As we move quickly toward the end of 2021 the pressure is on for sales teams to meet annual goals. But often the tactics that we use to drive sales (fuel….such as incentives, pricing deals and other “carrots”) actually increase buyer resistance….or friction.

As in many industries, hybrid and remote work are the new normal for marketing tech/services and insights professionals. With this “new normal” many of our traditional business models are being challenged.

Lately we’ve been coaching a number of Founders struggling with rejection. Whether it’s losing business to a competitor, pitching a Venture Capital firm for funding and receiving a “not interested”, or losing key employees who jump ship for another firm we can likely all agree that rejection isn’t an awesome feeling.

Although hiring for positions like sales or engineering has historically been more challenging due to fierce competition for top performers in these roles, businesses of all types (and particularly those in the marketing tech and services sector where we spend the bulk of our time at ScaleHouse) are struggling to hire due to labor shortages.

These labor shortages are becoming increasingly problematic as demand for professional services bounces back post-pandemic. A report from Korn Ferry finds that by 2030, more than 85 million jobs could go unfilled because there aren’t enough skilled people to take them.

If you’re an employer looking to hire, what can you do to attract top talent?

Inflation has been a popular topic of conversation lately, and rightly so. Over the last few weeks prices of various raw materials and commodities have surged and show no signs of slowing down.

At ScaleHouse, we focus a lot on business optimization. Whether it’s introducing new methods, practices and systems that reduce turnaround time, or optimizing your organizational structure, it can often be a lot easier for us (as external consultants) to identify opportunities for optimization because we’re not working IN the business every day. In essence, optimization is the art of reducing costs while improving performance (and profitability!).

Service based business are notorious for revenue volatility, and that played out to the extreme in 2020 when, for a period of time, business came to a standstill due to COVID and many ad hoc projects were put on hold.

I’ve worked with all kinds of CEO’s and C-level teams since launching ScaleHouse in 2015. Some were amazing sales leaders and understood how to engage and convert high value prospects. Others….not so much. Although I often encourage the C-suite to get involved in sales and marketing activities, in truth this strategy can either drive, or kill, deals.

Although there are over 100,000 results on Amazon if you type in “business growth book”, one of my top growth reads is from Tiffani Bova, Global Growth Evangelist for Salesforce and her 2018 book “Growth IQ”.

One of my favorite quotes is from Nolan Bushnell who said “the true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer”. Bushnell knows a thing or two about the difference between dreaming and doing: He founded Atari in the ’70s and is considered one of the founding fathers of the video game industry…before going on to start the Chuck E Cheese pizza chain.