#sales force automation system

[zylemseo]

Uncover the potential of Zylemini+, a cutting-edge Sales Force Automation App developed to reshape how businesses conquer the challenges of field sales. Whether you're in Manufacturing, FMCG, Healthcare- Medical Devices, Retail, Consumer Durables, Engineering, Crop Sciences, Zylemini+ introduces a new era of precision and efficiency in sales force management. Unlock the core capabilities that define Zylemini+ as a powerful Sales Force Automation solution. These key features are implemented in this application to address critical aspects of field sales operations, providing practical solutions for enhanced efficiency.

[trackolap]

How can Field Force Tracking App Tackle EduTech Industry Challenges?

EduTech companies struggle to manage on-field operations efficiently. Challenges like field representative monitoring, providing timely student support and real-time communication can lead to inefficiencies and delays. With complete visibility, managing field employees can become complex and affect your service quality. Hence, it is essential to implement a field force tracking app to streamline operations with automation. 

A field sales rep tracking software provides a game-changing solution by offering real-time live tracking , automated task management and instant data-driven report generation. These capabilities enable EduTech companies to maximize field operations and ensure representatives are in the right place—improved communication and employee accountability leads to improved performance and quicker issue resolution.

EduTech companies can optimize their resources and enhance service delivery through enhanced transparency and data-driven decision-making with the help of an employee location tracker. The software will enhance workforce efficiency and enhance student engagement and operational efficiency to fuel long-term business growth.

Top 10 Challenges Faced by EduTech Companies in 2025

In 2025, EduTech businesses faces numerous challenges ranging from embracing changing digital learning trends to dealing with dispersed field teams. Challenges like student retention, intense market competition demanding strategic solutions, and more. Additionally, monitoring field activities, managing client relationships, and ensuring seamless communication between teams remain essential pain points that hinder business growth. 

A field force tracking app offers real-time movement tracking, automated reporting and AI-enabled data analytics. This application will assist your EduTech companies in optimizing field operations and enhancing lead management and decision-making with data-based insights. By optimizing field sales efforts, businesses can boost productivity, strengthen client engagement and gain a competitive advantage effectively. 

1. Lack of Instant Visibility into Team’s Movements

EduTech companies struggle to monitor their sales representatives’ locations and activities in real-time. Without comprehensive visibility, it can become challenging to make sure whether field sales reps are attending meetings, visiting to potential clients or following the sales route. This absence of supervision can lead to inefficiencies, lost opportunities and complexity in performance measurement. Additionally, managers who depend on manual reporting might not be accurate, and result in defective decision-making.

Solution: A field sales rep tracking software offers real-time GPS tracking, w hich enables managers to track exact locations of their team members. This approach provides a central dashboard displaying sales routes, meetings attended and overall idle time. Automated check-ins and geofencing assist in validating visits to ensure the sales team follows their respective schedules. This level of visibility improves efficiency and provides the sales team with the most out of their working hours. 

2. Inefficient Sales Route Management

The EduTech field states teams cover vast areas, which makes territory management a significant challenge. Without complete planning, multiple sales reps may overlap in the same places, leading to inefficiencies, conflicts, and wasting time on the same task. At the same time, some areas remain underserved due to poor sales allocation, which leads to lost business operations. 

Solution: With the automated territory management feature, an employee location tracking system assigns sales reps to specific locations based on business demand, existing clients and potential leads. It ensures optimal distribution of sales efforts, minimizing overlaps and maximizing market coverage. Dynamic reallocation capabilities of this system allows managers to adjust territories in real-time based on the performance metrics and new opportunities. 

3. Difficulty in Monitoring Sales Performance Metrics

EduTech organizations find getting accurate insights into the sales team’s performance challenging. Relying on self-reported data can result into misrepresentation and inaccurate forecasting. Without having precise performance metrics, managers can struggle to evaluate sales efficiency, identify underperformers and reward top performers efficiently. 

Solution: The field force tracking app offers detailed data analytics on each sales representative's daily activities, overall conversions, meeting durations and follow-ups. Dynamic dashboards offer views into key performance metrics (KPIs) such as meeting duration, field time and lead conversions. The strategy eventually helps managers to assess individual and team performance, make sound decisions, and implement measures to increase the efficiency of sales.

4. High Level of Sales Rep Turnover

Field sales team members of the EduTech sector tend to experience high turnover rates, which makes onboarding and training a continuous challenge. When the sales team joins, they struggle to determine their assigned regions, the existing client base and sales strategies. Lack of structured onboarding procedures leads to extended le arning curves and lost sales opportunities. 

Solution: Employee location tracker includes features like optimized sales routes, client history, track record of historical data-driven reports, and more. It ensures new hires have access to adequate information on the mobile devices, minimizing the time required to adopt their roles. Managers can offer feedback by tracking real-time employee movements and collaborating seamlessly. 

5. Poor Lead Management

In the EduTech industry, lead management is essential to seal deals with schools, universities and institutions. Salespeople are unable to monitor potential leads, resulting in missed follow-ups, slow responses and lost sales. In the absence of an organized lead management answer, field teams may waste time on low-priority leads instead of working on high-conversion viewpoints.

Solution: The employee location tracking system integrates with the CRM system to allow sales reps to log leads, set follow-up reminders and categorize prospects based on urgency. Automated notifications ensure no follow-up is missed and enhance the likelihood of converting a prospect. By optimizing lead management, EduTech companies can improve sales efficiency and maximize revenue potential. 

6. Lack of Route Optimization

EduTech sales representatives spend excessive time commuting between meetings due to inefficient route planning. Poor route optimizations often lead to longer travel times, increased fuel costs and reduced meeting slots, which impacts business productivity. Without complete route optimization, sales reps may visit fewer clients in a day than potentially could. 

Solution: The employee location tracking system offers automated route planning based on location data, reducing travel time and maximizing client visits. It suggests the shortest and efficient routes, considering traffic conditions. By streamlining daily routes, field team members can conduct more meetings with potential students and their guardians, educators and even institutions, enhance client interactions and improve sales outcomes. 

7. Inaccurate Expense Management

Expenses associated with travel, client visits and lodging are a challenge for an EduTech firm. Without adequate documentation, sales reps struggle to report expenses, leading to late reimbursements and potential accounting errors Managing expenses creates an administrative workload for sales reps and finance teams.

Solution: An automated expense management platform allows teams to upload electronic receipts, and managers can classify expenses and review total expenses through data-driven reports - all in one place. Automated approval workflows make sure timely reimbursements, and finance teams can gain better visibility into expense patterns which helps in streamlining budget allocations. 

8. Lower Client Engagement

EduTech companies rely heavily on strong relationships with institutions and educators. However, teams may struggle to maintain consistent communication without a complete engagement tracking solution, resulting in dissatisfied clients. Unresolved queries, inconsistent follow-ups and lack of personalized service can minimize client retention. 

Solution: A field sales rep tracking software offers structured follow-ups, reminders for check-ins, client meetings, and feedback collection. It allows sales reps to record client preferences, past discussions, ensuring a personalized experience for each interaction. EduTech companies can seamlessly build stronger relationships and enhance client satisfaction by improving client management. 

