Send a text

You don’t need a bigger tool—you need the best CRM for consultants, one that actually fits how relationship-driven businesses grow. We sit down with Ruben Schwartz, creator of a CRM built specifically for consulting, to unpack why copying enterprise sales systems suffocates solo operators and small teams—and what to do instead. If you’ve been searching for the best CRM for a small consulting business, this conversation reframes what “good” really means.

We start by dismantling the “doctor on a plane” mindset and pivot to the power of specialization. Ruben explains how a focused CRM for consulting firms supports sharper positioning by helping you define an ideal client profile and turn it into repeatable messaging. That includes an elevator pitch that lands, website language that signals expertise, a lead magnet that attracts the right prospects, and customer success stories that sell your value. Stuck on positioning? Call a favorite client and co-create the before-and-after narrative—those insights become your ICP, content plan, and referral script.

Then we turn the CRM for consulting into a true conversation engine. Instead of bloated pipelines, track contact basics alongside the “fuzzy file” details that make outreach effective—preferred communication channel, best times to connect, and meeting style. Map referral sources so you can see who actually drives revenue and reinforce those relationships with meaningful updates. Most importantly, stop letting great contacts disappear: log your last conversation, set the next one by default, and let cadence vary by relationship. This keeps your calendar aligned with revenue, not busywork.

By the end, you’ll have a solo-friendly blueprint for choosing and using the best CRM for consultants: clarify your ICP, standardize your message, manage referrals like a virtual sales team, and install a follow-up rhythm that makes momentum inevitable. Want templates and training? Ruben’s resources and a free trial are available at mimiran.com. If this helped, subscribe, share it with a consultant who needs clarity, and drop a comment with one thing your CRM could do better—we’ll weigh in.

Send us a text

Tired of “partly sunny” pipeline updates and finger-pointing between sales and marketing? We dig into a practical system that replaces chaos with clarity by separating three roles most leaders blur: sales training, sales coaching, and sales management. Training builds team-wide skills, coaching advances live deals for individuals, and management sets the structure, cadence, and accountability that make results predictable.

We start by mapping goals to data. What’s your ideal client profile, best referral sources, average deal size, and true funnel conversion at each stage? With those numbers, we build the sales cookbook: a reverse-engineered plan from annual revenue down to daily behaviors. Large, mid, and small accounts get their own paths, because enterprise outreach and SMB inbound do not convert the same way. The cookbook exposes gaps early—by week three, not month six—so leaders can coach, reassign, or refine the plan before the year slips away.

From there, we show how strong leadership aligns sales and marketing. Clear ICPs and channel results let marketing narrow the field, sharpen messaging, and feed leads that fit. Sales replaces vague updates with concrete next steps, qualification standards, and consistent follow-up that shortens cycles and raises win rates. We share examples from consulting, executive recruiting, banking, and manufacturing, including territory design, cross-sell expectations, and one-on-one rhythms that turn “vibes” into visible progress.

Mindset matters too. We outline how to craft an elevator pitch that highlights the problems you solve, differentiates against bigger competitors, and runs meetings that either move deals forward or end them decisively. If you’re a founder, managing partner, or new sales leader, this is the blueprint to stop herding cats and start leading with data, structure, and discipline.

If this playbook helps, subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review. Want the next step? Grab The Revenue Cookbook link and join the 12-week sales training program to install this system with your team. 

Then tell us: what’s the single metric you’ll track weekly to stay on course?

Send us a text

What if your team could trade hours of grunt work for minutes of streamlined execution—and spend the saved time actually winning business? We sit down with a former law firm manager turned automation strategist to unpack how robotic process automation reduces repetitive tasks, safeguards accuracy, and gives clients more of your human attention where it counts.

We draw a bright line between RPA and AI: AI imitates thinking, while RPA imitates clicks and keystrokes with clear rules. That distinction is the key to consistency, compliance, and predictable outcomes. You’ll hear a probate case study where a bot turns four hours of admin into eight minutes—extracting data, triggering human intake, generating documents, coordinating DocuSign, e-filing, and updating calendars with human review steps baked in. We also break down the biggest bottleneck in personal injury—medical records—and how automation handles requests, retrieval, classification, naming, filing, and notifications so a six-person team can reclaim three days a week.

