google shows that websites taking more than three seconds to load can lose up to 53% of mobile users, underscoring the importance of optimizing images. Similarly, slow-loading images in emails can lead to lower engagement rates, with 42% of email recipients deleting messages if the images don’t display properly. Pixel Compress helps address these issues by reducing image sizes for faster load times and improved overall performance.

What sets Pixel Compress apart is its ability to compress images for both web and email use. Images are processed and placed in a queue for review, making it easy to ensure that each image is optimized correctly. This feature is especially useful for businesses that need to quickly prepare multiple images for digital content.

Small businesses may face challenges when using Pixel Compress, particularly if their original images are too small. In these cases, image quality could suffer during compression, requiring businesses to upgrade their images rather than simply relying on compression. Additionally, the optimization results and analytics can feel technical and may require a learning curve to fully understand the metrics.

Pixel Compress integrates extremely well with platforms like HubSpot, making it seamless to incorporate optimized images into your marketing campaigns.

To maximize ROI with Pixel Compress, consider subscribing to the paid version only when needed, and switch back to the free version during quieter periods. This strategy helps you optimize costs while still benefiting from image compression when necessary.

Pixel Compress offers a flexible cost structure, including a free version and paid plans ranging from $30 per month to $600 per month for agencies.

6. Grammarly

In today’s digital world, poor grammar and typos can severely damage your credibility, making you appear unprofessional and untrustworthy. Clear, error-free communication is vital for building strong relationships and maintaining a positive image. Grammarly ensures that your content is polished and professional, elevating the perception of your business.

What sets Grammarly apart is its unique ability to adjust tone, rewrite full sentences, and offer personalized suggestions tailored to your writing style. It works across most tabs and apps, following you around as you type to provide real-time feedback. Additionally, Grammarly offers a new "Authorship" feature that tracks your writing process, categorizing text sources automatically as you type or paste them into a document. This feature can distinguish between text that is typed by the user, pasted from a browser-based source, or pasted from an unknown source, such as a private browsing window. It can even identify AI-generated text and offer rephrasing suggestions. This level of detail makes it incredibly effective for keeping track of your writing workflow and ensuring consistency.

While Grammarly is incredibly powerful, small businesses may encounter a few challenges. Sometimes the tool might not fully understand what you're trying to convey, suggesting corrections that aren’t quite accurate. The pop-up interface can also get in the way if you’re using multiple apps that draw over other content. Additionally, the subscription fees may feel costly if you're primarily using it for specific tasks like grammar checks or limited prompts.

Grammarly integrates seamlessly with platforms like HubSpot, making it a versatile tool that works well within your marketing stack.

To maximize ROI with Grammarly, take advantage of its full capabilities. Adjust the writing tone to suit your brand voice, update your style guide, and set up the tool properly to fit your needs. The desktop version offers more comprehensive features than the browser-based integrations in email or Google Docs, especially if you're looking for a deeper level of content refinement. Additionally, using the AI generative text feature can help improve writing flow and make your content even more compelling.

Grammarly is free, although the features are limited. You may want to invest in the premium version which starts at $12 per month if billed annually, as it scans for more nuanced grammar issues that can weaken the quality of your writing.

7. Kickbox

Maintaining clean and optimized email lists is critical for protecting your sender reputation – which is your ability to send emails that land in people’s inboxes. Many small businesses overlook the risks of sending mass emails to poorly maintained lists, especially those filled with outdated or invalid addresses. These oversights can harm your domain’s reputation, leading to emails being marked as spam, frequent bounces, and undeliverable messages. Ultimately, this results in lower deliverability rates, meaning even legitimate emails might land in spam folders or go unseen entirely.

This is why maintaining your email subscriber list hygiene is so important. Protecting your sender score is equally vital, especially as your business works to build trust with its buyers.

Kickbox helps safeguard your email campaigns and protect your sender reputation by preventing hard bounces and ensuring emails are sent to valid addresses. By reducing the risk of sending to incorrect or fraudulent email addresses, Kickbox ensures your emails are delivered effectively, reaching the right audience and minimizing the likelihood of being marked as spam. This leads to more successful email marketing campaigns and helps maintain your credibility as a reliable sender.

What sets Kickbox apart is its easy drag-and-drop upload feature, real-time API, and flexible pricing. The platform allows you to quickly and efficiently clean your email list, helping to maintain its quality. If Kickbox can’t provide a definitive result for an email address, they offer a refund for that credit, or you can choose to re-verify the address at a later time, ensuring you get the most accurate data possible.

Small businesses might face a few challenges when adopting Kickbox, particularly during the initial setup and integration phase. It's easy to forget to use it consistently, or you may not want to accept the results if it leads to a smaller, more refined email list. However, cleaning your list is crucial for long-term success, and this tool can help avoid costly mistakes by keeping your email campaigns targeted and effective.

Kickbox integrates seamlessly with commonly used marketing platforms, including HubSpot, which makes it easy to incorporate into your existing email workflows.

A great example of how Kickbox benefits small businesses is when you receive an email list from events, sponsorships, or other sources and need to clean it up before launching campaigns. Following COVID, many businesses struggled with outdated email lists due to job changes or layoffs. For instance, IMPACT’s marketing team used Kickbox to clean and verify our contact lists, ensuring our emails reached the right contacts, ultimately improving our deliverability and campaign effectiveness.

To maximize ROI with Kickbox, it’s important to understand email deliverability best practices. Once you clean your list, be conservative with sending to risky email addresses that might negatively affect your sender reputation. This will help ensure that your emails continue to reach your audience and maintain high engagement rates.

The pricing is based on the number of contacts, with volume discounts available, making it scalable for businesses of all sizes.

Honorable mention: Fathom

Fathom deserves an honorable mention for its remarkable capabilities, especially when it comes to AI-driven call summaries. It's an incredibly efficient tool that starts off free, making it accessible for businesses of all sizes. Whether you're conducting content brainstorming sessions, interviews, or client calls, Fathom can automatically generate detailed summaries, allowing you to focus more on the conversation and less on taking notes. This feature is invaluable for streamlining content creation, capturing key insights, and ensuring that important points aren’t missed.

Embrace marketing tools to accelerate your growth

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, small businesses must remain agile and adapt to the ever-evolving marketing tools and technologies available. The key to success is to avoid the “set it and forget it” mentality—AI and other marketing tools evolve quickly, and staying on top of these changes is crucial.

Instead of paying for a tool only to fall back into old habits, fully embrace its capabilities to unlock its true potential. Start by taking advantage of free trials or versions to test new tools before committing. Experimentation is the best way to discover what works for your business, so don’t be afraid to try new things.

My one piece of advice for you would be to automate and speed up the tasks you don’t enjoy. Marketing tools are designed to make your life easier, so leverage them to handle repetitive, time-consuming tasks. This will free up your time to focus on what truly drives your business forward.

By embracing the right tools, you’ll stay ahead of the competition and set your business up for continued growth in this digital age.

5 Reasons You're Losing Deals to Competitors (And How to Fix Them)

cduprey@impactbnd.com (Chris Duprey) — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 19:08:44 GMT

Are you frustrated by lost deals despite your team’s hard work? Wondering why your customers are choosing competitors over you? You’re not alone. For many businesses, losing to competitors feels like an ongoing battle, draining resources and morale. The good news is, it doesn’t have to stay that way.

In this article, we’ll uncover the top five reasons businesses lose to competitors and how you can address each one. By understanding and resolving these common pitfalls, you’ll position your company to win more deals, build trust, and grow your reputation in the market.

1. How slow lead response times cost you sales—and how to fix it

When a potential customer reaches out, every second counts. Companies that take hours or even days to respond to inquiries are at a significant disadvantage. Meanwhile, top-performing businesses respond in minutes, leaving their competitors scrambling.

Picture this: A business owner contacts multiple IT providers because their system has failed. This is a situation that can be extremely time-sensitive. If your competition gets back to them first, they’re already building rapport while you’re still reviewing the lead. This isn’t just a missed opportunity, but a hand-delivered win for your competitors. For buyers, this quick response signals reliability and customer focus, traits that often outweigh even pricing considerations.

But slow response times aren’t just a matter of speed. They reflect a deeper problem: outdated processes. If your systems don’t prioritize lead management, you risk sending a message that potential customers aren’t a priority.

The fix:
Implement systems that prioritize speed. Use live chat tools to capture leads in real-time, set up automated notifications for your sales team, and add self-scheduling tools on your website. These tools ensure leads don’t fall through the cracks and keep your team consistently responsive. When you’re the first to respond, you’re already a step ahead, and you demonstrate the professionalism buyers expect.

2. Why transparent pricing builds trust and wins deals

Price objections are one of the most common reasons businesses lose deals, but the problem isn’t always your cost. Rather, it’s the lack of clarity around it. When buyers can’t easily understand why your prices are higher, they’re more likely to choose a competitor who makes their pricing feel approachable, even if the quality is lower.

For example, in the home remodeling industry, premium contractors often lose to lower-cost competitors simply because they haven’t explained the value behind their pricing. Buyers assume the cheaper option is “good enough” because no one has educated them otherwise. Worse, they may interpret your lack of transparency as evasiveness, which raises doubts about your overall trustworthiness.

Transparent pricing isn’t just about sharing numbers. It’s about showing the logic behind those numbers. When buyers understand what they’re paying for, they’re more likely to see your services as an investment rather than a cost.

The fix:
Be upfront about pricing. On your website and in sales conversations, break down how costs are calculated, what factors make the cost go higher or lower, and why your services are worth the investment. When buyers understand the "why" behind your pricing, they trust your expertise more. Pricing guides and explainer videos are excellent tools to educate potential customers and help them feel confident in your value.

3. Why discussing pricing early saves time and builds confidence

Many businesses wait until late in the sales process to discuss pricing, only to lose deals because the cost was unexpected. This leaves buyers feeling misled and wastes valuable time for both parties. By the time pricing enters the conversation, buyers are already comparing you to competitors who were upfront from the beginning.

Imagine how much smoother your sales process could be if buyers knew from the start whether your services fit their budget. Tools like pricing calculators or downloadable guides can empower potential customers to self-qualify before they even contact you. This saves your sales team time while ensuring leads enter the pipeline with realistic expectations.

Additionally, discussing pricing early helps weed out tire-kickers who are browsing with no intention of purchasing. While it may feel risky to lead with pricing, it actually positions you as honest and respectful of the buyer’s time.

The fix:
Introduce pricing early. Add cost-related resources to your website, include ranges in initial discussions, and qualify leads for budget during your first interaction. Transparency at the outset builds trust and ensures you’re speaking with the right prospects. Early pricing discussions also give you a chance to explain how your costs reflect the quality and reliability of your services, setting you apart from competitors.

4. Take control of the narrative by addressing weaknesses early

Have you ever lost a deal because a competitor pointed out your flaws before you could address them? It’s a common scenario. When you avoid discussing potential weaknesses, you leave space for competitors to shape the narrative. Buyers value honesty, and when they hear criticisms about your business from others first, it erodes trust.

For example, if your service doesn’t include a certain feature that a competitor offers, buyers might see this as a dealbreaker. But what if you do that as a conscious choice that benefits your customers, even if it doesn’t look as good at first glance? Explain that to them honestly and openly! Ignoring potential objections doesn’t make them go away. Instead, it magnifies them.

Proactively addressing your "white elephants" shows confidence in your offering. It gives buyers a balanced view of your strengths and limitations, empowering them to make informed decisions.

The fix:
Be transparent about your weaknesses. When you proactively address the “elephant in the room” in your offering, you demonstrate honesty and confidence. Buyers appreciate when you take the lead, and they’re more likely to trust your guidance over a competitor’s critique. Share articles or videos that tackle common objections directly. When buyers feel they’ve gotten the full story from you, they’re less likely to seek validation from your competitors.

5. Why acknowledging competitors can actually win you more deals

When buyers ask, “Who else should I consider if not you?” many sales teams panic. The instinct to deny competitors’ capabilities often backfires, making your business seem defensive and less trustworthy. Buyers know there are other options, so pretending otherwise only weakens your credibility.

Instead, consider the power of honesty. Some of the most effective businesses openly acknowledge competitors and even guide buyers toward the right fit. Ironically, this approach often strengthens trust, leading prospects back to you.

Acknowledging competitors doesn’t mean underselling yourself. It means demonstrating confidence in your offering and a genuine commitment to helping buyers find the right solution. Even if that solution is not yours.

The fix:
Create content highlighting top competitors and their strengths. For example, a blog titled “5 Great Providers of [Service] in [Location]” can be a powerful tool. When buyers ask for alternatives, share the resource and emphasize your confidence in your offering. This transparency often results in prospects choosing you because of the trust you’ve built.

Why fixing these issues is essential

Losing to competitors is more than just a lost sale, but a hit to your business’s momentum, reputation, and potential growth. Each missed opportunity represents resources wasted and trust unearned. The ripple effects can extend far beyond a single deal.

By addressing these five common issues, you create a foundation of trust, clarity, and responsiveness that sets your business apart. Buyers aren’t just looking for a product or service; they’re looking for confidence in their decision. When you can demonstrate honesty, expertise, and a willingness to have the tough conversations, you become their clear choice.

Your next step:
Start by identifying the biggest pain point in your current process. Is it lead response time, pricing transparency, or controlling the narrative? Focus on one area, implement the fixes outlined above, and measure the results. Want to learn more about transparent pricing strategies? Check out this episode of our podcast, Endless Customers.

In the end, it’s not just about closing the next deal—it’s about building relationships and a reputation that makes you the first and only choice for your ideal buyers.

What are the steps of IMPACT’s sales process?

cdelaney@impactbnd.com (Connor DeLaney) — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 13:44:38 GMT

Every company that speaks with our team at IMPACT comes looking to solve a problem they have in their business. Whether it be lead generation, content marketing, attribution reporting, sales team effectiveness, developing a marketing strategy, among many others, there’s a.

The reality is, the solutions to these problems can look different depending on the industry, company size, or goals of the organization. Frankly, this means the conversations our team has with a company interested in working with us needs to be focused on understanding those problems, determining what success looks like, then building out the right solution, assuming our team is the right fit to help.

At IMPACT we have designed our sales process to be efficient, linear, and educational for our prospects, and we move forward only when they understand our unique approach to their success and believe in the philosophy of coaching and training. What does that mean?

We are a sales and marketing coaching company, we’re not an agency where we do things for you. We help you build the team and infrastructure so you never have to rely on an outsourced agency again. We train businesses how to take ownership of their marketing and optimize their sales process by implementing the principles of our business framework, Endless Customers.

Why businesses choose to partner with us

Businesses are drawn to partner with IMPACT for a variety of reasons:

Proven Expertise and Outcomes: Many professionals first learn about IMPACT through our visible presence in the industry, whether by attending our events, engaging with our content online, or through our status as an Elite tier HubSpot partner. They see firsthand the insights and best practices we share across multiple platforms, including articles, videos, podcasts, and live presentations. This exposure not only showcases our expertise but also the tangible results we achieve, inspiring confidence in our ability to replicate similar successes for them.
Tailored Solutions: As a leader in business transformation, our strength lies in empowering companies not only to adopt new technologies and methodologies but to truly integrate them into their operations to maximize outcomes. Unlike typical service providers who may simply set up tools, we focus on equipping your team with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively use these technologies and methodologies themselves. This approach goes beyond adoption; it transforms business practices, making teams more effective and self-sufficient. Our strategic planning and hands-on training ensure that businesses are well-prepared to meet their goals, enhance productivity, and drive growth.

How We Help

At IMPACT, we focus on equipping your team with the skills and strategies needed for success.

We offer a comprehensive program that includes:

Leadership Coaching: Our coaches bring extensive business leadership experience to every interaction, helping your team navigate complex challenges and achieve strategic goals.
Strategic Planning Sessions: We guide you through detailed planning that aligns with your business objectives, ensuring that every marketing and sales activity is purpose-driven.
Hands-On Training: Covering essential areas such as SEO, content strategy, and video production, our training empowers your team to execute with confidence and skill.
HubSpot Mastery: Leveraging our HubSpot partnership, we teach you how to maximize these tools to enhance your sales and marketing effectiveness.
Sales Process Integration: We show you how to strategically use content within your sales processes, educating prospects and closing deals more efficiently.

Our approach is designed to not just deliver information but to transform your team’s capabilities, making your business more dynamic and competitive in today's digital landscape.

No matter the path a prospect takes to get in touch with our team, anyone who wants to learn more about IMPACT’s service offerings follows the same sales process, which can take as short as two weeks or quite a bit longer, depending on how much education our sales team has to do.

In this article, we’re going to map out IMPACT’s sales process, defining the key steps every company takes when speaking with our sales team, what they can expect at each stage, and the requirements for success as you move forward.

The IMPACT Sales Process: Education First

When any prospect enters our sales pipeline, our primary goal is to educate them. What does education first mean?

It means that we don’t pressure sell you. We believe that in order for you to make the right purchasing decision, you must have a clear understanding of the problem(s) you’re looking to solve, how we help businesses like yours, who is successful and not successful with IMPACT, and what it will take to be successful. This guarantees that future clients are well-versed in IMPACT’s philosophy and ensures that only those who are genuinely a good fit proceed, sparing potential clients from committing to a partnership that doesn't align with their needs. Each stage of the process is carefully designed with the goal of educating prospects and keeping their best interests at the forefront. One thing to keep in mind is these steps can either happen with one call or up to three calls.

High-level expectations for the call

Who should be involved in the sales process:

Decision-makers from your team are crucial to the sales process. These are individuals who have the authority to make purchasing decisions and who understand your business's strategic needs. While an IMPACT advisor will guide the process, ensuring the right decision-makers are present is key to aligning your business needs with how IMPACT can help.

How long does it typically take:

Each call with IMPACT typically lasts between 45 to 60 minutes. However, the exact duration can vary. The pace of our conversations depends largely on how detailed and open the discussions are. Our goal is always to reach outcomes that best serve your needs, whether that takes less time or requires a bit more.

How does it work:

Our sales process is outcome-driven rather than being tied to a specific type of call. This flexibility allows us to adapt to the unique pace of each conversation. By focusing on outcomes, we ensure that the process moves at a pace that feels right for you and is aligned with achieving your desired results. We measure success by how well we meet your needs, not by the clock.

Step 1: Identify if you have a problem that needs to be solved

Your most valuable asset is your time. Nobody likes to waste their time in a conversation that isn’t going anywhere, so before you even talk to one of our advisors for the first time, you can expect a bit of homework.

We aim to ensure that we all have a shared foundation of expectations before we dive into a conversation. IMPACT is not a marketing agency. We’re teachers, coaches, and trainers. We’re not going to write your content and film your videos. We’re going to train your team how to create content at a world-class level and make sure those efforts fit into a larger business strategy.

Before the first call you can expect to receive a video from one of our advisors (like the one below), as well as 1-2 pieces of content to review.

While it should only take you 5-10 minutes to complete, reading and digesting these pieces of content is imperative, and our advisors will not move forward to have an actual call until you confirm that you have done so.

Marcus Sheridan, explains it this way: “We give you resources beforehand to address 90% of the top-level questions you have. That way, our conversations are going to be deeper, more personal, and more impactful on your business.”

Remember, our sales process is really an education process. We can’t want to move forward until we’re all aligned.

During this first step of understanding if you have a problem we can help you solve, our advisors will ask a lot of questions about your business goals, your current challenges, and the priority or importance of each challenge. This helps us determine if there truly is a problem that needs solving and if we can effectively help. We want to guarantee that both your team and ours know as much about your business and your needs as possible. That way, we can begin planning the right course of training for your needs.

Step 2: Determine if IMPACT is the right fit to help solve that problem

Once we have a clear understanding of your challenges and have identified them as critical areas for your business, the next step is to determine if IMPACT is the right partner to help you solve these problems. This step involves a deep dive into your specific needs and expectations.

This discussion can take place during the initial call or might extend into further conversations, depending on the complexity of your challenges and the clarity of the information shared initially. We want to ensure that there is a strong alignment between your needs and our capabilities before moving forward.

Specifically, you’ll have a conversation that sounds like this:

IMPACT Advisor: “We have dug into a lot and I believe we have a clear picture of the problem. Here’s how I’d describe it: [Insert description]. Does that sound right to you?”

Prospect: “Agreed. If we could solve that, life and our business would be a lot better.”

IMPACT Advisor: “Fantastic! Now that I know you’re committed to solving this problem, let’s talk about how our team helps companies like yours solve that problem, and what it’ll take to do so.”

That brings us to step 3 of our process.

Step 3: Learn how IMPACT will help solve your problem and who will be involved

Once it’s clear that we’re a good fit for each other, your advisor will schedule a call to introduce you to your coach, who will guide you throughout your journey with IMPACT. We have a team of coaches and trainers that have helped 1000s of businesses grow and achieve success.

In this initial meeting with your coach, the focus is on building a strong foundation. While your advisor may also be present, the coach will lead the discussion. This is essential for your coach to fully understand your business, which is vital for effectively planning and implementing the strategies you need.

During this stage, you can expect the coach to cover both strategic and logistical aspects of the program. They will validate some of what the advisor has shared with them to help explain how the IMPACT program works and how it’s tailored to tackle the specific challenges you face. The goal is for you to leave the meeting with a clear understanding of what to expect from IMPACT and who you’ll be working with.

This stage is not just about reinforcing the connection but also about setting the stage for targeted interventions to help your business grow. The coach will outline the next steps and ensure you are well-prepared to succeed in our program.

Step 4: Learn the details of the program we've created and agree IMPACT’s solution will solve your problem

This step will be a presentation, separate from previous discussions, where we thoroughly walk you through the customized plan crafted to meet your specific needs.

Once you reach this stage of the process, nothing should be a surprise or new information. This meeting occurs once we've all verbally agreed to move forward, you know your team is ready to engage fully to achieve desired results, and IMPACT is confident in our ability to guide you there.

During this call, your IMPACT coach (and/or advisor) will present a detailed overview of the tailored program, providing a clear walkthrough of each component and how it addresses your unique challenges. Alongside the presentation, we will review the agreement together.

By the end of this call, we aim for a complete alignment and agreement to proceed, marking the official start of our focused efforts to achieve your business goals through the IMPACT program. If that isn’t the case by the end of this call, it means we’ve missed something in our sales process and we need to backtrack to the earlier steps.

Step 5: Get started with IMPACT

Once the contract has been signed and your initial payment has been submitted, your Account Manager will contact you within 48 hours to schedule your kickoff with your coach along with instructions for our onboarding process. This ensures a smooth start to your engagement and helps button up other miscellaneous preparatory activities.

The process, start to finish

“A sales process is a lot like dating,” says Marcus. “No one is ready to get married on the first date.” Instead, there’s a good deal of getting to know you that happens first, where both parties have to figure out if the other is right for them.

IMPACT stands opposed to the typical relationship between inbound agency and client. We believe you should not be forever dependent on an agency to write your content, film your videos, organize your HubSpot portal, and schedule your emails. You can learn to do these things (and more!) at mastery-level, ensuring true marketing and sales freedom. As such, our sales process focuses heavily on education to make sure our clients are clear about what they’re getting into.

IMPACT believes in teaching you to take ownership. In our sales process, we’ll start you down that path towards independence and excellence. Each step forward represents an investment in the future of your business, so we build these steps deliberately to get you ready.

Ready to start the process? Schedule your first call!

Video Marketing: What Your 2025 Business Video Strategy Must Include

lschmidt@impactplus.com (Lindsey Auten) — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 19:00:00 GMT

January gets all of the attention when it comes to New Year’s resolutions — mostly because so many of us give up before the month is through, falling back into comfortable old habits and waiting until next year to really change.

But the key to starting something new is to focus less on the goals and outcomes, and more on the processes and beliefs that will get you there. As James Clear writes in Atomic Habits, “It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led you to your past behavior.”

All too often, businesses hold back from fully committing to video marketing because of underlying beliefs that are hard to shake:

Video is too expensive.
Video production, especially post-production, is slow and labor-intensive.
Video content is hard to update.
My team won’t want to be on camera.

Only when we change these beliefs can we truly change our habits — and the outcomes will be worth it.

The truth is that in 2025 video production is cheaper and more efficient than ever before. But more important than that is the fact that your customers expect video from your brand. They almost require it. At the same time, video builds trust with your audience in a way that no blog post or website copy can.

In 2023, more than half of all businesses used video in their marketing, and the frequency and speed of production continued to climb. In fact, 96% of marketers recognize video as a vital component of their marketing strategy.

And video is not just for marketing. Nearly a third of businesses use video in their sales process, and this results in shorter sales cycles and higher close rates.

Experts have predicted that video now makes up more than 65% of all internet traffic, so if you’re not embracing video now, you’re in danger of falling behind.

But not to worry. In this article, I’m going to break down what should be in your 2025 business video strategy, whether you’re a total novice or a video veteran.

Remember though, video creation is a commitment. You can’t just make one or two videos and be done. We recommend developing a culture of video within your organization so that video content becomes a part of everything you do — from your marketing strategy and sales process to communication within your business.

The points I will lay out below are meant to deliver quick wins and long-term results, provided you commit to producing video content.

In this article, I’ll cover:

Business video strategy for newbies (including hiring a video producer, planning a video strategy, and using video in the sales process)
Business video strategy for veterans (including live video, virtual events, and video podcasting)

In other words, there will be something for everyone. Let’s dive in together.

Part I: Business video strategy for newbies

New to video production? This is where you should start.

1. Hire an in-house videographer

Video marketing is not an initiative that can be divided among the rest of your sales and marketing teams. Video is a process that requires the total attention of at least one person.

Think about it: Video creation is an intricate, multi-step process. To create one marketing, sales, or social media video, you first need a strategy that details exactly what the video will be used for, who the intended audience is, and where it will be hosted. Next, you need to have a script — or at least an outline — that’s been written and approved before you’re ready to shoot.

Then, you have to complete the shoot, including set up for lights, camera, microphones, staging, and backdrop.

Once the gear is set up and ready to go, you need to shoot the videos themselves, checking everything and troubleshooting along the way.

Once that’s complete, it’s time for post-production. Editing is more than just putting all your clips together. An experienced editor will mix the audio tracks with music and color correct your clips, all with proficiency and precision using pro-level editing software.

Clearly this is a big job — and we haven’t even factored in company-wide meetings, travel if you have multiple locations, approval of the content, and publishing.

To get all this done with any kind of efficiency, your 2022 business video strategy needs an in-house videographer.

How to hire a videographer

Your videographer (or video producer) will be your in-house storyteller. Therefore, you should approach hiring this person with the mindset that you’re looking for both hard and soft skills. This person needs to have the hard skills necessary to film, edit, and publish high-quality videos, as well as the soft skills to make colleagues feel comfortable on camera and plan marketing strategy.

This hire is critical to the success of your video marketing initiative.

By hiring a videographer, you’re committing to doing the work properly, and ensuring that you have a resource on your staff for the long-term success of your business video strategy.

2. Plan to add video to your website

Your website is a vital sales tool. As far back as 2019, we recognized that 70% of consumers made up their mind on what they wanted to purchase before they talked to a salesperson. How do they come to these decisions? By self-educating with the materials they find online — whether it be written content, videos, or product reviews, which they find through search engines.

This is why the website as we know it has been promoted from a virtual brochure to your most talented salesperson.

In 2023, the average person watched 17 hours of online videos per week.

By adding videos to your website, you’re giving visitors to your site the opportunity to self-select which media type they would like to consume to learn about your product or service.

'The Selling 7'

What type of videos should you be putting on your website? Start with what we call The Selling 7. These videos speak to your target audiences and help them understand your product or service — and what your company stands for.

80% videos are educational videos that answer the top 7-10 sales questions that come up on nearly every sales call. By addressing those basic questions in advance, your sales appointment will be more productive and focused.
Product or service fit videos explain an individual product or service, as well as who is (and who is not) a good fit for it. By eliminating the bad-fit prospects, your sales team will waste less time on prospects who were never going to buy from you anyway.
Cost and pricing videos offer a direct explanation of price — as well as the factors that make that price go up or down. Money is on every buyer’s mind, and addressing cost openly shows them that you’ve got nothing to hide.
Customer journey videos (or customer testimonial videos) tell a story of a past customer. These videos give a customer the opportunity to see someone else facing the same problems as they are, and see how you solved it for them. Customer journey videos provide valuable social proof and relatability.
Claims we make videos allow you to show proof of the promises you make to your customers. Do you use top-grade materials? Show it. Do your people go the extra mile for your customers? Show it. Don’t say that you’re the best. Show what makes you the best.
Employee bio videos introduce your team to your customers. These videos humanize your company and begin to establish trust. Buyers are made to feel more comfortable when they can see a face and hear a voice.
Landing page videos accompany any form or download that appears on a landing page. These videos address questions and alleviate fears. If someone is concerned about giving you their information, for example, this video reassures them.