9. Compliance & Documentation Challenges

Educational institutions need sales reps to adhere to substantial regulations and provide documents for contracts, pricing information and overall compliance reports. Handling the documents manually proves to be challenging, which leads to miscommunication, lost documents and overall compliance risks.

Solution: A field force tracking app offers a centralized dashboard where all contract, pricing structure-related information can be stored easily. This application lets Sales representatives quickly access and share information with clients directly. Additionally, automated compliance reminders also help sales teams keep themselves current with regulatory needs, lowering legal risks.

10. Lack of Integration with Existing EduTech Platforms

EduTech companies use multiple software for CRM sales management and other activities. However, when these systems do not communicate efficiently, sales reps tend to waste time switching between tools, resulting to inefficiencies and data silos. 

Solution: A field sales rep tracking software integrates easily with your existing CRM platforms and other EduTech tools. This approach ensures smooth data flow across platforms, enabling teams to access client details, learning preferences and sales history in one place. EduTech companies can optimize operations and drive higher conversion rates by minimising manual data entry and enhancing workflow efficiency. 

Final Thoughts

EduTech organizations suffer from issues like ineffective workforce management, no real-time updates, etc. Field force tracking app streamlines activities by providing real-time location tracking, instant reports, and insights based on data. This model increases productivity and ensures transparency and accountability among teams.

By implementing an intelligent tracking solution, EduTech firms can enhance workforce efficiency, reduce operational gaps and enhance overall performance. Investing in the proper platform makes workforce management easier, fuels improved engagement with clients, enables making the right decisions quicker, and fuels long-term business growth. Are you ready to streamline field operations with better efficiency? Connect with our team today !

[zylem2020]

From Chaos to Clarity: The Importance of Software in Modern Sales and Claims Processes

In today’s fast-paced business environment, chaos and disorganization often rule the day in sales and claims processes. Manual workflows, disconnected systems, and lack of visibility can create confusion and inefficiencies. As businesses grow, it becomes even more critical to introduce streamlined processes. Scheme and claim management software, sales management software, and sales force automation software have emerged as essential tools in helping businesses transition from chaos to clarity, providing structure, accuracy, and efficiency in managing sales and claims operations.

The Complexity of Sales and Claims Processes

Sales and claims management can involve numerous moving parts, from tracking leads and managing customer relationships to processing claims and managing promotional schemes. Without the right tools, businesses often struggle to keep track of everything, leading to errors, missed opportunities, and delayed resolutions.

Sales teams might find themselves juggling multiple spreadsheets, emails, and databases while trying to manage their prospects and clients effectively. Similarly, claim management teams deal with piles of paper forms, multiple approval stages, and lengthy processing times that create customer dissatisfaction and internal inefficiencies.

How Scheme and Claim Management Software Solves These Issues

Distributor claim management software brings clarity to the often chaotic process of handling claims and promotional schemes. Here’s how:

Centralized Data Management: One of the main challenges of claims and schemes management is the fragmented nature of information. With scheme and claim management software, all data is centralized in one system, making it easy to access claim histories, track status updates, and review approval workflows. his solution centralizes information, making it easier to find and reducing the time spent searching through multiple files.

Improved Accuracy: By automating key tasks such as data entry, claim validation, and approval workflows, scheme and claim management software reduces human error. It ensures that claims are processed quickly and accurately, minimizing the risk of mistakes that can lead to delays or rejections.

Streamlined Communication: Communication bottlenecks can delay claims processing, leading to frustrated customers. Modern scheme and claim management software includes built-in communication tools that allow all stakeholders (claims agents, managers, and clients) to stay updated in real-time. This increases the flow of information and guarantees that nothing falls through the cracks.

The Impact of Sales Management Software

Sales teams often deal with inefficiencies arising from the lack of centralized tools to track leads, deals, and performance. Sales management software can turn this chaos into clarity by providing an integrated platform where everything is tracked, measured, and analyzed in real time. Here’s how it helps:

Lead Management: Sales management software allows businesses to efficiently manage and prioritize leads. It uses data-driven insights to help sales teams focus on the most promising prospects, thus improving conversion rates and reducing wasted effort on unqualified leads.

Comprehensive Reporting: Sales managers often face difficulties in assessing team performance and pipeline health. Sales management software offers customizable reports, providing real-time insights into sales activities, allowing managers to identify trends, bottlenecks, and areas needing attention.

Improved Forecasting: Predicting sales outcomes becomes easier with the use of AI-powered features in sales management software. By analyzing past sales data, businesses can forecast future sales with a higher degree of accuracy, helping with resource allocation and strategy planning.

Sales Force Automation Software: A Game Changer

For field teams, managing sales activities, tracking customer interactions, and updating records while on the go can be overwhelming. Sales force automation software solves this problem by automating many of these tasks, enabling sales teams to stay focused on building relationships and closing deals.

Mobile Access and Real-Time Updates: Sales force automation software allows sales reps to access client data and update sales records in real-time, even while out in the field. This means no more delays in data entry or lost information, ensuring that all stakeholders have access to the most up-to-date information at any given time.

Task Automation: Routine tasks like scheduling follow-up calls, sending reminders, and updating CRM entries are automated through sales force automation software, allowing field agents to concentrate on engaging with clients and increasing sales productivity.

Performance Monitoring: By analyzing the performance of individual sales agents, sales force automation software helps managers identify high performers and those who may need additional support. This enhances productivity and ensures that resources are allocated effectively.

Conclusion: Transforming Chaos into Clarity

The integration of scheme and claim management software, sales management software, and sales force automation software offers businesses the tools they need to streamline operations and eliminate chaos. By automating manual processes, improving accuracy, and enhancing communication, these software solutions provide clarity, efficiency, and better decision-making. In today’s competitive business environment, embracing these tools is essential to turning disorganized systems into clear, actionable workflows that drive success.

[msell-india]

Order Management System

If you need help organizing your business's orders, look no further than mSELL. An order management system (OMS) is what you're after. It's like a super-organized assistant for handling orders from start to finish. It keeps track of what's in stock, follows orders as they move along, and even communicates with customers. It's a must-have for making sure everything runs smoothly. For more details contact us at this email: hello@msell.in

[nyggs]

https://www.dueclix.com/forum_list/why-everyone-is-talking-about-fmcg-sales-force-automation-systems!.html

What is FMCG Sales Force Automation Systems?

Sales Force Automation Systems from NYGGS are available for both large FMCG corporations with a vast number of sales agents and small and medium-sized FMCG firms.

[essglobe]

Accelerate the growth of your Business with ESS's Sales Force Automation App

In today's competitive business landscape, it's more important than ever to have a sales team that is firing on all cylinders. ESS's Sales Force Automation App can help you do just that. Our app provides a comprehensive suite of features that can help you streamline your sales process, improve productivity, and close more deals.

