Varicent Appoints Former Workday Co-President Doug Robinson to Board as It Redefines How Revenue Teams Operate At Scale
Varicent announced the appointment of former Workday co‑president Doug Robinson to its Board of Directors as it pushes the next phase of growth. Robinson spent 15 years at Workday, helping grow revenue from $25 million to $8.9 billion and building a disciplined global go‑to‑market engine. The move coincides with Varicent’s rollout of an AI‑native sales performance management platform that unifies planning, incentives and performance. Executives say his scaling expertise will accelerate Varicent’s expansion of the revenue‑orchestration category.
Autocalls Expands Platform With Full Omnichannel White-Label AI Voice Capabilities
Autocalls announced a platform upgrade that adds full omnichannel, white‑label AI voice capabilities across phone, WhatsApp and web chat, priced at a flat $0.09 per minute. The all‑inclusive rate bundles premium speech synthesis, language models, recognition and telephony, undercutting typical...
Oceania Cruises® Introduces the Oceania Club Ambassador Program
Oceania Cruises has launched the Oceania Club Ambassador Program, a referral initiative that grants a US $200 future cruise credit to both the referring Club member and the newly booked guest. The offer applies only to first‑time, full‑fare bookings and credits...
4 Keys to Aligning Sales With Marketing
Sales and marketing alignment is increasingly critical as digital transformation, AI, and market pressure force the two functions to cooperate. Companies that tightly align see 36% higher customer retention and 38% better win rates, while misalignment can bleed up to...
When a KVI Isn’t
The article argues that Key Value Items (KVIs) are not static product attributes but moment‑specific traffic drivers that shift to profit generators once the buying context changes. Traditional quarterly segmentation assigns fixed roles, causing margin leaks when a SKU’s role...
What Hostage Negotiations Can Teach Business Negotiators
Hostage negotiators achieve a 94% success rate, far higher than typical business negotiations. George A. Kohlrieser, a former police psychologist and IMD professor, explains that the key lies in building an emotional connection and leveraging the “person effect.” He advises...
Personalizing Your Pitch to Connect and Convert Faster
On The Sales Hunter Podcast, Jamie Diglio redefines ROI as “Return on Interactions,” emphasizing that every conversation drives revenue. She breaks sales dialogue into three layers—the internal narrative, spoken words, and the buyer’s filtered perception—and introduces a four‑type buyer framework...
Gushwork Bets on AI Search for Customer Leads — and Early Results Are Emerging
Gushwork, an India‑founded startup, closed a $9 million seed round that values it at $33 million post‑money. The company’s AI‑driven platform creates search‑optimized content, builds backlinks, and tracks leads to help businesses appear in AI‑powered search results such as ChatGPT and Gemini....
AdApt Enhances AI-Driven Media Sales Platform With BIA Data
AdApt Media Sales has entered a strategic partnership with BIA Advisory Services to embed BIA’s local market revenue forecasts and category analysis into its AI‑enabled sales platform. The integration will give broadcasters and other local media organizations access to market‑level...
Klaviyo Partners with Google
Klaviyo, a B2C CRM provider, announced a partnership with Google to deliver AI‑driven, autonomous customer experiences across the entire commerce lifecycle. The collaboration merges Google’s search, advertising, AI and messaging capabilities with Klaviyo’s real‑time data platform, which processes 3.4 billion daily...
Latest 50+ Must-Know Lead Generation Statistics in 2026
The article aggregates over 50 up‑to‑date lead‑generation statistics for 2026, highlighting that 91% of marketers list lead generation as their top priority and 93% credit personalization with improved leads and purchases. It details benchmark metrics such as an average of...
BYD Cuts EV Prices (Again) with New 0% Interest Offer and Daily Payments for Less than $5
BYD announced a New Year promotion that slashes EV prices and adds 0% financing for three years, with daily payments as low as 29 yuan (about $4.20). The move comes after five consecutive months of declining sales, with global NEV...
Stay Here: The Now Is Where Complex Sales Actually Happen
George Brontén argues that complex B2B sales succeed when salespeople stay fully present in each interaction. By focusing on the current conversation, they better understand buyer needs, uncover hidden stakeholders, and co‑create a shared mental model. This present‑moment approach leads...