Once you understand these types of videos, you can start to plan where to use them on your website.

Create a diagram of your website, starting with your homepage, and accounting for all the pages in the ideal path you’d like visitors to take once they leave the homepage.

Once you’ve finished that diagram, with your videographer, place The Selling 7 topics on the diagram where they fit the best. For example, all your landing pages should have a landing page video.

Then, begin to prioritize. What are the high traffic conversion paths that could benefit from a video?

This way, you can produce as many videos as you need — and place them exactly where they’ll do the most good. Then, evaluate video performance and tweak and update as necessary.

3. Utilize video in your sales process

Sales has changed. Even before the pandemic, we were shifting toward a virtual sales economy. Now, that change has been ingrained in our culture. Today, you can buy nearly everything online, and video calls are replacing boardroom meetings in every industry.

But no matter the platform, sales success comes down to trust.

Salespeople are often the last people that you want to talk to even on a good day, so building trust and humanizing them for your buyers is a must.

Video can do that.

As many as 90% of customers say that watching a video on the product helped them make a buying decision, and 75% of prospects in the latter phases of the sales process are more likely to close after receiving a personal video message.

There’s no doubt video can help your sales process. The hard part is getting started.

Start with 1-to-1 and 1-to-many videos

I recommend training your sales team to use 1-to-1 and 1-to-many videos in the sales process.

These types of video deliver a personalized, custom message to a prospect — and they can be easily created using a phone or computer. Your sales team can send a unique message to a single person (or group of people) that conveys information about what they can expect during the sales process. These videos are not highly produced. In fact, the lower production quality is an asset in this case because it makes the video feel authentic and friendly.

This tactic builds trust by introducing your sales team to people they’ve never met before, providing a human element to your communication, and adding faces and voices to the text of an email.

Instead, there's a GIF like this and a personalized message that offers richer connection.

Beyond 1-to-1 videos, how else can video improve your sales process?

Remember the 80% videos I mentioned above? This is where they are very effective. Before a sales call, a salesperson can send a prospect an 80% video to clear up the most common questions every customer asks. Then, in the meeting, the conversation can be more productive, since the video has gotten many questions out of the way ahead of time.

Your videographer should have frequent conversations with your sales team to learn about the fears, concerns, and questions they’re hearing from buyers.

Part II: Business video strategy for veterans

If you glanced over the first section and found yourself saying “Check, check, check,” this next section is for you.

If you’re reading this section, that means you feel confident in the way you use video on your website. You’ve probably got a bevy of high-quality marketing videos — as well as a fully-realized video production process.

You might even have a YouTube channel complete with brand videos, how-to videos, and other high-quality video content.

The following suggestions are the cherry on top of the video strategy cake.

1. Explore live video to connect with customers

Internet users consume billions of hours of live-stream video content each year. All the major social media platforms at this point have embraced live video.

This trend is only going to increase in the years ahead, so live video could be a great way for you to reach your target audience.

Live video, whether on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, or other social media platforms, can be a way of connecting with your audience through an authentic medium. As things are live and can’t be edited, viewers feel like they’re getting a more genuine glimpse at who your brand is and what it will be like to work with you. In the age of AI and deepfakes, authenticity is more important than ever.

There are many platforms to choose from, but I would recommend focusing on the platform your brand gets the most engagement on.

2. Host virtual events

Bigger than launch parties are full-scale virtual events. These can replace in-person events with an equally valuable experience. At this point, HubSpot has hosted two virtual INBOUND events, each with thousands of attendees, dozens of speakers, and many different kinds of video footage, from live AMAs to pre-recorded sessions to virtual networking events.

Amid the pandemic, the number of virtual events doubled, and even before that, virtual events were steadily growing in popularity.

Why is a virtual event compelling?

Well, you can invite speakers from all over the world. Inviting speakers from outside your organization who have their own raving fans allows you to organically make a connection with someone who may not have heard of your business otherwise. Think of the opportunities to network with potential prospects or potential partners at another virtual event.

It also opens up your audience to people in different geographic locations who may not have been able to attend in-person events previously. Another consideration, even beyond the pandemic, is the cost savings.

When it comes to virtual events, there are no costs for travel, hotel rooms, renting spaces, food, and more. Though you have to pay for the platform, the cost is significantly less. You can pass this savings on to your attendees, while still turning a profit for your business.

Bonus: A video podcast

If this is something you’ve always wanted to do, now is the time to jump in. Podcasting has consistently shown growth over the years, and in 2025 things kept trending upward.

Research shows that three out of four podcast listeners tune in to learn something new.

With that being said, and with the number of podcasts there are to consume in the world, you can no longer get away with having mediocre content. A video podcast is a great way to stand out.

Generally, podcasts are created live-to-tape, which basically means shows are recorded with the intent that they could go live at the time of recording. Going from “podcast” to “video podcast” should not be too difficult.

IMPACT's video podcast

To get started with your video podcast, you first need to decide what the format of the show is going to be. Is it going to be interview style or talking head? Are you going to have recurring segments? Are you going to have a guest every week?

The frequency of podcasts matters as well. As a video podcaster, you’ll likely be posting your content on a platform like YouTube or Facebook. Both platforms value frequency of posting, and on YouTube, if you create new playlists with your podcast content, that counts toward your unique content creation.

A video podcast captures all of the biggest humanizing and engagement benefits of video content in general, but I only recommend starting a video podcast if you have a clear vision of how it fits into the rest of your marketing strategy and of how you can consistently deliver this content.

The video and audio quality also have to be top-notch. Check out this set of tips for setting up an office studio.

Building a video marketing strategy that goes beyond 2025

Now that I’ve laid out a roadmap for you in 2025, it’s time to get to work.

One of the things you can decide on is what you are going to focus on first. Whether you’re a video newcomer or a video veteran, there’s always something you can be doing when it comes to video.

Remember one thing: It all comes back to building trust as a brand. For any video metrics you track, try to connect them back to that one central tenet: Is this video building trust with my audience?

By adding everything mentioned above into your 2025 business video strategy, you will be better equipped to accomplish this goal and see the leads and deals that come with it. Your marketing funnel will be full of well-educated prospects who are qualified for your products or services.

When you create videos with this goal in mind, you set yourself up for a great 2025 and beyond.

Today's Buyer Has Changed: How They Ask, You Answer Became Endless Customers

awinter@impactbnd.com (Alex Winter) — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 18:10:01 GMT

About This Episode

The world of business has seen seismic shifts in recent years. If you’re like most business owners, you’ve felt these changes firsthand. You’re navigating a marketplace that’s noisier, faster, and more competitive than ever. You’re likely asking yourself: How do I rise above the noise and stay relevant in this era of AI, trust gaps, and shifting buyer behavior?

If you’ve read Marcus Sheridan’s iconic They Ask, You Answer, you already know how transformative his principles can be. But here’s the thing: buyers—and the way they make purchasing decisions—are evolving at lightning speed. To address this, Marcus has written a new book, Endless Customers, which takes everything he’s learned and reshapes it for today’s market.

We recently had Marcus on the Endless Customers podcast to break down why this book isn’t just an update to They Ask, You Answer, it’s a complete reimagination of what it takes to attract, convert, and retain customers in 2024 and beyond.

Why was Endless Customers written?

Since its release in 2017, They Ask, You Answer has sold more copies every single year, driven largely by referrals. Marcus admits that the book’s success speaks for itself. So why the need for a new book?

“AI has completely disrupted the way businesses need to approach sales and marketing,” Marcus explained. “We’ve seen more change since late 2022 than we did in the previous 15 years.”

He’s not exaggerating. The introduction of ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI tools has changed the way buyers search for information. They’re getting instant answers from AI instead of visiting company websites. That means fewer Google searches, less organic traffic, and more competition for attention.

While They Ask, You Answer taught companies how to build trust by answering customer questions online, Endless Customers takes it a step further. It focuses on how to:

Rise above the AI-driven content noise
Build unshakable trust in a world with a growing trust deficit
Disrupt your industry by being bold, human, and innovative

“This book is all about helping businesses create systems that turn them into the most known and trusted brands in their market,” Marcus said.

Why the title change from They Ask, You Answer to Endless Customers?

One big shift is the name itself. Marcus shared that the original title, They Ask, You Answer, didn’t pass the “I want/I wish” test for great book titles.

“Nobody says, ‘I wish They Ask, You Answer,’” he explained. “But when you hear Endless Customers, that’s something everyone wants. It immediately clicks.”

This change isn’t just cosmetic. It reflects the evolution of the book’s core message. They Ask, You Answer focused on how to approach buyer questions, while Endless Customers shifts the focus to the payoff: building a system that ensures a steady stream of loyal customers.

What are the Four Pillars of Building a Known and Trusted Brand?

At the heart of Endless Customers are four pillars that define how to stand out in today’s market:

Say what others won’t. Address questions, fears, and objections that your competitors avoid. Buyers value transparency more than ever.
Show what others don’t. Video remains an unparalleled tool for building trust. If you’re not leveraging it effectively, you’re falling behind.
Sell in a way others can’t. Many companies think they have a unique sales process—but do they really? Endless Customers challenges you to rethink how you sell.
Be more human than anyone else in your space. In a world increasingly dominated by AI and automation, doubling down on humanity is your ultimate differentiator.

“These pillars are designed to help businesses disrupt their industries,” Marcus explained. “To be known and trusted today, you can’t play by the old rules. You have to break them—and create your own.”

What makes this book stand out?

What sets Endless Customers apart is its practical, system-based approach.

“Too many business books are heavy on theory and light on action,” Marcus said. “With Endless Customers, we give you a clear roadmap to follow. It’s not just ideas—it’s a system you can implement right now.”

For example, the book introduces a modern evolution of transparency. Whereas They Ask, You Answer focused on discussing pricing online, Endless Customers explores the importance of tools like pricing estimators. Marcus predicts that by 2029, over 90% of service-based businesses will need these tools to remain competitive.

This interactive approach to selling is just one example of how businesses can meet buyers where they are while building trust and credibility.

What role does disruption play in the system?

A recurring theme in Endless Customers is disruption.

Most industries are stuck in their ways. But history shows us that the leaders of one era often fail to adapt to the next. Think Kodak, Blockbuster, or even early SEO companies that dismissed AI’s impact.

“The rule breakers become the rule makers,” Marcus said. “If you’re not willing to disrupt your industry, someone else will.”

This isn’t just about technology—it’s about mindset. Marcus encourages businesses to lean into their unique intellectual property (IP) and use it to create new standards within their industries.

He shared a personal story from his early days in the fiberglass pool industry, where his company redefined how pools were installed. By highlighting the flaws of sand-based installations and advocating for gravel bases, Marcus changed an entire industry standard.

“You have to drive a stake in the ground,” Marcus said. “Show the market why your way is better, and then own that narrative.”

Who is Endless Customers for?

If you’re a fan of They Ask, You Answer, you’ll find familiar principles in Endless Customers, but with updated strategies for today’s world. Marcus has written this book to help businesses of all sizes, whether you’re a local landscaper or a global SaaS company.

“This is about becoming the most known and trusted brand in your market,” Marcus emphasized. “When you do that, you’ll have an endless flow of leads, customers, and revenue.”

With its clear frameworks, practical advice, and visionary approach, Endless Customers isn’t just a book—it’s a blueprint for growth in a rapidly changing world.

How do I start building Endless Customers?

Marcus’s new book Endless Customers is now available to order at endlesscustomers.com. Whether you’re looking to attract better leads, build trust, or redefine your industry, this book will show you how.

“The goal is simple,” Marcus said. “Read the book, follow the plan, and watch your business transform.”

Don’t wait, get your copy of Endless Customers today.

Connect with Marcus

Marcus Sheridan is a writer, speaker, and business expert who’s worked with companies all over the world. Marcus is the author of They Ask, You Answer and co-author of The Visual Sale.

Connect with Marcus on LinkedIn

Learn more about Endless Customers

Keep Learning

6 Reasons You're Not Generating Leads With Your Blog Content

jtimoteo@impactbnd.com (Justine Timoteo Thomas) — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 15:59:29 GMT

Content is an investment.

Not only does it take time for you to write it, it takes time for you to research the topic, interview subject matter experts, find examples to reference, format it in your CMS, and so on.

After you hit publish, you should feel accomplished.

But if that content doesn't bring in leads, you (and your bosses) will start questioning your strategy.

Here at IMPACT, we've helped hundreds of businesses improve the way they think about content. What we hear over and over from our new clients is some version of this: I think my content is checking all the right boxes... so what gives?

Today, I’m going to break down the top six reasons I’ve seen over the years that have hurt your ability to generate leads from your blog content. These reasons can stem from your holistic strategy to more minor tactical hurdles.

1. You’re writing about the wrong topics

This may seem like a no-brainer but in order to get people to convert on your website, your content must be speaking to their needs and pain points. How often is your blog content doing this?

When people search on Google or AI, they are looking to solve a problem or a need. They have questions.

To convert leads, your content should answer any and all questions that your prospects have.

Do you talk about cost in your content? How about competitors? (After all, when was the last time you purchased something before doing research on alternative solutions?)

By addressing the correct topics in your content, you’ll create an opportunity to build trust with your prospects and guide them through their buying process – ultimately leading them to convert.

All too often I’ve seen where people are focusing on keyword and monthly search volume to drive their blog content strategy. Though that can certainly help you gain traffic, it may not lead to generating leads.

Focus instead on writing about the topics your readers most care about when it comes to making a purchase. Answer the questions that will ultimately make or break their decision to go with you. These usually fall into five subject areas we call The Big 5:

Cost and pricing
Problems (theirs and yours)
Comparisons and versus
Best of lists
Reviews

If you're skipping these, you're not addressing what's on your buyers' minds.

2. Your content has no personality

Now you may be thinking, what does my personality have to do with written content?

Everything, my friends — especially in the age of AI.

People buy from people and companies they trust, and with 70% of the buying decision being made before a person talks to a salesperson, you need to establish trust through the voice of your content.

I’ve read my fair share of bad content, and my fair share of lifeless, dry content. I know within the first few sentences whether or not I will stick around to read the whole thing (and ultimately continue my research on the company).

And you want to know what hooks me in those first few sentences? The writer’s personality. They become a real person to me, not just a name on a byline.

If you don’t hook your reader right away, they will most likely bounce not only from your article, but your site as a whole, and you will lose out on the chance of converting them.

Just because you sit behind your computer doesn’t mean you should use it as a shield! I know it can be intimidating to try to inject your personality into your content, so try these quick tips to help you get started:

Share a story or experience you had about the topic you’re writing on
Use analogies to explain something
Break grammar rules to provide emphasis (within reason)
Write like you talk

Those few simple tricks will help you get more comfortable with sharing a little more of who you are with the rest of the internet.

My teammate, Brian Casey, gives some more advice on how to do this well in his article How to add personality into your blog posts (+ examples).

3. You’re selling too hard

We’re going to stay on the trust train a little longer.

Marcus Sheridan recently wrote about why trust is the currency to any business and in his article he noted:

Marcus continues: "Rather than producing content about ‘Why HubSpot is right for you,’ try ‘Is HubSpot the right fit for you?’ One shows bias, one does not.”

If you are using your content to sell your products and services, and outright say they are the best options for the reader, then you’re doing it all wrong.

Sometimes, you won’t be the best option and that’s OK. I’m sure your sales team has ideal-fit customers and they don’t want to waste their time trying to sell to people who don’t fit the mold.

Avoid a hard sales pitch.

One way to do that is to answer your customers’ questions without bias in your content (think The Big 5 we mentioned earlier). When you address their questions in your content, prospects take notice and trust you before you have any direct contact with them.

Honesty will help build that trust needed for people to buy from you — they will feel like you have their best interest in mind and can deliver on your promises.

4. You have no clear next steps

When a reader reaches the end of your article, what should they do next? Do they have a single, clear next step to take?

The answer should always be yes. If it’s not, no wonder you’re not generating leads.

All of your blog articles need to include a call-to-action (CTA) at the end. Now, I’m not concerned about the design or look of your CTAs at this point. I just want to make sure those CTAs exist.

The CTA is the bridge between the piece of content your reader is currently consuming and the conversion opportunity you want them to take. If you don’t have a CTA, you’re immediately missing out on the easiest way to drive readers to convert.

Two common CTA mistakes we see?

Confusing your visitors with too many offers. If you've got "Sign up for a free consultation" in one button and "Talk to us" in another and "Learn more" somewhere else, it can get confusing for your visitors. We recommend one direct and one transitional call to action.
The CTA doesn't match the buyer's journey. A top of the funnel article shouldn't end with a "Schedule your sales call" CTA. That's likely too abrupt for someone in the early stages of a purchase.

5. You’re missing links to your best content

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that I link to several related articles throughout this article. Perhaps you've even opened a few in a new tab to read after you’re finished with this one.

Each link has been selected on purpose. I genuinely want you to be able to generate leads from your blog content and I know you won’t learn every single thing you possibly need to learn just from this article.

So, I’m providing you with links to additional helpful resources.

The more content a prospect consumes on your site, the stronger your relationship and, in turn, the more trust you build with them. With this trust, the more likely they will go on to convert.

Link to your best content to continue to educate your prospects so when they are ready to talk to you, they will be more likely to actually buy.

To do so, create a list of common topics you write about and then locate the best two or three related content pieces. Your best content may be other articles, videos, service pages, a demo offer, etc. Anything that is most helpful to your readers.

Use this as a linking guide for when you write. Anytime you write about a specific topic, see what content you’ve noted down would be good to link to and then see where it is most applicable to link within your content.

6. You’re only thinking about organic traffic

Without traffic being driven to your blog, leads won’t happen.

Chances are, when you think of blog source traffic, you think of organic traffic. Now, is organic traffic imperative to be found online by people who haven’t yet heard of your company? Yes, definitely.

But oftentimes blog content can take months to rank organically so you’re wasting crucial time by not being more assertive in getting your content out there. Organic is just one source of traffic.

What's more, as AI and other tools proliferate, organic search traffic shouldn't be the only way people can find your content.

Interview your existing customers to find out their online habits. What social media platforms do they use? Which industry journals or newsletters are they subscribed to?

By finding out your prospects' online habits, you can learn where they live — digitally. Then, share your content on these platforms.

If it’s social media, find groups your prospects are part of and find discussion threads you can participate in and share your content with. If it’s an industry newsletter or journal, look into sponsored content options. If it's a podcast, see if a company expert can join and answer questions on a topic.

Promote your content to help drive eyeballs, instead of just relying on organic.

So, where do you begin?

Listen, I get it. It’s overwhelming to see a list of things you need to change in order to improve your chance of generating leads.

But you don’t need to do everything all at once. Instead, start with the two items that will have the greatest impact:

Write about the topics your prospects actually need and answer their questions
Add CTAs and next steps at the end of your articles

By focusing on writing about the right topics and adding calls-to-action to your articles, you will improve your chances of engaging the right audience and encourage them to convert on the best next step they should take.

Staffing Up After a Recession: Who to Hire When

rruffolo@impactbnd.com (Bob Ruffolo) — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 12:26:00 GMT

When the economy shrinks and demand dries up, companies often feel obligated to trim their staff. While it’s painful, it’s a natural part of the economic cycle of any organization.

According to TechCrunch: The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year [2024] has more than 130,000 job cuts across 457 companies.

While layoffs are more commonplace (and more accepted) in some industries than others during these times, the process is never a pleasant one. But sometimes layoffs are a must to stay profitable — or even stay afloat.

The opposite is also true, however. When the economy is hot and demand is high, teams are going to staff up.

For business leaders, staffing up after a recession comes with its own challenges.

If you’re in this boat — planning to hire back after layoffs — you want to be sure you get this right. Below, I’ll explain how I recommend you proceed.

When it’s time to hire for your future

For many businesses coming out of a recession or downturn, they fall into one of two camps:

The first wants to scale back up to their previous strength, so they jump at the chance of filling the positions they lost.

The others take the opposite approach — sort of a once-bitten, twice-shy mindset.

After the experience of having to cut staff once, they’re hesitant to hire, fearing that they might have to go through the whole thing again if they add headcount too quickly.

For me, hiring decisions are always a balance of data and intuition. So my advice to you is this: Hire smart. Your goal is not to add headcount, it’s to find great candidates.

Bill Gates famously said that a great writer of software code is worth 10,000 times the price of an average software writer.

For whatever role you’re hiring for, the great candidate will deliver way more value than the average candidate.

If you’re looking to hire and can’t find someone great, don’t fill the role until you find the right person. Or, if you’ve got a pipeline full of exceptional applicants, maybe hire more than one if your budget and forecast allow it.

With any new hire, you’ve got a chance to raise the overall ability of your team, but if you bring on the wrong person because you jumped the gun, you could be kicking yourself for years.

Post-recession hiring is your chance to find that all-star.

Don’t hire for what you lost; hire for the future

According to research from Accenture, 88% of executives believe that their customers are changing faster than their businesses can adapt.

This reflects the crisis that companies of all kinds are facing: Not effectively adapting to a changing marketplace.

Judging by the statistic above, your company might be in need of change. Although layoffs are never easy, there can be a silver lining. Maybe the staff you employed a few years ago doesn’t really fit your needs today — let alone your needs a few years from now.

For example, it’s easy to just want to hire back to fill the roles you lost: You had to cut three sales rep jobs? Now it’s time to hire three new sales reps.

However, I urge you to avoid that kind of knee-jerk reaction.

This is an opportunity to hire for your company’s future, not its past.

First, figure out how you’re bringing in revenue

Recently I compiled a big spreadsheet of every deal IMPACT had closed in the last six months. I listed each customer, what they bought, how they heard of us, how long they took to close, and about a half-dozen other pieces of information.

Ahead of our quarterly planning session, I asked all our company leaders and managers to study the spreadsheet. Then, at the planning session, I split them into groups and asked them what we needed to do to close more business. Imagine a Stop/Start/Keep brainstorming session.

By focusing only on the past six months, we eliminated historical bias and outdated approaches. We came up with a list of marketing and sales priorities based on the way our most recent customers were buying from us.

You should do the same.

Before you jump back in and hire the exact roles you lost, look closely at your numbers. If you’re ready to add headcount, do it in the places that make the most sense for you based on data, not nostalgia.

Hire for your future, not for your past.

While you’re at it, audit your hiring process

One more thing: before you go on a hiring spree, take some time to look at your hiring process with a critical eye.

In a famous study done a few years back, Jobvite found that one-third of all new employees quit within 90 days of starting their new job. And that was before the pandemic, the great resignation, and quiet quitting.

Part of the fault for this lies with workers, sure, but I believe a bigger share of the blame rests with employers.

Is your hiring process designed around the candidate’s needs? Are you using techniques like the 80% video to cover as many of the applicant’s questions ahead of time so you can weed out those who might be a bad fit? Are you committed to transparency and honesty?

If not, fix your process before you start putting more people through it.

This is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for

In the past few years we’ve seen drastic economic swings.

First, there was the shock of the pandemic. The bottom fell out of the stock market and unemployment spiked. Then, the government flooded the economy with stimulus money and businesses were flush with cash. Since then, there have been supply chain issues, high energy costs, and political instability.

It’s been a wild ride.

And while these last few years have been especially volatile, the economy is always going to go up and down. As a business owner, you know there will be fat years and lean years, good times and bad times.

This is the natural cycle of business.

The key is to see every up and down as an opportunity. If you’re ready to hire after a recession, use it as the opportunity to build a staff for the business you’re becoming, not the business you were.

I’m Not Getting Sales and Lead Generation from My Website

Austin Mock — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 19:56:43 GMT

“My website isn’t working.” It’s a phrase we hear all the time at IMPACT. When your website isn’t performing, it’s not just an annoyance—it’s a roadblock to growth. You’re losing potential customers, wasting resources, and watching opportunities slip through your fingers.

Maybe your website is outdated, or maybe you’ve spent time and money with an agency that promised their website optimization services would be incredible, but results have fallen flat. Either way, disappointing website results can be incredibly frustrating.

At IMPACT, we’ve helped hundreds of businesses—from growing startups to established enterprises—turn struggling websites into lead-generation machines. With years of experience solving these challenges, we know that when someone says their website isn’t working, it can mean many things. Maybe the site isn’t attracting visitors, or it’s failing to convert visitors into leads. Perhaps the leads it does generate aren’t the right fit, or the backend is so difficult to use that your marketing team feels stuck.

But the good news? Every problem has a solution. In this article, you’ll learn how to identify what’s holding your website back, explore real-world examples of successful fixes, and discover a process for transforming frustration into measurable results.

Asking the Right Questions

Fixing a website starts with understanding the problem. Before you can take action, you need to ask the right questions.

What does “not working” mean to you?
This is the most important starting point. For some businesses, the problem is low traffic—fewer people visiting the site than wanted. For others, it’s a lack of conversions—visitors aren’t turning into leads. Still, others struggle with usability issues that make the site difficult to manage.

What results do you expect from your website?
Your website should align with your goals. Are you looking to generate leads, educate prospects, or drive direct sales? Clarity about what success looks like will help you determine where your site is falling short.

What’s happening on your site right now?
Analyzing your data is critical. Tools like Google Analytics reveal where users are landing, how long they’re staying, and where they’re dropping off. One client came to us thinking they had an SEO problem, but we discovered their page load times exceeded ten seconds. This technical issue caused visitors to leave before they even saw the content.

By asking these foundational questions, you’ll uncover what’s really going on—and lay the groundwork for meaningful solutions.

Common Website Problems and Their Solutions

After asking the right questions, patterns start to emerge. Most underperforming websites face one (or more) of the following challenges:

1. Low Traffic

If your site isn’t attracting visitors, it can be tempting to jump to conclusions. Maybe you’ve heard that SEO is the culprit, or that you need more ads or social media buzz. But in reality, there are countless factors that affect website traffic, and no single answer fits every situation.

Today, the SEO landscape has become more complex and unpredictable. While SEO can still be part of the equation, focusing solely on rankings often misses the bigger picture. Traffic issues can stem from misaligned messaging, outdated content, or a lack of visibility in the places your audience actually spends time.

The Fix:

Optimize your site for mobile devices to ensure usability on all screens.
Keep content updated. Fresh, relevant content gives visitors a reason to return and keeps your site useful for your audience.
Improve site speed by compressing images and streamlining code.

2. Poor Conversions

Attracting traffic is only half the battle. If visitors aren’t taking action—like filling out a form, calling your office, or downloading a resource—it’s often due to unclear messaging, bad value propositions, or weak calls-to-action (CTAs).

The Fix:

Have very clear value propositions on your landing pages, otherwise your visitors will not be inspired to click your CTAs
Ensure every page includes a clear next step, such as “Schedule a Call” or “Download the Guide.”
Simplify and clarify your navigation so users can easily find what they need.
Address visitor pain points in your content, focusing on their problems and how you solve them.

3. Unqualified Leads

Not all leads are created equal. If your website generates inquiries that don’t align with your target audience, the problem is likely with your messaging.

The Fix:

Make sure you have content on your site around who is a good fit to work with you, and who is not a good fit. This lets prospects qualify themselves as much as possible before they ever fill out a form.
Refine your messaging to focus on your ideal customer. Ask: What are their biggest challenges? What do they need from you?
Avoid overly broad content. Instead, highlight specific problems you solve and the industries you serve.

4. Backend Challenges

An overly complex or outdated content management system (CMS) can frustrate your marketing team and slow down campaigns.

The Fix:

Migrate to a user-friendly CMS, such as WordPress or HubSpot, that empowers your team to make updates without needing technical expertise.
Organize your backend tools to streamline workflows and remove unnecessary roadblocks.

The IMPACT Process — Not Your Average Web Design Company

When businesses partner with IMPACT, they’re not just looking for quick fixes—they want a strategic approach that delivers lasting results. Here’s how we guide clients through the website transformation process:

1. Discovery Session

We start with a deep dive into your business, audience, and goals. During this phase, we ask detailed questions to uncover your pain points and opportunities. Unlike other agencies that rely on surface-level input, we push for clarity to ensure the strategy is aligned with your objectives. We will also be honest with you and let you know whether or not IMPACT will be the right fit to help you.