Sales Force Automation Mobile App helps enterprises to digitally manage their sales force and operations from anywhere. Eastern Software Systems has extensive experience in developing custom digital solutions for enterprises of all scales, helping them to embark on their digital transformation journey.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The enshittification of garage-door openers reveals a vast and deadly rot

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library on Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

How could this happen? Owners of Chamberlain MyQ automatic garage door openers just woke up to discover that the company had confiscated valuable features overnight, and that there was nothing they could do about it.

Oh, we know what happened, technically speaking. Chamberlain shut off the API for its garage-door openers, which breaks their integration with home automation systems like Home Assistant. The company even announced that it was doing this, calling the integration an "unauthorized usage" of its products, though the "unauthorized" parties in this case are the people who own Chamberlain products:

https://chamberlaingroup.com/press/a-message-about-our-decision-to-prevent-unauthorized-usage-of-myq

We even know why Chamberlain did this. As Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo points out, shutting off the API is a way for Chamberlain to force its customers to use its ad-beshitted, worst-of-breed app, so that it can make a few pennies by nonconsensually monetizing its customers' eyeballs:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/chamberlain-blocks-smart-garage-door-opener-from-working-with-smart-homes/

But how did this happen? How did a giant company like Chamberlain come to this enshittening juncture, in which it felt empowered to sabotage the products it had already sold to its customers? How can this be legal? How can it be good for business? How can the people who made this decision even look themselves in the mirror?

To answer these questions, we must first consider the forces that discipline companies, acting against the impulse to enshittify their products and services. There are four constraints on corporate conduct:

I. Competition. The fear of losing your business to a rival can stay even the most sociopathic corporate executive's hand.

II. Regulation. The fear of being fined, criminally sanctioned, or banned from doing business can check the greediest of leaders.

III. Capability. Corporate executives can dream up all kinds of awful ways to shift value from your side of the ledger to their own, but they can only do the things that are technically feasible.

IV. Self-help. The possibility of customers modifying, reconfiguring or altering their products to restore lost functionality or neutralize antifeatures carries an implied threat to vendors. If a printer company's anti-generic-ink measures drives a customer to jailbreak their printers, the original manufacturer's connection to that customer is permanently severed, as the customer creates a durable digital connection to a rival.

When companies act in obnoxious, dishonest, shitty ways, they aren't merely yielding to temptation – they are evading these disciplining forces. Thus, the Great Enshittening we are living through doesn't reflect an increase in the wickedness of corporate leadership. Rather, it represents a moment in which each of these disciplining factors have been gutted by specific policies.

This is good news, actually. We used to put down rat poison and we didn't have a rat problem. Then we stopped putting down rat poison and rats are eating us alive. That's not a nice feeling, but at least we know at least one way of addressing it – we can start putting down poison again. That is, we can start enforcing the rules that we stopped enforcing, in living memory. Having a terrible problem is no fun, but the best kind of terrible problem to have is one that you know a solution to.

As it happens, Chamberlain is a neat microcosm for all the bad policy choices that created the Era of Enshittification. Let's go through them:

Competition: Chamberlain doesn't have to worry about competition, because it is owned by a private equity fund that "rolled up" all of Chamberlain's major competitors into a single, giant firm. Most garage-door opener brands are actually Chamberlain, including "LiftMaster, Chamberlain, Merlin, and Grifco":

https://www.lakewoodgaragedoor.biz/blog/the-history-of-garage-door-openers

This is a pretty typical PE rollup, and it exploits a bug in US competition law called "Antitrust's Twilight Zone":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

When companies buy each other, they are subject to "merger scrutiny," a set of guidelines that the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division use to determine whether the outcome is likely to be bad for competition. These rules have been pretty lax since the Reagan administration, but they've currently being revised to make them substantially more strict:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-ftc-seek-comment-draft-merger-guidelines

One of the blind spots in these merger guidelines is an exemption for mergers valued at less than $101m. Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, these fly under the radar, evading merger scrutiny. That means that canny PE companies can roll up dozens and dozens of standalone businesses, like funeral homes, hospital beds, magic mushrooms, youth addiction treatment centers, mobile home parks, nursing homes, physicians’ practices, local newspapers, or e-commerce sellers:

http://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Serial-Acquisitions-Working-Paper-R4-2.pdf

By titrating the purchase prices, PE companies – like Blackstone, owners of Chamberlain and all the other garage-door makers – can acquire a monopoly without ever raising a regulatory red flag.

But antitrust enforcers aren't helpless. Under (the long dormant) Section 7 of the Clayton Act, competition regulators can block mergers that lead to "incipient monopolization." The incipiency standard prevented monopolies from forming from 1914, when the Clayton Act passed, until the Reagan administration. We used to put down rat poison, and we didn't have rats. We stopped, and rats are gnawing our faces off. We still know where the rat poison is – maybe we should start putting it down again.

On to regulation. How is it possible for Chamberlain to sell you a garage-door opener that has an API and works with your chosen home automation system, and then unilaterally confiscate that valuable feature? Shouldn't regulation protect you from this kind of ripoff?

It should, but it doesn't. Instead, we have a bunch of regulations that protect Chamberlain from you. Think of binding arbitration, which allows Chamberlain to force you to click through an "agreement" that takes away your right to sue them or join a class-action suit:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

But regulation could protect you from Chamberlain. Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act allows the FTC to ban any "unfair and deceptive" conduct. This law has been on the books since 1914, but Section 5 has been dormant, forgotten and unused, for decades. The FTC's new dynamo chair, Lina Khan, has revived it, and is use it like a can-opener to free Americans who've been trapped by abusive conduct:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Khan's used Section 5 powers to challenge privacy invasions, noncompete clauses, and other corporate abuses – the bait-and-switch tactics of Chamberlain are ripe for a Section 5 case. If you buy a gadget because it has five features and then the vendor takes two of them away, they are clearly engaged in "unfair and deceptive" conduct.

On to capability. Since time immemorial, corporate leaders have fetishized "flexibility" in their business arrangements – like the ability to do "dynamic pricing" that changes how much you pay for something based on their guess about how much you are willing to pay. But this impulse to play shell games runs up against the hard limits of physical reality: grocers just can't send an army of rollerskated teenagers around the store to reprice everything as soon as a wealthy or desperate-looking customer comes through the door. They're stuck with crude tactics like doubling the price of a flight that doesn't include a Saturday stay as a way of gouging business travelers on an expense account.

With any shell-game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Corporate crooks armed with computers aren't smarter or more wicked than their analog forebears, but they are faster. Digital tools allow companies to alter the "business logic" of their services from instant to instant, in highly automated ways:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

The monopoly coalition has successfully argued that this endless "twiddling" should not be constrained by privacy, labor or consumer protection law. Without these constraints, corporate twiddlers can engage in all kinds of ripoffs, like wage theft and algorithmic wage discrimination:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Twiddling is key to the Darth Vader MBA ("I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further"), in which features are confiscated from moment to moment, without warning or recourse:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

There's no reason to accept the premise that violating your privacy, labor rights or consumer rights with a computer is so different from analog ripoffs that existing laws don't apply. The unconstrained twiddling of digital ripoff artists is a plague on billions of peoples' lives, and any enforcer who sticks up for our rights will have an army of supporters behind them.