Ingram Content Group to Advance AI-Driven Supply Chain Efficiency with RELEX
Ingram Content Group is expanding its partnership with RELEX Solutions to add AI‑driven forecasting, capacity optimization, vendor‑managed inventory and assortment planning across six global distribution centers. The new capabilities will automate planning for more than 1 million SKUs, boost forecast accuracy...
Agentive Appoints Former Google Cloud Leader David Keene as Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer
Agentive announced that former Google Cloud executive David Keene will serve as co‑founder and chief revenue officer. Keene brings more than three decades of leadership at Google Cloud, Salesforce, Oracle, SAP and recent CMO roles at Wipro Europe and Speechmatics....
TxtCart Accelerates Growth as Bootstrapped AI-Powered SMS Marketing Platform for Shopify
TxtCart, an AI‑powered SMS marketing platform built exclusively for Shopify merchants, announced it has helped its users generate over $100 million in SMS‑attributed revenue while remaining fully bootstrapped. Founded in 2019, the company has expanded from abandoned‑cart recovery to a two‑way...
SoftwareOne to Launch Globally as an Authorized Google Cloud Distributor
SoftwareOne announced it is now one of the first global authorized Google Cloud distributors, extending its cloud portfolio across ten initial markets. The rollout includes Australia, Austria, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, India, Norway, Sweden and the United States, with more...
SoundHound AI Launches Sales Assist Agent at MWC 2026
SoundHound AI unveiled Sales Assist, a voice‑powered AI agent for retail, at Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona. The agent uses the company’s Polaris speech‑recognition and a multi‑agent orchestration platform to deliver real‑time product recommendations, upgrade eligibility checks, and compliance...
Retail Media Measurement: Absence of Evidence Is NOT Evidence of Absence
Retail media measurement is often portrayed as broken, yet the same sampling‑based, attention‑agnostic methods underpin TV, radio and outdoor metrics. Industry bodies such as IAB Europe and the MRC have already issued standardized frameworks that enable closed‑loop attribution and incrementality...
The First-Offer Dilemma in Negotiations: Should You Make the First Offer?
Negotiators have long debated whether to make the first offer, balancing the risk of revealing information against the power of anchoring. Recent research shows that making the first offer typically yields better economic outcomes but also raises anxiety and lowers...
ADT Acquires Origin AI to Power AI Sensing and Ambient Intelligence for the Home
ADT announced the acquisition of Origin Wireless, operating as Origin AI, to integrate its real‑time AI sensing platform into ADT’s security and smart‑home ecosystem. Origin’s technology classifies motion and human presence without cameras, audio, or wearables, adding a privacy‑focused intelligence...
SoundHound AI Launches Sales Assist Agent, Bringing Real-Time Agentic AI to the Retail Sales Floor
SoundHound AI unveiled Sales Assist, a voice‑powered, real‑time AI agent for retail floors, debuting at Mobile World Congress 2026. The solution leverages the company’s Polaris speech‑recognition and multi‑agent orchestration to deliver instant upgrade, bundle and compliance recommendations to in‑store staff...
EnQase Appoints Stephen Grein as Senior Vice President of Sales
enQase, a US‑based quantum‑safe security platform, announced Stephen Grein as Senior Vice President of Sales. Grein will oversee global sales strategy, targeting enterprise and partner‑driven adoption in regulated sectors such as finance, defense and critical infrastructure. He brings more than...
AI in Churn Reduction: What G2’s 2026 Expert Survey Found
Reducing churn remains a top priority for SaaS firms, and AI is moving from experimental dashboards to operational tools. G2’s 2026 expert survey of Custify, ChurnZero, Chargebee and Velaris shows AI platforms now blend usage, sentiment, billing and relationship data...
Home Depot CEO Flags a Disconcerting Lack of Faith in the American Economy: ‘Our Customers Are Telling Us that They’re...