2. Strategy, Design, and Development

Once an agreement is in place, you'll move into design and page strategy, where we see what the site will look and feel like — both from an aesthetic point of view and a user flow standpoint. Upon approval of the design, we’ll begin to develop the designs into functioning web pages.

3. Content Guidance and Design

We guide your team in writing copy, then review and refine your content to ensure it’s clear, engaging, and optimized for search engines. From there, our design team brings your website to life, focusing on user experience and branding.

4. Launch, Optimization, and Training

We’ll work to get core website pages up and running first – usually within 4 months. After launch, we’ll start gathering visitor data to help us perfect the launched pages, as well as build out the remaining pages of your site. At the same time, we’ll train your team on how they manage and update your new website.

A Real-World Example: Combined HCM

When Combined HCM came to us, their website wasn’t just underperforming—it was holding them back. Their marketing team couldn’t make updates without outside help, and their messaging was too broad to attract qualified leads.

Here’s how we helped:

Simplified the Backend: We migrated their site to a CMS that empowered their team to make updates independently.
Refined Messaging: By focusing on their target audience’s pain points, we helped them create content that resonated.
Enhanced the User Experience: We added a learning center to guide prospects through the buyer’s journey and embedded videos to build trust.

Turning Frustration Into Opportunity

A website that isn’t working isn’t just a problem—it’s an opportunity. By addressing the root causes, you can create a site that gets the traffic you want, converts leads, and supports your goals.

At IMPACT, we specialize in helping businesses turn underperforming websites into assets they can rely on. Whether you need to improve your messaging, streamline your structure, or overhaul your entire platform, we’re here to guide you every step of the way.

Whether you work with us or not, we hope this article will help you get started on your journey to website success!

Will a Website Redesign Solve our Marketing Problems?

jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker) — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 13:31:00 GMT

Picture this: A business sees that its website isn't bringing in leads. Business leaders go to an agency and say they need a new website to turn things around.

The agency builds a sleek new website — to the tune of $60,000 — which boosts traffic for a few months, but it doesn’t seem to bring in better leads. Soon, traffic starts to level off.

The business wonders what went wrong.

Does this sound familiar?

All too often, businesses see a new website as the solution to their marketing problems. While a beautiful, clean site is certainly an asset, it is not a business strategy, in and of itself. Without a full-fledged marketing and sales strategy, a website can easily be just another shiny object that is trendy but not helpful.

A website is one of your business’s most cherished assets: a 24-hour marketer and salesperson that helps bring in customers. But just like with any other asset, the strategy behind it determines its value.

If you’re entering into a website redesign, don’t expect a flashy new website to be the panacea you’re looking for. Instead, plan on making your website redesign part of a larger strategy overhaul that ensures it will work in tandem with other marketing and sales initiatives to bring in revenue.

Below, we'll explain why your website redesign strategy needs to be about more than just site navigation and design elements.

A website is not a marketing strategy

Businesses go into website redesigns with the preconception that a new website that’s fancy, fast, and beautiful is going to solve their marketing problems.

Often, businesses entering into this process are coming from a place of pain. Traffic is down; they’re not getting leads and sales. When businesses face those situations, they think, well, what can we do? A website redesign is something they can do.

Here’s the thing: You can polish up a website, but if your website content doesn’t answer buyer questions, they’re not going to stick around. If you don’t publish content regularly, you’re less likely to rank highly in search.

If you’re not addressing these bigger marketing issues, a new website isn’t going to do you much good.

Instead, we've got to break the mold of how marketers and salespeople look at an asset like a website. A website isn't something you just refresh. It's a living, breathing thing. Yes, there are times when we need to redesign it and we need to make it prettier, but what's at the heart of it? What is it doing and what is its function?

And if we look at it from that perspective, we don't always need to focus on a redesign. We might just need to add content. We might just need to revamp some things.

The true purpose of a website

It can depend on your specific business needs, but think of a website as an answer repository for buyers. Someone should be able to come to your website and fully understand what problems you solve, and how you solve them.

Your website should do all of the things that a salesperson would normally do if a potential customer just walked in and started asking questions.

If you look at how people want to use the internet to buy, they don’t want to talk to a sales person until they are ready. That’s what our websites need to be. They need to provide answers to people who are not ready to talk to salespeople. If our websites can't give users all of this information, then we have the potential to lose people.

People want to come in and learn. People want their questions to be answered because their time is valuable. They don't want to spend hours on a sales call. They want to know how your company can help them. They want to know what working with you will be like. They want to know how much something will cost them.

And if you can't answer those questions for them in some form or fashion on your website, they’re gone.

Your website doesn't replace salespeople, it just gets potential customers more bought in and ready to talk.

Your website must be a part of your business strategy

Any website project manager will talk about strategy, but they're talking about website strategy — how the pages look and how they’re laid out and conversion paths. The most successful websites focus on a larger digital sales and marketing strategy.

This isn’t just about your website, or about your content, or about your video. This is about how you inform and educate your buyers so that you gain their trust so they will do business with you.

Most businesses should not be doing a website redesign without first doing the foundational work that needs to inform that website.

Too often, we see companies that are doing all sorts of different marketing and sales tactics, but those tactics are not grounded in principles.

This means they're working on a number of initiatives at once, but there's no unifying strategy.

Imagine this business:

They’ve got a brand new website that somebody built that doesn't do any of the things they need it to.
They've been sending out boxes of printed materials and swag in an account-based marketing-type pitch that cost them over $50 a pop, but returns are minimal.
They’re spending money on Google Search ads too, but these result in garbage leads.

They're doing all these things because their revenue's down.

They’re spending all this money, but they have no strategy.

These are marketing decisions made out of fear. They're chasing the newest shiny object, hoping it will turn things around.

A website, too, can be that next shiny thing. But without a strategy, it's just another way to spend money with questionable ROI.

The website redesign process MUST focus on strategy

Companies need to think more broadly when they’re getting ready to approach a website redesign. They need to think differently.

They don’t know exactly what they need — and agencies are standing by, ready to sell them a new website that won’t solve their bigger issues.

Any conversation about a new website should start with outcomes.

What are you looking to get out of your new site? Most clients are going to say they need more traffic or they need more leads. What they really mean is that they need more sales. 95% of the time, that’s it. They have a sales problem. They’re not hitting their numbers. They’re not getting the revenue that they need to get.

It's not that their salespeople are not good, it’s that they have no strategy to help drive sales. We have to show them the real problem and then show them how they actually solve it.

A new website is not the only thing they need.

They need a complete sales and marketing strategy, they need to make sure their website (new or old) is regularly updated with content that builds trust and answers buyers’ questions.

Then, if they determine that a new site is necessary, once it’s built it needs to be monitored and adjusted to best serve site visitors.

There are hundreds of agencies out there who will sell you a brand new shiny website — but unless they’re going to talk to you about the strategy behind the website, about how that website is going to help you bring in revenue — that new website is not going to help your business in the long term.

Why Your Costly Website Redesign Isn’t Bringing Leads

jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker) — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 15:36:45 GMT

A business finds a web design agency looking for a completely new website. After months of design and development (and tens of thousands of dollars), their stunning new site launches. But six months later, the company comes to realize that the new site doesn’t meet their needs.

The site is beautiful, but traffic is flat. The few leads that are coming in aren’t qualified.

The company is stuck. Do they return to the same agency and pay more for updates? Do they start over with someone new? Why didn’t they get the website they hoped for? How will they get a return on their investment?

The fact is, some version of this scenario happens way too often. Maybe it’s even happened to you.

But it’s not your fault. The very process of redesigning a website is deeply flawed. And to understand why clients so rarely get what they’re hoping for, we have to start by looking at the process itself.

With years of experience working with businesses to build effective digital marketing strategies, we at IMPACT have seen firsthand why most website redesigns fall short of their goals.

In this article, we’ll uncover three common pitfalls in the common website redesign and share actionable strategies to transform your site into a lead-generating asset.

3 uncomfortable truths about website redesign that no one talks about

If you've got $50,000 to spend on a new website, agencies will line up around the block to take your money. There are even some who promise a brand new website in 30 days, start to finish.

It's tempting to be swayed by these offers, but there’s a big catch. Actually, there are three big catches.

1. A website redesign will ultimately fail without a strong business strategy

Think about why visitors come to a website. Unless we're talking about social media, visitors are not coming for entertainment. They want information.

Will your website provide them the information they need? Or, to back up, do you even know the questions they’re asking?

If your site is beautiful but useless, how many visitors will come and stay?

When an agency sells a new site, business strategy is rarely part of the conversation. That is, how will you use the website to market and sell more effectively? There's more focus on bells and whistles — and this is a big problem.

At most agencies, the web team is totally separate from the marketing and sales team. As such, your website redesign is not seen as a whole-business undertaking.

This is backward thinking.

After all, your website is supposed to attract leads with content marketing, right? It's supposed to help with the sales process. To talk about a website and not talk about broad strategy is like building an office complex without roads or a parking lot.

Sure, it looks nice, but how are people going to get there?

2. Ignoring user data in a website redesign kills lead generation

In the traditional redesign process, once a site goes live, the agency pretty much hands over the keys to the client and they go their separate ways.

This method completely disregards user data, which is critical to maximizing conversions.

Rather than building a site based on the way the agency thinks visitors will use your site, a better way is to launch the site and then test and adjust it. A/B testing, heatmaps, user pathways, and traffic data can enhance your site and create an improved user experience over time.

Unfortunately, agencies rarely invest the time or resources necessary to make use of this information. Once they’ve built the site and sold the site, they’re onto the next project for another company — and the client is left holding the bag.

3. The client team is never taught how to fully use its own site

Your business is changing all the time. New team members, new products, new messaging. Through it all, your website stays the same. Without in-house knowledge to make updates, build landing pages, change design elements, and perform tests, you’re stuck asking the agency or hiring a freelancer to make the changes for you.

Otherwise, your site quickly gets out of date, which is another problem.

You should have the internal expertise to be in control of your site so it can reflect your business today and in the future. After all, it’s your website. It should feel like yours.

Website Mastery: Strategy, data, and users

At IMPACT, we’ve never shied away from challenging the norms. We’ve loudly proclaimed that the traditional relationship between an inbound marketing agency and a client is broken, outdated, and inefficient.

We believe the same thing is true about the website redesign process.

The fact is, the traditional approach to website redesign costs companies billions of dollars each year, both in costs and lost revenue. First, clients shell out hefty sums for websites they might not even need. Then, they’re losing revenue because their shiny new site is not actually attracting traffic and qualified leads.

It’s time to imagine a better way.

Website Mastery overhauls the website redesign process, focusing on strategy, data, and the people who use the site — both inside and outside of your organization.

Informed by strategy

A website is a critical component of your marketing and sales plan — but it is not a strategy in and of itself. You need a robust business strategy before you need a new website. If you don’t have that strategy, we’ll work with you to build one.

Optimized with data

We build and launch the core elements of your site, typically within 4 to 6 months of getting started. This approach lets us gather valuable user insights early on, which we then use to continually refine page design, site structure, landing page performance, conversion pathways, and more.

Built so you can use it

At the same time, we train your team to take control of the website when they’re ready. Your team needs to know how to update the site, build and adjust pages, analyze website data, and test features.

This way, you have the expertise to guarantee that your site will serve your business for years to come.

So, will IMPACT build me a website?

Our team of experts can build you the exact website you need, but we never want to rip anyone off. Therefore, we likely won’t build you a new website right away. Too often, businesses get sold a new website when they don’t really need one, or before they’re ready.

If you come to us looking for a new website, you’ll fall into one of the following categories.

1. You may need a new website, but you need a business strategy first

(True for about 65% of all clients)

Yes, we can see a new website is in your near future, but you don’t yet have the strategy in place as a foundation. First, you need to work with our coaches and trainers to build a solid business plan. We’ll help you hire an internal team and learn to produce the content that will bring in organic traffic, build trust with prospects, and drive revenue.

If you start working with our They Ask, You Answer Mastery team, we can get going on your website once you’ve built some momentum and gotten things in place. This will likely be in a few months.

For this to succeed, it’s essential that your team has direct access to make updates and changes, rather than relying on an external agency each time you want to publish new content or tweak the site. However, many businesses don’t have a dedicated team member who owns these responsibilities or the technical setup to do this easily. We’ll help you put those structures in place so that your team can manage your website effectively, eliminating the need to pay for small updates or wait on someone else’s schedule to post content to your site.

Website Mastery — that is, the planning, strategy, design, development, testing and training of your new site — usually lasts between five and 12 months, depending on your unique needs.

Again, we want to make sure you’re getting the site you need, and we believe strategy comes first.

2. You need a new website and a new strategy — and we can do both at once

(True for about 30% of all clients)

This could be the case if you have the necessary budget and internal team structure already. If you can make a substantial investment in your digital sales and marketing and in your website simultaneously, we can work with your team to do both at the same time.

You probably already have a content manager on staff, for example, but maybe your inbound strategies are ineffective. Even with a team in place, you might still lack the capability to make changes on your website directly. In many cases, businesses don’t have a designated person to own website updates and manage content posting, which can slow down your team’s ability to respond and adapt. You’re ready for both of IMPACT’s training regimens at once.

This means you’ll get started working with IMPACT’s coaches and trainers for a 12-, 18-, or 24-month engagement. Simultaneously, you will begin working with a website strategist on our web team to start planning your new site.

Website Mastery will last six to 12 months, with your Mastery program continuing longer if you’re on the 18- or 24-month track.

3. You’ve got a fully-realized inbound marketing and sales strategy in place; Let’s build a website!

(True for about 5% of all clients)

Congratulations, your business strategy is sound! You’re keen on answering customer questions, providing value to your buyer, frequently updating your website with new content, and using this content in the sales process — and you’ve got the team in place to do it. This means you’re completely ready to get started on a brand new website where all of that content can live.

If you’re at this point, we can get started on your website right away!

And if you have a coach, they will ensure the new website fits seamlessly into your overall inbound strategy — and that your leadership is fully invested in website development and optimization.

Strategy first, website second

When businesses see their traffic or their leads fall off, they are tempted to move quickly to address the problem, which is the right instinct. However, all too often businesses reach for the biggest lever in front of them: I need a new website. They think this will solve all of their challenges, and they’re ready to invest heavily to do so.

The problem with this approach is that it’s putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. You might very well need a new website, but it’s almost certainly not the first thing you need.

Without a sales and marketing strategy behind it, your website is unlikely to deliver value to your customers. And, if it doesn’t provide value, those customers are going to bounce instead of converting — and you’ll be left with a very expensive, very beautiful website that doesn’t help you bring in revenue, which is the last thing you want.

For many of your customers, your website serves as their first introduction to your products and services. That site needs to be in lock-step with a broader strategy that helps you connect and build trust with those customers. Without that in place, your branding, messaging, and content could be adrift and ineffective.

At the same time, you want your site to provide the best experience possible for your visitors — and that assurance can only come if you use data to inform your site’s structure and content.

But strategy needs to come first. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not concerned with your organization's long-term growth.

Website Mastery will allow you to partner with IMPACT experts to make sure your site's design and development is based on more than just best practices and assumptions.

When we make decisions with data, when we are guided by strategy, we make the best decisions possible.

Your website is a big deal. You don’t want to get this wrong.

Introduction to AI for Business Leaders and Employees

rruffolo@impactbnd.com (Bob Ruffolo) — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 10:04:46 GMT

Imagine having an army of 10,000 super-smart workers willing to do your bidding 24/7 for free. What would you have them do?

This provocative question posed by Nigel Botterill at the Entrepreneurs Circle conference perfectly encapsulates the potential of AI in today's business world. AI, which we all know stands for artificial intelligence, but I like to say it stands for Assistants and Insights, which is the mindset we all should have.

AI offers every employee the opportunity to have the equivalent of small group of highly talented and brilliant personal assistants ready to handle just about any task, making their job easier and more efficient, often at a minimal cost, if any cost at all.

I'm sure many of you are already familiar with ChatGPT or Copilot and may have even experimented with them. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

AI is poised to revolutionize the way we work, offering unprecedented levels of efficiency, innovation, and productivity. From automating mundane tasks to providing deep insights that drive strategic decision-making, AI is set to transform businesses across industries in ways we are only beginning to understand.

But with great power comes great responsibility. AI's impact on knowledge workers will be profound, dramatically reshaping the workforce as we know it. This transformation will present both incredible opportunities and significant challenges, fundamentally altering job roles and workflows. It's crucial to not only understand how AI works and the key terminology involved but also to grasp the steps needed to create a culture of AI within your organization.

This article will serve as your primer, providing a comprehensive introduction to AI and preparing you for the future of work. The stakes are high, and the future of your career and your business depends on how well you adapt to this new reality.

What is AI and How Does It Work?

Artificial Intelligence refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn like humans.

At its core, AI involves creating systems that can perform tasks that would typically require human intelligence, such as understanding natural language, recognizing patterns, solving problems, and making decisions.

The field of AI encompasses various subfields, including machine learning, which allows systems to learn from data and improve over time without being explicitly programmed.

One of the most groundbreaking advancements in AI has been the development of large language models (or LLMs), like ChatGPT. These models are trained on vast amounts of text data, enabling them to understand and generate human-like text.

Over the past few years, AI research has made significant strides, culminating in what many refer to as "the ChatGPT moment." This moment marked a turning point when AI's capabilities became more apparent and accessible to the general public. ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, demonstrated the potential of AI to engage in coherent and meaningful conversations, making it clear that AI was no longer a futuristic concept but a present reality.

The progression to this point has been fueled by advances in computing power, the availability of large datasets, and innovative algorithms. Initially, AI systems were limited to specific tasks and required extensive programming for each new function. However, with the advent of machine learning and deep learning, AI systems can now learn from data, recognize patterns, and make predictions with remarkable accuracy. These advancements have made it possible for AI to tackle complex problems and provide valuable insights across various domains, from healthcare and finance to customer service and marketing.

Looking ahead, AI is expected to continue evolving at a rapid pace. Future advancements will likely include more sophisticated and capable AI models that can understand and generate text, images, and even video content with greater precision. These developments will enable AI to assist in more complex and nuanced tasks, further integrating into our daily lives and work environments. As we move forward, it's essential to stay informed about AI's capabilities and potential, as well as the ethical considerations and challenges that come with its widespread adoption.

Understanding what AI is and how it works is the first step in leveraging its potential. By grasping the basics of AI and its recent advancements, you can better appreciate its impact on your work and the broader business landscape. This knowledge will empower you to make informed decisions about how to incorporate AI into your daily tasks and long-term strategies, positioning yourself and your organization for success in the AI-driven future.

Key AI Terminology & Fundamentals

Before we dive deeper, let’s get familiar with some key AI terms. Don’t worry, we’ll keep it simple and relatable.

Prompting

Prompting is what you do when you request an AI to do something (like when you start a conversation with ChatGPT), and it is crucial in AI interactions. Think of it like giving instructions to an assistant: if you provide poor instructions, you can expect poor output. The quality of the prompts you give to an AI model directly affects the quality of the responses you receive.

Clear, specific, and well-structured prompts lead to more accurate and useful outputs. As AI becomes more integrated into daily tasks, mastering the art of prompting will be essential for maximizing the effectiveness and efficiency of AI tools in your workflow.

Usage Will Train the Model

The more you use AI platforms, the smarter they become. Interaction with these platforms helps train the models, improving their accuracy and usefulness. However, it's important to be mindful of the information you share.

While some platforms ensure privacy, others may use the data you provide to train their models, which can then be used to answer questions from other users. This can pose significant security risks, such as exposing confidential client information, company financials, intellectual property, or employee data. It's crucial to avoid sharing sensitive information and to be aware of the potential implications of perpetuating biases and discrimination within the hiring process.

Getting your Brand Recommended by AI

Getting your brand recommended by AI is akin to optimizing for search engines. The same principles apply: you must invest in a robust content marketing strategy like Endless Customers (an updated and evolved version of They Ask, You Answer).

This involves publishing and optimizing high-quality blog articles, YouTube videos, and podcasts. Implementing effective SEO practices and using schema markup are essential to ensure your content is discoverable. Regularly publishing content enhances your brand's visibility and relevance. Large language models like ChatGPT learn from readily available content on the internet, so the more valuable and optimized content you produce, the higher the chances of your brand being recommended by AI.

Multimodal

Multimodal refers to AI systems that can process and integrate multiple types of data simultaneously. Unlike traditional AI models, which typically handle a single type of data such as text, image, or speech, multimodal AI models can understand and generate outputs from various data sources, including text, images, audio, video, and even code. This capability allows these models to provide richer, more comprehensive insights and make more informed decisions.

ChatGPT is multimodal, meaning it can process and generate responses using multiple types of data, including text, code, images, files, and videos. For example, ChatGPT-4o can not only understand and generate natural language text but also analyze and generate code, create, interpret and describe images, and even process video content. This capability allows it to provide comprehensive assistance across various tasks: it can debug code, provide visual content descriptions, extract information from Office or Google files, and offer insights from video analysis.

AI Agents

Currently, AI operates mainly by prompting and providing responses based on user input. However, the future of AI lies in the development of AI agents—autonomous entities capable of completing tasks on behalf of users without constant human intervention. These agents can learn, adapt, and make decisions based on the data they process, potentially transforming how we interact with technology.

Imagine an AI agent tasked with booking an executive retreat: it could autonomously search for suitable venues, negotiate prices, arrange transportation, and manage schedules, all while considering the specific preferences and requirements of the executives.

While the widespread use of AI agents is still on the horizon, their potential to automate complex processes, enhance productivity, and provide personalized assistance across various domains is immense.

Although some companies are already using AI agents, it is not yet widespread. However, we can expect to see more AI agent examples and stories emerging in 2025. Understanding AI agents and preparing for their integration into business operations will be crucial for staying ahead in an AI-driven future.

Hallucinations

Hallucinations in AI occur when models generate information that seems plausible and convincing but is factually incorrect. Unfortunately, this can happen, as AI, like humans, can sometimes appear very confident while being wrong. These errors underscore the need for careful evaluation and validation of AI outputs.

Recognizing that AI is not infallible and being vigilant about verifying the information it provides is essential. To mitigate the risk of hallucinations, always cross-check AI-generated content with reliable sources and use AI tools as aids rather than sole authorities in decision-making processes. Ensuring accuracy and reliability in AI-driven insights is critical to maintaining trust and effectiveness in AI applications.

AI’s Impact on Knowledge Workers

AI is poised to revolutionize the workplace, offering knowledge workers the tools to do their jobs better and faster. From automating repetitive tasks to providing deep insights through data analysis, AI can significantly enhance productivity and innovation. Imagine having more time to focus on strategic, creative work because AI is able to handle the mundane.

As Dharmesh Shah from HubSpot aptly put it, "AI will take your job. But it will give you a better, more creative one."

However, this transformation comes with significant implications. According to various studies, AI and automation could displace millions of jobs worldwide. While some roles will be eliminated, new opportunities will emerge that require different skill sets. The key to thriving in this AI-driven future is becoming an "AI-enabled" version of yourself. This means continuously learning and adapting to new technologies, and integrating AI into your daily work processes.

The reality is that AI is not just a trend; it’s a paradigm shift. Those who embrace it will find themselves at the forefront of innovation, while those who ignore it risk falling behind. To ensure your relevance and success in this evolving landscape, it's crucial to understand AI’s capabilities and actively seek ways to leverage them in your work. This proactive approach will not only safeguard your career but also position you to take full advantage of the exciting possibilities AI offers.

The stakes are high. Embracing AI is not optional but a necessity. The future belongs to those who can work alongside AI, using it to augment their skills and amplify their impact. Prepare yourself now to be a part of this transformative wave, and become the AI-enabled professional the future demands.

6 Steps to Creating a Culture of AI

Creating a culture of AI within an organization cannot be achieved through a top-down approach alone. It's not enough for leaders to attend an AI conference, return with a list of ideas and tools, and mandate their implementation. Such an approach is likely to fail.

Instead, fostering a culture of AI requires a bottom-up strategy where employees are empowered to explore, experiment, and determine the most effective AI tools and practices for their work.

Leaders must clearly articulate the "why" behind the AI initiative, inspiring and motivating their teams to embrace AI's potential. Meanwhile, it's up to the employees to figure out the "how" and identify the right tools and methods to integrate AI into their daily workflows.

By cultivating an environment of collaboration, curiosity, and continuous learning, organizations can successfully embed AI into their culture and drive meaningful transformation.

Here are 6 steps to creating a culture of AI experimentation:

Step 1: Start with education

The first step in creating a culture of AI is to start with education. This article is a great tool to begin that journey.

We also recommend spending a day with your team, having an honest and open conversation about the future of AI and how it can and will impact the business. This dialogue helps to demystify AI and sets a foundation of understanding and enthusiasm.

Additionally, watching demo videos of readily available AI software can be incredibly inspiring. These demonstrations not only showcase potential solutions for your business but also highlight the impressive capabilities of AI, sparking ideas and encouraging innovative thinking within your team.

Step 2: Set Clear Expectations

It's crucial to address fears head-on, particularly the common concern: "Will AI take my job?"

Acknowledge these worries and provide reassurance that while AI will change the nature of many roles, it is not intended to replace employees but to enhance their capabilities. Clearly communicate that AI is a company priority, and that the organization is fully committed to integrating AI into everyday operations.

Emphasize that it is now part of everyone's job to experiment with and use AI in their daily work, and that this collective effort will drive the company forward.

By setting clear expectations and fostering a supportive environment, you can help alleviate concerns and encourage a proactive, innovative approach to AI adoption.

Step 3: Provide Guidelines

Experimentation is the goal, but only if it’s done safely and responsibly. Otherwise, you have chaos and risk.

There are a lot of great examples of AI guidelines out there. The city of Boston, for one, published a pretty comprehensive guide to using AI.

At IMPACT, we created what we call the "SAFETY" guidelines to keep us and our clients safe. We rolled these out to our team and made sure they were crystal clear.

We say that any AI experimentation needs to be:

Secure: We must keep our (and our clients’) data secure. Check the data security levels of the tools you use and act accordingly. If you’re not sure, don’t risk it.
Assistive, not autonomous: AI is a helper, not a team member. There must be a human in the loop at all times. We are accountable for what AI does, and our oversight is vital.
Fact-checked: We would never blindly publish anything AI produces. We check everything.
Experimental: AI can help us improve our work quality and increase our output. We need to experiment to see how.
Transparent: Our use of AI is not a secret. We should be transparent with coworkers, supervisors, clients, and our audience. We cite sources.
Remember, Your expertise matters: AI can enhance your creativity. AI can speed up your repetitive tasks. None of this is possible without your expertise. Let AI multiply your impact for the good of the organization.

Guidelines are there to keep them (and your company) safe. If they’re done right, guidelines don’t restrict experimentation — they make it easier.

These ones are broad enough to cover big concerns. Just like with everything else, encourage your people to use their best judgment.

Step 4: Identify an 'AI Champion'

Identify an internal AI champion who can help teach, support, and encourage other employees. This should be a tech-savvy early adopter who’s optimistic, well-liked, and a good teacher.

You could make this person an official champion, with some formal expectations tied to the role, or it could be more of an informal thing. But you’ll want this champion to have a direct line to the leadership team so that as they build momentum and buy-in they can keep company leaders in the loop.

Step 5: Provide a process for experimentation and measuring ROI

Experimentation can be haphazard. Your team members may want a framework to help them stay on track. At IMPACT, we recommend a process that’s based on the scientific method. The same one you learned in school.

It goes like this:

Describe the problem or opportunity
Create a hypothesis
Determine the metrics for success
Plan an experiment to test your hypothesis
Identify the potential impact
Run the experiment
Document the results
Share your findings

We ask our team members to document the AI experiments they’re undertaking. With a formalized process, we can keep track and share information between teams.

All along, you’ll be tracking the potential ROI of these experiments, both on the micro level (experiment by experiment) and on the macro level (for your whole organization). Some AI tools, like chatbots, can be expensive. Others are cheap. Working them into your processes can yield a huge savings — but only if you keep track.

Remember, not all experiments will be successful. But you will learn a lot from any failure.

Step 6: Reward Employees & Celebrate Success

Recognize AI milestones and provide tangible rewards for successful teams. Highlight AI success as integral to company achievements. Everyone loves a good celebration, and recognizing efforts keeps the momentum going.

