In this Issue

🚨    Collapsing Lead Gen
🐝    Back to Basics
🫀    To Sell Is Human

🚨  Collapsing Lead Gen

Generating sales leads and opportunities is harder than ever. Digital channels are oversaturated and underperforming.

If you’re feeling like all your marketing efforts are not working, you’re not alone. Here’s what we are seeing.

• “My website traffic is plummeting.” SEO is disappearing. Some are attempting to optimize for AI, but it’s not keeping up or replacing Google traffic.
• “My paid search is losing money.” Google has gotten greedy. Paid search campaigns are becoming unprofitable.
• “Why do I have to record more reels?” Organic traffic is shifting from Google to influencers and owned audiences.
• “I can’t even get a response.” Cold outreach is exploding in volume, but plummeting in effectiveness. Customers are tuning out unsolicited requests.

The days of inbound marketing and organic search traffic are becoming archaic. The switch to cold outreach and direct solicitation via email and LinkedIn has been taken over and killed by automation.

It’s all becoming noise, and customers are tuning out.

When the digital channels erode, switch back to the real world:

• Real connections
• Real relationships
• Real experiences

One Stat to Watch

30%

30% of small businesses say lead generation is their #1 marketing obstacle, ahead of budget issues.

🐝  Back to Basics

When your marketing channels are overcrowded, oversaturated, and your customers are tuning out, lead with your brand.

This is when we lean on the timeless principles of Sticky Branding:

• Simple Clarity: Get your brand messaging razor sharp so everyone gets it, fast.
• Be Everywhere: Choose a few key markets to focus your marketing on so that you create the impression your brand is everywhere.
• First Call Advantage: Focus on the relationships. Get your prospects, customers, and centers of influence to know your brand, like it, and trust it so they choose it first.

The most effective marketing strategies are going back to basics. In late 2025, we are finding sponsorships, events, and direct selling are proving to have higher ROI to digital marketing.

‍Digital marketing is still an integral part of your marketing strategy, but it’s only a set of tactics. If your marketing department is really a “digital marketing department,” use that as a sign to evolve.

With the noise factor skyrocketing and digital fatigue setting in, you need to find new ways (or more accurately, old school ways) to engage your customers.

🫀  To Sell Is Human

Salespeople may not carry the same influence they did a decade ago, but their impact on the buying process is essential.

Information is cheap. Between ChatGPT and Google, customers can find all the data they need to get informed. The problem is they’re overloaded with information, and they need help.

That’s where salespeople come in. They humanize the business and facilitate the purchasing process.

Complex products don’t sell themselves – they never did. The difference today is a salesperson’s role is not to sell, it’s to facilitate the buying process.

A customer needs someone to contextualize the information they’re finding, ask questions to provoke greater understanding, negotiate terms, and direct the purchase (or close the deal).

This sales process is consultative and provides a valuable service to customers. It helps customers make the right decision and navigate choices beyond a ChatGPT recommendation or a Google search.

Sales is more than selling. It’s about guiding and facilitating customers to make better purchasing decisions.

🤔  Thoughts on Today’s Issue?

We’d love to hear your feedback. Message with any thoughts, comments, or ideas for future issues.