Home Depot reported a 13% drop in Q4 net earnings to $2.6 billion as a stalled housing market curtails home‑improvement spending. CEO Ted Decker said consumers lack confidence, delaying large projects despite low mortgage rates and ongoing price cuts in new...
RocketReach Expands Signal Driven AI Prospecting Through Strategic Partnership with Autobound
RocketReach announced a strategic partnership with Autobound to embed the latter’s Signal Engine into its platform. The integration adds more than 400 real‑time company and contact signals—including job changes, SEC filings, and product launches—to RocketReach’s existing contact database. This signal‑driven...
How to Deal with Cultural Differences in Negotiation
Cross‑cultural negotiations often stumble over differing communication norms, but understanding the dignity‑face‑honor framework can turn cultural variance into a strategic advantage. Researchers identify three prototypes—dignity (e.g., US, Canada), face (East Asia), and honor (Middle East, Latin America)—shaped by historical population...
Is Humor in Business Negotiation Ever Appropriate?
Harvard Business School professor Alison Wood Brooks explains that humor, when used strategically, can shift emotional tone, build trust, and improve negotiation outcomes. Research shows jokes that elicit genuine laughter signal confidence, competence, and higher status, while also fostering creativity...
How IKEA Got Closer to Its Shoppers with New Small-Format Stores, Best Buy Partnership
IKEA U.S. announced four new stores in Chicago, Tulsa, Fort Collins and Los Angeles, bringing its 2026 rollout to ten locations, including its first city‑center store in LA and first Oklahoma outlet. The retailer posted $5.3 billion in total sales for fiscal 2025, with...
Top Click-to-Call Apps with Salesforce Integration
The article ranks the top click‑to‑call applications that integrate natively with Salesforce, highlighting Revenue.io as the most feature‑rich solution. It outlines how these tools eliminate manual dialing, streamline workflows, and automatically log activity within the CRM. Each platform is evaluated...
Battery Ventures Leads $40M Round for Letter AI
Letter AI announced a $40 million Series B round led by Battery Ventures, closing just four months after its last raise. The Chicago‑based startup introduced Letter Compass, a real‑time deal‑enablement tool that pulls content, learning, CRM data, and interaction history...
App Spotlight: Plug&Play Currency Sync for Zoho CRM
Plug&Play Currency Sync for Zoho CRM now automates daily exchange‑rate updates, ensuring new deals, quotes and invoices use current rates while preserving historical values. The tool pulls rates overnight and allows up to two manual syncs per day, eliminating the...
Joey Gilkey — Rebuilding Outbound Sales Around Phone Intent and Predictive Precision
TitanX CEO Joey Gilkey argues that outbound sales must abandon volume‑driven dialing for an intent‑driven model powered by Phone Intent™ and AI. By aggregating behavioral signals, Phone Intent predicts which prospects will answer, raising connect rates from industry‑low 3% to...
The Mistakes That Make Founders Invisible
Founders often blame outbound for low reply rates, but the real issue is a flawed mental model that treats outreach as a volume problem. The article argues that outbound should be a learning system where hypotheses about the ideal customer...
Dillard’s Holds Steady at the Holidays
Dillard’s reported flat Q4 performance, with retail sales slipping 1% to $1.9 billion and net income falling 5% to $203.7 million. Gross margin held steady at 36.1% while online traffic surged 19% year‑over‑year, offsetting flat in‑store visits. The retailer highlighted a modest...
How Revenue Optimization Drives B2B Growth: Strategies, Cycle, and Checklist for 2026
Revenue optimization is a data‑driven framework that fixes friction in the B2B sales journey, allowing firms to grow profit without increasing lead volume. The guide outlines a four‑stage cycle—track, identify, test, measure—and shows how disciplined RevOps can boost win rates...
Home Depot Beats Q4 Expectations Even as Housing Market Remains Challenged
Home Depot reported fourth‑quarter sales of $38.2 billion, a 3.8% year‑over‑year decline, yet the results beat analyst expectations. Net income slipped 14.2% to $2.6 billion and operating income fell 14.4%, reflecting pressure from a sluggish housing market. Full‑year sales rose 3.2% to...