If you want something to become a part of your culture, reward it. If you want a success to be duplicated, celebrate it.

There are a number of ways you can do this, from a simple shout-out at an all-hands meeting to an actual cash prize or bonus. At IMPACT, we do both. We share our AI wins at our monthly meetings so each experiment can inspire others.

At the same time, I’ve put in place a $5,000 per quarter prize to be given out at my discretion. It may all go to one person. It may be split between several — or it may not be awarded in a given quarter. The idea of a bonus spurs innovation, and we’ve seen a big uptick in experiments since the prize was announced.

Leading your company into the future

Getting your team to embrace something new, like AI, is hard, and sometimes you need help. As IMPACT’s business partner, Marcus Sheridan always says, “you can be a prophet to the world, but no one will listen to you in your own hometown.”

In other words, changing an organization from the inside is no easy task. Even if you’re the CEO, creating a culture change out of the blue can be daunting.

You may need some guidance.

We’ve led AI workshops at dozens of businesses that build momentum, create buy-in, and change the culture. We can work hand in hand with your team to set the right tone so your people feel excited, not on-edge.

If you’re among those 80% of businesses still waiting on the sidelines, now’s the time to step forward.

With the right assistance, you can create a culture of innovation that will keep you ahead of the curve for years to come.

11 Best Examples of Lead Generation Website Designs

jtimoteo@impactbnd.com (Justine Timoteo Thomas) — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 12:15:00 GMT

When people come to your website, oftentimes the first page they land on and see is your homepage.

With 63% of marketers saying generating leads is one of their top challenges, you most definitely want to capitalize on this, one of the highest viewed pages of your site.

Trying to determine what to include on the page can be overwhelming though. What should it say? What kind of features should it include?

There are so many lead generation opportunities often missed when it comes to homepage designs.

11 Examples of Lead Generation Website Designs

It's time to get inspired! Let’s take a look at 11 companies, some big, some small, that have awesome lead generating homepages to help drive their business.

1. Databox

Starting off with one of my personal favorites, Databox is a key performance indicator (KPI) dashboard that pulls data in real-time for businesses.

Up until recently, however, the messaging on the homepage didn’t reflect who they were truly selling to.

Databox’s Director of Marketing, explains how “in the years prior, Databox had been positioned more toward executives and the analysts that work for them within enterprise companies, enabling them to understand how their business was performing at any time, on any device — but with a strong emphasis on mobile.”

Selling to enterprise companies proved difficult so the company pivoted to sell to mass market, by opting for a freemium model that allowed users to sign up and use the product for free.

Why their Homepage Works:

Targeted messaging to their audience. As you continue to scroll down the page, you’ll see alternating sections that speak to some of the most common pain points their audience has. As business owners, marketers and sales leaders, we’re constantly crunched on time and Databox capitalizes on that feeling. We all know we need to analyze our data in order to make informed decisions that drive sales and marketing, but when can we fit it into the day?
Subtle but effective social proof, like the user review scores from G2 and Capterra.
An opt-in to get started right away, without a card required.

How to Improve:

It's always hard to know just how in-depth you should go on a homepage, but I think the Databox page provides a little too much detail. It's a long scroll that can feel a little overwhelming.

2. RedShelf

In the ever-expanding digital world, RedShelf provides eTextbooks for students and publishers. After hearing about RedShelf, I thought it was genius but couldn’t help but ask, why would a textbook publisher want to sell eBooks? They would see 60% less revenue per book sold.

However, RedShelf was able to use its model to help publishers see more money in the long run. Since eBooks cannot be resold or passed on to other students, “publishers make more moolah by selling books every year, rather than just when the books disintegrate from use or get yet another edition bump to encourage students to buy new books.”

Why their Homepage Works:

Clear calls-to-action (CTA). I immediately know how to search for a title and am directed to a page where I can find and purchase the book.
A clear focus on its core audience. This is all about helping students succeed, so you see features like study aids and flash card help. Also, notice the subtle reminder that their platform works across devices. The four students in the hero image use a phone, laptop, and tablet to access the material.
Separate contact options for support and sales. Nothing is more frustrating than receiving a support question when you’re trying to navigate through sales prospects, and your customers also want answers to their issues quickly. Easily distinguishing how to contact support versus sales is crucial for both sides.

How to Improve:

Draw more attention to range. There are links for fiction and children's books — things that fall outside of the core academic catalog. Those offerings could be explained better.

3. Lux Lights

Lux Lights provides homeowners with an ever-classy way to light their homes at night, whether for holidays or just because.

The homepage speaks directly to their customers, with an eight-word header that manages to touch both of the core frustrations Lux Lights solves: The danger of installation and the messy look of DIY holiday decorating.

Why their Homepage Works:

Simple, clear design with an effective headline and a full-scale image that's inviting. By showcasing a high-end home, Lux Lights associates their brand with high quality.
It's easy to find price ranges, which can be hard to do for custom solutions. How does Lux Lights do it? With examples of different houses and roof lines to offer a sense of what you might expect to pay based on the size and style of your home.
Beautiful visuals speak to the high quality of the product and craftsmanship.

How to Improve:

More clearly differentiated CTAs. To a casual browser, "request a quote" and "schedule a consultation" sounds too similar. Both require potential buyers to take a step they may not be ready for.

4. Evernote

Evernote’s digital notepad allows you to sync your thoughts and notes across multiple devices, which is further enhanced by AI. I’ve used this product for some time now and love it. I’m able to take notes on a book I’m reading while traveling and pull them up on my desktop during our company’s book club meeting.

Why their Homepage Works:

On-target messaging. Evernote is a tool to help you achieve. The hero of this story is the user, not the tool, and the headline makes this clear.
Easy sign up. In addition to the traditional email and password registration, Evernote gives users the option to sign up with their Google account.

How to Improve:

Incorporate videos and animations. Powerful tech solutions can sometimes come across as overwhelming. Simple animations could show that Evernote isn't just another tool to keep track of — but a helpful organizer that smoothly integrates with everything else you do.

5. Ellevest

Ellevest is a digital investment platform specifically for women. CEO and co-founder Sallie Krawcheck describes having an “a-ha” moment when she realized the financial industry was built “by men, for men.”

Women face completely unique income life cycles that many investment companies and firms weren’t talking about. For instance, did you know women’s salaries peak at 40 while men’s peak at 55?

Ellevest’s messaging addresses women-centered financial issues head on and created a software to do the same so it can help women plan for a future where they may earn less money yet live longer than men.

Honestly, this is the only investment company I would sign up with thanks to their website.

Why their Homepage Works:

Ellevest truly knows its audience. The messaging speaks directly to women, in a tone that is conversational and real, not stuffy and cliche like most financial advisor and investing websites.
A simple call-to-action. The “Get Yours” message is powerful and immediately directs the user to create an account.
Social Proof. I love that they include a few quotes directly beneath the header to showcase positive writeups about the company. Plus, two of the three publications have women as primary readers.

How to Improve:

Change up the headline. Though the current message is strong and powerful, it doesn’t immediately make me take action. Further down the homepage is a message that speaks to women’s concerns in a more direct way -- “We live longer. We don't get equal pay. Shouldn't we use financial tools created for us?” Now if this was the headline, I would immediately click the “Get Yours” CTA.

6. Custom Built Design and Remodeling

Contractors can feel pretty interchangeable. For homeowners, trying to distinguish one from another — let alone find one you would trust with your project — can feel daunting.

When a builder or remodeler leads with education instead of a sales pitch, buyers feel more informed and less guarded.

Michigan-based Custom Built does just that. Here's why their website works.

Why their Homepage Works:

The focus here is on the user. There are educational guides so you know what to expect, what you're likely to spend, and what factors can make that number go up or down.
Users can select from a series of project types (kitchen remodel, sunrooms, etc.), and you're taken to a specific service page that offers information, images, and galleries.
A great headline reminds buyers what they're looking for in the first place: To transform a part of their home into a space they love.

How to Improve:

The featured image is a bit too grayed out to really show quality or craftsmanship. Perhaps a sliding gallery of images could showcase more projects.

7. Basecamp

This project management system has grown exponentially over the years, with more than 75,000 organizations around the world.

Why their Homepage Works

All too often, companies use stock photography or images that barely have anything to do with the product or audience — but Basecamp gets it perfectly. They capitalize on the ever-so-relatable feeling of being overwhelmed when managing projects.
The free offer explains benefits in signing up. The simple call-to-action “Try it for free, enjoy work more” answer the unwritten question of why, enticing users to sign up.
Evident customer support. The homepage showcases three statistics and supporting statements from customers, providing a validation component to visitors.

How to Improve:

Make it less busy. The homepage feels too crowded with copy, which undermines the central message. A simpler design would feel less cluttered and, by extension, more compelling.

8. Charity: water

This non-profit organization aims to bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing countries.

Why their Homepage Works:

Direct messaging. The hero messaging on the homepage states “Every person on the planet deserves clean water” — something you can’t argue against. It also includes an easy CTA to literally say “I agree,” which leads to the donation page.
Exit-intent pop-up. I personally hate pop-ups when they interrupt my user experience but the ones that work for me are exit-intents. With it, charity: water provides you with an opportunity to stay connected even if you chose not to donate.
Opportunities to get involved. Further down the homepage, there is an entire section that shows you how you can get involved. Giving your users multiple options to take action will help increase your odds for conversions.

How to Improve:

Highlight the impact. Calling out why clean water is so vital to communities would help visitors to get involved. Though there is a section on the homepage that charity: water has funded 24,537 water projects for 7 million people around the world, you have to dig to find out just how impactful the mission truly is. With 90% of all purchasing decisions not made consciously, it’s essential you provoke emotion.

9. Warby Parker

I’m obsessed with Warby Parker — and I don’t even need glasses.

Their business model enables people to choose five different eyeglass styles and have them shipped directly to their home, to try on in their own time. Once people choose the style they want, they can purchase the frames (typically way cheaper than what brick-and-mortar shops offer) and fill their prescription.

Since first starting, the company has expanded to offer try-at-home prescription sunglasses and now has physical stores for those who prefer to shop in-person and book an eye exam.

Why their Homepage Works:

An interactive quiz. Warby Parker created an interactive quiz users can take to receive recommendations on eyeglasses they might want to try on at home, encouraging the free trial registration. This creates a fun, low-friction way to get visitors to convert and opt in to their marketing emails.
Location finder. When online retailers also have store locations, it’s great to include a call-to-action for users to find a location near them.

How to Improve:

Offer new style alerts. Since the entire company is built around getting stylish eyewear for less, Warby Parker should enable email alerts for those that want to know when new styles are added.
Highlight email updates. The email opt-in on the homepage is all the way at the bottom, whereas a simple exit-intent pop-up would allow the company to capture contact information if someone intends to leave without browsing or purchasing.

10. Hootsuite

Hootsuite enables you to schedule your company’s social media posts in one consolidated place.

Why their Homepage Works

Hero statement defines exactly what the company does. Even if you’ve never heard of Hootsuite, the hero statement clearly explains how you can leverage the platform -- “manage all your social media in one place.”
Call-to-action options. Not everyone is immediately ready to sign up for a free trial. Providing the option to “Compare Plans” is a great way to drive users to a secondary step if they’re not ready to commit.

How to Improve:

Limit the calls-to-action. It’s a tough balance when trying to determine how many calls-to-action to feature on your homepage. You don’t want to overwhelm the user by giving them too many options but you also don’t want to stunt their experience.
Giving the user the choice to “Learn More,” “Download the Full Report,” “Start Your 30-day Free Trial,” “Sign Up,” and “Compare Plans” is a little too much. Streamline their experience and limit the number of calls-to-action.

11. Barletta Boats

This boat manufacturer knows what you're looking for. It's not about specs and numbers. It's about enjoying the water with your friends and family. So, this auto-play video is a perfect fit: beautiful water, happy families, good times with friends.

Once you've soaked that in, you see this CTA:

Why their Homepage Works:

Beautiful images paired with no-nonsense copy and a host of educational materials.
With a direct call to action ("Build Your Barletta") and an indirect call to action ("Pontoon Boat Buyer's Guide"), would-be buyers can move at their own pace to learn more — without getting rushed into a sales conversation.

How to Improve:

While the video is effective for a first-time visitor, after you see it a few times, the loop feels repetitive. They could offer a longer loop or allow cookied contacts to opt out of the auto-play.

The website your customers want

The common takeaways are pretty easy to pick out if you’ve been following along.

First, always speak to your target audience in a clear and conversational way that will resonate well. Second, include action for the user to take on an offer to immediately capture them as a lead. And third, make sure your navigation — both down the homepage and throughout the menu — is easy to understand and follow.

Once you capture your lead, don’t forget to nurture them. The homepage is just the beginning. If a user converts, you can personalize messaging and offers to cater their experience to their interests or demographics throughout the rest of your site and through email marketing.

Want more inspiration? Check out our list of best business website designs!

When It Comes to Hiring, Experience Is Overrated

jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker) — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 11:29:41 GMT

Some years ago I was doing a training session with a sales team. Typically how these trainings work is we’ll teach a communication principle or two and then role-play them in real time. We’ll do this several times over the course of an hour.

When it came time to start our first role-play, the most senior member of the team was adamant: I’m not doing that. I’ve been selling for 20 years and I don’t need to practice.

Now, I know role-plays can be uncomfortable — and I know this guy probably was a pretty good salesman.

But, if I were building a sales team, would I hire him? Absolutely not.

His response proved to me exactly what I’ve often found to be the case.

When it comes to hiring, experience is overrated.

That deep resume filled with years of experience can be more of a drawback than a benefit.

Experience often comes with rigidity and a sense of privilege. Of course, this is not always the case. There are countless pros who foster a growth mindset even as they accumulate years of experience.

But when I help companies hire — especially for sales, marketing, and customer service — nine times out of 10 I advise them to hire for coachability and eagerness, not experience.

What to look for instead of experience

In the knowledge economy, the ability to learn trumps the accumulation of experience.

These learners could be young folks with energy and passion, but they don’t have to be fresh-faced twentysomethings. Older professionals can be learners as well — especially if they switched careers at some point to try something new.

According to research from PWC and others, companies are increasingly turning to industry outsiders. The feeling goes like this: If we hire from inside the industry we’ll hear the same old ideas that have all been tried before. But if we get an outsider, we can bring in a fresh perspective.

Increasingly, organizations are looking for something novel in their applicant pool: the ability to adapt, explore, question, and invigorate.

And as I help companies hire their next great sales and marketing pros, I’m moving in the same direction. Coachability and growth potential top pretty much everything else.

The only question is, how do you actually find it?

3 ways to verify an applicant's coachability

Here’s the problem. It’s easy to see experience on a resume: three years here, director of this, responsible for that. It’s harder to see coachability.

So, how do you evaluate something you can’t see?

I’m not going to lie — it can be hard at first, but here are three things you can try.

1. Get more out of your hiring task

In almost every hiring situation, you should include real-world tasks for the applicant to complete.

When you do this and how you do this will depend on the role and your needs, but the tasks should mimic the actual responsibilities the applicants would have in the role if they’re hired:

The manager facilitates a role-play 1:1 with a troubled employee
The marketing applicant needs to design a mini campaign
The salesperson puts together a prospecting strategy
The videographer produces a quick video

And so on.

Now, the smart thing to do is to use these tasks to measure more than just competency.

Sure, you want to know that your content manager candidates can write a good article. You want to know that your sales rep candidates can put together a strong presentation.

But that’s not where the evaluation should end.

When you collect their work, don’t just use it to check a box for whether they can do the job or not. Instead, offer specific feedback. Tell the candidate in advance that a feedback session will be coming, and make sure some of the feedback you give is critical.

This is the important moment.

Watch the candidate react to feedback in real time. Do they squirm, blame the assignment, or glaze over? If so, they’re not demonstrating coachability. Rather, they’re rejecting your feedback, passing the buck, or just pretending to listen.

Now, imagine the difference. When you offer feedback, a candidate engages with you. You have a discussion. She pushes you to explain a few things more clearly — not to be argumentative, but to really understand your point of view. She takes some notes. Her body language is receptive, open, comfortable, and focused.

That’s the coachable person. That’s the one you should hire.

2. Scrutinize recommendation letters — and follow up

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that recommendation letters are fairly worthless. Not because the opinions of coworkers and managers don’t matter. They do. A lot. The problem is that rec letters are all pretty much boilerplate.

I’ve read a lot, and they mostly all say the same thing:

Hard worker

Stays organized

Team player

And so on.

To find what you’re really looking for in a rec letter, look closely for stories of struggle, perseverance, adaptability, and contribution.

If you don’t find them, set up a time to speak with the supervisor or colleague who wrote the letter and ask.

Be specific. Ask about growth and development, and when things did not go the person’s way.

What role does this person tend to play? Hero or victim?
How did they respond to adversity?

3. Ask the candidate

This sounds obvious, but it’s worth mentioning. Ask the candidate directly: Are you comfortable learning new things and receiving candid feedback?

Be clear that these are parts of your company culture, and that the person should know this upfront.

Of course, anyone looking for a job is likely in interview mode, so take what they say with a grain of salt. Still, it’s important to set expectations from the outset so they know what they’re going into.

At IMPACT, we have all new hires read a half-dozen books that line up with our core values. We want them to know from Day 1 that we value candor, collaboration, and involvement.

Hiring for the high upside

Imagine this.

You’ve narrowed it down to two applicants: Candidate A and Candidate B.

If you knew that Candidate B had way higher potential than Candidate A but would take some time to get there, which would you choose?

When you hire an experienced candidate, you’re getting more of a known commodity. That’s both good and bad. The good is obvious, but the bad is this: There’s a good chance that this person has already reached his potential. His capabilities for growth are more modest, so what you’re getting might be good, but it’s unlikely to get much better.

Think back to the salesman in my opening anecdote. Was he good? Probably. Was he going to get much better? Probably not. He had already peaked in his mind, and he was unwilling to do the work to improve.

Not only that, but he was also limiting the growth potential of every person in that room.

When you hire someone hungry and coachable, their best days are far in the future.

That’s a really exciting prospect — but it requires patience and mentoring to bring to fruition.

You will have to play a part in that person’s development. Otherwise, he will never reach his full potential.

The future of your business

The nature of work is changing — and the challenges that lay ahead can’t always be predicted a few months ahead of time.

Let alone a few years.

If the pandemic and the dawning of AI have taught us anything, it was that adaptability and creativity are crucial, while strict allegiance to the status quo can be a death sentence.

In her book Rookie Smarts, author Liz Wiseman writes, “While experience provides a distinct advantage in a stable field — like the realms of bridge building, ballet, or concert piano performance — it can actually impede progress in an unstable or quickly evolving arena.”

When you look to hire your next team member, don’t be bound by the outdated principle that experience matters most. Hire someone coachable, hungry, and ready to learn. You want a company full of workers whose best days are ahead of them.

How Do I Get my Old School Sales Reps to Buy in to They Ask, You Answer?

msheridan@impactbnd.com (Marcus Sheridan) — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 11:33:37 GMT

I say it all the time, but it bears repeating: the way people buy is changing — and it's changing faster than most people realize.

Increasingly, this means that the way sales teams and salespeople operate has to change to cater to the way people want to buy today.

According to a recent study published in Forbes, 75% of B2B buyers would prefer an entirely seller-free buying experience. Now, that number might be high, but think about that for a second. As many as three quarters of your buyers would prefer not to talk to your sales team at all.

They want to be able to purchase exactly what they want without any contact with a sales rep.

We’ve seen this play out for years in the retail space with cashierless checkout lines, and now touchless sales are becoming more and more popular in every industry. Today, people buy their mattress online. They buy their groceries online. They buy their TV online. Heck, you can even buy a car or a condo online.

Considering the state of sales today, the company that best serves its customers — and the way those customers want to buy — is the company that will win their business.

The companies that cling to the old way of doing things will get left behind by buyers who’ve changed, and who expect companies to change as well.

Why They Ask, You Answer serves the modern buyer

Today, before buyers make a purchase, they spend a great deal of time doing research. This could mean looking up reviews for a product, comparing two services side by side, or researching how to get the best price.

Or, it could be joining a social media group or chatting with Google Gemini about different options.

Then, when they’re ready, they reach out to a company. At this point, they’re much more educated than buyers in the past. In fact, much of what used to be part of the sale process is already complete at this point.

If a company can provide the educational resource that makes potential customers feel more comfortable as they’re approaching a purchase, that company will see two enormous advantages:

First, those customers will trust you, provided they see you’ve been open and straightforward.
Second, those customers will be more qualified for sales conversations, as they already know enough to make an informed decision.

They Ask, You Answer urges businesses to obsess over the questions their prospects have — and to answer them honestly on their website.

This way, customers can find the answers they need and build a trusting relationship with your brand.

And it's not just through organic search that these resources can help your business. Sales reps can send content to prospects during the sales process — a technique we call assignment selling.

These benefits of They Ask, You Answer (driving traffic, building trust, shortening the sales cycle) will allow your business to best serve today’s buyer.

However, it will only be a successful initiative if everyone at your company is bought in, including leadership, marketing, and... wait for it — sales.

They Ask You Answer needs sales team buy-in to be successful

I have taught over 300 on-site trainings with sales teams over the past 15 years. What I’ve seen is that the most successful content marketing initiatives are those from companies where the sales team is bought in. When content is seen as something that only belongs to marketing, it never gains traction and influences sales. Instead, this furthers the divide between the two teams.

If you want They Ask, You Answer to succeed at your company, you need your sales team to be on board — and in order for them to be on board, they need to see that it works.

Salespeople are often resistant to change. If they have a tried and true method, they’re unlikely to try something new that is more uncertain.

But even these salespeople are sure to recognize that buyers have changed. Today, buyers are more informed than ever before.

And, if you can acknowledge that your buyers are getting information from somewhere, you can easily see the advantage to having them get it from you.

Getting They Ask, You Answer buy in

The key to getting They Ask, You Answer buy in from your sales reps is to show them how the methodology will make their lives easier.

Like with most things, a top-down approach will only get you so far, and you'll get plenty of resistance and resentment along the way

It’s fine to eventually make They Ask, You Answer a requirement for all sales reps, but you should only do that once you’ve built a cohort that is bought in and will be able to help you spread the word.

Bringing They Ask, You Answer to your sales team in 5 steps

In order to get full adoption, start with a subset of your team — and build consensus from there. That early group will be crucial to full team buy in.

Find your players. Pick a subset of your sales team (say, 25%), who are typically more open to new initiatives. Teach them They Ask, You Answer, preferably with a coach who can help with training.
Choose your plays. Focus on small-scale adoption for quick wins: Sending 1:1 videos, sharing content during the sales process, and focusing on education instead of a sales pitch
Get some reps. Let those sales reps practice They Ask, You Answer techniques with prospects. As they get the hang of it, have them share their successes with colleagues.
Build momentum. As word of successful adoption spreads, prepare to offer They Ask, You Answer trainings to the whole team, using early adopters to help instruct and encourage.
Change the culture. Make They Ask, You Answer required for all sales reps, with the clear indication that leadership will help support their adoption.

Once They Ask, You Answer is a requirement at your company, make sure to put the structure into place to allow for a successful full adoption. This means ongoing training and support, as well as the meeting time necessary to make sure sales and marketing are working together.

Putting They Ask, You Answer into practice

Although They Ask, You Answer is primarily a sales initiative, the bulk of the work falls to marketing. After all, they will be the ones writing and publishing the content. Because of this, getting sales to do their part is a relatively small ask.

Sharing questions with the marketing team

One aspect of this process is easy. Get your sales reps to share the questions they’re hearing from buyers with the marketing team.

A recurring content brainstorm meeting every two weeks or once a month will be sufficient for this. It’s a small time commitment, after all, and makes a big difference.

Assignment selling is harder, and requires training

However, to truly embrace They Ask, You Answer, your sales reps need to practice assignment selling. That is, they need to use the content in the sales process.

The marketers have produced the content that answers the customer questions. Now, it’s up to sales to use this content to better educate their buyers. This can be done proactively — they send a piece of content that answers an anticipated question — or reactively — sharing content after a call to fully satisfy a question that came up in a conversation.

In order to do this well, you’ll need some training. Sales leaders need to be ready to provide the necessary instruction and support.

To get you started, you can use the resource below, or talk to us about our coaching services.

🔎Related resources:

5 Real-Life Examples of Assignment Selling in Action

Common Assignment Selling Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)

How Assignment Selling Made me a Better Salesperson

Adapt now... or become obsolete

In the last few years, I have seen hundreds of businesses embrace virtual selling (that is, selling over a Zoom or other video call), many of which, before the pandemic, had previously been very skeptical of such practices. Instead, they found that virtual selling could work for their industry.

With the buying process continually moving away from the traditional sales model, now is the time to implement a They Ask, You Answer initiative at your company.

It will allow you to best serve your modern buyers, and to build trust in the marketplace.

The time is ripe for change.

How Does They Ask, You Answer Benefit Sales?

jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker) — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 11:23:39 GMT

When a marketer or business leader first hears about They Ask, You Answer — whether they see Marcus Sheridan speak or they read the book — they almost always get excited.

They see the big picture.

They understand that creating written and video content to address their ideal buyers' most pressing questions and concerns will help them become the most trusted brand in their industry.

Sales folks, however, are an entirely different story.

In all fairness to sales, I do not blame them one bit for not seeing the potential of They Ask, You Answer at first.

But once they catch the vision, they'll be glad they did.

Here's why they might be skeptical at first.

Sales teams have been burned one too many times by marketing

One of the buzzy little phrases bandied about by industry pros is "sales and marketing alignment". This is a polite way of saying that these two departments — that is, sales and marketing — need to work well together. Unfortunately, that's not typically the case.

You see, what lack of "sales and marketing alignment" really means is that sales teams don't trust marketing to create anything of value for them to use. Instead, they see marketers produce fluffy content that may boost brand awareness but does little to close deals.

Marketers, on the other hand, see the sales team as people who care more about closing deals than customer loyalty and long-term brand success.

With this kind of disconnect in place, it's no wonder that marketers feel misunderstood and sales teams don't trust anything that sounds like marketing.

To many sales pros, blogs, social media posts, and YouTube videos don't seem to do anything to bring in revenue. Instead, they sound more like expensive line items in a marketing budget.

And, honestly, those sales teams aren't wrong a lot of the time.

So, when marketers come along with a new book/vision/framework/outlook, sales has every right to be skeptical.

But this time is different. I promise.

First off, what is They Ask, You Answer?

At the core of They Ask, You Answer is a simple idea:

Educated prospects become happier, better customers.

If your prospects are asking questions, you must answer them — openly and honestly — on your website. That’s where the name for our framework comes from: They Ask, You Answer.

When you commit to answering your customers' questions, you:

Build trust with your audience
Weed out bad-fit prospects
Make the buying process smoother

Why They Ask, You Answer is a sales initiative, not a marketing initiative

While many of the core tenets of They Ask, You Answer sound like marketing (content creation, blogging, YouTube, social media, website learning center), it's actually a sales-first initiative.

You see, the basics of They Ask, You Answer are simple: Address your customers' questions and concerns so it's easier for them to buy from you.

Yes, some of what you produce will drive search traffic and social media impressions, but the biggest beneficiary is ultimately the prospect entering and moving faster through the sales process.

When implemented properly, every single blog article, every video, every website page is created through the lens of what the sales team needs —based on their front-line knowledge of what their ideal buyers are thinking and asking.

When this happens, marketing materials are suddenly relevant and useful to the sales team.

Salespeople can share them with prospects, and they can feel confident that organic leads haven't been reading something on the website that's out of sync with the sales process.

However, the marketing team can't do this without the help of the sales team. Marketing doesn't speak to buyers face to face like sales does.

But when the teams work together, they can produce content that actually helps sales.

Let's dive into the specifics of how that works.

7 key benefits of They Ask, You Answer for sales

To succeed with They Ask, You Answer, the sales team and marketing team will need to collaborate. They'll meet together, run brainstorms, and check in on the content marketing produces. (Sometimes this is done in what we call a revenue team.)

I promise this is a minimal time commitment and totally worth everyone's time. here's why.

1. It forces your whole company to understand your buyers as it never has before

The core of They Ask, You Answer is an absolute obsession with knowing what your buyers are thinking, feeling, and searching.

Understanding your buyers is an all-hands-on-deck initiative.

Marketers must work with sales reps, customer service pros, and other company experts to get to know the customer before, during, and after purchase.

