The "Death Spiral" of Thryv and Keap...according to a, like, ya know, totally unbiased GoHighLevel dude...
Wes- Schaeffer
12 Weeks To Peak Founder | Human-2-Human Sales | Keynote Speaker | Creator CRMQuiz.com | AF Vet | BJJ Brown Belt
So?Thyrv?bought?Keap, and now the?GoHighLevel?vultures—ahhh, kind, benevolent, loving, patient resellers are circling purely out of concern for you and your company's wellbeing.
One video covers the following: (typos included)
"What I am going to cover:
He makes a lot of valid points in his lengthy video.
Thryv and Keap are vastly different companies with vastly different offerings.
They are actually quite complimentary.
The goo-roo tries to make the claim that anyone and everyone who can spell Keap, who has visited their website, has been to Arizona, has ever done a demo, thought about doing a demo, or even misspells Keap is in a "death spiral."
Ditto for Thryv, which is a publicly traded company with over 3,000 employees and revenue of around $180 million.
Is he right?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
I mean, ExactTarget acquired Pardot in 2012 before Salesforce acquired ExactTarget in 2013, and they seem to be doing okay.
Will Thryv peel out the complimentary tech of Keap, merge that into their software, and get rid of the rest, including most of the Keap staff?
Probably.
How long will that take?
Probably years.
So, if you're a customer of Keap or Thryv, are you in imminent danger of having the rug pulled out from under you?
No.
Would it be wise to take a closer look at your business,...
your finances,...
your cashflow,...
your processes,...
your broken links,...
your out-of-date pages,...
your out-of-date offerings,...
the subscriptions you're wasting money on,...
your bounced contacts,...
your ancient promo codes that are still valid,...
your incorrect—or nonexistent—SEO,...
your failing ad campaigns,...
your dusty, limited, incorrectly-used pipelines,...
your "me-too" social media,...
your boring copy,...
your crappy hiring practices,...
your scattered internal communications,...
your reactive sales processes,...
your rush to AI to replace everything,...
Among other things?
Yes.
Look, in 2014, after six years of being monogamous with Infusionsoft (Keap), I branched out and got certified with?Ontraport?and?HubSpot—and still recommend them, along with?ActiveCampaign,?Nimble, and several other platforms when I think one of those is the best option for my client—because I was worried about the direction Keap was going.
So, when...
things don't make sense...
you're worried...
you're losing sleep...
dig in and address the issue until they make sense and you stop worrying and you sleep well at night.
If you have critical systems and processes on Keap and you're worried, find someone you trust to take a look at things and help you make some apples-to-apples comparisons, which should include moving and rebuilding everything on a new platform, which is no easy task.
If they recommend another tool, dig in and understand how they are compensated.
The major players usually offer affiliate commissions for 12 or 24 or 36 months or even lifetime.
They can range from 5% to 30% of your monthly subscription cost.
Others allow the partners/consultants to white-label their offerings and charge what they want.
Many GoHighLevel consultants operate under the white-label model, whereby they pay a flat fee and can resell seats or applications to as many people as possible.
Just make sure you own your application and are not held hostage by those consultants. (Trust me on this. Confirm that even though you might be paying the consultant, you own the application.)
If the thought of moving everything off of Keap makes you want to poke your eyes out, I get it.
These apps are sticky by design. They make it hard to leave.
So don't leave.
At least don't leave all at once.
Take this news as your sign to at least do some fall/winter/spring cleaning.
Make a list of the top 10 things that bug the crap out of you about Keap, and address them.
Maybe you hate their order forms and affiliate modules. Move everything to?Spiffy, built by?Michael R. Hunter, and see how it feels to have a top-notch tool for:
And since it has both direct and Zapier integrations, if you find you have to move off of Keap due to some future "death spiral," the vital parts of your business, i.e., the money-gathering, is built, stable, and proven, so you tweak some Zaps, and keep on keepin' on.
Maybe you hate their landing pages.
Rebuild everything in?Leadpages.
I've loved and recommended and used Leadpages for a decade at least, and they keep adding features and making it better.