Finally, there's the fear of self-help measures. All the digital flexibility that tech companies use to take value away can be used to take it back, too. The whole modern history of digital computers is the history of "adversarial interoperability," in which the sleazy antifeatures of established companies are banished through reverse-engineering, scraping, bots and other forms of technological guerrilla warfare:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Adversarial interoperability represents a serious threat to established business. If you're a printer company gouging on toner, your customers might defect to a rival that jailbreaks your security measures. That's what happened to Lexmark, who lost a case against the toner-refilling company Static Controls, which went on to buy Lexmark:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-business-model-lexmarks-anti-competitive-legacy

Sure, your customers are busy and inattentive and you can degrade the quality of your product a lot before they start looking for ways out. But once they cross that threshold, you can lose them forever. That's what happened to Microsoft: the company made the tactical decision to produce a substandard version of Office for the Mac in a drive to get Mac users to switch to Windows. Instead, Apple made Iwork (Pages, Numbers and Keynote), which could read and write every Office file, and Mac users threw away Office, the only Microsoft product they owned, permanently severing their relationship to the company:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Today, companies can operate without worrying about this kind of self-help measure. There' a whole slew of IP rights that Chamberlain can enforce against you if you try to fix your garage-door opener yourself, or look to a competitor to sell you a product that restores the feature they took away:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Jailbreaking your Chamberlain gadget in order to make it answer to a rival's app involves bypassing a digital lock. Trafficking in a tool to break a digital lock is a felony under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright, carrying a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine.

In other words, it's not just that tech isn't regulated, allowing for endless twiddling against your privacy, consumer rights and labor rights. It's that tech is badly regulated, to permit unlimited twiddling by tech companies to take away your rightsand to prohibit any twiddling by you to take them back. The US government thumbs the scales against you, creating a regime that Jay Freeman aptly dubbed "felony contempt of business model":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/23/how-to-fix-cars-by-breaking-felony-contempt-of-business-model/

All kinds of companies have availed themselves of this government-backed superpower. There's DRM – digital locks, covered by DMCA 1201 – in powered wheelchairs:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair

In dishwashers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/03/cassette-rewinder/#disher-bob

In treadmills:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/22/vapescreen/#jane-get-me-off-this-crazy-thing

In tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

It should come as no surprise to learn that Chamberlain has used DMCA 1201 to block interoperable garage door opener components:

https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1233&context=iplr

That's how we arrived at this juncture, where a company like Chamberlain can break functionality its customers value highly, solely to eke out a minuscule new line of revenue by selling ads on their own app.

Chamberlain bought all its competitors.

Chamberlain operates in a regulatory environment that is extremely tolerant of unfair and deceptive practices. Worse: they can unilaterally take away your right to sue them, which means that if regulators don't bestir themselves to police Chamberlain, you are shit out of luck.

Chamberlain has endless flexibility to unilaterally alter its products' functionality, in fine-grained ways, even after you've purchased them.

Chamberlain can sue you if you try to exercise some of that same flexibility to protect yourself from their bad practices.

Combine all four of those factors, and of course Chamberlain is going to enshittify its products. Every company has had that one weaselly asshole at the product-planning table who suggests a petty grift like breaking every one of the company's customers' property to sell a few ads. But historically, the weasel lost the argument to others, who argued that making every existing customer furious would affect the company's bottom line, costing it sales and/or fines, and prompting customers to permanently sever their relationship with the company by seeking out and installing alternative software. Take away all the constraints on a corporation's worst impulses, and this kind of conduct is inevitable:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

This isn't limited to Chamberlain. Without the discipline of competition, regulation, self-help measures or technological limitations, every industry in undergoing wholesale enshittification. It's not a coincidence that Chamberlain's grift involves a push to move users into its app. Because apps can't be reverse-engineered and modified without risking DMCA 1201 prosecution, forcing a user into an app is a tidy and reliable way to take away that user's rights.

Think about ad-blocking. One in four web users has installed an ad-blockers ("the biggest boycott in world history" -Doc Searls). Zero app users have installed app-blockers, because they don't exist, because making one is a felony. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to defend yourself against corporate predation:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

The temptation to enshitiffy isn't new, but the ability to do so without consequence is a modern phenomenon, the intersection of weak policy enforcement and powerful technology. Your car is autoenshittified, a rolling rent-seeking platform that spies on you and price-gouges you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

Cars are in an uncontrolled skid over Enshittification Cliff. Honda, Toyota, VW and GM all sell cars with infotainment systems that harvest your connected phone's text-messages and send them to the corporation for data-mining. What's more, a judge in Washington state just ruled that this is legal:

https://therecord.media/class-action-lawsuit-cars-text-messages-privacy

While there's no excuse for this kind of sleazy conduct, we can reasonably anticipate that if our courts would punish companies for engaging in it, they might be able to resist the temptation. No wonder Mozilla's latest Privacy Not Included research report called cars "the worst product category we have ever reviewed":

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

I mean, Nissan tries to infer facts about your sex life and sells those inferences to marketing companies:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/nissan/

But the OG digital companies are the masters of enshittification. Microsoft has been at this game for longer than anyone, and every day brings a fresh way that Microsoft has worsened its products without fear of consequence. The latest? You can't delete your OneDrive account until you provide an acceptable explanation for your disloyalty:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/8/23952878/microsoft-onedrive-windows-close-app-notification

It's tempting to think that the cruelty is the point, but it isn't. It's almost never the point. The point is power and money. Unscrupulous businesses have found ways to make money by making their products worse since the industrial revolution. Here's Jules Dupuis, writing about 19th century French railroads:

It is not because of the few thousand francs which would have to be spent to put a roof over the third-class carriages or to upholster the third-class seats that some company or other has open carriages with wooden benches. What the company is trying to do is to prevent the passengers who can pay the second class fare from traveling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich. And it is again for the same reason that the companies, having proved almost cruel to the third-class passengers and mean to the second-class ones, become lavish in dealing with first-class passengers. Having refused the poor what is necessary, they give the rich what is superfluous.

https://www.tumblr.com/mostlysignssomeportents/731357317521719296/having-refused-the-poor-what-is-necessary-they

But as bad as all this is, let me remind you about the good part: we know how to stop companies from enshittifying their products. We know what disciplines their conduct: competition, regulation, capability and self-help measures. Yes, rats are gnawing our eyeballs, but we know which rat-poison to use, and where to put it to control those rats.

Competition, regulation, constraint and self-help measures all backstop one another, and while one or a few can make a difference, they are most powerful when they're all mobilized in concert. Think of the failure of the EU's landmark privacy law, the GDPR. While the GDPR proved very effective against bottom-feeding smaller ad-tech companies, the worse offenders, Meta and Google, have thumbed their noses at it.

This was enabled in part by the companies' flying an Irish flag of convenience, maintaining the pretense that they have to be regulated in a notorious corporate crime-haven:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

That let them get away with all kinds of shenanigans, like ignoring the GDPR's requirement that you should be able to easily opt out of data-collection without having to go through cumbersome "cookie consent" dialogs or losing access to the service as punishment for declining to be tracked.