They need to dive into data and analytics and interview past customers.

When your company understands its customers, it can produce messaging that speaks to their needs, worries, and concerns

The result is customer-focused content that drives revenue, not vanity metrics.

2. Content production strengthens your sales messaging

Sales professionals have heard most of the questions a prospect could ever ask, and they've answered every one. They've seen which answers have satisfied customers — and which have missed the mark.

When sales teams are connected to the content production process, they sharpen the way they answer the tough questions, improving the way they communicate with clients in the future.

3. Assignment selling shortens the sales cycle

You likely know your prospect is going to ask a specific question at a specific time. Nearly everyone asks the exact same question at that time, right?

Rather than spending valuable minutes answering the question during the sales call, you send along a video or article that provides a fully-vetted answer to this question — before the prospect even answers it.

Now, your call be more productive, and you will gain the buyer's trust in the process.

This is the beauty of assignment selling — the time-tested, proven way to use educational content in the sales process.

When you have content you can trust, you can "assign" this content ahead of time to get ahead of buyer questions and objections.

4. You'll know more about your buyers before they even enter the sales funnel

With advanced sales and marketing automation and analytics platforms like HubSpot, sales teams can see every single website page, article, and video a prospect looked at prior to reaching out to talk to someone in sales.

This is priceless intelligence that will empower you to understand exactly what your prospects are interested in and how much they know about you and what you sell — all before a single sales conversation has even taken place.

That’s an incredible amount of lead intelligence right at your fingertips.

5. Prospects will enter the pipeline already trusting your brand.

When customers self-educate before speaking with a sales rep, they enter the sales process with an established relationship with your company.

They know you. They trust you.

And buyers are more likely to purchase from businesses they trust.

Sales reps can spend more time during meetings having deep conversations specific to the needs of the people they are speaking to.

That allows you to do what you do best — sell.

6. Your content library will help you train future employees

The more content you create, the more articles, videos, and more you’ll have at your disposal for current and future employees to use as training materials.

It will help them learn company doctrines, philosophies, and so on more effectively and more efficiently.

7. Great content means more trust, more trust means shorter sales cycles, shorter sales cycles mean happier sales teams

By empowering your buyers to educate themselves through the content you create and publish, you give your sales teams the gift of time.

More time to spend with qualified leads, more time at the end of the day to clock out on time.

What should we do now to get started?

It's a lot of work to get your entire company aligned around They Ask, You Answer as a way of doing business.

That's because, unlike strategies in the past, They Ask, You Answer must be embraced by all teams — leadership, sales, marketing, service, etc. It is not owned by one team or one individual. It's a cultural shift within your company, not a flash-in-the-pan tactic.

If you are in a sales role specifically and want to learn more, I would encourage you to create a free IMPACT+ account and educate yourself with the following course:

Digital Sales & Marketing Framework for Today's Modern Buyer

This course will arm you with the insights and knowledge you need to see an immediate lift in your close rates by embracing the principles of They Ask, You Answer.

Yes, it's likely a significant departure from "the way it's always been done" at your company. But trust me, the results will speak for themselves.

The Big 5: 3 Simple Steps for Creating Great 'Problems' Content (+ Examples)

jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker) — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 11:41:08 GMT

Ironically, one main marketing problem that most organizations have is that they're not talking about problems.

We believe it's critical that businesses openly address the drawbacks and shortcomings of what they sell.

I know what you're thinking — Why would I ever draw attention to our flaws? Won't that scare buyers away?

But in response to that, I ask, would you rather a potential customer find out about a problem with your product or service from you or on their own, or worse, from a competitor?

Creating "problems" content gets ahead of the rude awakenings that can lead to poor customer experiences, bad reviews, and negative word-of-mouth.

It creates alignment and realistic expectations with potential buyers right off the bat, helping them qualify or disqualify themselves early on.

And, in my experience, organizations that create it gain more trust, collect more leads, and overall, earn more clients.

That's why it's one of what Marcus Sheridan calls The Big 5 — the five topics that are most critical to your marketing strategy.

In this article, I’ll provide some examples from companies that are doing a great job with their "problems" content and walk you through three simple steps for creating yours:

Identifying your problems
Finding the right angle
Showing a solution

But first, let's start with "why?"

Why you need to be open about problems, drawbacks, and shortcomings

As a content trainer, I spend a lot of time coaching my clients on how to cover The Big 5, the five topics that drive the most traffic, leads, and sales for successful inbound companies.

Talking about your problems — specifically talking about the shortfalls in your product or service — is definitely on that list.

That’s right. Putting it all out there, the good, the bad, and the ugly, is a fantastic way to build the bottom line. It's natural to be wary, but here's the reality: If you don’t address it, someone else will.

Your buyers are out there looking for information that can help them reach a conclusion. And you know they’re not only looking for positive reviews. They want the dirt, the difficulties, and the cons so that they won’t be surprised after the purchase is made. (After all, there's a reason we're so drawn to 1-star reviews!)

Creating content marketing materials that are candid about problems allows you to do a few things:

First, you position yourself as the trustworthy authority in your space. As we all know, the best time to address a problem is before it comes up.
Second, you help bad-fit prospects opt out of your sales process. If you're honest about you sell, bad-fit buyers are less likely to move forward — meaning you won't waste your salespeoples' time on the wrong prospects.
Third, you eliminate the fear and resistance of your buyers by letting them know in advance what they might experience.

Some buyers will see these cons, balance them against the pros, and be fine with the decision to move forward. Some will choose to shop elsewhere, and that’s okay.

You’ve armed those prospects with the power to opt out so no one’s time gets wasted.

So, how is a great “problems” article created?

1. Identify your problem(s)

The truth is, no single product or service is the right fit for everyone.

You’ll find much more success when you admit this to your potential buyers and show that, yes, there may be some drawbacks with the solution you offer.

So how do you know what problems to discuss?

A simple way to evaluate if a problem is worth disclosing is if it will affect your customer's overall experience with your offering.

For example,

Could it lead to them not accomplishing their intended goal?

Could it lead to spending more money?

Would it actually harm versus help them?

Is it something that would lead to them writing a poor review?

If the answer to any of these questions is true, you're best off addressing it in your content.

2. Choose the right angle

Problems content can take many forms, and the great news for content creators is the range of angles and formats you can take. For example, consider these:

"The top X problems with Y"
"The X problems with Y you're likely to miss"
"The most common problems rookies may experience — and how to avoid them"
"Why is X not working and what you can do about it"
"The X Reasons Why Y Fails"
"X Reasons Why Y Isn't the Right Choice for You."
NOTE: Don't be afraid to write this from the perspective of someone who isn't right for you or your services. This kind of honesty will only help you weed out bad-fit prospects without wasting man-hours on your sales team.

All of these are different approaches, but they all come back to the same goal: Being open and honest about the experience someone will have with your product or service.

In his book They Ask, You Answer, Marcus Sheridan talks about what happened when he confronted potential problems at his company River Pools and Spas.

You see, his company only offered fiberglass pools, which come with both pros and cons. In some cases, a fiberglass pool is perfect. In others, it's the wrong choice.

Rather than pretend that fiberglass pools were the best choice for everyone, Marcus took the honest approach to their shortcomings.

The post, “Top Fiberglass Pool Problems and Solutions,” resulted in more than $500,000 in revenue.

Sheridan reflected:

"Now, you might think it would be insane for us to write an article with that title and, believe me, so did many people in our industry. But look at it this way: How many of our competitors were addressing that question on their websites? Of course, the answer is none.

Yet, how many consumers were wanting to know the answer to said question?

Pretty much all of them."

The title may be daring, but the content is even more brazen, detailing specific issues with fiberglass pools that may turn people off.

Again, that’s okay. Showing how your product may not be the best fit will save both you and your prospect valuable time.

Note: Bonus points to River Pools for also creating a video that covers the topic!

At IMPACT, we zeroed in on our position as a HubSpot Solutions Partner (formerly known as a HubSpot Partner Agency), with the article “The Problems with Working with a HubSpot Partner Agency.”

Whether you sell a product or a service, there are likely issues that you can disclose to your audience in "problems" content.

Remember, we’re all in the business of trust, regardless of what we’re selling.

3. Show a solution

Now, sometimes profiling a problem will turn a buyer off. Other times, if you can show a solution to the problem, you can bring yourself one step closer to a new customer.

You want to stay humble enough to put yourself out there, but you also want to show that you have the authority and the knowledge to solve for any shortcomings.

In fact, topics like "X Challenges & How to Avoid Them" put solutions front and center.

As an example, see Berry Insurnace's article on the problems with (and solutions for) worker's comp insurance.

A prospect can easily see that Berry knows what it's talking about and can help you deal with these problems if you face them.

By educating its audience, Berry is giving shoppers the confidence they need to move forward with a purchase.

What about buyer and competitor problems?

When it comes to "problems" articles in the context of The Big 5, we're only talking about problems related to your business's offering or industry.

But that doesn't mean talking about problems with your competitors or other problems your buyers may face is off limits. In fact, these are great topics to build awareness of your business and educate your audience.

(Plus, if your buyers are asking questions about them, you need to answer, right?)

Put yourself in the position of your buyer. Then, make a list of the issues they have that would drive them to look to you for a solution.

In many cases, they might not even know they have a problem you can solve. It’s up to you to recognize their symptoms, identify the problem, and outline the options that are available to them.

Yale Appliance + Lighting does this well in its company learning center.

Their article, Kitchen Nightmares: 11 Renovation Mistakes to Avoid speaks to a problem, they don't directly solve themselves. As an appliance retailer, Yale is connected to kitchen renovations, even though it's not their direct business.

However, they can be sure that their potential customers are thinking about design mistakes when they look to make appliance updates.

In another example, West Roofing Systems addresses common leaking roof problems content head-on in the ebook, "Commercial Roof Leaks: Detection and Causes."

Their landing page copy describes the tactic they’re taking – helping the prospect detect the problem (a leaky commercial roof), finding the causes of the problem, and then creating an action plan to solve it.

In both cases, the prospect most likely came to the web and searched for their potential symptom (kitchen design mistakes or a leaky roof, for example), found the content, and left the site knowing what problem they have and the best way to solve for it.

Whether or not Yale and West Roofing make the sale directly, they’ve informed their buyers of their options and have built a basis of trust.

Create fearless content

"Problems" content isn’t the place to pull punches or withhold information.

As the authority in your industry — and as an honest, authentic voice — it’s up to you to help people make smart, confident buying decisions. That means laying all of the cards on the table, even if they're not necessarily in your favor.

Rely on what you’ve learned from speaking with and selling to your customers. What are the common objections they raise? Those are problems you should openly address in your website and sales enablement content.

Inbound marketing is about being unapologetically helpful. Go put yourself out there and start talking candidly about all your problems.

How to Maximize Your Social Media Presence with AI

awinter@impactbnd.com (Alex Winter) — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 14:22:57 GMT

Time is a precious commodity. As a business owner, marketing, or sales professional, you're likely juggling multiple responsibilities, leaving little room for creating and maintaining a robust social media presence. Sound familiar? You're not alone. Many medium-sized businesses, even those pulling in over $5 million in annual revenue, struggle with this very issue.

But what if we told you there's a way to dramatically improve your LinkedIn engagement with just one hour of effort? Intrigued? Let's dive into an eye-opening experiment conducted by Brian Casey, a head coach at IMPACT, and explore how AI tools like Opus Clip can revolutionize your social media strategy.

What was Brian's one-hour LinkedIn experiment?

Brian Casey, like many busy professionals, found himself with a spare hour and a desire to make the most of it. His goal? To see what he could accomplish in terms of personal branding through old video content that had already been created. The result? A social media experiment that yielded more LinkedIn traction than he'd seen in the past five years.

Here's what Brian did:

Utilized existing long-form video content
Used Opus Clip, an AI-powered video editing tool
Created and scheduled ten social media posts for LinkedIn
Distributed these posts over a two-week period

The surprising engagement and reach

For pretty minimal effort, the results were pretty good! Brian shared analytics from just one of his posts (not even the highest-performing one):

126 total views
100 unique viewers
29 minutes of total play time

But it's not just about the numbers. The real magic lies in who was viewing the content. Brian noted, "On LinkedIn, you can see who views it by demographics. Marketing specialist, website manager, executive director, salesperson, founder... if I were to want to go and prospect, that's exactly who I would want to be reaching out to anyway."

This targeted reach is a testament to the power of consistent, quality content shared with your professional network. It's not about having millions of followers; it's about engaging the right audience with valuable insights.

How does Opus Clip make content creation easier?

Now, you might be thinking, "That's great, but I'm not a video editing pro." The beauty of tools like Opus Clip is that you don't have to be. Brian, who describes himself as a non-video professional, found the tool intuitive and user-friendly.

Here's how Opus Clip streamlined the process:

Automatic Clip Generation: The tool analyzed the long-form videos and generated 20-30 short clips.
Smart Scoring: Each clip received a score based on factors like virality potential and topic relevance.
Easy Editing: The interface allowed for simple adjustments to captions and clip timing.

Brian noted, "For me, it was really intuitive. There was a point where I could just insert a video and it automatically created these short clips for me and gave me a score in terms of how well they thought it would do on social media."

While the tool isn't perfect (Brian mentioned some challenges with clip start points and caption editing), it significantly reduced the time and effort required to create engaging social content.

Why should busy professionals try AI for LinkedIn?

Let's face it: your to-do list is probably a mile long. Creating consistent, high-quality social media content often falls to the bottom of that list. But here's the kicker – it doesn't have to.

Brian's experiment proves that with the right tools, you can turn one hour into two weeks' worth of engaging content. This approach allows you to:

Repurpose existing content: Maximize the value of your long-form videos by turning them into multiple short-form pieces.
Save time: Reduce the hours spent on social media content creation and scheduling.
Maintain consistency: Keep your social media presence active without daily manual effort.
Reach your target audience: Share valuable insights with the professionals most likely to engage with your business.

As Brian put it, "I think just in general, short-form video performs really well on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube... that's just content that people like."

You don't need to be a video professional

One of the most encouraging aspects of Brian's experiment is that it doesn't require professional video equipment or editing skills. In fact, Brian emphasized that for most LinkedIn users, the quality threshold is surprisingly low.

"The threshold of which video quality has to be for a personal LinkedIn... is what I imagine most people that are listening are going to have a pretty low threshold that they have to meet," Brian noted.

This means you can create impactful content using just your smartphone. As Brian pointed out, "With natural light sources, like windows, anybody could do it." The authenticity of a simple, selfie-style video can often be more engaging than over-produced content.

How does consistent posting build authority?

Consistently sharing valuable content doesn't just boost your visibility – it establishes you as an authority in your field. As Brian explained, "At the end of the day, we all prefer that someone is coming to us and saying, 'Hey, I heard you or I saw you and I want to work with you.'"

By regularly appearing in your connections' feeds with insightful content, you're building trust and credibility. This can transform your business development efforts from constant outreach to inbound inquiries from interested prospects.

Your action plan to replicate this

Inspired to give this a try? Here's a simple action plan to get you started:

Identify existing long-form content (videos, webinars, presentations) that you can repurpose.
Sign up for a free trial of Opus Clip or a similar AI-powered video editing tool.
Set aside one hour to experiment with the tool and create your first batch of short-form content.
Schedule your posts over a two-week period on LinkedIn (or your platform of choice).
Monitor engagement and refine your approach based on what resonates with your audience.

Remember, as Brian emphasized, "There is no excuse. It's a very cheap, sometimes free tool, depending on whether you get a trial. Everybody has the ability to record or shoot a video that would work for it."

The future of AI in content creation

It's worth noting that tools like Opus Clip are continuously evolving. Brian's experiment was conducted with what he called "the worst version" of the tool – imagine the possibilities as these AI-powered solutions become even more sophisticated.

The key takeaway? Don't let perfectionism or lack of time hold you back. As Brian wisely noted, "Something is better than nothing." By leveraging AI tools to create and share valuable content consistently, you're positioning yourself and your business for greater visibility, authority, and ultimately, success.

The world of digital marketing and social media is evolving rapidly, and AI tools are making it easier than ever for busy professionals to stay in the game. By embracing these technologies and committing just a small amount of time, you can dramatically enhance your online presence and connect with your target audience more effectively than ever before.

Connect with Brian Casey

Brian uses his background in sales & inbound marketing strategy to coach clients on creating content that impacts sales and helps businesses reach their ideal buyers. His experience in working with clients spans across all types of businesses in unique markets.

Check out Brian’s IMPACT Bio
Connect with Brian on LinkedIn

Keep Learning

Watch: How to Create Industry-Disrupting Content That Will Turn Heads
Be Inspired: The Story of ‘They Ask, You Answer’
Learn: 3 Simple Steps for Creating Great “Problems” Content

FAQs

How long should LinkedIn videos be for the best engagement?
Short clips between 30–90 seconds perform best, especially when they address one specific question.

Do I need professional video gear?
No. A smartphone and natural lighting are enough. Authentic, selfie-style videos often perform better than overproduced ones.

How often should I post on LinkedIn?
Aim for 2–3 times per week to stay visible without overwhelming your audience.

What if I don’t have old video content to repurpose?
Start small. Record short clips answering your customers’ most common questions.

Which AI tools work best for LinkedIn video content?
Opus Clip is one option, but a tool like Descript can also help streamline video editing.

How to Plan a Learning Center For Your Website

Janet Mendez-Latouche — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 13:35:43 GMT

Your content is the soul of your business. It represents your personality, your culture, and your unique POV. But just writing and filming and recording great content is not enough. If that content isn't easy to find and easy to sort, it can feel like a disorganized mess to your audience.

Savvy marketers know that they need to present their content in a way that makes it easy for people to find what they are looking for.

For this reason, more and more businesses are developing “learning centers” to be a content library for their visitors.

A learning center is a place on your website where your best content can be easily accessed and searched. A learning center makes it easy for your prospects to find the content that answers their questions.

A learning center on your site doesn't just benefit your site visitors. Your sales reps can use your learning center to quickly find resources to share with prospects.

A great learning center should have a variety of content types, such as articles, videos, webinars, podcasts, and ebooks, that are categorized and searchable.

The first step to building a great learning center is to take stock of the content you already have. These are the steps you should follow:

Inventory the content you already have
Identify gaps in your content
Categorize your content

Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps, then we'll share some real-world examples to inspire you.

1. Inventory the content you already have

Inventory all of the content you have and what topics you have already covered. At IMPACT, we teach clients to focus their efforts around five core topics, which we call The Big 5. So, when a client starts compiling content, we make sure they've covered these topics thoroughly. (You can learn more about The Big 5 here.)

How about video content? What videos perform the best for you. Do you have any podcasts? What about other resources such as landing pages, calculators, ebooks, or white papers?

Taking inventory

There are different ways of taking inventory. Some content management systems will allow you to export your data with titles and links into a spreadsheet.

If not, tools such as Screaming Frog’s SEO spider tool will crawl your site and give you a report with the titles and URLs for all of your content.

If you don't have a lot of content, you may be able to just manually go through your posts to see what you have.

Some of the information you may want to include in your inventory are:

Type of content (blog article, video, ebook, etc.)
Resource title
URL for the resource
Resource CTA (read more, watch now, etc.)
Resource topic category
Meta description
Author/creator/featured SME

You can even add things such as how long the resource will take to read (factored by word count), target persona, or where a piece of content fits in the buyer's journey.

Once you have an inventory of your content, you can decide which content should go in your learning center. To do so, think about the buyer's journey. Focus on content that content that fits each step.

Remember, a learning center will allow your visitors to find the type of content that is best suited to them. Some people love to read, while others prefer to watch videos or listen to podcasts. Still others like interactive content, so be sure to include a variety of content types.

You may not have all of these types of content yet. In the next step, you will identify those gaps so you can create needed content.

2. Identify gaps in your content

What content do you still need to create? Are there gaps? Perhaps you don’t have content that covers all of the questions that your visitors may have. Maybe you have a lot of content about your products, but none that covers the cost of those products. Are you missing videos or any interactive content?

What content will help your visitors? What content will help your sales team provide the answers to help in the sales process?

Make a list of content that still needs to be created and add it to your editorial calendar. You will always be creating content that will be added to your learning center, but in the beginning, you will want to be sure you are covering, or have a plan to cover, content that addresses the questions your prospects are asking most about your products or services.

To find out what content your prospects are asking, you will want to talk to all of your client-facing personnel to see what questions they are hearing every day.

3. Categorize your content

You will want to make it easy for your visitors to find the topics that they are interested in, so they will need to be able to filter content by category.

At IMPACT, we categorize by the type of service you may be looking for. So, for instance, if you are looking specifically for help with website design, there is a filter that allows you to check a box and get only website design content.

You can also add filters for the format of content, such as videos or articles. For your learning center, you need to decide what makes the most sense for you and your customers, but if you inventoried your content properly, this step should go smoothly.

Now you are ready to start building your learning center. For inspiration, let's look at some examples.

Learning center examples

Here are some examples of great learning centers to give you some ideas. Some come from IMPACT clients, some do not.

RetroFoam of Michigan

RetroFoam Michigan provides foam insulation for pre-built homes. In their learning center you can access articles, pricing calculators and a chatbot to help you find the information you're looking for.

Users can filter by topic as well as resource type so, for example. They can choose also to watch a video or see a checklist about their topic choice.

Google Workspace

Google Workspace's learning center allows you to search by the product you want to learn about. You'll also find sections that provide tips, links to certifications, and a way for users to contribute.

New users get a step-by-step checklist to get them up and running quickly.

Whirks

Tennessee-based Whirks offers payroll and HR services, and they've got a pleasing learning center with a clean layout and effective search functions.

Because they work with so many different companies, the folks at Whirks allow visitors to sort by industry to find content that fits their needs.

It's great to see some top-notch premium resources here as well — full-length guides that provide in-depth information about complex topics like hiring and HR.

IMPACT

Our learning center at IMPACT allows users to find content with an easy search function as well as the ability to sort by topic, content type, or role.

This makes it simple for our visitors to find what they are looking for. It also makes it easy for our sales team to quickly identify articles that will be helpful to send to prospects asking questions to give them just what they need.

All of the examples feature an easy search function and the ability to sort by topic.

Pulling it all together

Ready to get started? Building a learning center will require some technical knowledge, so you may need help.

How you set up your learning center will depend on your platform. For example, if your site is on WordPress, you may automatically filter data using custom post types. If your site is on HubSpot, you will need to manually add your data to your learning center via HubDB.

Either way, you'll likely need some development help to actually get everything set up.

Next steps

Researchers believe that over 80% of a buying decision is made before a prospect ever contacts you.

Creating a learning center is a great way to put education at the center of your marketing. Right now, your potential customers are researching and learning about what you sell. A learning center allows your firm to be the one that educates them. This way, you help your prospects by educating them and helping them make an informed decision to buy.

To make it easy, IMPACT has created learning center templates for both WordPress and HubSpot and can walk you through the process of creating your own learning center.

Whether you choose to create your own or use one of our templates, you should get started! As Marcus Sheridan says, buyers want to find trustworthy, unbiased educational content. And, “just like everything else in the digital age, industry leaders will be made by those that can do it well, and do it first.”

If you get stuck, reach out to the team at IMPACT. We can get a brand new learning center on your site in a matter of weeks — and for a lot less than you'd think.

How To Set Marketing Goals Based on Business Goals

rruffolo@impactbnd.com (Bob Ruffolo) — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 11:42:13 GMT

Goal setting is one of the most critical challenges for any business leader.

Your entire team is watching: If you set goals that are too ambitious, you’re seen as an unrealistic tyrant. Goals that are too small can make it seem like you lack vision or direction.

Even perfect goals without the right plan in place will leave your team feeling confused and frustrated.

In our company’s work with clients of all shapes and sizes, we’ve helped hundreds of business leaders set goals and develop plans for growth. What we tell our clients is this: Start with the end in mind — and then plan backward to spell out the necessary steps to get you there.

When it comes to marketing goals, follow this same approach. Start with where you want to go, then plan the steps that will get you there.

Even if you have a great digital marketing plan, if it’s not connected to specific goals, it will be difficult to measure your success and course-correct as needed.

In this article, I’ll set you up for goal-setting success by sharing:

How to set well-defined goals.
A step-by-step plan for setting marketing goals based on business goals.

By setting SMART goals — that is, goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound, you and your team will know exactly what you are working toward — with no questions.

Here’s how to begin.

How to set well-defined goals

It is often said that a goal without a plan is just a wish — but a plan without a goal is equally incomplete.

To move your business forward, you need both: goals that are well-defined — and the plans to get you there.

Examples of poorly defined marketing goals

Here are some marketing goal examples that need more work:

I want more website visitors, leads, and sales
We need to generate a larger email list
Our goal is to rank higher in Google
We want to use more AI in our marketing

You can see that these are vague.

It's easy to say that you want to generate more leads, but how many more leads do you need to achieve your goal? 10 more? 100 more? Thousands more? How many contacts do you want on your mailing list? What do you want to rank in Google for? How will you use AI?

Without a clear goal, it's hard to define success.

Examples of well-defined marketing goals

Here are the same goals turned into well-defined marketing goals. What’s more, these marketing goals are based on the overall goals of the business.

We need 20,000 visitors, 500 leads, and 12 customers within the next 12 months from our inbound marketing efforts to achieve our revenue goal of $600,000 from inbound marketing.

We would like to generate two customers from our current client list using email marketing. We would also like to add all qualified leads to our mailing list, allowing us to keep these leads warm for future sales.

We want to rank No. 1 for the keyword term "Reliable snow removal in Denver,” since we estimate that it will generate 300 visitors to our website per month.
We want to use AI to speed up our content creation process by 20%.

When it comes to marketing goals, specifics are your friend. It’s better to start out with numbers in mind, even if you have to adjust them over time.

At IMPACT, we set goals and then determine a range of outcomes, and we regularly update these along the way.

Red means we were way below our target.

Yellow is closer, but not actually on target.

Green means we reached our goal.

Super green means we surpassed it.

How to set marketing goals based on business goals (in 7 steps)

Below are seven steps for setting well-defined marketing goals that are in sync with the goals of the business:

1. Identify how much revenue you need to generate from your digital marketing efforts

This is easy, but it’s a critical first step. Say your business did $2 million in sales last year. Your CEO just said he wants to grow the business by 30% next year.

You know you already have $1.8 million on the books for next year and expect another $200,000 from other marketing efforts, such as trade shows and events.

That leaves you with a gap of $600,000 that you need to close within the next 12 months.

2. Determine how many sales you need to hit those revenue goals

Take your revenue gap and divide it by the value of your average sale. For example, if the revenue needed is $600,000 and your average sale is $50,000, then you need 12 new customers to achieve your goal.

If your average sale is $500, then you need 1,200 sales.

But for now, let's stick with the 12 for the sake of our example.

3. Identify your closing rate and how many opportunities you need

Continue working backward to identify how many opportunities you need. Say that your close rate is 25%. So, if you need 12 new customers, you’ll need 48 opportunities (or 'ops' for short).

4. Identify how many SQLs you need

A sales qualified lead (SQL) is a lead that is ready to be passed to your sales team. Some will become ops, some will not.

If this is something you haven't tracked before, you may not know this number. Take your best estimate. I often find that 50% is a good number to start with. In other words, half of all SQLs that you pass over to sales will become legitimate opportunities. Your number might be higher or lower, so start with 50% and adjust it over time.

For our example, we can estimate that we need to pass 96 SQLs to our sales team in order to get 48 opportunities (and 12 customers).

5. Identify how many MQLs you need

A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a lead that is qualified, but not sales-ready. MQLs need more education before they’re ready to talk to sales. Maybe they get enrolled in a lead nurturing campaign to learn more about your offerings so they become sales-ready over time. Or, they might opt out, seeing that they’re a bad fit to do business with you.

So, how many will be ready to become SQLs? Again, 50% is a safe number to assume. If you have no experience with digital marketing, start with 50%. You can always adjust this later.

To continue with our example, we'll need to generate 192 MQLs within the next 12 months, which will turn into 96 SQLs that enter the sales process.

6. Identify how many leads you need

We define a lead as a visitor who has converted on one of your offers. Remember, not all of your leads will be MQLs. Some will be too early in their buyer’s journey, others may just be gathering information. So, when it comes to estimating the number of leads you need, keep all of this in mind.

First off, how are visitors converting on your site? What are you offering them in exchange for their contact information?