For sales and marketing leaders, we get tactical: automate intake, CRM entry, routing, reminders, and asset prep, but keep live conversations human. Start with your current tech stack—HubSpot, Salesforce, Microsoft, or Calendly—before adding custom bots. Move information gathering from email ping-pong to structured web forms with conditional logic to create clean, searchable data that accelerates every downstream workflow. Most importantly, avoid culture traps by inviting your team into the process: ask what they love, what drags them down, and what they wish they had time to do. When people see automation as a gateway to higher-value work—strategy, client trust, and growth—they become champions, not skeptics.

If you’re ready to scale service quality without scaling headcount, this playbook will help you choose the right tasks, design human checkpoints, and build buy-in from day one. Subscribe, share with a colleague who needs the time back, and leave a review telling us the first workflow you’d automate.

Send us a text

What if your firm grew faster the moment you stopped doing “everything”? We brought on Ron Bockstahler of Amata Office Centers to show how small and solo law practices scale with less stress by outsourcing the back office, using virtual offices for presence, and focusing lawyer time on what actually pays: legal work and prospecting.

We start with a reality check for attorneys leaving big firms. The comforts of enterprise-grade support vanish on day one—secure systems, phones, mail, intake, compliance, and endless admin decisions land on your desk. Ron explains how virtual office programs handle mail, calls, and client-facing workflows so you keep a professional footprint without a costly lease. Then we dig into the golden rule: if it’s not billable, you shouldn’t be doing it. Bookkeeping, IT, document production, and even first drafts can be handled by experts or AI-assisted tools, leaving you to review and refine at a higher value.

Growth depends on the pipeline you build, not the clients you hope stick around. We break down referral strategies that drive 80% of matters for many small firms, from mapping complementary practices to scheduling weekly one-on-ones that consistently produce introductions. Evan shares a simple “pay time vs. no pay time” framework to protect your calendar, while Craig tackles the marketing wake-up call: AI is reshaping search behavior, so DIY tactics often miss shifting algorithms and intent. Ron’s story of a strong firm seeing call volume drop becomes a lesson in hiring professional marketing that tracks leads from search to signed engagement and adapts before results slide.

By the end, you’ll have a lean, practical playbook: write clear goals, delegate nonbillables, protect pay time, invest in a referral engine, and modernize your marketing for the AI era. Keep it simple, keep it flexible, and align costs with revenue so your firm compounds instead of grinds.

If these plays help, follow and subscribe for more sales and marketing strategies, share the show with a colleague, and leave a quick review to tell us which tactic you’ll put into action this week.

Send us a text

Ready to trade noisy “more leads” for a pipeline you can actually close? We dig into what growth marketing really means for B2B teams: systematic experimentation tied to revenue, not vanity metrics. With Evan Polin’s sales coaching lens and Craig Andrews' growth marketing strategy playbook, we map how to align sales and marketing so both sides win and buyers feel it from the first touch.

We start by cutting through agency labels and assets that masquerade as strategy. Then we define the difference between MQLs and SQLs and explain why shifting to sales accepted leads, pipeline created, and revenue influenced changes the culture overnight. If sales hates the leads, marketing is failing; if sales can’t say why, sales is failing marketing. That’s where the weekly feedback loop comes in—field notes shape ICP updates, messaging pivots, and nurture arcs that steadily advance deals instead of clogging calendars.

You’ll hear practical takeaways for small and mid-sized teams without enterprise budgets: how to clarify your ideal client profile, why people remember you for the first thing you sold, and how long it really takes to reposition an offer. We talk problem-first content that answers real questions buyers ask, smarter LinkedIn targeting, and how to rebuild an email reputation after blasting the list into spam filters. Most of all, we show why better alignment beats more spend, and how testing, not guessing, builds durable momentum—cleaner discovery calls, shorter cycles, and easier upsells.