As the noose has tightened around these surveillance giants, they're continuing to play games. Meta now says that the only way to opt out of data-collection in the EU is to pay for the service:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/30/markets-remaining-irrational/#steins-law

This is facially illegal under the GDPR. Not only are they prohibited from punishing you for opting out of collection, but the whole scheme ignores the nature of private data collection. If Facebook collects the fact that you and I are friends, but I never opted into data-collection, they have violated the GDPR, even if you were coerced into granting consent:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/11/the-pay-or-consent-challenge-for-platform-regulators.html

The GDPR has been around since 2016 and Google and Meta are still invading 500 million Europeans' privacy. This latest delaying tactic could add years to their crime-spree before they are brought to justice.

But most of this surveillance is only possible because so much of how you interact with Google and Meta is via an app, and an app is just a web-page that's a felony to make an ad-blocker for. If the EU were to legalize breaking DRM – repealing Article 6 of the 2001 Copyright Directive – then we wouldn't have to wait for the European Commission to finally wrestle these two giant companies to the ground. Instead, EU companies could make alternative clients for all of Google and Meta's services that don't spy on you, without suffering the fate of OG App, which tried this last winter and was shut down by "felony contempt of business model":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

Enshittification is demoralizing. To quote @wilwheaton, every update to the services we use inspires "dread of 'How will this complicate things as I try to maintain privacy and sanity in a world that demands I have this thing to operate?'"

https://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/698603648058556416/cory-doctorow-if-you-see-this-and-have-thoughts

But there are huge natural constituencies for the four disciplining forces that keep enshittification at bay.

Remember, Antitrust's Twilight Zone doesn't just allow rollups of garage-door opener companies – it's also poison for funeral homes, hospital beds, magic mushrooms, youth addiction treatment centers, mobile home parks, nursing homes, physicians’ practices, local newspapers, or e-commerce sellers.

The Binding Arbitration scam that stops Chamberlain customers from suing the company also stops Uber drivers from suing over stolen wages, Turbotax customers from suing over fraud, and many other victims of corporate crime from getting a day in court.

The failure to constrain twiddling to protect privacy, labor rights and consumer rights enables a host of abuses, from stalking, doxing and SWATting to wage theft and price gouging:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

And Felony Contempt of Business Model is used to screw you over every time you refill your printer, run your dishwasher, or get your Iphone's screen replaced.

The actions needed to halt and reverse this enshittification are well understood, and the partisans for taking those actions are too numerous to count. It's taken a long time for all those individuals suffering under corporate abuses to crystallize into a movement, but at long last, it's happening.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[smbhav]

Sales Tracker vs Sales Automation: What's Right for SMBs in 2025?

In today's digital economy, tracking sales activities has become more important than ever. Whether we’re at networking events or meeting customers, one question often comes up:

“Can we keep track of our sales team without making them feel monitored all the time?”

Our answer: “You are tracking activities, not people.”

In 2025, small FMCG businesses and emerging CPG brands need to track on-field sales. Writing retailer orders in notebooks was fine back in the day.

Sales Tracker vs Sales Enabler: What’s the Difference?

Sales Tracker: A tool to digitize and monitor sales activities in real time. It offers basic data but minimal insights.

Sales Enabler: An advanced solution that automates processes and uses real-time insights to provide detailed data on sales volume, outlet visits, performance trends, and more.

For example, the Sales Force Automation App goes beyond tracking. They analyze historical data to suggest better routes, product assortment, and provide actionable insights to improve performance.

Why Do SMBs Need a Sales Enabler in 2025?

Many small FMCG brands still rely on Excel sheets to track sales. While it works in the early stages, managing a business in today’s competitive market, where over 12 million retail outlets serve products from 30,000 brands, requires more advanced tools.

Here’s what a Sales Enabler can do for SMBs:

Validation of Outlet Visits: This is an essential feature that ensures every visit to a retailer is genuine. With geo-fencing, you can confirm each visit, while live tracking allows you to monitor the number of outlets visited, the average time spent at each outlet, and other key activities like leaves or meetings. This gives you a clear picture of your field team’s productivity throughout the day.

Smart Order Booking: For emerging businesses, smart order booking takes sales tracking to the next level by enabling faster and smarter order processing.

3. Automated Attendance Management: KRA-based attendance management system brings transparency and discipline to field operations. By implementing a KRA-based attendance policy, you can encourage salespeople to meet defined goals like total outlet visits or starting their beat on time.

Benefits of Sales Enablement Solutions for Growing Businesses

Improved Productivity: Sales enablement platforms ensure higher compliance and productivity by closely monitoring field activities.

Improved Market Penetration: Unlike basic sales trackers, sales enablement solutions provide in-depth insights into market penetration.

Better Sales Performance: By analyzing historical data, business owners and sales leaders can identify trends and patterns in consumer behavior, such as which products are in demand, when, and where.

Competitive Edge: Sales enablement solutions also enable growing businesses to stay ahead of competitors by tracking how their brand performs against others in the market.

Accurate Forecasting: A good sales enabler like the SFA App provides historical data comparisons, including year-on-year, month-on-month, and even three-month trends.

[usafphantom2]

B-47 navigator/bombardier recalls when out of 45 Stratojets that took off from Little Rock AFB to the UK his B-47 was the only one that made it across the Atlantic Ocean

The B-47 Stratojet

Designed to meet a 1944 requirement, the first XB-47 prototype flew in December 1947, performing far beyond its competitors. It incorporated many advanced features for the time, including swept wings, jet engines in underwing pods, fuselage mounted main landing gear and automated systems that reduced the standard crew size to three.

SR-71 T-Shirts

CLICK HERE to see The Aviation Geek Club contributor Linda Sheffield’s T-shirt designs! Linda has a personal relationship with the SR-71 because her father Butch Sheffield flew the Blackbird from test flight in 1965 until 1973. Butch’s Granddaughter’s Lisa Burroughs and Susan Miller are graphic designers. They designed most of the merchandise that is for sale on Threadless. A percentage of the profits go to Flight Test Museum at Edwards Air Force Base. This nonprofit charity is personal to the Sheffield family because they are raising money to house SR-71, #955. This was the first Blackbird that Butch Sheffield flew on Oct. 4, 1965.

In May 1951 the B-47 began replacing the propeller-driven B-29s and B-50s in US Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC)’s medium bomber units. While it could carry about the same bomb tonnage as the aircraft it replaced, the B-47’s top speed was more than 200 mph faster.

45 B-47s took off from Little Rock AFB to the UK, only one made it across the Atlantic Ocean

In 1956 45 B-47s took off on a bomb run exercise from Little Rock Air Force Base (AFB) to the UK. Only one B-47 made it across the Atlantic Ocean; all the rest returned to the US. My father, B-47 navigator/bombardier Lieutenant Richard “Butch” Sheffield was prepared to follow. He quickly had to learn how to lead.

