It’s the last week of 2021, and if you’re anything like us, you can’t believe how quickly the past year has gone by. Hopefully, your 2021 was full of more ups than downs, and you’re able to spend the last few days of the year enjoying the sense of peace and reflection that often comes during this season.
In today’s blog post, we wanted to take an opportunity to contemplate the accuracy of the predictions we made at this time last year. Then, we’ll take a walk down memory lane and discuss the successes that Verb has seen over the past four quarters, and maybe make a couple more predictions and resolutions for the coming year.
So, grab a warm holiday drink and settle in!
How Did We Do?
Last year, we wrote a blog post that analyzed the milestones of the past year and made predictions for what we could expect in the coming one. It was somewhat of a tall order—after the rocky start of 2020, it felt nearly impossible to predict anything. Words like “unprecedented” and “novel” were used so often that they started to lose their meaning and, for most of us, life didn’t look anything like we’d expected it to.
In those last few months, humanity seemed to hang the collective weight of our cautious hopes on 2021—hopes that we’d gain back a little of the normalcy and precedence that we’d been missing for so many months. So, instead of getting too specific and risking being overly optimistic, we focused our expectations on two topics: remote working and social activism. We predicted that remote working would continue to be the norm and that the importance of social activism would increase among consumers. And, from what we’ve been able to see, both are true.
According to Small Business Trends, the rate of global employees working from home continues to rise exponentially, without showing any signs of decreasing. Like we mentioned last year, not only does remote work increase worker flexibility, but it also vastly increases the candidate pool for open jobs, ensuring that hiring managers have access to exactly the right fit for every position. And, according to the numbers, that’s been an asset for many companies.
And, although the events of 2021 seemed largely less dramatic than those of its preceding year, we were able to see several signs of increasing social activism. The world continues to take note of social injustices and rally to change them, which is a trend that has impacted consumerism. According to JungleScout, “58% of consumers are influenced by a brand’s social activism,” which means that if you’re looking for ways to connect with your customers in a meaningful way, using your company’s platform to advance social change is a necessity in 2021.
So, how did we do? Well, we’re not willing to give up our day jobs for a career in fortune telling quite yet, but we’d say we’re pretty good at making predictions for the future.
Our Year in a Nutshell
In short, it’s been an incredible year for Verb. We’ve celebrated the launch of so many game-changing products and tools that have the potential to have a monumental impact on the businesses of our clients, like…
- verbTEAMS with verbLIVE, a CRM and content management solution with livestream selling feature for small businesses and solopreneurs
- verbMAIL video email solution for Microsoft Outlook
- Powerful verbLIVE Attribution, creating an affiliate marketing component, increasing total addressable market exponentially
- PULSE, an AI/BI-based feature set that tracks prospect interactions then educates salespeople while it automates the selling process
- A professional sports vertical, partnering with Pittsburgh Penguins Platform to drive ticket sales and fan engagement
We’ve been able to see firsthand how our clients have been able to use our suite of tools to take their businesses to new heights, and we’ve loved helping them to share their stories.
We started out the year by introducing our Evolution of SaaS theme, a fun creative exercise designed to help us firmly establish ourselves as a creative SaaS company and set ourselves apart in the industry. Each phase enabled us to spread our creative wings, keep our content fresh and engaging, and show the SaaS world who we are. We took a look back at the most jaw-dropping and world-changing events from the 90s until now, implemented nostalgia-based designs, and did our best to embrace the past in order to create a brighter, more connected future.
This fall, we hosted our first-ever Leading Interactive Technology Symposium, most often referred to as verbLIT, to highlight our leading-edge, interactive video-based sales tools.
Despite a bump or two in the road, it ended up being a fun and successful way for us to connect with our employees, investors, stakeholders, and anyone who is interested in the future of interactive video. If you missed the presentation, you can watch it here: https://www.verblit.tech. It was a great experience and we’re all looking forward to next year’s event.
In 2021, Verb For Humanity supported 12 charities and hosted a number in-person activities to better the lives of the people in our communities. From baking casseroles for the hungry to compiling hygiene kits, our team has enjoyed coming together to help those less fortunate, and we can’t wait to continue our efforts. During Women’s History Month, Verb partnered up with Bold.org, a foundation, and technology platform dedicated to helping students fight debt and achieve their educational dreams, to create the ‘Verb Women in Business’ scholarship. In September, we hosted a virtual blood drive via the Red Cross and encouraged our employees and their families to donate life-saving blood. Most recently, we adopted several families from USPS’ Letters to Santa program and raised money for Marine Toys for Tots. If you want more information on how you can get involved with Verb For Humanity, keep an eye on our social media accounts, where we’ll announce our next charitable endeavor soon.
A few of our other memorable moments as a company include our virtual costume contest, a summer talent show, and motivational trainings. It’s been a whirlwind of a year, and we can’t wait to see what comes next.
What You Can Expect Next
With a new year comes new goals, fresh starts, and a brand-new chance to make an impact. And at Verb, we intend on taking advantage of every one of them. In the coming year, you can expect to see more sales enablement innovation, the launch of our new social selling platform, more product integrations, and an expansion into more verticals. What else? You’ll have to stay tuned to see—but we promise it’s going to be good. Wishing you and yours a happy new year!
About the author:
Heather Hanson is skilled in copy writing, editing, creative writing, and social media outreach. She brings a lot to the table with Verb, and has been recognized by our company as our National Treasure.