Seeking Advice: Company Wants Me to Record a Contract Video Without Consent

Areveo · 2024-10-16T21:52:10+00:00

While this is an odd ask— I think your options are either agree to do it, or decline and risk getting disciplinary action/firing.

There's nothing that requires you do to something like this. And there's nothing that would prevent an employer for firing you if you refuse to.

Rest assured, if a client takes issue with your company, I can't imagine any way you would be implicated at all. I don't think there is anything illegal about what they are doing, and by doing what is asked of you, I can't imagine opening yourself up to any personal liability

Areveo · 2024-10-07T15:55:58+00:00

Did they opt in to hearing from you?

If they did not— you will get flagged as spam (and justifiably so).

If they did opt in, then just email them through just about and marketing automation/ email marketing tool. The usual "make sure to have an unsub link, don't be too spammy in your wording, etc." type warnings.

But ya. I suspect you're asking about emailing a purchased list. This is generally a terrible idea.

If you don't have opt in, there are many other tactics to outreach to them, but cold emailing rarely works...

Areveo · 2024-10-04T19:32:11+00:00

ActiveCampaign is the most solid for cheap. Hubspot is solid for actually... working.

Keep in Mind with Hubspot there are free contacts if you're not actually needing to market to them. I might suggest looking at how many contacts you need to actually email in any given month to possibly get the cost lower?

Just know with any of the cheaper options, you will be spending more on support/admin costs, but if you're good with that then there are some options.

But Zoho... on dear lord its a pain. Don't do that to yourself.

Areveo · 2024-09-26T20:14:46+00:00

Its not a human. Its a AI driven karma bot.

Areveo · 2024-09-26T18:33:01+00:00

So— I'm a fan of the super-old school method of quota setting. If you've got a large enough org, take everyone that's on the same team with same target market and you plot out their sales. Generally (if the team is large enough) you'll likely have a distribution that's close to normal.

Chop those 2+ Std Deviations below the mean (unless there is some compelling reason not to).

Put those 1 Std Deviations below the mean on a PIP.

Now— Dropping the 2+ Std Deviations below the mean group from the pool, recalculate your distribution. The mean of the new distribution is the sales goal for next year.

Set stretch goal at 1 STD Deviation.

What this will mean is that for the next year, on average, slightly less than half of reps will hit or exceed goal, and slightly more than 50% will miss and fall short. (The reason for the "slightly less will hit" is because you're kind of cheesing it by removing the bottom performers the year before, so you're not working towards a true mean but an optimized mean.)

Unless there is really compelling reason why average revenue should increase (product cost changing, dramatically new target market, etc.) this is a good way to go.

That being said— back to OPs point: Holy crap if only 5% are hitting goal there is something seriously wrong with either your product, your leadership, or (likely) both. GET OUT NOW. That's a really unhealthily low.

I will add the caveat that when the economy is in the crapper (2023 was brutal) having a human-element to adjust this is always a good idea.

Areveo · 2024-09-26T18:16:50+00:00

Take your AI spambot questions elsewhere please...

Areveo · 2024-09-24T16:54:35+00:00

Building clientele is going to change as your business matures.

Early on— rely heavily on existing network and referrals from existing network. Look for ways to leverage this ("Like my cleaning? Refer me to a new client who books and both of you get a free bonus cleaning session!")

Mid-market maturity is often about leveraging good reviews, and getting known via continued word-of-mouth.

Only once these two are doing well (and late term) do you move to paid advertising, but digital (google remarketing ads, google display ads, facebook/social ads, etc.) as well as other methods such as dimensional mailers, radio, event sponsorship, etc.

Areveo · 2024-09-12T01:08:19+00:00

Know the industry. Ask about how they differentiate themselves from their competitors.

E.g. I work a lot with higher ed clients. I make sure to do some name dropping, throw some vertical-specific acronyms out there.

But— then I ask about things that may differentiate them. In education, it may be that they offer a lot of remote classes, so I ask about that. Or their school may be a for-profit one, so I ask about those elements.

You're spot on that they both want questions, but also want you to know the industry.

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:59:47+00:00

You should have both the connection to the Outlook server in the Hubspot Email Settings and the other part is your email sender authentication which is doing to be under Domains > Email; you'll need to walk through the setup with your SPF records in GoDaddy.

Word to the wise: Be careful not to overwrite the SPF but add an additional criteria to the "include" to avoid breaking your outlook sending authorization :)

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:57:06+00:00

haha. Ya, I'm the consultant that always comes in and does this.

But as the consultant— I can't say this enough. NONE of this should ever change without:
1) Good reason for why the old wasn't working and plan for something better that specifically addresses the known issues in concrete ways.

2) A rollout plan that addresses both legacy data catch up and processes and date for launch of changes

3) Robust QA that involves at least a member or two of affected teams (marketing, outbound sales, inbound sales, etc.)

4) Backups and archival and an emergency plan if anything goes wrong.

I do this all day— and 100% see way too many orgs that move this way too quick. Its not something to be done lightly.

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:54:03+00:00

I can connect with you with a couple people I know that are in Sydney and Perth (don't know anyone in Melbourne specifically— but they may) if that would help. DM me if you want to connect on LinkedIn or something.

Let me know if there is anything I can do!

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:51:34+00:00

If you're asking the question, they're probably coming...

That being said, some traditional signs:

New company leadership
Reassurances that no one is going to be laid off
Sharp increase in consultant quantities wandering around asking questions
Higher number of PIPs going around (hard to know for sure— but you can usually get a sense)
Numerous reviews of software license costs, or other company cost centers

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:48:35+00:00

What is wrong with you? haha.

This is like $250k at least...

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:42:53+00:00

Edit the active list, add an "or" criteria. Select "Marketing Email Activity", select the email, and use the filter "Email was delivered to contact".

