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Have you ever bootstrapped? I have. It can be painful, but it also teaches resilience, humility, and creativity. Successes feel exponentially more satisfying, and speaking for myself, the failures are painful but feel less like defeat and more like challenges. I work with many bootstrapped businesses or those that have plateaued in their growth. Money, or lack of it, is a common topic. What they are relieved to hear is that there are many ways to begin running sales, marketing, and even set up commercial operations on a small or zero budget. Although there are limitations, it’s not as great a barrier as some people think. There will always come a point when a business will think about scaling, automating, and/or growing its commercial team. My last post, “A Reality Check: 'Quick Wins' vs Planning for Growth”, https://lnkd.in/eK5rdUnj talked about the importance of building foundations. This post is specifically about using free or low-cost tech to help you scale. 1. CRMs: If you don't have one, you need one. You can't use spreadsheets forever! - vTiger - Fully featured open source CRM with a generously featured free tier for up to ten users. https://lnkd.in/ekAUASdH - Pipedrive – Affordable, visual sales focus. One of my favourite sales-focused CRMs - SuiteCRM - Open source and a bit technical to set up. It's very expensive for add ons, but the free suite is excellent. Tip: Choose a system based on your current needs, not your 5-year dream. 2. Cold Email Marketing: I am not a fan of B2B mass-emailing, but if you have a business model that aligns with this method, then here are cost-effective tools: - Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) – Free tier up to 300 emails/day - MailerLite – Great automation workflows at low cost - Mailchimp – Still competitive for small lists Tip: Segment early. Even basic tagging improves conversion rates. 3. Data Scraping and Lead Gen: Manual prospecting is time-consuming. There are many tools that can help you to automate information gathering: - Apollo.io – Free credits for initial outreach - Hunter.io – Find verified emails - PhantomBuster – Automate LinkedIn/data extraction Important note: Always comply with GDPR/privacy regulations. Quality over quantity. 4 Campaign Management & Analytics Track what matters without expensive dashboards: - Google Analytics 4 – Free and powerful, albeit a bit clunky - UTM parameters – Manual but effective attribution - Looker Studio – Visualize data from free sources 5. Automation: Connect the Systems: Tools like Zapier (free tier) or Make can link your CRM, email, and analytics without custom dev work. One workflow will save hours every week. My free resource, “Go to Market Steps, Resources, and Tech” can be downloaded here: https://lnkd.in/ei3jmxRz which has examples of tech that can help you scale as part of the GtM process. Start small, measure everything, and then scale what works.

For those who are not from a sales and marketing background, planning growth can be very challenging. The 'quick win’ route–networking and carrying out basic prospecting and marketing–has been limited and failed them. I have met many businesses that have been chasing 'quick wins' for 15-25 years. For startups, this is a horrifying view of their possible future. Working with startups and SMEs, Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy and execution is an early discussion point. The basic principles are simple, structured, logical, and proven, making it an excellent starting point for growth discussions. Many have heard of GTM but don't know the details. Initial reactions to the term are usually positive and curious, accompanied by the practical questions: Is it necessary? How much will it cost? How long will it take? How many people need to be involved? I explain, of course, and provide real-world use cases to demonstrate why having a solid foundation is essential. This is always a reality check about sustainable business growth. At the negative end of the spectrum, one B2B founder I worked with dismissed GTM and all sales and marketing methodologies as scams. He simply expected sales within a day to a week without investing effort to generate business. While this is an extreme example, many people without a sales background find selling mysterious. Add pressure for quick wins and careful budgeting, and they often oversimplify the sales process to: a person opens doors, closes deals, and the company grows. A surprising number expect growth without providing product training, supporting materials, demand generation support, or meaningful collaboration. I liken this to piloting a plane with no destination, then throwing a blindfolded salesperson out without a parachute and expecting them to land safely in a specific spot—then blaming them for missing the mark. The lightbulb moment comes when people see how and why the GTM process is logical and common sense. Selling is actually a later step in the GTM process for good reason. First, the business must: 1. Identify the best market fit 2. Pin down the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) 3. Conduct competitive research to identify strengths and weaknesses 4. Decide on strategic positioning and messaging 5. Set up systems to track buyer intent and signals 6. Feed insights and intel into core commercial systems 7. Execute through multiple marketing channels in parallel with sales strategy These elements are measured and refined continuously. A high-level example of how I align sales, marketing, communications, and operations into the GTM framework is available on my GTM page. I’ve added a free document that shows examples of technology and resources that will help you scale by automating and/or integrating within a GTM process. Don't chase quick wins for 25 years. Build a foundation to grow from and scale from there.