The more attractive your content is for your qualified leads, the higher your conversion rate from lead to MQL will be. To generate our 192 MQLs, in this example, I would estimate that we’ll need to generate 500 leads.

As you get started, monitor these numbers closely and make the necessary adjustments over time.

7. Identify how much traffic you need to achieve your goals

How much traffic will you need to capture 500 leads? Based on our experience, we would estimate a traffic-to-lead-conversion rate of 2.5% over the next 12 months.

At first, this rate will be lower as content gets created and rolled out. Then, it will climb as rankings improve.

In our example, you'll need 20,000 website visitors within the next 12 months.

Now put it all together

And there you have it: 20,000 website visitors will turn into 500 leads, who will become 192 MQLs, who will become 96 SQLs, who will become 48 ops, who will become 12 customers, who will spend an average of $50,000 and bring in $600,000 to your company.

Obviously it’s not always a perfect science. But you can see how a revenue goal can translate into a marketing goal, as long as you go backward and take it step by step.

Next, set quarterly benchmarks

As you're just getting started, remember that results will take some time. You'll get a lot more traction in the fourth quarter than you did in the first. Set your benchmarks for the fourth quarter much higher than your benchmarks for the first quarter. For our example, our quarterly benchmarks may include generating 1,000 visitors in the first quarter and 8,000 visitors in the fourth quarter.

Set benchmarks for every metric you’re tracking, from traffic all the way down to new customers. This way, you can continually tweak and make updates to your formula. If you’re struggling to hit a benchmark, don’t panic. Work with your team to figure out ways to improve.

Make sure you include metrics for your other key business goals as well.

Remember to implement your other key business goals

These goals are not supposed to be an exhaustive list. Most likely, what we’ve spelled out above will represent only one aspect of your business. Don’t forget to set up similar formulas for other goals you may be tracking. For example:

Sales for a particular product line
Revenue from existing customers
Retention rates from current customers
Number of job applicants (which may be important if your business is growing)
Downloads of a high lead-to-customer converting offer

As with the example above, make sure you clearly define these goals and make them SMART. Then, work backward to determine the steps to take to get yourself there.

Take the first step and get started

In his book Scaling Up, author Verne Harnish recommends focusing your business around what he calls a big hairy audacious goal (or “BHAG” for short). This is sort of a “where do you want to be in 10 years?” type thing. Your BHAG might seem far-fetched today, but that’s okay. It’s going to take a long time to get there.

Any goal you set will remain forever in the distance if you don’t plan the steps that will get you there. Whether you’re talking about a goal that’s 10 weeks or 10 years away, break it into smaller chunks so you know how to move forward.

Remember, your goals will not be perfect.

Don't waste hours upon hours tweaking numbers and then never getting started. Gather accurate data about previous time periods, define the capabilities of your team, and make smart decisions on where you want to go with your marketing.

Then, get started and begin tracking your progress. You can always course-correct along the way.

Build your marketing strategy around these goals, and after one quarter ends, take a step back with your new data. Adjusting goals (whether you overshot or undershot) shouldn't be perceived as negative — it's something that's completely necessary to keep moving forward.

You can do this — but you don't have to do it alone.

A business coach can help you plan goals and track progress. Here at IMPACT, we've helped hundreds of businesses in dozens of industries.

You can speak to one of our experts to see how we can help you set goals to build a more profitable future.

How to Fire Your Marketing Agency (And Not Skip a Beat)

cdelaney@impactbnd.com (Connor DeLaney) — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 13:15:06 GMT

When businesses hire a marketing agency, it can be an exciting time.

The honeymoon phase is glorious, with ideas flowing and motivation high. But then sometimes months pass and the results aren't as you’d hoped.

Maybe traffic is low, leads are poor, and you're just not closing the deals you were looking for. You might be faced with the difficult decision of breaking ties with your agency, but you don't want to burn bridges or leave your business in an even worse place as you transition.

Breaking up with your agency doesn't have to be messy.

There are key steps you need to take to end the relationship on good terms and set your business up for continued success.

In this article, we’ll cover:

How to know if it truly is time to fire your marketing agency.
Steps to take when offboarding your agency and ending the relationship.
How to proceed after the service end date.
What to consider before jumping into hiring another marketing agency.

With this information, not only will you learn how to approach this difficult situation in the appropriate way, but you will also learn how to ensure you’re covered after parting ways.

Signs you need to fire your marketing agency

When businesses hire a marketing agency but don’t see the growth they’d hoped for, it can be difficult to know when the time is right to fire that agency.

You might be thinking about how much time and effort it’s taken to find the agency, and maybe there are things you can do to help make it work, but trust us when we say that waiting too long can be costly.

Now, we're not telling you to jump ship. But you should be on the lookout for a few signs.

Here are the red flags to be aware of when deciding whether or not to let your marketing agency go:

You haven't seen an uptick in sales opportunities after six months: Marketing strategies can take a while to plan and implement, but they shouldn’t take too long. Although your business should expect a planning period and time to get things rolling, you should ideally be seeing significant results by the six-month mark. Even if other numbers are climbing, if they aren't resulting in sales, something is not working.
The content they produce doesn’t sound like your brand: One of the biggest setbacks we see businesses struggle with is that the agency-produced content doesn’t sound like them. Now, in modern marketing, "content" can mean anything from blog articles to website copy to conversion paths, to social media posts. In order for you marketing to be successful, you need consistency in your content across platforms.
It’s very difficult to get an agency or even a freelancer to capture who you are if they don’t focus solely on you — and with other clients to juggle, they will never be able to.
Your agency team has high turnover: A high turnover rate at your agency is never a good sign. When you work with an agency, you're building a relationship and trusting your image with them. You don't want the talent on your project to be constantly changing. If your account is regularly changing hands it's likely that instability is a perpetual problem at your agency.

Bottom line, if no one at your business is excited about the agency’s work, this is a major indication the marketing strategy is falling flat and doesn’t have the command it needs to create real change.

An effective marketing agency should be generating results that are motivating for your team.

If your agency is missing the mark, you're not alone. In fact, about 40% of brands plan on ditching their agency in the next six months.

The reasons are many, but they come down to the same core issue: There's more noise than ever before. In the age of AI, content is easier to create than ever before, and marketing plans are a dime a dozen. A sub-par marketing strategy won't help you stand out from the crowd.

So, don't wait. Be honest with yourself about how your agency is performing and make the best decision for its long-term performance.

How to fire your agency (and not skip a beat)

So you’ve made the decision to fire your marketing agency. Here’s what your offboarding process should look like:

1. Review your current contract and follow its conditions

The first step to firing your marketing agency is knowing your contract. It’s important to know the terms of your separation, how much notice you need to provide, and the rest of the conditions you’ve agreed to so you can keep them.

Most agreements require 30 days of notice, but if there is no time frame specified, set one. Whatever you choose, just be sure to give your business enough time to wrap up loose ends and not blindside your team or the agency.

2. Have your decision-makers make the announcement

To avoid confusion and enforce formality, make sure to have your decision-makers communicate your decision to end the partnership.

This shows alignment and avoids the agency asking to speak to leadership for further details.

Be sure that leadership is direct and concise with the decision. But they should also provides feedback, if possible, as to why. This professional courtesy is appreciated, especially if you've developed a friendly relationship with your contact.

3. Plan when and how to end current projects

If you're in the middle of a project with your agency, ask it to provide you with a timeline detailing how they will complete it before the service end date or come to an agreement otherwise.

This is critical to making sure you're not left with unfinished work you're unable to complete on your own.

4. Get all files and processes

Get your agency to gather and send you any files and processes used during your time together.

If you’ve used a project management tool, such as Basecamp, ask how long you will have access to it so you can take all the necessary files with you before ending any projects.

5. Get admin access to all company accounts

Make sure your agency grants you access and ownership of all the relevant accounts so that you can maintain them after the partnership ends.

(Believe it or not, some businesses miss this step and let agencies keep access to their private business accounts.)

These accounts typically include:

Google suite tools, such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Business Profile, and Google Adwords.
Social media pages and accounts.
Third-party accounts, such as HubSpot, Semrush, Hotjar, and Lucky Orange.
Back-end access to your website.

6. Remove agency from all accounts

Once your service end date is over, be sure to remove agency users from all company accounts and change your passwords. This is so they can no longer access your company’s profiles, metrics, and private data.

After the breakup...

Once these steps are complete, it’s time to set yourself up as soon as possible for your business’s next chapter. This may include asking yourself if you should work with another agency.

After all, will it really be that different?

Should you keep outsourcing your marketing?

Before hiring another marketing agency, think about what you need to accomplish.

In general, we recommend that you keep the most important pieces of your marketing efforts in-house.

For example, if it’s important that your messaging resonates with your buyers better than anyone else in your industry, you can better accomplish this by bringing content creation in-house.

While some outsourced writers are incredibly talented and may even have experience in your industry, they will never have deep understanding of your business. They’re simply not in it day-to-day.

The people who will resonate most with your prospects and most accurately address your products, processes, and culture are the people in it every day: your sales team, your engineering team, your customer support team, your executive team, and so on.

These SMEs (or subject matter experts) are the ultimate source of the most honest, helpful, and transparent content available, anywhere.

They will know more about your business than any outside marketing agency or freelance writer ever could.

Overall, anything that is core to the way you operate your business and marketing on a day-to-day basis should be in-house.

Typically, we recommend the following:

In-house content management

You need a person on your team to obsess over your content day in and day out, making sure you’re publishing high-quality, educational content three times a week.

This includes blog articles, buyer's guides, email campaigns, and anything else that is helpful to your audience.

What you'll need to do:

When you bring content production in-house, you need to start by hiring someone to own it. Depending on their experience and specific responsibilities, this person may be called a content manager, content writer, or even content marketing director.

This person will be determine what content is needed, get it produced, and measure its performance afterwards.

In-house video production

Video is no longer a nice-to-have. It's essential for building your brand and connecting with your audience.

Just think about all the questions your buyers are asking during the sales process. Imagine video content that answers every one. A videographer can help you make video a core pare of your marketing strategy — and you can do this cheaper and quicker than you think.

What you'll need to do:

Similar to content management, when you bring video in-house you will need someone to own video production in your company. This includes determining what videos are needed and ensuring they're produced, but also actual filming, editing, and even script writing.

In-house CMS and CRM management

With so much to analyze and keep on top of, no marketing agency is going to manage your CRM like an in-house specialist will, whether you’re using HubSpot or another tool. You want to have constant access to analytics and reports from the marketing tools to see the most accurate and reliable data.

What's more, you need to be able to make website updates in-house. This means understanding your CMS and developing the ability to make changes, build pages, move buttons, and run A/B tests.

We tell our clients that you should be able to handle 80% of your website management in-house. Knowing the basics will save you tons of money in the long run — and give you greater control in the day-to-day.

What you'll need to do:

Your CRM management may likely fall more into the hands of your sales team, as it houses all of your lead and prospect activity. Make sure they incorporate it into their sales process, but also make sure your marketing team is aware of how to use the CRM to personalize content, automate emails, and more.

In some cases, you may need a dedicated CRM admin person, but it depends on your size and unique needs.

Your CMS, on the other hand, will be the jurisdiction of your marketing team.

'What should I still outsource?'

When it comes to outsourcing, limit it to complicated projects that require a lot of technical skill but are on a part-time basis.

This may include but is not limited to:

Large technical or one-off projects, such as software integrations, brand development, website design, or app development.
Paid advertising, such as on Google or social media.

🔎 Related: We dive deeper into these areas in our article, "What Marketing Tasks Should I Still Outsource?"

Take charge of your marketing success

There are thousands of great marketing agencies out there, but sometimes success isn't about picking the right one. Instead, it's about knowing what you need and how to get it.

For authentic content and effective marketing strategies, we've found that an in-house team works better. If you hand these off to a company that doesn't live and breathe what you do, you might end up with sub-par results.

No one knows your business better than you do. No one knows your processes, culture, voice, and buyers better than you do. It's these details that you need to capture and share to build trust with a modern customer.

Want to learn more about building trust and winning business in the age of AI? Subscribe to our "Endless Customers" podcast. We dive deep in marketing and sales success in every episode.

DIY Marketing for Your Home Improvement Business: Building Trust and Attracting Customers

jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker) — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 13:09:32 GMT

Finding new customers for your construction businesses can feel like a full-time job. You’re already doing the work, bidding on projects, and visiting job sites, along with a dozen other tasks that come up each week. And at the same time, you've got to grow your business.

How?

Word-of-mouth referrals are great, but in an increasingly crowded marketplace, you’re always left wondering if it’s enough.

You could work with a marketing agency, but paying for mailers, newspaper ads, or radio spots doesn’t provide much of a return on investment — and it’s always hard to measure. What's more, those "traditional" marketing streams can make you seem interchangeable with a dozen other companies.

So you’re stuck.

How do you get customers to trust you with their project — without wasting money on approaches that seem outdated and inefficient?

The key is reimagining your approach to marketing to suit the digital age. You can bring new customers to your business without a high-priced ad spend.

Today, marketing doesn’t have to be a confusing or expensive endeavor. Instead of blasting your message out and hoping the right people hear you, you can actually have your customers come to you — as long as you focus on producing educational content.

In this article, I’ll explain:

An overview of DIY digital marketing
The information your buyers are looking for
Digital marketing examples from construction businesses just like yours

You’ll come away with a fundamental understanding of how modern digital marketing strategies can attract website visitors who can enter your sales funnel as good-fit prospects.

Let’s dive in.

Digital marketing: An overview

At the most basic level, digital marketing is simple. It starts off with a basic premise: The internet has changed the way people buy. When customers are thinking about making a purchase, whatever it is, they start by gathering information. They do this with a computer and a search engine or an AI-powered chatbot. Or, they may pose a question to social media or YouTube.

Studies show that roughly 93% of all purchases start with some kind of internet search.

Customers begin by typing in questions and looking for answers. They keep reading and they keep learning, all as they get closer and closer to making a purchase.

If they read a few articles or watch a few videos from the same source, that source becomes an information source they recognize and trust.

Right now, your potential customers are sitting down to ask a question:

How do I finance a home improvement loan?
What are the benefits of burying service wires?
Should I use fiber cement shingles for my exterior?
How much does a radon safety system cost to install?

Answering questions like these is the first step to establishing trust within your marketplace.

Now, if you're using traditional marketing tactics like a radio spot or a mailer, you're blasting out your message to everyone — most of whom are not interested.

But with digital marketing, it's a different story. The people typing in questions related to your industry are way more qualified for your services than the general population.

Think about it: If you’re an HVAC company, wouldn’t you rather send your offer to someone who just Googled “How much does a furnace cost?” than to every single person in your town?

So, how do you know what your potential customers are going to search for? Start by thinking like your buyer.

Thinking like a homeowner

When homeowners are looking to make repairs or upgrades to their property — or looking to build a new home altogether, what’s their emotional state? They may be excited about a new project — or concerned about a nagging issue.

However they’re feeling, you can be sure of one thing: They are very wary of being ripped off.

Because homeowners have no real experience with how much a new furnace should cost, or what goes into the building of a retaining wall, they are at an information disadvantage, and they are wary of being taken advantage of.

Therefore, if you work in the home improvement industry, you are already fighting an uphill battle to win the trust and business of your potential customers.

And if you’re spending money on traditional advertising like mailers and radio, you might not be helping. According to Inc., 96% of consumers don’t trust ads at all.

But there's a better way. When a homeowner is looking into a particular home service — whether that’s building a patio, putting on a new roof, or finishing their basement — where do they turn? They start out on search engines looking for answers. They want to get the lay of the land so they can be a more informed buyer.

We believe that if your customer is asking a question, you should answer it, even if it forces you to talk about something uncomfortable like price or product shortcomings.

Here’s why: If a customer’s search leads them to your website, and they find your content to be helpful and honest, then they’re willing to trust your business. Suddenly, you're not just another home builder trying to get their money. You're the home builder that answered their questions.

The 5 topics your buyers are asking about

Buyers everywhere are asking the same questions. Whether they’re buying a wedding cake, a trumpet, or a kitchen renovation.

At IMPACT, we sort these questions into topics we call The Big 5, and we believe they are universal.

So, what do your buyers want to know?

Cost: First on everyone’s mind, of course, is cost. We are all skeptical when a website won’t tell us how much a product or service costs. Does “Call for price!” actually work? I doubt it.
Sure, it’s hard to say exactly how much something might cost — especially something with as many variables as a construction project — but customers want to have some idea. Addressing cost openly and explaining what factors make that number go up and down will give customers what they’re looking for.
Problems: When we make a purchase, we want to know what might go wrong. This is why we’re so drawn to one-star reviews. Feeling informed about worst-case scenarios helps us feel prepared for whatever could be thrown our way.
Reviews: Connected to problems are reviews. This could be reviews of products or reviews of entire companies. As a home services business, you know how important reviews are.
According to Inc., 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust a review from a friend.
“Best of” lists: Customers frequently Google questions that help them find the best solutions.
According to HubSpot, searches with the phrase “near me” have grown exponentially. Thus, you can imagine searches like “best roofer near me” and “best floor refinishers near me” being very popular.
Comparisons: Paint or stain? Gas or electric? Whirlpool or GE? Consumers want to put things side by side to know how they stack up. Covering these head-to-heads can help demonstrate your expertise and make your potential customers feel informed to make the best choice possible.

If you're not sure what content your buyers are looking for, start with The Big 5.

Building a digital marketing content strategy

So, there you have it. The Big 5 is not rocket science, but it's effective and universal. You can use these topics to form the basis of your entire marketing strategy. You can address them in writing, on TikTok, on a podcast, in a YouTube video, or in any other medium your audience uses to gather information.

But you can't just do so willy-nilly. You'll need a plan, and you'll (probably) need someone to help you.

What is a content strategy?

A digital marketing strategy keeps you on track and focused on what brings customers to your sales team.

A good strategy includes both written and video content — and makes good use of social media platforms. (We’ve found that video builds trust even faster than writing, but text can offer more depth and specificity.)

Therefore, consider covering each of the topics in your strategy with several types of content. And, make your content easy to find, search, and consume.

Having the right team

If you’re serious about digital marketing, we recommend diverting money you’ve been spending on traditional outbound marketing and hiring internal team members — a content writer and a videographer — to support your efforts.

Then, when these new folks are on board, you can begin to address these key topics with content that customers will find, value, and share.

If you’re not in a place to hire, that’s okay. You can do a lot of this on your own, but it will take time and energy to do it well.

For a real-world example, consider California-based Dalinghaus Construction, which had bounced around between a few different agencies. They spent a ton of money on new websites and social media ads, but once they focused on creating helpful content, their business really took off.

Real-world examples of a marketing strategy in action

At IMPACT, we’ve worked with dozens of home improvement companies that focus on building, roofing, plumbing, foundation repair, insulation, remodeling services, and more.

Below, we’ll offer examples from businesses (some clients of ours, some not) that are building trust and driving sales with inbound marketing that addresses the core questions their ideal customers are asking.

1. Talking about cost

Our first example is from West Roofing Systems, an installer with locations in Ohio, Florida, and Georgia. Here, Greg Palya's run-down of cost is straightforward and unbiased.

What's the ballpark cost to restore a commercial metal roof?

Everyone knows that the easiest answer to give to "how much will it cost?" is it depends. But that's not helpful to the customer looking for a price range. So, this article breaks down the costs and considerations a potential customer needs to know.

Then, to give a sense of their materials and process, West Roofing lets you watch a project get done start to finish.

Immediately, it feels clear that the West Roofing team knows their customers. Right out of the gate they've addressed the biggest question of them all.

2. Being honest about problems

Construction projects come with a raft of problems, and businesses should be upfront with their clients about what may lie ahead.

In this article, Custom Built Design and Remodeling covers eight common problems with basement finishing.

8 common problems with basement finishing and how to combat them

Notice how the author is specific about problems, adding both solutions and alternatives to make customers feel fully informed.

3. Reviews that are unbiased and helpful

Buyers trust online reviews almost as much as they trust word of mouth. This is why buyers go to Yelp, Angi, and other sites that host user reviews.

As experts in your field, your insight matters. In the article below, Florida-based RoofCrafters provides details on two common shingle choices.

GAF Timberline HDZ vs. Owens Corning Oakridge Shingles

4. ‘Best of’ lists that present numerous options

Feature above, Dalinhaus Construction knows its marketplace well. So well, in fact, that it lists the best competitors in its marketplace.

The thinking here is this: every customer has options — and not every business is a great fit for every customer. By compiling a list of other great businesses in their market, Dalinghaus positions itself as a trustworthy brand with nothing to hide.

5 Best Foundation Repair Companies in the Greater Phoenix Area

5. Real comparisons that help buyers feel informed

Installing a pool is a huge and expensive undertaking that is likely a purchase a customer will make only once in their life. So, how do they know they’re getting it right?

A fundamental question about your pool is the construction material. Should you go with concrete or fiberglass? Rather than just proclaiming that fiberglass pools are superior, read how River Pools in Virginia compares concrete and fiberglass, covering pros and cons of each one in this article:

Concrete pools vs. fiberglass pools: An honest comparison

I also love how author Holly Jender addresses cost (again, it’s at the top of everyone’s mind) by breaking down 10-year ownership expenses in a handy diagram.

Now, see the same content covered in video. Again, we see high production values and a quick, entertaining format. As viewers, we know we can go to the article for more information, but the video promises an overview in two minutes — something explained at the onset.

Thinking beyond The Big 5

While The Big 5 are a wise place to start, the home improvement industry comes with its own unique questions that buyers everywhere want to know. These include a million “What is…” "How to..." and “Do I…” type questions.

As you plan your marketing strategy, pull some team members together and brainstorm some questions your buyers might type into search engines, such as:

What type of foundation do I need for my addition?
What is the best time of year to replace a roof?
How do I keep my countertop looking new?
Do I need a general contractor to handle my renovation?
What is an epoxy liner for plumbing repair?
Should I upgrade to geothermal heating?
How do I fix my gutters?
Do I need battery backup for my solar panels?

You get the idea.

Bundled content

Once you’ve built up a library of valuable content, you can focus on creating high-value "bundles" that can help bring in more leads.

It could be a guidebook to everything you need to know about metal roofs or a checklist for getting your window replacement project started. Site visitors could give you their contact information to download this kind of information in a free ebook. This way, you grow your audience and your mailing list.

Even better, this type of content gives your leads an easier conversion point. If they're not ready to schedule a sales call, they may feel comfortable downloading a free guide to kitchen remodeling.

'But do I need a new website?'

Often, businesses hoping to get started with digital marketing are wary that they’ll need a new website. In almost all cases, this is not true. You do not need a new website — you don’t even need a great website.

Unfortunately, there are many agencies out there that will gladly take your money and sell you a full site redesign that you don’t really need, telling you that it’s critical to your digital marketing ambitions.

Not so.

Even if your current website is a bit outdated, it probably has all the necessary functionality for success:

Can you publish a blog?
Can you interlink between blog articles or use a tag system to organize content?
Can you use CTAs and a landing page to capture leads?

If your website can do these three things, you’re probably good to get started.

Just remember, your website is for your customers, not for you. Focus on their problems and challenges. Speak their language.

Potential customers will be wary of a sleek website if it doesn't provide value and build trust.

Sure, you may want a website upgrade down the line, but that shouldn't prevent you from producing helpful content today.

Getting started with your DIY marketing strategy

A marketing strategy is a detailed, evolving resource that will look different for each company. But you can get started with the basics provided above. If you’re ever unsure about what to cover, start with The Big 5. You know your customers are thinking about and Googling questions related to these topics right now.

Then, as a secondary source, go to your sales team. We recommend recurring meetings every two weeks between marketing and sales to find out what questions your sales reps are hearing from buyers. If certain questions keep coming up, make sure you address them thoroughly in your content.

Lastly, use resources available online to generate topic ideas as well. Semrush, AnswerThePublic, and Google Trends are all great resources to help you dive into what users are looking for.

Remember, if your customers are asking a question, you should be willing to answer it — and to do so openly on your website. This sort of transparency is key for developing trust and winning customers.

If you’re serious about using content marketing to grow your business, use the examples above for inspiration, and talk to us if you'd like to learn about how our trainers and coaches can help you take ownership of your digital sales and marketing to achieve your business goals.

Not ready to talk? Subscribe to our "Endless Customers" podcast. Every episode will give you real-world insights and tips for building trust and growing your business in the age of AI.

6 Common Website Lead Generation Problems (and How to Fix Them)

jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker) — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 12:50:38 GMT

When everything is working “right” in digital marketing, traffic is up, conversions are high, and lead generation is operating at peak performance.

But what happens when the leads dry up? How do you fix lead generation problems?

Unfortunately, there’s no button on any given website that you can hit to turn on the leads. (If only it were that easy.) However, there are multiple solutions any digital marketer can implement to fix the most common lead generation website problems.

Lead generation problem #1: Low traffic

When it’s time to research why the leads aren’t flowing anymore, the first inclination is to turn to traffic numbers. If this is you, rest assured, you’re not alone. In fact, 61% of marketers say generating traffic and leads is their top challenge. But in the age of AI, where the very bedrock under traditional SEO is giving way, tactics that worked a few years ago may no longer apply.

Still, it's important to master the basics.

Solution: Master the technical SEO basics

Start at the very beginning and make sure that your website is technically working the way it’s supposed to. While technical SEO isn’t something you can master overnight, there are some SEO basics you should be monitoring consistently.

Security

If your site isn’t secure with an SSL certificate, Google will mark your site as “unsecured.” Not only does this mean you’ll be dinged with a lower search ranking, but it breaks your prospects’ trust in you if they don’t feel safe conducting business on your site.

Site speed

For every second of additional load time, a site loses 7% of its conversions. If you’re annoyed at how slow your site is, then your prospects are too. Don’t let them down by forcing them to wait for what you have to offer.

At this point, those prospects may not even make it to your page at all.

Google has been rewarding faster sites in its rankings ever since its speed update 2018.

Crawlability

If you want Google to crawl the content on your site, you need to tell it where to go. The Google spider naturally follows the links on each page, but you can direct it to where you want it to go by submitting a sitemap. This gives you the power to highlight pages you want indexed or exclude others you don’t.

Broken links and 404s

Broken links obstruct the user experience on your site and, if not resolved, can prevent users from hitting your site at all.

You guessed it — Google penalizes sites with too many 404 error pages. The easy solution to this is to fix those broken links. Google Search Console provides a list of broken links and errors you can resolve to keep your site clean and working properly.

Solution: Improve your content

While SEO basics are important, the biggest SEO hack of all time is also the hardest: Produce great content. If your content is valuable to your reader, it will perform better. Google has stated this as its mission for more than a decade.

Now, with AI-generated answers and a bigger push toward location-specific search results, this holds more true than ever.

So, even with your site is secure and speedy, you must optimize your content so it appears on the coveted search results page?

SEO’s importance, of course, extends far beyond the technical. Aside from getting your pages indexed and ranking higher in search, SEO:

Gets more traffic to your website
Makes pages easier for readers to consume
Brings higher-quality traffic to your site
Pulls in more and better-qualified leads

Marketers who are new to SEO often believe that it’s driven by keywords alone, but everything on your site needs to work in tandem to get the SEO juice flowing, including:

Title
URL
Meta description
Headers
Keywords
Links
Visuals
Actual content (we’ll get to that later)
Word count

To drive organic traffic to your site, you’ll need to spend time perfecting each of these SEO elements.

🎓 For more information on optimizing for AI, check out: How to Build a Brand that AI Loves

Lead generation problem #2: Confusing UX

Imagine being dropped in a city you’ve never visited. Wandering into unknown territory can be either exciting or intimidating, depending on whether or not you know where to go.

Don’t assume your website visitors are thrill-seekers — give them a map so they know how to get where they're going. Otherwise, they may enter the site, stumble around for a while, get frustrated, and leave.

Solution: Provide easy navigation

An easy to use website is the greatest marketing hack of all time. According to recent research, 37% of website users admitted that a poor experience with site navigation was enough to make them want to leave the site entirely.

There are several website navigation best practices to consider here, but the essence of easy site navigation should be centered around helping users know where they are, know how to return to where they were, or easily find where to go next.

This can be done with a few tactics:

Providing a clear navigation bar at the top of the site that's helpful without being overwhelming.
Having an efficient and pleasant search experience to reduce clicks.
Presenting well-thought-out next steps on each page (relevant calls-to-action, or intelligently related articles/pages).
Personalizing for a more curated, relevant overall site experience. This can be achieved with purely additive technology, like thoughtful pop-ups or dedicated sections.