If you’re serious about revenue and tired of activity for activity’s sake, this playbook episode is your next step. Follow the show, share it with your team, and leave a review to tell us what’s working. 

What’s the biggest challenge between sales and marketing at your company right now? Tell us—we’re building the next episodes around your questions.

Send us a text

We look back at a standout year and unpack why simplicity, clarity, and alignment made deals close faster and marketing work harder. We share the sales frameworks, marketing rhythms, and leadership habits that will set a stronger foundation for 2026.

• simplifying a core promise and message
• focusing on ICP fit and problem-led language
• replacing bloated pipelines with task-driven CRM
• disqualifying fast to speed decisions
• using small touches over big-bang campaigns
• keeping website, social, email, and pitch aligned
• leveraging relationships and referrals with intent
• letting data refine ICP and spend
• separating sales and marketing roles while unifying goals
• setting clear revenue targets and reverse-engineering activity

Don't forget to subscribe to the Sales and Marketing Playbook unleashed on all major podcast platforms and follow us on YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn for even more exclusive content

Send a text

If your CRM feels like a black hole instead of a growth engine, this conversation will change how you build, measure, and coach your sales and marketing efforts. We sit down with Cathy Cain-Blank of The WDG Agency to unpack the real reason teams struggle with HubSpot—and how to fix it fast.

We start by drawing a hard line: strategy before software. Cathy explains why DIY implementations fail, how to map progressive deal stages that reflect real buyer movement, and which definitions every team must standardize to trust their data. From there, we dig into quick wins at the professional tier: task automation that prevents post-proposal drift and playbooks that replace scattered notes with structured discovery captured right in the record. The result is fewer “I’ll get back to it” meetings and more pipelines that actually move.

We also explore smart disqualification and recycling. Instead of letting “interested but later” clog your forecast, close the loop and send contacts into targeted nurture workflows. Cathy shows how unified engagement data—sales emails opened and clicked, marketing content consumed, form submissions—helps reps prioritize outreach while giving marketers the insight to refine offers. This is where HubSpot shines: one platform, shared visibility, and a feedback loop that ties campaigns to qualified conversations.

Adoption is where leaders earn their keep. We talk through driving consistent usage without bureaucracy, building peer-led learning around what top performers record, and measuring what matters: stage conversions, time-in-stage bottlenecks, and the engagement signals that precede wins. If you’ve only used 25 percent of your CRM’s power, you’ll leave with specific ideas to expand intelligently—sequences for outreach, smarter forms for lead capture, and dashboards that bring focus to the day.

Ready to turn your CRM from cost center to compounding asset? Listen now, then subscribe, rate, and share with a teammate who owns sales or marketing. Drop your questions on LinkedIn—we’d love to hear where your pipeline gets stuck and what you’ll try next.

Send us a text

Buyers don’t wake up searching for your brand—they wake up searching for answers. We dive into how to meet them there and guide them all the way to loyal, long-term customers using automation that still feels human. With Dr. Denise Dennis of Action Accelerated, we map a complete journey from awareness and consideration to decision, onboarding, retention, and optimization—and show where automation saves hours without stripping out your voice or values.

We start with solution-first awareness: what turns casual scrollers into qualified leads, why lead magnets work, and how to deliver instant value with clean capture and clear next steps. Then we unpack nurturing that builds trust—evergreen sequences in your tone, timely broadcasts that prove you’re present, and behavior-triggered follow-ups that keep relevance high and pressure low. Dr. Denise explains the tech stack in plain English: pixels, UTM tracking, Google Analytics, and CRM workflows that surface what’s working across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and email.

Decision becomes effortless when logistics are automated. Smart scheduling links, thoughtful reminders, and pre-call assets (testimonials, a 90-second intro, one-question intake) set the stage. Post-call paths route yes, no, and maybe into the right journeys—agreements and payment links for buyers, concise recaps for fence-sitters, long-term nurture for later fits. Lead scoring helps sales focus on the right conversations by weighting downloads, clicks, and visit depth.