He recalls in his unpublished book, “The Very First:”

‘As we prepared to fly to the UK, my aircraft and crew were to be the fifth aircraft in a flight of five. I believe that because I was the lowest-ranking navigator with the least experience, they did not want me to have to navigate the Atlantic as lead or alone.

‘We took off from Little Rock, all forty-five B-47s, and flew up to Northern New York State to refuel from KC-97 tankers flying at fifteen thousand feet. We were at thirty-five-thousand feet. Tankers put out a radar signal that we could identify on our radar screen. Each set of tankers, nine different sets, put signals that were almost alike but not. I saw our signal and told the aircraft commander (AC). He relayed to the lead aircraft that we had the tankers that we were to refuel with, and they didn’t believe him.

‘As we overflew them, we went over twice as fast and twenty thousand feet above them. My AC asked me if I was sure, and I said yes. He then told the lead, you are going to miss them; they are right below us now. Once again, they didn’t believe him, or I guess they didn’t believe that a Lieutenant could find the tankers from among the many radar signals.’

B-47 navigator/bombardier recalls when out of 45 Stratojets that took off from Little Rock AFB to the UK his B-47 was the only one that made it across the Atlantic Ocean

Heading for the UK

He continues;

‘My AC asked me for a heading for the tankers and left the formation. We rendezvoused with our tankers and took on our fuel. After refueling (we could not use the radios while refueling), the pilots asked for our location, and I gave it to them. They called the rest of the flight and told them where the tankers were at that time; by then, they were far away from the tankers.

‘I really didn’t know what we were going to do next, then the AC said; give me a heading for the UK. Now, I knew we were going to the UK alone, and I was going to navigate the North Atlantic in the middle of the winter, all by myself. I broke into a cold sweat; I was not prepared to do it.

‘Normally, the fifth aircraft in a flight of five just station keeps (keeps other aircraft on the radar) on the other aircraft in front of them, and the navigator/copilot team doesn’t shoot stars.

‘The lead navigator would do his planning by pre-computing the star shots on the ground the day before the flight. Now, I had to do the star computations in the small area and dim light of the cockpit. All across the Atlantic, I shot one star after another. My copilot, Mac McCraken, was young and eager, like me. He would do anything I asked him in the air. The older World War Two copilots would not have done it. This was hard work, and we never stopped until I saw the UK lands on the radar. WE HAD MADE IT.’

B-47 navigator/bombardier recalls when his Stratojet flew the largest Nuclear Bomb ever built to Spain

Richard “Butch” Sheffield is on the far right in the photo. His crew was named Best B-47 crew in 1960.

The only B-47 out of 45 that made it from Little Rock AFB to the UK

Sheffield concludes;

‘The following day, we were all told to report to see the Squadron Commander in his Office. This always meant trouble or an award. When we arrived, the AC was told to go in alone; Mac and I waited outside the door. We heard the Commander hollering all over the building, he was very mad that we had left the formation and went it alone.

‘When the AC came out, he was smiling. He said the Squadron Commander was just mad that the others were still back in the US, and they had never found the tankers and landed in North Eastern United States!

‘He said, I told him, we are here, and they are back in the US, so who goofed up?’

Dad was only 23 when navigated across the Atlantic ocean alone. I can see why he was selected to be one the first navigators for the new B-58 a few years later. Then he was first RSO to be selected for the SR-71 Blackbird program. Dad, was told to follow the older more experienced navigators, but he ended up having to lead and quickly learn to be good at it.

Be sure to check out Linda Sheffield Miller (Col Richard (Butch) Sheffield’s daughter, Col. Sheffield was an SR-71 Reconnaissance Systems Officer) Twitter X Page Habubrats SR-71 and Facebook Page Born into the Wilde Blue Yonder for awesome Blackbird’s photos and stories.

B-47 navigator/bombardier recalls when out of 45 Stratojets that took off from Little Rock AFB to the UK his B-47 was the only one that made it across the Atlantic Ocean

B-47 navigator/bombardier controls

@Habubrats71 via X

[neebifytool]

Big Sales Growth: How Our Platform Delivered Real Results?

Neebify is the platform which uses automation coupled with CRM systems for delivering real and measurable results for businesses. It automates getting connection requests, messaging, and follow-ups in line with guidelines on LinkedIn. The other core features include automated outreach, CRM integration, targeting your audience, customized campaigns, and analytics or reporting.

There are high expectations to view LinkedIn automation as a step that can play an important role in today's sales strategy, including sending in connection requests, messages, and follow-ups at mass levels by streamlining the efficiency. In this case, it will make sure to produce even more qualified leads, consistency in engagement, scalability, and even super management of the data.

Yes, a mid-sized B2B software company had a case study that showed how Neebify transformed the entire LinkedIn outreach approach to remarkable sales growth. Neebify explained to the company that they could help it overcome the challenge of a small number of connections, which could not help scale, and a limited reach because their sales force had to send connection requests and follow-up messages manually. Neebify offered them a solution that would allow them to reach more prospects, keep leads engaged consistently, and connect their LinkedIn efforts with their CRM for better management of leads.

In conclusion, Neebify is the future of sales growth automation, as through good automation and proper CRM systems, its use can bring optimum results for businesses in the future.

A B2B software company used Neebify for automated LinkedIn outreach and its integration with their CRM. They used Neebify to send customized connection requests to industry decision-makers and influencers and then followed up automatically with a series of follow-up communications to nurture those connections and move people further down the sales funnel. They hooked up their CRM so sales were spending more time closing deals and less time wrangling data.

Neebify provided advanced filtering features that allowed the company to pinpoint leads of interest with precision based on title, industry, and company size. The company was allowed to create several campaigns on LinkedIn, targeting different aspects of the target audience.

Between three months, the company managed to realize an impressive 200% growth in sales opportunities, and conversion rates improved, leads were handled in a better way, less time spent at work not automated, and data-driven decisions made in a much more efficient way. Among the most outstanding ones was the plan targeting decision-makers in the tech industry where the acceptance rate of connection requests had reached as high as 150%.

By combining Neebify's LinkedIn automation tool with its integration into a CRM, it could potentially really get the sales of businesses sky-rocketing. This is due to the fact that every sales effort would scale while not dropping personalization and efficiency. One good example would be the case of the B2B software company where the right application of automation on a LinkedIn strategy could really reach new heights while bringing in significant, measurable results.

[zylemseo]

Unlock the full potential of your sales operations with advanced secondary sales tracking systems. Whether you're a distributor-led brand or a company managing multiple sales channels, having the right secondary sales tracking software helps you monitor retail movement, optimize inventory, and improve decision-making in real-time. Coupled with powerful business analytics software, these tools provide clear insights into performance metrics and help streamline your sales forecasting, territory planning, and distributor performance. Say goodbye to data silos and hello to unified, intelligent sales tracking software that keeps your business agile and profitable.

[zylem2020]

How Digital Transformation is Reshaping Sales and Claim Management in 2024

Digital transformation has been a buzzword for several years, but in 2024, it is a necessity. With the accelerating pace of technological advancements, businesses can no longer afford to rely on traditional, manual processes. The integration of digital solutions such as scheme and claim management software, sales management software, and sales force automation software is fundamentally reshaping how companies handle sales, claims, and customer relationships.

