Where enquiries actually get lost
Short, practical reads for businesses where the sale takes time: how buyers find you, where enquiries go missing, and what happens to the quotes.
Why we built our own CRM, and whether a custom build is right for you
I wanted one system for the whole business, doing as much as possible on its own. I couldn't find one at a sensible price, so we built it.
Read itI wanted one place to run the business.
From the article
Why sales and marketing so often feel like rivals
Marketing says the enquiries are up. Sales says they're rubbish. Both are usually right, and the fix is an agreement more than a tool.
Get the sale5 min readFive CRMs worth a look, and who each one suits
HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce, judged on who they suit. No prices, because they change. A buying test at the end.
Get found4 min readAI in marketing: what's worth worrying about
The real risks of AI in marketing are mistakes, sameness and privacy, and your buyers are already using it to research you.
Get found4 min readSEO still matters. AI has changed what it's for
Google now answers a lot of questions itself. What that does to clicks, which searches it touches least, and where a B2B supplier's SEO effort should go.
Get the sale4 min readYou're generating leads. So why aren't they turning into sales?
When enquiries go up and sales don't, the problem is usually somewhere between the form and the quote. How to find the step where the numbers fall away.
Get the sale4 min readThe hidden cost of quotes nobody follows up
A quote that goes unanswered looks free, but you've already paid to produce it. Why quotes stall, and what useful follow-up looks like.
Get found4 min readWhy industrial businesses still need digital marketing
"Our customers don't buy online" is often true, and it misses the point. The shortlist is made before anyone calls you.
Get the enquiry4 min readWhat happens after someone enquires on your website?
The first two days after an enquiry, seen from the buyer's side: the page after the button, the automatic reply, the wait and the first call.
Get the enquiry4 min readIs your website a brochure or a sales tool?
A brochure website describes the company. A sales tool helps a buyer decide, including the people on the buying team you never meet.
Get found4 min readWhy more website traffic doesn't always mean more revenue
A traffic graph going up feels like progress. Who the visitors are, and what they do, matters far more than how many arrive.
Get the sale4 min readMeasuring marketing when the sale takes six months
If a sale takes six months, a monthly report judges this month's marketing on revenue that can't have arrived yet. A better way to measure it.
Get found5 min readGoogle Ads for high-value B2B products: what actually matters
For a supplier whose customers are worth thousands, Google Ads comes down to who you pay for, what you count and where people land.
Get the sale4 min readStop counting enquiries. Start counting opportunities.
An enquiry count treats a student and a buyer with a budget as the same thing. Counting qualified opportunities, and what they're worth, gives you a number you can act on.
Get the sale4 min readWhy your CRM isn't fixing your sales process
A CRM records a sales process. It can't invent one. The signs your CRM has turned into an expensive address book, and how to make it useful again.
Get the enquiry6 min readWhen a managing director doesn't act like a managing director
Every customer starts as a stranger. How a business treats the people it does not know yet, on its website and in its inbox.
Get the enquiry5 min readShe is not evaluating you. She is looking for a reason to cross you off.
What a procurement buyer checks before shortlisting a supplier, why a form-only contact page reads badly, and the fixes that cost nothing.
Get found6 min readA customer rang to ask why your price was higher than the same machine online
Manufacturers are routinely missing from Google's Shopping results for the product they make, while resellers set the price above them.
Get the sale5 min readSomebody asks how the marketing is going, and nobody can say a number
Why these businesses cannot prove what their marketing produced, what call tracking actually involves, and why tracking has to go in before the traffic.
Get the enquiry5 min readIt is 6.40am, he is holding a glove, and your form wants his job title
Why long enquiry forms cost you the leads you already paid to attract, how the fields get there, and how to decide which ones to cut.
Get found5 min readTrading since 1987, and losing to a domain name somebody registered last year
Exact-match domains keep outranking established Australian businesses. Why it still works, why buying a second domain backfires, and what to build instead.
Get the sale5 min readSend yourself an enquiry from your own website, then follow it
Why website enquiries that land in one person's inbox go missing, what leave and resignations cost, and the record that fixes it.
Get the enquiry5 min readYour homepage is about your company. Your buyer is thinking about Thursday.
Most of these websites open by describing the company. The visitor arrived with a problem. What the gap costs, and the one-sentence test.
Get the sale5 min readThey bought the racking in July. They never compared you on price.
In a long sale most enquiries are not lost, they are forgotten. Why a long sales cycle needs a follow-up mechanism, and what to send.
Start with the call
Fifteen minutes. We work out where your enquiries are being lost and what it would take to fix it.