Retention is where revenue compounds. We cover onboarding that calms buyer anxiety with welcome videos, clear instructions, and quick wins. Automated summaries after sessions, periodic check-ins, and satisfaction surveys keep clients engaged and heard. When progress is visible, expansion feels natural—course two after course one, VIP days after group programs, strategic packages after pilots—raising lifetime value without awkward pitches.

Finally, we show how to optimize the full funnel with data: view-to-opt-in, opt-in-to-show, show-to-close, and beyond. Test headlines, proof, and CTAs; follow the demand your data reveals; and treat automation as a reliable system that delivers the right message at the right time. If you’re ready to work smarter, reclaim time, and scale trust, hit play, subscribe for more growth playbooks, and leave a review with the one step you’ll automate this week.

Send us a text

Q4 doesn’t forgive drift. We pull back the curtain on the exact plays we use to finish the year strong while quietly stacking wins for a faster Q1—no fluff, just moves you can run this week. From pinpointing the two or three channels that drove most of your revenue to reviving “closed-lost” opportunities with value-first outreach, we show how sales and marketing work together when the clock is ticking.

Evan Poland (co-author of Selling Professional Services The Sandler Way) breaks down a practical pipeline audit: tag every deal by originating activity, identify the patterns behind wins, and double down. He walks through the A/B/C relationship model to activate trusted contacts for warm introductions and explains how to re-approach stalled deals without sounding needy. Craig Andrews (CEO, Beholder Agency) maps the marketing side: amplify proven messages, retarget recent engagers, and pair time-boxed incentives with a low-friction CTA. We also address the “no one buys after Thanksgiving” myth with real-world examples of seven-figure engagements that started during the holidays—because urgent pain ignores the calendar.

You’ll learn how to turn social signals and site behavior into prioritized outreach, why speed-to-context beats speed-to-lead, and how to balance “rabbits, deer, and elephants” so you hit this year’s target while advancing next year’s enterprise wins. Expect clear steps, simple language, and a playbook you can hand your team today: align on data, shorten next steps, and make every touch move a deal one stage forward.

If this helped sharpen your Q4 plan, follow the show, share it with a teammate who needs momentum, and leave a quick review so others can find it. Want to go deeper or pitch a topic? Connect with us on LinkedIn or via the website—and keep winning.

Send us a text

Are your employees already using AI without your knowledge? What competitive advantages are you missing by not having a clear AI strategy? Fractional COO Julio Gonzalez reveals how small and mid-sized businesses can harness artificial intelligence to drive efficiency and growth without massive investments or technical expertise.

Drawing from decades of experience as a CIO and operational strategist, Julio cuts through the AI hype to deliver practical insights you can implement immediately. Rather than treating AI as just another tech buzzword, he approaches it from an operational perspective—focusing on how automation can solve real business problems and free up your time for high-value activities.

The conversation explores how mature AI implementations are yielding up to 20% performance improvements in specific business areas. From AI assistants handling phone calls and scheduling to financial tools automating invoice matching, these technologies are transforming everyday tasks. For small businesses without large marketing departments, AI writing assistants are crafting professional communications and marketing materials in minutes rather than hours.

But Julio also addresses the risks—particularly how employees using free AI tools might inadvertently expose sensitive business data. Learn how to develop specific, detailed prompts that produce accurate, valuable outputs instead of the "hallucinations" that can damage your credibility and brand. Discover the fundamental difference between using AI effectively versus simply adopting the latest shiny object.

Whether you're AI-curious or AI-anxious, this episode provides a balanced, strategic framework for implementing automation in ways that enhance your business operations without overwhelming your team or budget. The competitive advantage isn't just in adopting AI—it's in adopting it thoughtfully before your competition does.

Ready to transform your business operations? Connect with Julio at Opticution (www.opticution.com) to develop an AI strategy that aligns with your specific business goals and challenges.