Archive August 12, 2025

Staying Sharp: How Small Businesses Can Win by Embracing Marketing Shifts

By in Work Tag ,

by Gloria Martinez, womenled.org In a market where trends move faster than inventory and algorithms change faster than lease terms, small business owners have one advantage that can’t be taught: adaptability. While enterprise brands drown in bureaucracy, a nimble business can move on instinct — if it knows where to look. Today, staying competitive isn’t about playing catch-up. It’s about recognizing where the attention is going next and quietly placing your flag there first. Marketing is no longer just about finding your customers — it’s about showing up in the right way, at the right moment, on the right surface.…

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Selling Isn’t Easy, So Why Do We Keep Hitting The Easy Button?

By in Sales

BY DAVE BROCK We all know that selling is hard. It’s not just that buyers are overwhelmed, it’s not just the disruption/change everyone faces, it’s not the unpredictability we and our customers face. Just doing it right takes effort. Focus, discipline, mastery, relentless execution. Knowing this, why do we keep looking for the shortcuts? Why do we look for the hacks, so we don’t have to put in the effort? Why do we look for AI and other tools to do this work for us? Why do we chase speed, volume, velocity over skill? Why do we prize templates, scripts, playbooks…

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Productivity at the core: How COOs deliver strategy

By in Operations

By Daniel Swan, Darryl Piasecki, and Tony Gambell For the COO’s productivity mandate, the time to act is always. Six best practices can help. Every chief operating officer (COO) knows this simple truth: Delivering the company’s strategy isn’t just part of the job—it is the job. While there are many paths to achieving that goal, none can succeed for long without increased productivity, the foundation for financial performance and economic growth. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, global productivity growth has largely declined around the world. Even before the crisis, advanced economies’ productivity growth receded from 2.2 percent annually between 1997 and 2002 to 1.6 percent between 2002…

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How HR Teams Can Meet New Workplace Expectations this Summer

By in Human Resources

By Rob Whalen Over the past several years, there has been a revolution in how employees work. The COVID-19 pandemic drove an overnight shift to remote work, and many employees became accustomed to the flexibility and freedom this shift provided. While a growing number of companies are now requiring employees to return to the office, this doesn’t mean they will return to the pre-COVID status quo. There has been a fundamental shift in employee demands and expectations, and HR teams must adapt. For example, flexible work arrangements and benefits are having a significant impact on how employees blend work and…

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I tested 5 AI cold email generators, here’s what I found

By in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Email Marketing

Written by: Rachael Nicholson Before starting my career in marketing, I was a business development admin for a relatively large local college. Part of my role was to generate sign-ups for apprenticeships and short courses from local businesses across different sectors. I did this by cold calling (oh, the humanity!), good ol’-fashioned mailouts, face-to-face visits, and email outreach. Download Now: The State of AI in Sales Like 23% of sales pros, I found cold emailing the best way to reach out to prospects. Seriously, it was my preferred lead-gen activity by a country mile. Not only was it less invasive and nerve-wracking for…

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Federal Report Shows Remote Work Trumps RTO 

By in Work

By Dr. Gleb Tsipursky In 2025, a growing number of major employers are mandating full-time returns to the office. Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Dell, and Goldman Sachs have all implemented five-day-a-week office mandates. Similarly, the federal government has followed suit; by early 2024, over 400,000 federal employees were required to be in the office at least two to three days per week, with some agencies enforcing full-time attendance.  Despite this trend, a comprehensive May 2025 report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), titled “Telework: Private Sector Stakeholder and Expert Views,” presents compelling evidence that these return-to-office (RTO) mandates may be misguided. The GAO’s findings…

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We’re all techies now: Digital skill building for the future

By in Human Resources, Self Improvement

Business leaders have come to a stark revelation: The gap between their companies’ tech workers and their nontech colleagues must shrink. The emergence of digital technologies, especially the rapid rise of AI over the past two years, comes with immense promise to unleash growth and productivity. But companies will not see those benefits if their employees are not up to speed. Achieving the full benefits of digital and AI technologies at scale is critical, as the gap between tech leaders and laggards is widening. McKinsey research shows that companies with leading digital and AI capabilities outperform lagging competitors by two to six times in…

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Beyond the First 90 days: Onboarding Strategies that Work

By in Human Resources

By Dustin Ross In today’s fast-paced, hybrid workplace, the first 90 days of an employee’s journey are more critical than ever. For Learning & Development (L&D) professionals, building an onboarding program that is effective, scalable, and flexible means combining structure with adaptability and aligning learning outcomes for business impact. Whether you are onboarding in-person, remotely, or across global teams, a thoughtful blend of delivery formats, synchronous and asynchronous, combined with mentorship, collaboration, and role-specific learning is essential to success. Modern Onboarding Programs are Interactive, Customized and Measurable Key factors for success in effective onboarding programs include: Aligning onboarding goals to…

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Is Your HR Team Listening Legally? Avoiding Compliance Risks in Call Monitoring 

By in Human Resources

By Neal Keene HR professionals often implement call monitoring to support employee development, improve customer service, and ensure policy compliance. These are valid goals. But without a legal framework backing these efforts, the risk of unintentionally violating employee rights is high.  Even when intentions are good, execution still matters. Monitoring without a clear policy—or in ignorance of state laws—can lead to lawsuits, fines, or internal backlash. HR must understand the line between smart oversight and unlawful surveillance.  In fact, Gartner reports that 73% of organizations are already monitoring employee productivity through digital tools, including call recording. With such high adoption, the legal…

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