GReminders Integrates with Orion's Redtail CRM
GReminders announced an expanded integration that embeds its AI‑driven meeting assistant directly into Orion’s Redtail CRM. The new functionality lets financial advisors generate AI‑powered notes, receive pre‑meeting briefs, and schedule client appointments without leaving the Redtail interface. By consolidating the...
Podcast: Rethinking Industrial Equipment Sales: Inside Corbel’s AI-Driven Approach
Corbel, a next‑generation CPQ platform, is using generative AI to overhaul industrial equipment sales. The system mines unstructured data—PDFs, videos, sales transcripts—to deliver instant technical answers and embeds financing options directly into the buying flow. By keeping human sales reps...
Gartner Customer Service & Support Conference Denver 2026
Gartner’s Customer Service & Support Conference will convene in Denver from November 4‑6, 2026, gathering service leaders, technology providers, and analysts. The two‑day event emphasizes extracting ROI from AI investments, positioning service as a growth engine, and redefining success metrics...
App Spotlight: Clearout Email Verifier for Zoho CRM
Zoho Marketplace highlights Clearout Email Verifier, a native extension that validates and cleans email addresses directly within Zoho CRM. The tool performs over 20 validation checks—including syntax, catch‑all, and spam‑trap detection—with 99% accuracy, allowing users to sync verified results back...
Outreach February 2026 Product Release: AI That Understands and Acts
Outreach’s February 2026 release adds a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that streams real‑time insights to Anthropic’s Claude and other AI agents. New integrations with LeadIQ, ZoomInfo, and Kaia™ APIs bring enriched and conversational data directly into the platform. The...
ANALYSIS: Dunelm’s New App Marks a Strategic Shift Toward Deeper Omnichannel Engagement
Dunelm launched a new iOS and Android app to deepen its omnichannel strategy, linking physical stores, digital experiences, and customer data. The app extends the AI‑powered search and recommendation engine first introduced on Dunelm.com, creating a unified intelligence layer across...
How Amazon’s Creative Agent Turns Retail Media Into a ‘Commerce Engine’
Amazon Ads unveiled Creative Agent, an AI‑driven creative partner inside Creative Studio that lets advertisers generate video and display ads through a chat‑based workflow. Leveraging Amazon’s retail insights, the tool pulls product pages, shopper signals and brand guidelines to produce...
The 5-Step Formula for Handling Price Objections Like a Pro
The article presents a five‑step formula for handling price objections: expect pushback, know the competition, protect margins, own differentiators, and be prepared to walk away. It stresses that anticipating objections prevents reactive discounting, while deep competitive intel lets sellers defend...
Samsung Ads’ Smart TV Carousel Delivers for Non-Endemic Brands
Samsung Ads introduced an Immersive Carousel ad unit on its European Smart TV home screens, supporting up to five rotating tiles per placement. The format appears on more than 70 million Samsung TVs, auto‑rotating every five seconds and also navigable via...
Streaming Toward Win-Win Negotiation: Spotify Upgrades Its Negotiating Strategy
Spotify has shifted from confrontational royalty disputes to collaborative negotiations, exemplified by its 2023 royalty framework overhaul. The new model introduces a 1,000‑stream annual threshold, fraud penalties, and length requirements for non‑musical tracks, aiming to curb AI‑generated and low‑value content....
Why Negotiations Fail
Negotiations often fail for reasons beyond a dramatic impasse, including agreements that later cause regret, deals that crumble during execution, and partnerships that underperform despite being signed. The article outlines three failure modes: walking away from a better deal due...
Negotiation Skills: Which Negotiating Style Is Best?
The article contends that no single negotiating style dominates; research shows cooperative negotiators consistently produce more creative, value‑creating outcomes and report higher satisfaction. However, pure cooperation can leave value on the table, while aggressive hard‑bargaining risks relationships. The most effective...
How to Future-Proof Your AI Stack with Data Governance
MarTech outlines a framework for B2B firms to future‑proof AI deployments through robust data governance and consent management. It stresses tagging consent metadata at capture, using centralized policy tools with decentralized enforcement, and establishing a cross‑functional governance council. The guide...