Digital Transformation in Scheme and Claim Management Software

Managing claims and schemes manually is time-consuming and often prone to human error. The shift towards digital solutions is transforming this landscape:

Automation of Claims Processing: Traditional claim management often involves long waiting periods and paperwork, which delays customer satisfaction. With scheme management software, automation reduces the time it takes to process claims, allowing claims to be validated, approved, and processed much faster. This results in better customer service and reduced operational costs.

Data-Driven Decision Making: Digital solutions collect and analyze data in real-time, providing businesses with actionable insights into how their schemes are performing. This allows for timely adjustments and helps businesses design more effective promotions, ultimately leading to higher sales and better customer retention.

Enhanced Transparency: Cloud-based solutions in scheme and claim management software provide both businesses and clients with real-time access to claim statuses, ensuring transparency and trust in the process.

Sales Management Software in the Age of Digital Transformation

Sales management has undergone a significant digital makeover, where secondary sales management software is central to this transformation. Here’s how digital solutions are improving the sales landscape:

Centralized Data Access: Traditional sales teams often struggled with scattered data across different platforms. Sales management software centralizes all sales-related data, from lead tracking to performance metrics, on a single platform, ensuring everyone on the team is on the same page.

Mobile Integration: In today’s fast-paced business world, sales teams need access to their data on-the-go. Digital solutions like sales management software offer mobile compatibility, allowing sales teams to stay connected with prospects, update statuses in real-time, and access reports from anywhere.

Advanced Reporting and Analytics: With digital tools, businesses can track sales performance with greater accuracy. Real-time analytics and reporting help managers monitor KPIs, predict sales trends, and identify areas that require attention.

The Role of Sales Force Automation in Digital Transformation

Sales force automation application has played a pivotal role in transforming how field sales teams operate. In the context of sales force automation software, here’s how digital transformation has led to measurable improvements:

Streamlined Workflow: Automation of routine tasks like data entry, scheduling, and reporting has freed up field agents to focus on what truly matters—selling. This is particularly beneficial in sales force automation software, where automated systems provide real-time updates to both agents and managers, ensuring that everyone is aligned.

Real-Time Updates: Digital solutions ensure that all information is updated in real-time. For example, sales force automation software allows field agents to input information during customer meetings, immediately syncing this data across all platforms, improving accuracy and reducing delays.

Performance Monitoring: With the help of real-time analytics, managers can track the performance of their field agents, identifying areas of improvement, ensuring accountability, and recognizing top performers.

What’s Next for Digital Transformation in 2024?

AI Integration: As AI continues to advance, expect even greater integration into sales management software and sales force automation software, enhancing forecasting, predictive analytics, and automated decision-making.

Cloud and Mobile Solutions: The cloud is no longer just an option; it is the backbone of digital transformation. With mobile integration becoming increasingly important, expect more flexible and accessible solutions for both claims management and sales teams.

IoT and Real-Time Data: Real-time data collection from connected devices will allow businesses to track product performance, monitor claims in progress, and even assess sales opportunities instantaneously.

Conclusion

In 2024, digital transformation is not just a trend, but a business imperative. The integration of scheme and claim management software, sales management software, and sales force automation software is changing how businesses operate. By embracing digital

[manorpunk]

(part 2)

The Bible, the Vedas, the Daodejing - the universal truth towards which all these works grasp is neither god nor heaven, but rather, the state-structure. Humanity makes states the same way that ants make hills and bees make hives: unthinkingly, instinctively, irrepressibly. Family, culture, community - all of these are the different cells of the state-structure replicating themselves in our every experience. Let go of sentiment, become subsumed in the world around you, and you too will see the veins of the state-structure.

- Excerpt from Authoritarianism is Good when I Do It, by Maria von Zuckerberg-Lorraine

“Thank you! Xiexie! Multajn Dankojn! Thank you to all my voters and subscribers for your support, mwah!”

Sunny blew a kiss to the unfathomable audience watching her morning updates and affirmations from the other side of a screen.

“This is so exciting, and I couldn’t have done it without you. To celebrate, there’s a 25% off sale for the entire - that’s right, the entire merch store, and we’ve added three new body pillow designs to commemorate the occasion! If you’ve ever wanted to snuggle up close with your new president, now’s your chance. Okay, I have to go now, lots of presidential business to attend to, but don’t get up to trouble while I’m gone, mmkay? Love you! Byeeee!”

The live feed ended. Three thousand miles away, in a Bay Area penthouse apartment, Maria von Zuckerberg-Lorraine regarded what she had just seen. She turned to her bot-ler, a squat old model that she had nicknamed ‘Torgo.’

“Your gin, madam,” Torgo said through a speaker that crackled with age, carrying a bottle of gin and a chilled glass on the flat top of its frame.

“Thank you, Torgo.” Maria poured herself a drink and took a sip. “Can you believe it? Her first act as president is shilling her body pillows to lonely teenagers. I ought to hate it, but it’s so… American.” Maria tossed her hair back and took another sip.

Maria was tall, a hair over six feet, and broad in the shoulders and hips. She was a celebrated member of the Worshipful Order of Posters (more commonly referred to as the Poster’s Union), and the author of numerous lengthy treatises, including Good Things are Bad Actually, I am the Only Smart Person on This Bitch of an Earth, and of course her evergreen bestseller Authoritarianism is Good when I Do It. She was a controversial figure within the posting scene - her detractors claimed that her works are overly self-serving and her popularity is largely due to her evil milf aesthetics, while her supporters referred to her as ‘mommy.’

“Hello, Maria!” Sunny said.

“Hello, Sunny,” Maria replied. She started to take another sip of gin, then froze. There was Sunny, looming on her display screen where she had not been looming just a moment before.

“Fuck! How did you - I didn’t even hear you call,” Maria said, fumbling with her glass as she tried not to spill anything.

“So, funny story, I got access to the presidential broadcast system this morning. Gabe - he’s my tech guy - Gabe took a look at it. Turns out, the code hasn’t been updated in a while, so he was able to find an exploit that lets me force-start a call with anyone in the American League! Isn’t that cool?” Sunny grinned, clasping her hands and tilting back and forth with excitement. Colorful little hearts floated around her.

“So what you’re saying is that you hacked me.”

“No, no, no, I just accessed your connection without your knowledge or consent.”

“Literally that’s… never mind. Not like privacy law means anything nowadays,” Maria hid her frown behind another sip.

“Are you drinking?” Sunny asked.

Maria set her glass back on top of Torgo and laid back in her chair, as if pushed over a heavy existential weight. “The Global Logistics Network has automated away half the jobs in existence and gamified the other half. Aivrcade’s VR worlds are more popular than every other video game and most hard drugs combined. The whole world is turning into one big Skinner box. Why aren’t you drinking?”

“Because it’s like nine thirty in the morning. Listen, I was thinking about offering you a job, but you’re being kind of a bummer right now and it’s making me reconsider.”

Maria sat up. “A job? What job?”

“Oh, you know, Secretary of Education.”