Bonus Solution: Create a learning center

Providing a central place on your website where visitors can find all your best content is another powerful tactic to use so prospects don’t get lost.

Creating a learning center that is easily filtered and searchable lets visitors jump straight to whatever they are looking for. This not only helps newcomers to the website, but it acts as a crucial resource for your own employees. Your learning center will become a mainstay for your sales team to quickly access the content you create.

Learning Centers come in all forms, as these two IMPACT client sites show:

Berry Insurance's learning center is highly searchable and filterable.

While River Pools’ learning center offers quizzes, calculators, and other resources to help potential customers.

Lead generation problem #3: Disruptive conversion paths

Traffic may be up but leads are down — what’s a marketer to do?

If you find yourself in this scenario, you might have website conversion paths that are missing the mark in relation to where your prospects are on the buyer’s journey.

A sign of this might be having a very bottom of the funnel offer like “Request a Consultation,” “Contact Us,” or “Buy Now” as the call-to-action (CTA) after every blog post.

Chances are, many of your readers simply aren’t ready to jump into a deeper conversation with you just yet. They’ll need more info from you before they give you their trust…and their business.

Solution: Mind the CTA

To make sure that your CTAs are attached to the right content pieces, run through the following exercise for each content item and offer.

Define your audience: Different offers (and the CTAs that go along with them) are most likely aimed at different audience segments. Make a list of all your content pieces and map which audience segment each piece is created for. Then, make a separate list doing the same for every offer you’ve created.
Define your buyer’s journey stage: Keep those lists handy and, in each of them, add another column to map the buyer’s journey stage.

For each content piece and offer, determine if the reader is in the awareness stage (someone who is looking to define a problem), the consideration stage (someone who is looking at their options to solve the problem), or the decision stage (someone who knows how to solve their problem and is choosing who will help them).

Be a matchmaker. Once you’ve determined the audience and buyer’s journey stage for each item, it’s time to match them up.

For example, if you have an article that is written for Buyer A in the awareness stage, then look to use a CTA that prompts the reader to an offer written for the same buyer in the same stage.

Not only does this allow you to provide conversion paths that are appropriate to your readers — meeting them where they are — it also lets you to pinpoint content gaps in your editorial calendar.

Lead generation problem #4: Content doesn’t connect

Trying to be everything to everyone (when you don’t really want everyone) might pull in a large amount of traffic, but it won’t do much to create the quality leads you’re looking for.

To get over this hurdle, make sure your content is connecting with the people coming to your site.

Solution (part 1): Write what people want

Covering blog topics your audience actually wants you to write will attract the right people by answering their questions. Your prospects are conducting online research to solve a problem or make a decision. Wouldn’t you rather be the one to educate them and give them honest advice about the next steps they should take?

Content that connects to your audience will keep them on your site, establish trust, and convert them into customers.

Solution (part 2): Clarify your value proposition

Make it clear to the reader they’re in the right (or wrong) place by providing a clear value proposition on your home page.

Like anything in marketing, this is easier said than done. Crafting a value statement is a strategic exercise in combining who you serve, what you do, and how you’re different.

The work you put into this, however, will pay off in spades. A good value proposition can not only help guide your content strategy, but it will clearly indicate to site visitors the tone and overall direction of what they’ll get on subsequent pages.

Don’t be afraid to be exclusive. It’s okay to write a value proposition (and other website content) that excludes bad-fit prospects. Allowing people to opt out of what you’re offering will save you both valuable time and effort.

Lead generation problem #5: Lack of trust

Alternatively, people won’t do business with you if they feel you’re hiding something from them.

Prospects and visitors who come to a site only to find it doesn’t provide what it promised, is too good to be true, or is void of actual information will cause your website bounce rate to increase exponentially.

Solution: Stay true to your meta descriptions

Title tags and meta descriptions are two factors that can drive SEO and are also the two elements that appear on the search page that give your visitors an indication of what they’ll get when they click into your site.

If your titles and metas are misleading, however, your visitors won’t be visitors for long — they’ll leave as soon as they realize you’ve written the meta to get their attention, not to educate them.

Do what you say and say what you’ll do.

All that said, Google can change your meta descriptions at will to better reflect your content or better suit search terms, so keep that in mind.

Solution: Profile your advocates

No matter how honest you are with your content, you can take your authenticity to the next level by including testimonials from successful clients and happy customers on your site. Visitors are more at ease with what you have to say when they can see actual results from real-life clients.

Assess who would be ideal candidates for case studies and invest the time to conduct interviews with these customers.

For some quicker wins, ask your salespeople and client-facing coworkers to pinpoint their happiest accounts and customers. From there, reach out to satisfied clients and ask them about their experience with you, the results they received, or why they stay with you.

With their permission, you can use their quotes as testimonials throughout your website.

Lead generation problem #6: Setting and forgetting

Getting every element of a website exactly right takes a massive amount of effort and strategic thinking. It’s a rewarding feeling to have it set, but the work on a website is never finished.

Those marketers who take the time to breathe a sigh of relief, leave their site alone, and move on to the next project run the risk of abandoning leads. The attention you spend on maintaining the health of your site extends to the health of your digital pipeline.

Solution: Measure and respond

Think of your website as a living being that needs to be fed and nurtured constantly. Many of the marketing KPIs you should be tracking — traffic-to-lead ratio, landing page conversions, organic traffic — are directly tied to website performance.

Measurement is important to monitor your site’s health, but it’s meaningless if you aren’t acting on what the information is telling you.

Analyze your data on a monthly basis and budget for time to test and experiment. For example, if something's not performance the way you'd hoped, set up an A/B test to see how two options compare.

Common problems with several solutions

Is there a single button to push to fix your lead gen problems? Nope — there are several.

The key is figuring out what type of problem you’re having and determining the right solution. Use your analytics to guide you to where you need to look and what you need to do to rewrite, redesign, or repair on your website.

With some strategic improvements, your data and your leads will be headed in the right direction.

Why You Keep Getting Garbage Inbound Marketing Leads

jpalmeri@impactbnd.com (Jessica Palmeri) — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 13:41:24 GMT

Inbound marketing was supposed to be a marketer’s dream come true.

It was supposed to be easy! A simple, repeatable approach to marketing that supercharged your lead generation — all for the low-low cost of the time, energy, and effort it took for you to update your website.

But inbound marketing expectations don’t always match the cold harsh reality of today’s digital marketing landscape.

You expected to follow a simple four-step plan:

Step 1: Write blogs and other content
Step 2: Hide that content behind a form
Step 3: Watch with satisfaction as the internet leads clamor to download your content
Step 4: Follow up with the ocean of leads that love you and are totally ready to buy from you!

But the reality of the situation is:

You made the damn content
Created the damn form
No one filled it out
OR worse, you got a bunch of crappy, unqualified leads who downloaded your guidebook and never wanted to hear from you again

To put it in very blunt terms: Your inbound leads are garbage, and you’re not sure where you went wrong.

What is a 'garbage' inbound marketing lead anyway?

To put it simply, a garbage inbound marketing lead is a lead you have no shot at closing or converting into an actual customer.

These leads might be “fluffy” or top-of-funnel.

Fluffy leads are the internet equivalent of a window shopper on a touristy street. Someone who loves to look around and browse your products. They might show some initial interest, but ultimately, they’re probably never going to be a major buyer.

If you’re in the services industry, a trashy lead might be that lead that turns into a bad-fit client — if they ever buy at all. They seem qualified at the start, but if and when they do convert, they become a nightmare to deal with and ultimately churn within six months.

Bottom line: If a lead isn’t a real business prospect and doesn’t have the potential to turn into an ideal customer, they’re not much use to you or your sales team.

And if your inbound marketing strategy isn’t driving traffic, (qualified) leads, and sales, something is definitely wrong with your approach.

6 reasons your inbound leads are bad

Content strategist Liz Murphy defines inbound marketing as “a digital marketing strategy in which a business organically earns the attention of their ideal buyers at different stages of their purchasing journey.”

In case the bold/italics/underlined font wasn’t enough of a hint, the key word in that definition is “earns."

Earning an ideal buyer’s attention (and trust) is the name of the digital marketing game.

From a digital marketing perspective, earning attention means driving traffic to your website. Once prospects have found your website, you need to build trust with them so that they wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else to purchase your product, good, or service.

But... to start applying this approach to your inbound marketing efforts, you first need to understand why your current leads stink and what you can do to fix it.

1. You’re jumping straight to the bottom of the funnel

Spoiler alert: Most inbound leads aren’t looking for a hard sell.

They’re real people on the internet doing research to avoid talking to a salesperson. So take that into consideration when crafting your inbound experience.

If your inbound lead is still in the research phase of their big purchase, don’t rush the process! Create content to aid their movement through the buyer’s journey.

At this point, they're looking for education. Help them learn about what they're buying so they feel comfortable moving forward. This way, you're not forcing them into a sales conversation they're not ready for.

As your sales team learns to take a slightly more gentle approach, they’ll soon realize that inbound, educational content is the best way to help these top-of-funnel leads self-discover that your solution is the perfect fit for their pain points.

Remember: you’re trying to earn (and more importantly maintain) their attention. What better way to keep them engaged than by answering all of their questions via carefully curated content before they truly enter the sales conversation?

2. You don't know who your ideal customer is

Sometimes your leads may not be good because you don’t fully understand your ideal customer: What they want, think, and are concerned about.

This is another instance where it’s not the lead’s fault that they’re not a good fit for your business, but your fault for not understanding who you should be selling to in the first place.

If you don’t know who your ideal customer is, it’s time to break out that whiteboard and start listing what you know about your buyers

Ask yourself: what are their pain points, what are their goals, and how can my business help them achieve those goals?

Once you have those traits defined, it’s much easier to produce content that attracts that audience and converts qualified leads.

If you get stuck, use ChatGPT as a discussion partner. Put in the information you know, and then ask the tool to list common attributes. Then, ask it to dive deeper into common questions, fears, and concerns.

3. Your content doesn’t address the challenges of your ideal customer

Once you understand your ideal customer, you need to ask yourself: Does my content actually address their needs? Am I tackling what they need to know to feel comfortable making a purchase?

If your content is off target, that might be why your lead quality stinks. It's like you’re fishing with the wrong bait!

Go back to the drawing board, ideally during a revenue team meeting (more on that shortly) to ensure that all of the inbound content you produce is meeting these essential needs.

The best way to ensure you’re not missing out on some crucial concerns is to start collecting common questions that your sales team encounters in the early stages of the sales process.

If nine out of ten leads all kick off the conversation with the same three questions, maybe it’s time to write a killer blog article addressing these concerns. Don't stop there: create a video as well. Spin up some social posts and an infographic. Then, give this content to your sales team so they can share it with future prospects.

The earlier you address your buyer’s common concerns, challenges, and questions, the quicker you’ll build trust and be able to move on to the later stages of the sales funnel!

4. You’re tapping the wrong resources

I hear it all the time: “These inbound leads aren’t ready for sales! They’re not even sure what they’re looking for!”

Fluffy leads aren’t a sign of failure. They’re a sign that you (and your inbound content) have more work to do to get in front of the right eyeballs.

Attracting the right audience means understanding where your most qualified leads hang out on the internet. Rather than waiting for those leads to find your website, sometimes you need to help them along by meeting them where they’re at.

When I worked at a former HRTech SaaS startup in the early 2010s, I figured out pretty quickly that HR professionals loved consuming content on Twitter and LinkedIn. The best way to generate brand awareness for my company was to jump into the conversation and be really proactive in those spaces.

So I logged on for weekly Twitter chats hosted by TalentCulture and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), and joined some key groups on LinkedIn.

By sharing some helpful tips and relevant content through these other mediums, I made personal connections and helped these qualified leads discover my website.

So, get creative. Pay attention to where your customers actually are and meet them there with content they want to see.

5. Your content creation process has no input from the sales team (or from customers)

If you’re wondering: “How can I tell if my inbound content is engineered to drive qualified leads?” You really should be asking yourself: “When was the last time my sales and marketing team got together to talk about content?” or "When was the last time I interviewed a customer?"

In order to produce inbound content that really drives qualified leads, your sales and marketing teams need to be fully aligned.

These two teams (together we call them "the revenue team") need to be meeting regularly to ensure that what's getting published is the most relevant content.

This goes beyond the sales reps sending over a basic list of commonly asked questions. You need to build a true partnership between these two departments.

If you cut the sales team out of the content creation process, you’ll inevitably end up with fluffy, watered-down content that’s not addressing the core needs of the customer, which inevitably produces fluffy, unqualified leads.

6. You're not focused on building trust

All in all, all of these tips come back to one thing — building your prospect's trust in you.

No one wants to do business with someone they don't trust to deliver on their promises. Prove to prospects that you know what you're talking about. Prove that you'll meet their expectations for value and performance.

Your marketing can do this. All of the content and experiences you create should be done so with trust in mind.

Inbound marketing can drive traffic, leads, and sales – if you put in the work

If you’ve been suffering from a serious case of trashy inbound leads, you finally know the fix!

Step 1: Do the necessary legwork to define your ideal buyer and figure out where those qualified prospects are hanging out on the internet.
Step 2: Create revenue-driving inbound content with input from both marketing and sales. Without input from sales and customers, you’ll end up with watered-down content that only produces fluffy, unqualified prospects.
Step 3: Use that newly updated inbound content throughout the entire customer journey to earn and maintain the interest of top-of-funnel leads that have the potential to turn into serious buyers.

With these simple steps in mind, you too can drive high-quality traffic, leads, and sales with your inbound content.

And if you're stuck, subscribe to our Endless Customers podcast! We drop two episodes every week that focus on sales, marketing, AI, and communication.

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Hire a Third-Party Video Company

Austin Mock — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 13:33:54 GMT

If you’re a business owner or lead a sales or marketing team, chances are you already know that video is the present and future of marketing.

Many well-meaning companies turn to third-party video production agencies to help them create marketing videos, thinking it’s too expensive or complicated to produce video in-house. Filming and editing high-quality videos can be intimidating, and you might not have the tools or skills to do so.

If this sounds like something you’ve struggled to get past with your team, you’re certainly not alone — but before you hire that agency, you should consider the potential disadvantages of doing so.

IMPACT has worked with hundreds of businesses to help them bring video creation in-house. And, as a result, our clients have seen incredible inbound marketing results.

We’ve also worked with third parties, so we often get asked why producing video via an agency is such a bad idea.

In this article, we’re going to explain the answer to this question, including:

4 common problems businesses face when working with a video production agency
Reasons you should consider in-house video instead

This way, as you create more video content to grow your business, you know what to expect and can get ahead of the game.

Here’s what to know.

4 reasons not to work with a third-party video production agency

While most businesses that hire a video production agency imagine the agency will take care of everything and make the video production process a breeze, this isn’t typically the case.

Though there are video marketing agencies out there that can create high-quality work, we’ve found that there are specific issues that often arise in the process that make insourcing a better option.

Here’s what to consider before you opt for an outsourced video marketing campaign.

1. Long creation process

This is something you may run into with a production company of any size.

There’s an estimated timeframe from when a client makes initial contact with a video production agency to when the final product is delivered (and everyone is popping bottles and high-fiving).

However, that estimated timeframe is likely longer than you think, for many reasons.

For one, the planning and pre-production process usually begins with one person acting as the contact for the production agency.

If pre-production is done sufficiently to ensure a deliverable schedule that’s properly aligned with your expectations, then there are usually anywhere from 3-6 meetings that need to take place.

These meetings are usually scheduled weeks apart and require much more prep work on your part, including example videos, creative asset gathering/sharing, internal coordinating, and decision-making about who will be a part of the video.

Then, even after pre-production and the production itself takes place, you’re on to the last stage of the creation process, which is almost always the bottleneck at every production agency: post-production and editing.

Many editors are consistently backlogged with other projects since it takes the longest time, relative to every other stage.

Editing also often requires a minimum of 2-3 revisions. The back and forth communication between you and the agency via email or Basecamp is sometimes several weeks more of time and effort.

And let's face it, you have people in your organization who need to approve the video as well. Then you’re tracking down your own people, trying to get feedback on each draft.

This long timeline can delay initiatives or other campaigns that rely on the content.

It also means that your team cannot create agile content that responds quickly to news or updates.

The last thing you want is to start pre-production for a video that’s obsolete by the time you actually get it out.

With all of this in mind, quality agencies, small or large, must often be contacted 6 months at a minimum prior to when the final video is needed.

It also requires you and your organization to do much of the heavy lifting as far as planning and communication go.

This brings us to a related problem…

2. Videos don't speak to your audience

No one wants to feel like they’re rushing their project just to hit a deadline. You want a perfect deliverable, not a “this is all we had time for” video.

The challenge with video production agencies is that you only have a certain amount of pre-production time allotted to define your goals.

Agencies of all sizes likely have multiple client projects they’re juggling at once. So, they will likely have to limit the amount of time spent in pre-production understanding your objectives and vision. This could lead to deliverables that only partially fulfill expectations.

This means they're more likely to rely on templates and formats they've used before. The problem is, even if this approach yields a beautiful video, it might not resonate with your audience and actually move the sales needle. You'll end up with something that looks and feels similar to everything else out there.

3. You end up with the wrong kind of videos

You want to produce videos that have an immediate impact on your sales. We call these videos The Selling 7.

When you rely on a third-party video production company to create these videos instead of hiring an in-house videographer, these videos can take much longer to create. Furthermore, since the video production company doesn’t know your business as you do, it is even more difficult to create videos that truly resonate with your buyers.

The solution?

Generally speaking, this means that you should be allocating ample time with your internal team to define exactly what you want so you can relay that to your production agency.

If you want a video to look, feel, and accomplish what you’re hoping it will, it’s more dependent on your team to articulate those variables than it is for the production team to extract them from you.

Don’t get me wrong, the success of video planning and pre-production is not solely on your shoulders as the client.

However, I believe it’s important for clients of video agencies to recognize that this burden is again more on the client than the agency, especially when the client acknowledges that the agency’s scope is small and spread across multiple projects at once.

This is why we always recommend our clients hire an in-house videographer. With a videographer embedded in your team, you will never have to wait for an agency to create and deliver your videos. You will have someone there who is constantly creating this content for your business.

Just keep in mind that while an in-house videographer is getting started, there is going to be a learning curve and they will need time to get to know your brand. Your videos won’t be perfect right away, but with the right videographer in your company, you can expect them to be producing two to three videos per week — compared to the months it can take for an agency to complete just one video.

You don’t want to be spending money on a third-party video that will take much longer to complete and is doomed to be ineffective from the start.

4. Changing talent pool

How do you know that your team is experienced not only with the gear, but also with each other?

It’s very common for agencies, especially smaller ones, to fill the additional hands required on a shoot with freelance video professionals (which can be a detriment to your video success — more on this later). Small agencies commonly do this, particularly when the agency is not local to your business.

If your company is asking the agency to travel for production, it’s more cost-effective for the agency to hire local freelancers rather than fly a second cameraperson out with them.

Freelancers can keep costs low for the agency — and also for you — but problems arise when the contracted team members producing your content have different experience levels.

Freelancers are typically chosen based on convenience, availability, and cost long before the level of team compatibility is considered.

This sets up a quality variability that you don’t want to show through on your end deliverable, particularly if you’ve made multiple projects with the same agency. You will want the same hands working on your content to maintain consistency across creativity and expertise.

The same can be said if the crew working on your project hasn’t collaborated before.

There’s a real collaborative rhythm required on a shoot to make near-perfect content, and that rhythm requires a serious level of understanding and gelling between all involved.

It’s important to ask if the agency has worked with the freelancer(s) in the past, and how often. Ask for example footage that was created by the same team so you know what to expect.

Otherwise, you’re going to feel like the agency is acting as the “middleman” between you and the local freelancers for hire.

If you had someone in-house, however, who was dedicated to sharing information about your business — who was part of revenue team meetings and owning the process from start to finish — this wouldn’t be an issue.

5. High cost per video

When you combine both the time and money investment required to create each video with an agency, you’re looking at a big-ticket cost no matter how you cut the cake. You need to pay for another company to hire a crew and purchase or rent equipment.

The cost of using an agency a few times each year can be equivalent to hiring an effective videographer in-house (starting at roughly $55,000 salary plus benefits), but minus the flexibility.

Every organization wants to save money, and you might think that outsourcing your video production is a way to do so, but as you can see, if your business is planning to make video a regular part of its content marketing efforts (or even just check the boxes with The Selling 7), the costs can add up quickly.

So, should you outsource video production?

After years of working with hundreds of clients — and at one time even doing the video production agency work ourselves — we can tell you that time and time again, our clients earn the biggest ROI when they embrace a culture of producing video in-house.

The reason?

No one knows your company, your vision, and your goals better than your own team.

To get the best possible results with your video marketing strategy, you must hire a full-time videographer to own your business’s video production process. Otherwise, you’ll be spending far too much for a deliverable that barely makes a difference to your bottom line.

You might be thinking, “Why would my business need a full-time videographer? There’s no way we need someone working on this 40 hours per week.”

But the truth is, our clients would tell you that it's worth it. The videographer's impact on your sales and marketing numbers can be significant.

Sure there are challenges to hiring in-house, such as some of our clients who get in their own way by striving for perfection, when they should just start publishing. Others don’t explain why they’re hiring a videographer to the rest of the team, and buy-in is lacking.

Even so, our clients would tell you the results speak for themselves.

Of course, there may be instances where you want to outsource for a one-off video, but if video content is going to be a staple of your strategy, in-house is the way to go.

Grow your business with video in-house

We’ve helped hundreds of B2B and B2C businesses like yours create winning video strategies that build trust with prospects and enable sales teams to sell better than ever.

The best part is this growth can happen for you in months — not years.

Once you have the right person in place, creating lots of videos for your small business will be a piece of cake. You will be amazed at the dramatic increase in traffic, leads, and sales — and wonder why on earth you didn’t hire an in-house video production team sooner.

AI Video Tool Rundown: Opus Clip Problems — and Solutions

Austin Mock — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 13:00:00 GMT

AI can be a game-changer for your video production, streamlining editing duties and turning around tedious tasks in the blink of an eye.

These tools are evolving rapidly, with new players coming on the market as others fall away or get swallowed up by the big boys.

Opus Clip is an AI tool for video creators that can transform long-form videos into short-form social media clips with ease. You can plug your video into their website, wait a few minutes, and voila – it uses AI to select what it calls the most “viral” moments for you to share across your social media channels.

Many big names, including YouTube creators and podcasters, are ambassadors for Opus Clip, and we at Endless Customers use it for our podcasts too. While many are uplifting the tool as flawless and useful for everyone, there are some limitations to this tool that you should be aware of before you choose it to be a part of your video production.

Today, we’ll dive into these limitations and provide some handy solutions to navigate around them.

Opus Clip: Your AI video solution?

Before we dive into the negatives, we want to set the record straight. We really love Opus Clip.

As the AI wave has increased these past few years, we’ve tried a number of tools to help us turn a full-length video into short-form content. We liked Opus the best of any of them. There are a number of things to like, especially considering there’s a free version of the tool. (There’s also a Starter level ($9/month) and Pro ($29/month). More info can be found at the Opus pricing page.)

But, it is not without its drawbacks. Considering we’ve used it for hundreds of videos at this point, we’ve got a good idea of what those are.

Let’s dive in.

Drawback #1: Lack of context in clips

First off, it’s important to remember what Opus Clip does: it takes a longer video and cuts it up into shorter clips. Considering this, it’s no surprise that sometimes this goes awry.

One of the primary issues with Opus Clip is that it sometimes generates clips that lack context. This can result in clips starting in awkward places or ending abruptly before delivering the full impact.

Solution: To fix this, you can manually edit the clip. For instance, if the clip begins with, "When sales sees marketing doing that..." and you wonder what "that" is, you can go back in the transcript to find and include the necessary preceding context.

By adding some more context manually, you create a coherent clip and a better experience for your audience.

Drawback #2: Clunky edits

While Opus Clip’s facial detection and cuts can be impressive, they occasionally appear clunky or unprofessional, leaving you with unusable videos.

Solution: The best way to smooth out these rough cuts is to use a video editing software like Adobe Premiere. Import the clip into Premiere and manually refine the edits for a more polished final product.

Although Opus Clip offers in-tool editing, we’ve found that it’s often more efficient to handle detailed edits externally.

Drawback #3: Issues with XML exports

Opus Clip allows you to export projects as XML files for further editing in video software like Premiere. However, this feature sometimes malfunctions. There are a lot of files involved in an XML project, and occasionally we have noticed a missing video, audio, or caption file.

Solution: If you encounter issues with the XML export, you can download the video directly from Opus Clip and then import it into your editing software. This method ensures you have a complete video to work with, even if the XML file is compromised.

Drawback #4: Handling graphics in vertical formats

Long-form videos are typically created in a horizontal (or “landscape”) format, but Opus Clip converts them into vertical clips for social media and YouTube Shorts. This conversion can cut off graphics, making the video less effective.

Solution: To address this, avoid using videos with essential graphics that only fit in the horizontal orientation.

Or, edit the video in a vertical format after exporting from Opus Clip. For example, if a keynote speech includes slides that fill the screen in a horizontal format, you’ll need to reformat these slides for the vertical clip.

Drawback #5: AI-powered B-roll selection

We all know that good B-roll can make any clip look more professional. Opus Clip offers an AI-powered B-roll feature that can splice in footage relevant to the subject matter.

While this feature is a fantastic addition, it sometimes selects irrelevant footage based on isolated keywords from the transcript, leading to mismatched visuals — and doing more harm than good.

Solution: Instead of relying solely on Opus Clip’s AI for B-roll, use platforms like Pexels.com to find more appropriate clips. You can search for vertically formatted videos that better match your narrative, and then integrate them manually into your video.

Is Opus Clip right for your team?

While Opus Clip is a powerful tool for creating engaging social media content from long-form videos, it’s not without its limitations.

By understanding these challenges and implementing the solutions we’ve provided above, you can get more use from the tool without getting bogged down by frustrations that could otherwise make you throw it out altogether.

Remember, AI is here to help us do our jobs more smoothly and efficiently. In this regard, Opus Clip is very helpful. But AI is a tool that comes with drawbacks. Make sure you’re not blindly handing over tasks that require human creativity and precision.

To learn more about building a healthy culture of AI experimentation at your business, check out our Introduction to AI for Business Leaders and Employees.

For more tips and tricks, subscribe to our Endless Customers podcast on your favorite platform.

How to Get Your Sales Reps to Use the HubSpot CRM

jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker) — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 11:12:34 GMT

For those of us who understand how critical proper CRM adoption is, it can be frustrating when we have members on the sales team, especially reps, who either push back or fail to use it properly.

In some ways, a CRM that's used inconsistently is worse than no CRM at all — as any business leader can attest who's tried to look up pipeline information and found it incomplete.

Companies live and die by their CRM. The bigger the company, the more essential the CRM is for day to day success.

But you don't need to be a large company to be stymied by poor CRM use.

In fact, most of the companies we work with are small to mid-sized businesses, and we've seen first-hand the steps that absolutely must be followed if you want your sales team to embrace the tools you’re making a substantial investment in.

We’ve helped hundreds of sales teams, both large and small, either switch to the HubSpot CRM or implement a CRM for the first time using HubSpot and Sales Hub. We’ve seen companies succeed and we’ve seen companies fail.

That puts us in the unique position: to definitively teach the steps you need to follow.

In this article, we’re going to cover:

How to train your sales team on the HubSpot CRM and Sales Hub
How to hold sales reps accountable for proper CRM management
What to do if sales reps continue to fail to use the CRM properly

Let’s get started.

How to train your sales team on the HubSpot CRM and Sales Hub

Before you jump into getting your sales team to use HubSpot, you need to address the question they’re asking that causes most sales associates to resist the process: What’s in it for me?

Any successful saleperson has the skills that got them to where they are today. They're good at what they do. So, why do they need a new system, a new tool, a new way of doing things? How will this help them be more successful?

You'll need an answer for the 'what's in it for me' question.

Sure, once your team understands how powerful the HubSpot platform is, they’re far more likely to see the promise. But still, you'll need an answer.

Here's how we suggest you do.

Step 1: Explain the why behind the importance of the HubSpot CRM for your business

First thing’s first: If you’re going to get your sales team to use the HubSpot CRM platform, you need to teach them all about what’s in it for them (aka, the why).