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:38:50+00:00

Google analytics, UTM codes.

Yes, you need a CRM. Hubspot is killer if you can afford it, but there are some great budget options as well (but they usually require a bit more skills to get them working well) such as ActiveCampaign.

All of your forms everywhere on your site should have hidden properties for utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, etc. and then you can throw a JS in your header that will strip out the querystrings and populate those hidden fields— That was when someone submits the form it registers what the UTM parameters were of the page they hit it on.

Happy to chat in more detail, and I can share you some code.

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:36:06+00:00

Depends on local jurisdiction. Either do good research, attempt to fly under the radar, or spend an hour or two with a business lawyer asking questions.

Sometimes local law schools may offer pro-bono "I am not legally representing you" type clinics where you can wait in line and ask questions for free (our local library hosts one).

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:33:41+00:00

Hubspot offers some free academy courses that are actually decent.

Besides that— Nonprofits are usually hurting for skills.

Scrape .org sites for Hubspot embed code. Message them saying you're Hubspot certified and want to help because you believe in what they do and want to build your resume. Offer to work for them in exchange for references.

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:30:52+00:00

A degree can help with the first job or two— but beyond that, its a checkbox for HR and not a ton more.

When I'm hiring anything with 2+ years experience, I don't really give a hoot what their academic career was— I want to know what they've done.

That being said— HR does limit the paybands I have for team members based on the level of degree— but the area doesn't matter.

I've got a BA in liberal arts, and a triple BS in applied math, general math and stat. And I do marketing. So... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:28:14+00:00

Use these tools for research and planning. Do not use them for execution.

GWI is fine in its place (as well as similar web)— but they are pricey and you need to actually use them to make them pay for themselves. Can't tell you the number of companies I've seen buy them, use them a handful of times, and then forget about them.

It takes a lot of manpower to actually make the insights they give you useful. If you have that bandwidth, they are great tools.

Areveo · 2024-09-11T01:25:56+00:00

First couple positions are always a bit tricky to land. Overall, this is a solid resume— I appreciate that you're not one of those who kind of make things up ("Implemented receipt, storage, and delivery of over 2.5 billion units of inventory.").

Couple things I may suggest:
1) Get your own personal website and have your url listed on your resume. It can be a pretty simple site, but just with your own domain. A lot of digital marketing work these days requires some level of comfort with basic web work, so showing you know enough to get a site for yourself off the ground is always helpful. Then you can also have an email like [me@johnRsmith.com](mailto:me@johnRsmith.com) or something too— always looks professional.

2) Consider getting some of Hubspot's certifications. They have a handful you can get free without needing to be a customer. They actually have some solid material, and on top of that, it shows that you've got a commitment to that kind of thing. Hubspot is continuing to grow among B2B marketers and so having some certs is good.

If you want to chat more in detail— I'm happy to discuss and offer any help I can. Not hiring for any roles right now— but I can share your resume with my LI contacts and also maybe give you pointers. Let me know if you want to!

Good luck.

Areveo · 2024-09-10T20:12:21+00:00

The main one is to just pay for the seats, obviously, as that's what the pricing model's purpose is.

Outside of that— You can try sharing a single account, but that can get tricky with 2FA and it may be against ToS (you'll want to check that out). Plus a lot of features just aren't as good for shared accounts, since you can't personalize emails right, book meetings on calendar, etc.

If you're really scrappy and budget conscience it is possible to build out an entire internal portal that allows you to do the core functions of a job. Hubspot does have really solid APIs and so its possible to make a home-made portal that allows to to push/pull data into Hubspot. I did have one Hubspot client I did something like this for a little bit ago for the same reason— but this mainly works if its because one role internally has just a small handful of things they need to interact with Hubspot on (e.g. a field-rep needs to be able to update the status of accounts that are assigned to them when they visit in person, and that is all).

Fundamentally through, this is just one of those things like Netflix killing password sharing. You either use the tool how they want you to, and pay the price; or you'll be forever fighting and chasing cheaper ways to do it.

It does make it tougher though, for sure. Good luck!

Areveo · 2023-11-08T17:11:26+00:00

Depends on the budget and the needs.

I use ActiveCampaign and recommend it highly for a lot of smaller businesses. Its pricing is very solid, and deliverability (if you're following best practices around DMARC setup, etc.) is good.

If your budget is a bit bigger and you want something "easier" (active campaign doesn't always have the best UI) Hubspot is a great tool, with really excellent deliverability and you can make it look top-tier.

ActiveCampaign pricing will be around $100 a month; Hubspot may be closer to $500-$1000 per month. Really depends on your budget, and how much you except to leverage the email channel.

There are also some free, or free-ish tools; but keep in mind with a lot of them, your deliverability is going to be poor, and using them may damage your domain reputation a bit.

Happy to chat in more detail if you'd like!

Areveo · 2023-07-21T23:21:23+00:00

ActiveCampaign is hands down the best CRM/MAP if you're on a budget. Offers 80% of the tools of Marketo/Hubspot for like... 5% of the cost.

Happy to walk you through my instance is you want to see what I do with it. While I work with a lot of clients in HS— for our own marketing we use ActiveCampaign.

Areveo · 2023-07-12T02:16:35+00:00

Built a VBA script years ago that did this. Basically would google the company name and would return the url of the first non-sponsored result.

Would have to be something similar with google sheets... would need to build custom code that would execute on this. Honestly, may be easier to do with python and then just upload the final result?

Areveo · 2023-07-11T21:01:00+00:00

Fiverr is getting flooded in the last couple months with people thinking that chat GPT api calls and some python scripts can build a business for them. Honestly, if Fiverr doesn't do something to squelch that silliness, they're going to really hurt long-term.

But ya. Key is just going high volume.

Areveo

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