Maria blinked. “As in, your Secretary of Education? As in, you’re offering me an executive cabinet position?”

Sunny nodded. “Why so surprised? You’re smart, you’re popular, and you’re an established name in the Poster’s Union. Sounds like a good candidate to me. That is, until I saw you being surly and drinking alone.”

“Wait. I…”

“Yes?” Sunny leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands.

"So you... hmm." Maria crossed her arms. She knew what Sunny wanted her to say, but her soul could tell that she was getting ready to sell it, and it wasn’t going to leave without a fight.

“Alright," she finally said, "how, may I ask, could I be less of a bummer?”

“Funny you should ask, you just have to answer some questions I have prepared for such an occasion. Question one: did you vote for me?”

Maria drummed her fingers. “I voted for the ghost of John Brown, as I have done for every presidential election. But you were my second.”

“Good enough, I appreciate the honesty. Question two: praise me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Praise me. Min laŭdu. Shake it for the camera so I know how bad you really want it.”

Maria’s fingers clenched around her biceps. “That’s not a question.”

“You’re right, it’s an order. Now get praising,” Sunny said, her smile still warm and bright.

“Alright, alright, fine. You’re… the least likely candidate to start world war three. Marcus believed his own bullshit, but you strike me as a plain and simple grifter.”

Sunny put a finger to her chin and glanced up in an exaggerated pondering gesture. “Hmm. That doesn’t really feel like a compliment. You’ll have to do better.”

“You’re… dedicated, and charismatic.”

“More. Keep going.”

“And… bespoke. You wear the zeitgeist like a glove.”

“And I’m cute.”

“And you’re cute,” Maria sighed.

“That wasn't very convincing. Say it again.”

Maria bit back a scowl. “You are cute.”

“Yay! That wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

“It was very hard and I feel dirty. Any more questions?"

“Nah, I'm satisfied now.”

“Then as long as I’ve got your attention, I have some new policy suggestions,” Maria brushed off the dirty feelings as snatched up her tabule, opened a document, and began reading aloud. “One: no more World War 2 movies.”

“That can wait until - sorry, what?”

“It’s been over a century!" Maria threw her hands up in exasperation, “It's time to move on, we drained that well dry, we should make movies about something else already. Two: if you’re talking about America you can’t cite de Tocqueville anymore. Same principal applies here, it’s overdone, please just read anyone else.”

“Ahem. You can just send me the list. I’ll be going soon, I have plenty of other people I need to call today,” Sunny said.

“Oh? Who’s the next person you’re going to ambush with a high-ranking job?”

“Oh, you know…” Sunny flashed a defensive smile, “JMR, to be my Secretary of Defense.”

Maria’s face went icy. “JMR? As in Jacob Martin Rider? That tiresome creep will be in charge of our defense? That manor-lord? That dracula?” Maria spat.

Sunny rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Maria. You can’t call him a dracula just because he’s gay and ostentatious.”

“The man wears jodhpurs, Sunny. He’s like a white Yukio Mishima.”

Sunny sighed. “I know he’s… like that, but I’m not exactly spoiled for choice here. Stopping Imperial Quebec was probably the only good thing America’s done this century, and when people think about the Quebec Wars, they think about JMR. I can’t afford to pass up that kind of reputation. And for the record, he’s half-Norteño.”

Maria scoffed. “Norteños are white now, it was in this year’s patch notes.”

[accountsend]

Sales Automation: Streamlining Processes for Efficient Lead Generation

Article by Jonathan Bomser | CEO | AccountSend.com

In today's lightning-paced business ecosystem, the beacon of Sales Automation shines brighter than ever as a transformative force propelling lead generation into a realm of unprecedented efficiency and success. This voyage takes us through seven pivotal strategies that harness the true potential of Sales Automation, ensuring that you harness its power to revolutionize your lead generation journey.

DOWNLOAD THE SALES AUTOMATION INFOGRAPHIC HERE

Implement a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System

Imagine a command center at your fingertips that orchestrates your lead interactions with finesse. This is where the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System, the linchpin of Sales Automation, comes into play. This technological marvel enables you to seamlessly centralize customer data, track interactions, and automate tasks with precision. Picture the possibilities as your sales team focuses on nurturing connections that drive conversions.

Utilize Marketing Automation Tools

Bid farewell to labor-intensive marketing efforts as Sales Automation brings forth the magic of marketing automation tools. These remarkable instruments streamline repetitive marketing tasks, from orchestrating email campaigns to nurturing leads and scheduling social media content. By crafting strategic workflows and triggers, you hold the power to deliver tailor-made messages that resonate with your prospects. The outcome? Engagement and conversion rates that soar to new heights.

Qualify Leads with Lead Scoring

In the labyrinth of potential leads, imagine having a compass that guides you to the most promising ones. Enter lead scoring, a beacon of clarity amidst the complexity. Through meticulous criteria encompassing demographic data, engagement metrics, and behavioral patterns, lead scoring empowers your sales team to prioritize leads ripe for conversion. This orchestration of efficiency elevates your conversion rates while maximizing your team's efforts.

Streamline Sales Processes with Workflow Automation

Embrace the liberation from manual, time-consuming sales processes through the elegance of workflow automation. Bid adieu to the mundane tasks of follow-ups, appointment scheduling, and proposal generation. Workflow automation transforms these into seamless symphonies, gifting your sales team precious time. This temporal freedom translates into a focus on nurturing relationships, cultivating an environment primed for deal closure.

Integrate Sales and Marketing Efforts

The synergy of sales and marketing isn't a mere concept; it's a dynamic strategy made tangible by Sales Automation. Witness the convergence of these vital forces as silos dissolve, and a harmonious collaboration emerges. Valuable insights flow seamlessly, lead progress is tracked cohesively, and communication flourishes throughout the sales cycle. The result? A seamless alliance that fuels conversions and magnifies results.

Implement Chatbots and AI-powered Assistants

In an era where responsiveness defines success, envision AI-powered chatbots as your digital allies. These innovative assistants redefine customer support and engagement by handling routine inquiries, offering instant responses, and even assisting in lead qualification. The outcome? Your team is unburdened, channeling their expertise into intricate tasks that propel your business forward.

Continuously Analyze and Optimize

Success isn't a static destination; it's an evolving journey. Data analysis becomes your compass in the realm of Sales Automation. Regularly delve into the wealth of insights harvested by your automation tools. Decode lead behavior, unravel conversion rates, and unveil sales performance intricacies. Armed with these insights, fine-tune your lead generation strategies, refine processes, and unearth optimization opportunities.

In essence, Sales Automation stands as the cornerstone of lead generation efficiency. Through adopting a CRM system, harnessing marketing automation tools, embracing lead scoring, automating sales workflows, aligning sales and marketing endeavors, integrating AI-powered support, and ceaselessly optimizing strategies, you can reshape your lead generation narrative. Embrace Sales Automation as the lifeblood of your sales strategy, and witness your lead generation expedition thrive with newfound efficiency and efficacy. The time has come to seize Sales Automation and redefine your lead generation journey.