To do this, spend the first onboarding session explaining the ways HubSpot can save them time and help them get more sales by:

streamlining communication
centralizing the sales project pipeline and correspondence with qualified leads
automating and tracking phone calls and emails
creating custom dashboards to track metrics, data, and sales reports (such as open and won deals by rep, what clients are engaging with your content most, revenue channels and pipeline data, and closing rates)
providing call summaries to quickly refresh your memory as you prepare for your next meeting.

That’s a lot of functionality in a single tool — and that’s not everything!

With so much information at your sales team’s fingertips, they can access what they need without constantly having to ask each other for it, dig through email chains, and update spreadsheets.

This means more time, more clarity, and more selling.

Step 2: Organize a learning session or workshop

Next, organize a workshop for your team where experts can weigh in on the ways you can use the HubSpot CRM.

This allows your sales team to ask questions and get answers, which can help zero in on your team’s reservations and clear up any other issues that could be standing in the way.

HubSpot Academy's free course on Sales Hub onboarding

It’s also a great opportunity to stop telling your sales team how much HubSpot helps them and start showing them concrete examples of sales associates who have seen sales success with the tool, which can be far more powerful in motivating your team.

You can also utilize HubSpot Academy's free courses to help your team see what's possible.

Step 3: Get everyone’s commitment

After educating your sales team on all the ways HubSpot can help them sell even better, get your team to commit to learning and using HubSpot tools.

Explain that they don’t need to know everything at once. The quickest way for the initiative to fail is if you expect it to happen overnight.

You can get a Starter account for $20 per user per month. Or even start with the free to learn the ropes. You can add functionality as they learn (this way you’re not bombarding them with a lot of information at once). Build a roadmap and make it clear that by a certain date they will be fully adapted, and how they’re going to get there.

You can do this by picking one area to focus on at a time (such as leaving notes, then adding deals), but at the end of the day, they need to commit to the program and understand it isn’t an option — while also knowing they'll have plenty of time to do it.

How to hold sales reps accountable for proper CRM management

If you want to hold sales reps accountable for using the HubSpot CRM properly, designate one person to be in charge of the process. Having someone who is familiar with HubSpot be accountable for getting everyone else up and running will help the transition go more smoothly.

This could be a sales manager or an outside expert.

Have this person provide your team with support in the starting phases, as well as ongoing, so any issues that might hinder the process can be addressed.

Be sure to also reward your team members for modeling great behavior, and provide lots of incentives for reaching milestones (prizes, celebrations, etc.).

What to do if sales reps continue to fail at using the CRM properly

If your sales reps still aren’t willing to use the HubSpot CRM after taking these measures, the reality is you need to let them go.

CRM tools such as HubSpot are powerful in their ability to help your sales teams, but they’re also a significant investment. When your sales reps don’t want to use them, for whatever reasons they might have, they're showing they're not willing to be part of your future.

You want to cultivate a sales team that understands that using CRM software is a win for the whole organization. Resistance hurts the entire team.

Get your sales team on the right track

A tool is only good if it gets used. A CRM can powerfully improve your sales performance, but only if the team is on board.

What we've gone through above are the steps we lead our own clients through, and we believe they can help you overcome obstacles.

But know, too, that there is so much more to selling than having the right CRM.

You also need a great sales process, pitch-perfect sales enablement content, a culture of feedback and roleplaying.

To learn more about how we help businesses improve they way they sell, talk to one of our coaches so you can start building a sales team for the future.

How to Do HubSpot Lead Scoring the Right Way

jpalmeri@impactbnd.com (Jessica Palmeri) — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 11:57:34 GMT

In case you missed it, IMPACT has talked a lot about HubSpot lead scoring in the past few years.

And there's tons of content — both on the HubSpot site and elsewhere — that talks through the process. But when I read through all of our past articles, I noticed a common theme:

The majority of our content covers how to “set up” HubSpot lead scoring.

These blog posts are jam-packed with tactical tips and tricks such as: “You can use demographic information to qualify leads” and “Use your HubSpot lead score to move leads through your marketing qualified lead or sales qualified lead lifecycle stages.”

Is this information helpful to the reader? Absolutely! Especially if that reader has full organizational buy-in and is ready to hit the ground running and start setting up their lead scoring criteria.

But what if you’re not ready to “run” with lead scoring? What if you’re dragging your team kicking and screaming towards this new initiative? Or, worse yet, what if you haven’t even talked to your team and you’re about to set up lead scoring blind?

That’s where this article comes in.

Today, we’re going to talk about how to first create organizational buy-in to implement HubSpot lead scoring effectively, and then ensure it actually “sticks” as an integral part of your marketing to sales hand-off.

HubSpot lead scoring: Expectation vs. reality

Before we dive into our strategic approach to launching a HubSpot lead scoring initiative, we first need to have an honest conversation about expectations versus the reality of what it’s really like to use the tool.

A common expectation is that some combination of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and/or our beloved robot overlords will analyze your entire HubSpot database of contacts and instantly identify those leads that are 99% likely to close into customers.

But the reality is that the process for setting up a common HubSpot lead score is much more complicated (and unfortunately, the initial set-up is much more manual.)

At its core, HubSpot is just a database designed to store contact information (demographic details, conversion points, social media interactions, etc.)

That information can be analyzed and calibrated to generate a lead score, based on specific scoring criteria, but in order to have an accurate score, you need to identify the key inputs to make that calculation spit out a number that makes sense to you and your sales team.

This requires continuous trial and error and constant tinkering with the underlying formula (especially if you’re just getting started!)

Before you say, “What the heck! Why would anyone want to set up lead scoring if it’s going to be this much work?" Let me ease your fears…

Yes, HubSpot lead scoring is totally worth it in the long run.

A well-calibrated lead score can save your sales team valuable time and energy.

Lead scoring allows your team to quickly identify the highest quality leads, with the best revenue potential, but only if you dedicate the proper time, resources, and organizational bandwidth to set it up the right way that’s unique to your ideal customer’s journey.

Why do so many HubSpot lead scoring initiatives fail?

If you’re going to dedicate all of this time and energy into a big initiative, you need to understand exactly how it could fall apart.

Here are some potential pitfalls that you should definitely try to avoid:

Pitfall #1: You’re severely underestimating the time investment.

The first step to tackling a HubSpot lead scoring initiative is to understand that this is a long-term initiative, not a quick set-up project that you can tackle on Friday afternoon.

More importantly, this is not a “set it and forget it” type project.

As noted above, a properly calibrated lead score requires continuous trial and error and constant tinkering.

Your first formula probably won’t be perfect (and that’s okay!) Just make sure you have someone on your team who can dedicate the time required to manage this project until you get it right.

Pitfall #2: You don’t have enough leads and/or data.

Remember when we said that HubSpot lead scoring will analyze your contacts across “thousands of data points?” It’s really, really important to have that data in there before you start scoring.

If you’re just getting started with HubSpot (i.e. you’ve just uploaded your initial contact import, or you’ve just installed your HubSpot tracking code), you likely won’t have enough usable information in your database to make this initiative work in the short term.

Long story short, setting up lead scoring should not be your first priority when it comes to setting up your HubSpot portal. Make sure you have enough data in place to make it worth your time and energy.

Pitfall #3: There’s currently zero communication between your marketing and sales teams.

A well-calibrated lead score is designed to ease the friction during the marketing-to-sales hand-off. In fact, it should complement the service level agreement (SLA) between the two departments.

If marketing and sales aren’t currently on speaking terms, however, finding a scoring system that will be meaningful to both sides is damn near impossible. You need to work to fix your internal alignment before you tackle such a complicated joint-project.

Step by step: How to do HubSpot lead scoring the right way

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… a step-by-step guide to creating a well-calibrated HubSpot lead score (that actually helps the sales team sell more deals):

Step 1: Get to know your data

Peruse your available HubSpot properties. Learn them, love them, and understand exactly what inputs you have to work with when setting up your lead scoring formula.

Step 2: Have a sit down with sales to agree on criteria

Make sure marketing and sales meet to mutually define what success looks like for this lead scoring initiative and get into the nitty-gritty (i.e. how many points should we award if a website visitor takes this action? How many points out of 100 dictates an MQL vs SQL? Etc.)

This article from HubSpot dives deeper into things you should align on.

Step 3: Create a 'rough draft' of what lead scoring could look like

Once you have an outline, circle back with sales to make sure they’re bought into your approach and point allocations.

Remember: Marketing needs to steer the ship on this project (i.e. set up and implement the lead scoring system in the back-end of the tool), but you’ll waste valuable time and energy on endless revisions if marketing and sales fundamentally disagree on the “weight” of certain actions (ex: a BOFU form should be more points than a pricing page view, etc.)

Step 4: Implement your lead scoring criteria in HubSpot

Once you have the stamp of approval from sales, it’s time to start manually setting up your first iteration of lead scoring criteria.

In your HubSpot portal, go to the settings gear > navigate to “Properties” left side navigation, and then within “Contact Properties” search for “HubSpot score.”

While it may be tempting to go all-out on round one, remember that each individual point allocation needs to be its own logic criteria, so for the sake of your sanity keep it simple (and then go back in to test and iterate.)

Step 5: Incorporate your lead score into your marketing to sales hand-off

Make sure your HubSpot lead score property is front and center on the contact record (i.e. customize your record sidebar), and include lead score information in any internal hand-off notifications.

For example, use a workflow to create a follow-up task and simultaneously send an in-app notification that includes the contact’s HubSpot lead score.

This is a great way to ensure that the sales team is always, always, always aware of how their leads are being “graded” against the current formula.

Step 6: Do a test drive

Let your lead scoring run for 2-4 weeks (depending on your organization’s lead flow), and see how your current formula performs as actual website visitors make their way through the sales process.

Hint: If a contact hits the opportunity lifecycle stage (or better yet, a closed/won deal) and their lead score is way too low, that’s probably an indication that your lead scoring formula isn’t accurately predicting sales-ready leads!

Step 7: Meet with sales (again) to iterate on your test drive results

Ask questions such as: Out of all the opportunities we created this past month, did the contact’s lead score correspond with their likelihood of closing? Do we need to make adjustments to the underlying formula (ex: add more “points” for pricing page views, etc.)

Depending on what they say...

Step 8: Refine your lead scoring criteria

Try another iteration. Tweak. Tinker. Rinse. Repeat.

Step 9: Repeat steps 4-8 until you get it right

If, at first, you don’t succeed… try like hell until you get it working!

What can you do with a well-calibrated HubSpot lead score?

So, you’ve finally reached the promised land! — And by promised land, I mean you created a lead scoring method that both marketing and sales trust as vital information to the sales process.

You may ask yourself: What do I do now?

Here are just some of the wonderful things you can do with a well-calibrated lead score:

You can use lead scores as true indicators of marketing qualified (MQL) and sales qualified leads (SQL). No more “gut checks” or “guesstimations” — sales and marketing are in total agreement on what factors need to be present for each lead designation.
If you get your numbers working the right way, your HubSpot lead score becomes the guiding light for the sales team’s targeted outreach. Sales knows exactly what to do with an SQL with a 90/100 means, and exactly how to approach the initial conversation.
Speaking of outreach, you can create automated lead nurturing workflows based on lead scoring criteria.
An MQL that is “stuck” at a 35/100 can receive some helpful emails to nudge them towards more bottom-of-the-funnel content (ultimately driving them down the funnel and boosting their lead score.)
Finally, you can create internal workflows to notify team members as leads move through these lifecycle stages — so that no qualified lead is ever missed, and no potential revenue is left on the table.

With the right lead scoring formula in place, you have the power to leverage marketing automation to seamlessly hand off the right leads (at the right time), and maximize your revenue potential.

More importantly, you have a new internal process that will actually “stick” in the long run as an integral part of your marketing to sales hand-off.

How Much Does Working With A HubSpot Partner Agency Cost?

rruffolo@impactbnd.com (Bob Ruffolo) — Sun, 09 Jun 2024 04:15:00 GMT

If you’re considering hiring a HubSpot partner agency, one of your first questions is probably the most practical one:

How much is this going to cost?

Unfortunately, there’s no universal price tag. But that’s not because agencies are trying to be vague—it’s because there’s no longer a one-size-fits-all definition of what a HubSpot partner agency does. That’s the real starting point for this conversation.

Not All HubSpot Partner Agencies Are the Same Anymore

Years ago, if you hired a HubSpot partner agency, you were almost certainly signing up for inbound marketing services: blog posts, emails, maybe some lead nurturing campaigns, and someone to help you navigate your HubSpot portal.

But the HubSpot ecosystem has changed. Dramatically.

Today, HubSpot is a far more powerful platform—CRM, CMS, marketing, sales, service, operations—and because of that, partner agencies have specialized. Some focus exclusively on onboarding and implementation. Others are masters at integrations. A few go deep on custom development or website redesigns. And then there are firms like IMPACT, which coach companies to do it all in-house—content, video, sales enablement, HubSpot mastery—by building internal skills and self-sufficiency.

So before you ask how much it costs, you need to ask: What kind of help do we actually need?

The Four Main Types of HubSpot Partner Agencies

Let’s break down the common types of HubSpot partners and what you can expect to pay for each.

1. HubSpot Implementation & Onboarding Agencies

These partners specialize in getting your HubSpot portal set up correctly from the start. That might include:

CRM setup and data migration
Integrating with your current tools
Customizing pipelines and reports
Basic training for your team

This is especially helpful if you’re switching CRMs or using HubSpot for the first time.

Cost range:

Basic onboarding: $3,000 to $6,000 (one-time)
Complex implementations with multiple hubs and integrations: $10,000 to $25,000+ (one-time)

Pro Tip: HubSpot also offers onboarding services directly, but many companies prefer a partner for the hands-on attention, flexibility, and customization.

2. Inbound Marketing or Full-Service Agencies

These are the traditional HubSpot partners—agencies that handle your marketing for you. That includes creating blog content, managing SEO, running campaigns, writing emails, optimizing lead nurturing workflows, and handling your portal setup and reporting.

If your internal team is small or overwhelmed, this model can give you speed and consistency.

Cost range:

Monthly retainers: $4,000 to $15,000/month, depending on deliverables and scope
Project-based work: Website pages, campaign launches, or asset bundles may be billed separately

What to watch for:

Not all retainers include strategy or reporting. Make sure you know exactly what you’re getting—and how performance will be measured.

3. Specialized or Technical HubSpot Agencies

Some partner agencies specialize in:

Website redesigns (especially on HubSpot CMS)
CRM integrations with other tools
Custom app development
Advanced reporting and RevOps consulting

These partners are less about content creation or campaigns and more about making your HubSpot portal work seamlessly across your tech stack.

Cost range:

Projects: $10,000 to $50,000+ depending on complexity
Ongoing support retainers: $2,500 to $10,000/month for ongoing DevOps or RevOps services

This is a great fit for companies with solid marketing and sales teams but a messy backend—or a vision for something custom that’s outside the typical scope.

4. Coaching and Training Organizations (Like IMPACT)

This is the fast-growing category of HubSpot partners that don’t do the work for you—but rather train and coach your team to do it better.

Instead of outsourcing content or video creation, they help you build a high-performing internal team. Instead of managing your HubSpot portal, they teach you how to master it yourself.

This model works best if you’re committed to building your own in-house capabilities and want long-term independence. It’s not about dependency. It’s about ownership.

Cost range:

Coaching/training programs: $3,000 to $15,000/month on average, depending on business size, goals, and program intensity
Do-it-yourself training memberships: $500 to $2,000/month with access to tools, courses, and community

Why it works:

This approach helps companies drive long-term growth and ROI by building marketing and sales departments that know what they’re doing, publish consistently, close faster, and don’t need to rely on outside agencies to get things done.

What Drives the Cost?

Now that you know the types, let’s talk about the levers that affect cost no matter which agency you choose:

1. Your Goals

If you want to double revenue in 12 months, that’s going to require a far more intensive program than if you’re looking for 10% growth. The size of your goals determines the level of effort—and that drives cost.

2. Your Starting Point

Are you already creating content? Do you have an internal team? Is your HubSpot portal clean or a total mess? The more foundational work that needs to be done, the more you can expect to invest upfront.

3. Your Business Size

Smaller businesses ($1M to $5M) typically work with less intensive programs—$3,000 to $7,500/month on average. Mid-size businesses ($5M to $50M) often need broader team support, more strategy, and higher touch—which can push costs to $10,000 to $15,000/month or more.

4. Your Internal Capabilities

If you have a videographer and content manager in place, you’ll get a lot more value out of coaching than if you’re starting from scratch. If you don’t have those roles yet, some partners (like IMPACT) will help you find, hire, and train them.

So… What Should You Budget?

Here’s a simple way to think about it:

Type of Agency	Typical Cost Range	Best For
HubSpot Implementation	$3K–$25K (one-time)	New to HubSpot or switching CRMs
Inbound/Full-Service	$4K–$15K/month	Need someone to do the work
Technical/Specialty	$10K–$50K+ project	Complex integrations, advanced portals
Coaching/Training	$3K–$15K/month	Want to build internal team skills

Don’t Just Ask “How Much?” — Ask “What Outcome Are We Buying?”

It’s easy to focus on price. But that’s not what matters most.

What matters is:

Are we getting the right help?
Are we solving the real problem?
Are we becoming more capable—or just more dependent?

If you want speed with limited internal resources, you might lean toward a full-service agency. If you want long-term growth and control, coaching may be your best bet. If you’re just getting started or need to clean up a messy portal, implementation is a logical first step.

Whatever path you take, choose a partner who isn’t just selling services—but helping you grow in ways that actually move the needle.

5 Ways to Improve the Quality of Your Content

rruffolo@impactbnd.com (Bob Ruffolo) — Sun, 09 Jun 2024 04:15:00 GMT

The internet doesn’t need more content. It needs better content.

Too many businesses are stuck producing blog posts, videos, and social media updates that do nothing to build trust or move buyers closer to a decision. The real challenge isn’t volume. It’s value. And that’s exactly what Endless Customers is all about—creating content so honest and helpful that it becomes your greatest competitive advantage.

If you're serious about improving the quality of your content and building a brand buyers trust, here are five proven ways to do just that.

1. Focus on What Buyers Actually Want to Know

Your buyers don’t care about your awards, slogans, or vague mission statements. They care about getting real answers to their questions. This is the foundation of what Marcus Sheridan calls The Big 5 in Endless Customers:

Cost and price: What will this really cost? What drives the price up or down?
Problems: What could go wrong? What are the downsides?
Comparisons: How does this option stack up against others?
Reviews: What do others say—good and bad?
Best in class: What are the best options available?

These are the five topics buyers obsess over before they ever reach out to sales. If your content avoids them, you’re not building trust. You’re creating friction.

Ask yourself:

Have we written articles or created videos about each of The Big 5 for our core products or services?
Are we avoiding any topics out of fear of upsetting competitors or “giving too much away”?

If yes, start there. These are the conversations buyers are already having—just not with you yet.

2. Say What Others in Your Industry Won’t Say

Most content is bland because it plays it safe. Endless Customers pushes you to ask: Are we willing to say what others won’t?

It’s not about being controversial for the sake of attention. It’s about honesty—especially around sensitive topics. Whether it’s admitting who your product is not a good fit for, talking openly about limitations, or naming competitors you respect, the goal is simple: increase trust.

One of the most powerful examples in the book comes from Yale Appliance (see the Yale Appliance success story here) They published service call data across brands—revealing which appliances break the most. Risky? Maybe. But it made them the most trusted appliance source online.

Ask yourself:

Are we addressing buyer concerns directly and honestly?
Are there “taboo” topics in our industry that we’re avoiding?

Tackle them head-on, and your content will immediately stand out.

3. Show What Others Aren’t Willing to Show

Saying it is one thing. Showing it is another. That’s where video comes in.

Endless Customers emphasizes the power of video to build trust faster and with greater clarity than any other medium. Marcus Sheridan outlines the Selling 7—the seven types of videos that move the sales needle the most. These include product/service walkthroughs, “Who We Are” videos, customer testimonials, and competitor comparisons.

It’s not just what you show. It’s how you show it. The book highlights companies like Opes Partners, who built a Shark Tank-style video series that put their own supplier selection process on full display. The result? Massive trust and industry dominance.

Ask yourself:

Are we using video to show how our product works, what makes our team great, or how our pricing breaks down?
Are we showing real people—our team and customers—rather than stock clips and animations?

Video builds trust at scale. And in most industries, your competitors still aren’t doing it well.

4. Humanize Every Piece of Content You Publish

In a world where AI can spit out generic blog posts in seconds, what makes your content different?

You do.

Endless Customers makes a powerful case for creating content that reflects your real stories, voices, and values. That means publishing content that sounds like a real person. It means not being afraid to show emotion, share opinions, and admit shortcomings. People trust people, not faceless brands.

One of the four pillars of the book is to be more human than others in your space are willing to be. This is the antidote to robotic, soulless marketing. It’s how you break through the noise.

Ask yourself:

Does our content sound like us, or does it sound like a copywriter trying to impress Google?
Are we featuring real voices from our team and customers?

The more you humanize your content, the more people will remember—and trust—you.

5. Create With the End in Mind: Trust and Sales

Content isn’t just about traffic. It’s about trust. And eventually, sales.

Endless Customers challenges businesses to stop measuring success only by pageviews or impressions. The true metric is how often your content is used in the sales process to educate, disarm, and close.

The best content helps shorten sales cycles. It addresses concerns before they come up in conversation. And it builds confidence in your solution before a salesperson even gets involved.

That’s why Assignment Selling—a technique featured in the book—is so powerful. It’s the practice of assigning content as homework before a sales call. This makes sales conversations more productive and less repetitive.

Ask yourself:

Are we creating content our sales team can assign before calls?
Are we aligning our content strategy with what actually helps close deals?

The goal is not just content for content’s sake. The goal is content that earns trust and drives revenue.

A New Mindset For Better Content

If you want better results from your content, you don’t need more clever tactics. You need a new mindset.

That’s what Endless Customers delivers—a framework built on trust, transparency, and bold action. When you commit to saying, showing, and selling in ways others won’t, you stop blending in. You become the authority.

Want to improve the quality of your content? Start by changing what you’re willing to say.

Then go deeper. Dive into Endless Customers and learn how to build a brand people trust—and buy from—again and again.

Buy the book today. Your future customers are already looking for it.

Sales and Marketing Alignment: How to Shorten Your Sales Cycle

jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker) — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 11:25:48 GMT

According to a recent study by Marketo, organizations with strong sales and marketing alignment experience roughly 70% higher conversion rates and over 200% more in revenue. But if we know alignment is so important to our bottom line, why do so many of us struggle to get it right?

Maybe you’ve been publishing marketing content but aren’t sure why the sales needle isn’t moving. Or you're in sales, unsure exactly why your marketing team even creates content in the first place.

Don't worry, you're not alone. A lot of the businesses that come to us have these exact same struggles.

We all know a well-oiled sales and marketing machine can transform our businesses, whether you operate a B2B or B2C — but understanding how to make it work is where most of us get confused.

The following is a straightforward framework we teach our clients, and if you use this strategy too, your sales team will walk away knowing exactly what content your marketing team is producing and how to use it. In return, they’ll experience a dramatically shorter sales cycle and increase sales.

We promise.

Ready to get started? Here’s what to do.

Focus area #1: See the value of content

The first step toward aligning your sales and marketing teams is creating a content-creation culture in your business.

You might be thinking: What does this even mean?

At IMPACT, we believe that “programs” are abandoned just about as fast as the time it takes to set them up. But when we change the culture of our business, it becomes the way we live, breathe, and exist in our organizations.

Now, we know that culture change can feel daunting, but it's not as hard as it seems. It starts with leadership. If company leaders believe in the power of content to attract, educate, and build trust with your audience, you've got the foundation you need.

If the leadership team is on board, everyone else can follow suit. If not, there'll be no progress.

Sales needs to buy in

To build a true culture of content at your business, your teams need to know what’s in it for them — especially your sales team. They need to know the what, why, and how. The truth is that the right content will make them better salespeople. They will close more deals and they will close them faster. However, salespeople are notoriously resistant to change, so this will take some finesse.

Without this understanding, content marketing will feel like any other marketing trend. Help them see the light. Provide the educational opportunities that help your team learn what's possible. For instance, we recommend this free course in which author Marcus Sheridan explains how salespeople can use content to close more deals.

Marcus advocates for a They Ask, You Answer approach in which salespeople are educators instead of persuaders.

Once they catch the vision of what’s truly possible, you can all work together toward the rest.

Hire a content manager

When we say content needs to be a culture within your organization, we don’t mean you need to turn all your employees into world-class actors or writers. What it does mean is that you need their intelligence — these subject-matter experts know the ins and outs of your products and services.

What this also means is you can’t dump content creation on an engineer, salesperson, or anyone else who is working a full-time in your organization. You need to have one person on staff who owns the content production process — start to finish.

We call this person a content manager, and not only will they ensure content is published regularly without fail, they will also:

Obsess over creating high-quality content that accurately reflects the true tone and spirit of your brand.
Interview your company’s subject matter experts and capture their insights (and your company’s unique perspective) and integrate it into your content.
Work directly with the sales team and help them integrate content into the sales process, allowing them to close more deals faster.
Monitor your organic search performance and routinely improve ranking and traffic results.
Update existing content to ensure it remains relevant and effective.
Oversee the other areas of your sales and marketing initiatives where content is critical (including your website, email, and social media).

This needs to be a full-time job for one person within your organization. They will regularly meet with your sales team, and be the sole person in charge of publishing at least three pieces of content per week (blog articles, podcasts, videos, etc.).

We’ve seen organizations take shortcuts here, and it never works out. Inevitably your content creation process will be put on the back burner, and you want to keep up the momentum.

Learn more here:

Focus area #2: Bring your teams together

Once you get buy-in from your team and hire a content manager, you’ll want your sales and marketing teams to meet regularly. Without shared meeting time, they'll never get out of their silos.

They will meet to form a connected vision of how marketing can help sales get the content they need to close more deals faster.

We tell our clients to form a "revenue team" with members of sales and marketing focusing their efforts together. This is a place for

Collaboration

Information-sharing
Brainstorming
Problem-solving

How it works: Instead of working in silos, where marketing creates content they think sales needs, they meet with salespeople to discuss which pieces of content the sales team needs.

It could be a new buyer's guide, a product comparison video, or an article explaining your services. Anything that will help sales close more deals faster.

Focus area #3: Become a trusted source of education

The future of sales and marketing is buyer education.

If your content educates and informs, if will help visitors become leads and leads become customers.

Implement assignment selling

Assignment selling is the act of using content during the sales process to address major objections and questions your buyers have.

Assignment selling, when set up and used correctly, will be your sales team’s No. 1 selling tool for shortening the sales cycle and driving up revenue.

The plan is easy to draw up and use, and if you design it the right way for your company, you will see unbelievable results in sales cycles, timelines, and closing rates.

It works — and it will always work — because your prospects will always care about one fundamental thing: learning as much as possible about what they are going to buy. Your prospects have questions, and instead of spending your time addressing them on each call, let the content do the work for you.

Assignment selling: How to

Using content to accelerate prospects through the sales funnel means educating buyers before your sales call. Well-informed prospects are more prepared to buy.

When 'assigning' content to a prospect:

Include a definitive “why” you’re giving them the assignment. For example, “I’ve attached a guide to read before our meeting that will answer all your questions in advance so we can make the best use of our time together.”
Offer a tease about what’s in it for them: “Here are all the options you need to consider before making a purchase.”
Get confirmation they will complete the assignment: “Will you take the time before the appointment?”

If someone’s not willing to take the time to read your content, they're likely not a very serious buyer, so the process weeds out bad-fit prospects along the way.

Assignment selling is the best and most efficient solution for shortening the sales cycle and zeroing in on the right potential buyers. To do it right, you need your revenue team to obsess over what content will improve your sales cycle the most.

Ditch the silos and start selling more

When you commit to aligning your sales and marketing teams, you will see shortened sales cycles, higher closing rates, and improved ROI.

All the tools and examples we shared with you here are from a busienss framework we teach our clients called They Ask, You Answer. The framework has helped hundreds of businesses just like yours gain millions in revenue.

To take the first step at implementing They Ask, You Answer in your business, talk to one of our coaches who can walk you through how to finally take the guesswork out of your sales and marketing.

With strategic coaching and hands-on training for your marketing and sales teams, we can help you improve your metrics and scale your business with great content.