In Kendo the opponent is approximately 2.5-2.6 metres (approx 8.5 feet) away when a bout begins with the sword tips touching. To a beginner, that distance can feel like an impossible chasm to cross, and watching an experienced Kendo practitioner practically teleport in front of them to cover them in a flurry of sword hits is more than a little disorientating. With some practice, they soon learn that trusting in a very simple movement and taking a small step forward enables them to land a hit on the opponent's wrist. That hit could be the winning point in a match. Thinking that the distance is either too far away, just right, or too close is a matter of perspective, experience, and confidence in technique. In principle, it’s similar to business development, and I don’t mean hitting customers with swords! ‘Impossible’ is often a matter of perspective. For example, looking at a company that has been trying to achieve double-digit (or any) growth and chose to spam people with generic emails for two years (zero strategy, technique, and lazy execution–I have literally witnessed this), then yes, I agree their goal is impossible because their approach was mindless and method beyond deplorable. Looking at the business through a different lens at how the business aligns with their market, then trusting in experienced sales and marketing leaders, applying proven strategies and techniques, and leveraging the best tools (and sacking the senior management’s beloved spam-tastic VP of Sales), the same goal is absolutely achievable. Surprisingly, that change in perspective can be very difficult for senior management, but that’s a post for another day. I know that this is being oversimplified. Still, I hope that any business that is struggling with growth and can’t understand what on earth is going on, take a step back and ask for the perspective of someone who knows where to look for the gaps in your strategy, execution, resources, and toolset. They will soon help you focus on the right areas and help you achieve the goals that you have worked so hard to reach.

This post is about the origins of Word Ferret, our copywriting business. I met Gina when she was 17 and I was 18. It was love at first sight and this year marks our 38th anniversary together. Gina’s absolute passion for words, languages, books, writing, and research has been the centre of our world. Our first date included her showing me her small, precious library. Our early dates included a significant time spent in Birmingham Central Library, Europe’s largest public reference library. When we moved in together, we couldn’t afford furniture (not even a bed), but the first thing we bought was a bookcase. When we married, the money we received as a gift was spent on books. Over the years, our library has grown so much that I can’t enter our study because the floor is covered by piles of books. We have donated several thousand books, including first editions and rare sets, to charities and to the local college library. Even now, she is sitting in the middle of 25 books while writing an eye-opening biography of a forgotten Victorian female author for Nezu Press, one of the few female owned and run independent publishers. In 2007, Gina collapsed and nearly died. Her recovery was long and complicated - she could barely function and her memory was severely compromised for over eighteen months. Then, one day, she woke up and said, “I’m going to write my book”. She did more than that. Within three months, she wrote two highly acclaimed academic lifeworks and she also wrote her first novel that went on to be a local bestseller in four counties. The pictures here were taken just a few months after she ‘woke up’. The wall that she is signing is a private room at Waterstone’s in Bath, one of their flagship stores, where famous authors are invited to sign it. Gina was so thrilled to sign her name next to Stephen Fry. After her early book signings, she was always so weak that I practically had to prop her up on the way back to the car, but these were some of the most precious memories I have. She was so happy. Word Ferret and Nezu Press are not just businesses to us, they are an expression of our love for words that we share through our work.