There’s always something to optimize.

When someone says “our website is fine,” it’s usually code for: “We haven’t looked at it in six months.”

Meanwhile, bounce rates are up. Leads are down. And no one’s clicking the button that says “Schedule a Consultation” like their life depends on it.

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A lot of teams blame their CRM when deals slip through the cracks, data gets messy, or nobody follows up on leads.

“It’s clunky.”

“It’s not intuitive.”

“We need something better.”

So they switch systems. Again. And guess what? The problems don’t go away. Because the problem usually isn’t the software—it’s how you’re using it.

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Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, Deloitte—even Google—they’re all saying the same thing:

The funnel is dead.

Not because people suddenly stopped buying things, but because the way they move through a buying journey is nothing like that tidy awareness → consideration → decision diagram you saw in your marketing textbook.

Let’s break down what’s changed—and why it matters.

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You just want to change your shipping address or cancel a subscription, and instead of a human, you get a cheerful little chatbot named “SupportBot 3000” who’s totally not helpful and definitely doesn’t understand what you’re asking.

AI is everywhere in customer service now—and while it’s not all bad, let’s be honest: a lot of it sucks.

Here’s what’s actually going wrong—and what companies need to fix before the bots take all the blame.

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LinkedIn used to be a goldmine for organic reach. Post something halfway decent, and it would get in front of thousands of people—no ad spend required. But now? Feels like you’re shouting into a void while the algorithm boosts engagement-bait and AI-generated fluff.

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AI-generated content is flooding the internet, but let’s be real—most of it is useless. It’s generic, bloated, and reads like a robot scraped a bunch of blog posts, mashed them together, and called it a day. If you’ve ever skimmed an AI-written article and thought, Wow, this says nothing, you’re not alone.

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Most cold outreach is garbage.

You’ve seen it. The LinkedIn messages that start with “Hope you’re doing well!” before launching into a generic pitch. The emails that read like they were written by AI and approved by a committee. The cold calls that sound like a script from a bad sales training video.

If your outbound isn’t getting responses, it’s probably because it’s boring, generic, or annoying. Here’s how to fix that.

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B2B lead generation has a reputation problem—because most of it is terrible.

You know the drill:

Cold emails that read like a template (“Hope you’re doing well! Can I get 15 minutes of your time?”).

Automated LinkedIn pitches that flood inboxes five minutes after connecting.

Pointless gated PDFs that lead to aggressive follow-ups from a sales rep you didn’t ask for.

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Salesforce is the king of CRMs. It’s powerful, customizable, and packed with features. It’s also expensive, complex, and overkill for a lot of businesses.

If you’re wondering whether you actually need Salesforce—or if there’s a better (and cheaper) alternative—here’s the answer.

Image © Salesforce, Inc. – used under fair use for commentary/review purposes.