So get more leads with Leadpages, push them to Keap, let Keap drip on them until they buy via your Spiffy order forms, and let Keap continue to drip on them until they order again.
Maybe you hate their calendar.
Fine.
Rebuild everything in Calendly and use it like I've described above for your order forms and landing pages.
"But Wes, then I have all of these subscriptions and integrations and different support teams and it's just a mess. It's better to have it all in one place, all under one roof, so then I have one throat to choke."
Fair enough.
I thought the same way in 2008...2009...2010...2011...2012... 2013...2014...
Then, I started looking under the hoods of other platforms and got a taste of what "best in class" feels like.
It changes a person.
Yes, if each of the five or 10 or 25 things you use in a platform meet your minimum requirements, then it's best to keep it all under one roof.
It's probably more affordable, you get better support, and it's a more seamless experience for you and your staff.
However, if you're losing sleep, if you're worried, if you're frustrated, and/or if you're concerned about this "death spiral," then create a little cushion for yourself and your business.
When I recreated everything inside of HubSpot in 2014-2015, I kept everything inside of Keap as well because I still use and like the platform and the people, and since it's my business to know these different tools I'm selling and supporting, it made sense to have both.
But it was a great excuse to do some spring cleaning, which helped me grow.
I ran my contact list through a scrubber and found A LOT of bad and old names that I could delete.
I got rid of a lot of old, unused products, campaigns, tags, order, forms, web forms, and automations, both inside of Keap as well as Zapier and other tools.
That helped me focus on what really mattered, which helped me amplify what I was great at, and stop wasting my time on the fringes.
The GoHighLevel consultant discusses "tech debt" that drags down all tech companies, and he's right.
However, as professional salespeople, sales managers, business owners, and entrepreneurs, you and I have business & contact & pipeline & funnel & systems debt.
Our attics, basements, closets, garages, junk drawers, glove boxes, and CRMs all get stuffed to the gills, and even though it stresses us out and irritates us to no end, we never get around to addressing it and clearing it out until something dramatic happens.
Maybe it's a flood or fire or roof leak or water heater disaster, maybe it's a divorce, maybe a kid moves off to college or gets married, maybe you get laid off and have to move, maybe you're given an ultimatum by a spouse, your HOA, your boss, or the company that buys your company.
So, whether you have Keap or Thryv or HubSpot or Ontraport or Nimble or ActiveCampaign or a home-grown solution or one of a hundred or a thousand other tools, make a choice:
If you decide to peek over the fence, which I recommend, I encourage you to document your processes first, kinda like making a shopping list before you go to the grocery store, or you'll become enthralled with the new-car smell of some "AI-enabled shiny all-in-one" platform, and you'll be ankle-deep in debt, bells, and whistles, head first, before you know it, and probably be worse off than if you just kept it steady as she goes.
As for me, I'm simplifying.
Simpler email tool built for speed and best-in-class deliverability.
Simpler website. (Consolidating domains and sites.)
Simpler offers. (Maybe 5-6 offers vs. 80-90.)
Simpler support and deliverability platforms. (Moving to my own app, which I think is the wave of the future, which has already arrived.)
More emphasis on podcasting and advertising vs. organic.
More emphasis on long-form content when I do organic work.
Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, said,
“If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”
The time has come to accelerate your change.
If you need some help, hit me up.
Edit #1: He talked about email deliverability in the video and confidently stated that GHL has great email deliverability.
I know, for a fact, that that is not the case.
If you're working with large email lists, i.e., 10,000 and higher, you're gonna have issues with GHL. Period.
When you deal with any "all-in-one" tool, you're gonna make compromises.
There is no AFFORDABLE all-in-one platform that is best-in-class in more than one or two areas.
Which is why I have you go through my Process Before Login when we discuss your tech needs.
Every SaaS person you talk to will tell you how swell they are and downplay where they are lacking.
Be very discerning when you go down this technology selection rabbit hole.
It's fraught with danger, and it's made worse when commission breath kicks in, so keep all consultants at arm's length and keep some breath mints close.?