[Top Resources Series] Smart Tools and Tech Stacks Today’s Entrepreneurs Use To Scale Faster

Ali Mirza is the Founder and CEO of Rose Garden Consulting, renowned for guiding seven- and eight-figure founders in scaling their sales operations.

Stacie Porter Bilger is the Founder and President of Proof Digital, a business growth-marketing agency that blends modern marketing tools with traditional sales funnel processes.

Geordie Wardman is the COO of Duxre, a broker-controlled operating system designed for commercial real estate professionals that empowers brokers to own their data, listings, and deal flow.

Richard Hurley is the Founder and CEO of Highline Commerce, a technology-driven third-party logistics provider that specializes in warehousing & fulfillment services for e-commerce D2C start-ups.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [2:37] Ali Mirza highlights his top recommended podcasts and books for sales and divergent thinking
• [9:45] Stacie Porter Bilger outlines her essential project management, communication, and analytics tools
• [11:33] Why Stacie stresses the importance of Google Analytics, Search Console, and clean data fundamentals
• [16:51] Geordie Wardman shares the AI and async tools he uses, including Claude Code and Loom
• [20:59] Richard Hurley describes using Replit to build internal apps, dashboards, and automations

In this episode…

Software, automation, and AI are transforming business—but with countless available tools, choosing the right ones can be overwhelming. What technologies are today’s most effective entrepreneurs actually using to work smarter, innovate faster, and scale with less friction?

Ali Mirza reveals how powerful ideas come from exploring divergent thinking through podcasts and books that challenge assumptions, helping leaders make sharper strategic decisions. Stacie Porter Bilger leans on project management systems, analytics platforms, and clean data fundamentals to drive clarity and high performance. Geordie Wardman uses AI-assisted coding and async communication tools to speed development and reduce meetings, while Richard Hurley builds custom internal tools and embraces robotics to transform warehouse efficiency. Together, they show that productivity and growth come from intentional tool adoption, curiosity, and a willingness to modernize outdated processes.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz is joined by Ali Mirza, Stacie Porter Bilger, Geordie Wardman, and Richard Hurley to discuss the essential tools today’s leaders rely on. They cover AI-powered development platforms, project management systems, and analytics-driven marketing tools. They also explore automation and robotics, shaping the future of operations. The guests also share practical advice for choosing tools that actually move the needle.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Ali Mirza LinkedIn | Website | Instagram
• Rose Garden Consulting
• Stacie Porter Bilger on LinkedIn
• Proof Digital
• Geordie Wardman on LinkedIn
• Duxre
• Richard Hurley on LinkedIn
• Highline Commerce

Special Mentions:

• The Knowledge Project
• “Rory Sutherland: The Psychology of Advertising” on The Knowledge Project
• Tetragrammaton
• “Rory Sutherland” on Tetragrammaton
• Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life by Rory Sutherland
• Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott
• Robert Greene Books
• Predatory Thinking by Dave Trott
• Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz
• Monday.com
• Slack
• Google Analytics 360
• Semrush
• SpyFu
• SEOquake
• Google Tag Manager
• Microsoft Clarity
• LastPass
• TextExpander
• 1Password
• Cloudflare
• Klaviyo
• Mailchimp
• Pipedrive
• Hubspot
• Claude Code
• Loom
• Replit
• Ultra
• Parcel
• Getcho
• FlavorCloud

Related episode:

• “[Top Agency Series & Top Author Series] Mastering Radical Candor with Kim Scott: Transform Your Leadership” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable moments:

• “I don’t want to hear about what other people have already done. What I want to hear about is what are the things we can do.”
• “The data that you have that’s superior data is Google Analytics, Semrush, Tag Manager.”
• “You know, there’s a million of them, but it only works if we use it.”
• “I use probably Loom, I don’t know, maybe five times a day because we’re remote first.”
• “And it’s really insane just how fast you can go from idea to a fully functioning app.”

Action steps:

1. Adopt and optimize key productivity and project management tools: Use platforms that centralize communication and tasks to keep distributed teams aligned and prevent work from slipping through the cracks.
2. Leverage data analytics to guide decisions: Set up and actively use analytics tools to gain actionable insights that drive growth and improve performance.
3. Embrace AI and no-code solutions for efficiency: Use AI and no-code platforms to automate repetitive tasks and enable rapid innovation without deep technical expertise.
4. Implement robust password management and cybersecurity measures: Protect sensitive information and streamline credential sharing with secure password tools to reduce risk and support smooth collaboration.
5. Stay curious and continuously explore new resources: Regularly engage with new ideas, tools, and learning sources to spot trends early and solve problems creatively.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here. I am the Founder of InspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Thanks for tuning in to this special best of episode, where we’ll take a look back at some of our favorite moments from previous conversations. This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help B2B businesses give to and connect to their dream 200 relationships and partnerships. We do this in two ways.

Number one, we are an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast for ROI. We do the strategy, accountability and full execution and production number two. We are also an easy button for your company’s corporate gifting. We make gifting and staying top of mind to your clients, partners and prospects. Simple and seamless and affordable.

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For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships, and I am always looking at how to give to my best relationships, and I’ve found no better way. Over the past decade than having them on my podcast featuring what they are working on and sharing it with the world, and also sending delicious treats in the mail every few months for years. If you have thought about starting a podcast or gifting, do it. If you have questions, email us at [email protected] or go to Rise25.com to learn more.

Now let’s look back at some of our favorite moments from past conversations. We have great people, great resources, and I track down Ali Mirza. Even though he is driving, I’m like, I don’t care, just hop on Zoom and let’s do this. And you know, this is going to be on his favorite resources. It could be podcasts, books, whatever he recommends. He is an expert at sales and you can check him out. I’ll let him tell you. I’ll pull up the website. But Ali, tell people where they can check you out, what website and what you do.

Ali Mirza: 02:37

I run a sales consulting firm. We help agencies and funded startups scale their sales teams. So if you’ve got five reps, you want to go from 5 to 50 and scale that inside of 18 months. We are the people to do that for you. You can find me at AliMirza.com. You can also find me on Instagram @AliMirza.rgc.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 02:59

Okay. Top resources. We can talk about books, podcasts, whatever. Whatever you desire.

Ali Mirza: 03:09

Let’s talk about podcasts. Can I just drop it and just tell you what?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 03:15

Let’s do it. Yeah, let’s do it.

Ali Mirza: 03:17

My favorite podcast is Shane Parrish’s Farnam Street The Knowledge Project. Phenomenal podcast.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 03:26

Any others that you like?

Ali Mirza: 03:28

Other than that, of course, you know, there are.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 03:32

Certain guests on the podcast?

Ali Mirza: 03:35

My favorite one that he’s ever had. This is reaching deep in the bag. This is oh, it’s gotta be 2018, 2017. Maybe he had Rory Sutherland on his podcast. It is probably about a 90 minute podcast or so.

Absolutely phenomenal. And then there’s also actually Rick Rubin’s podcast. I forget what that’s called, but I don’t.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 03:58

Knowledge project. Is this the one right here?

Ali Mirza: 04:00

Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:01

So you can see John Mackey of Whole Foods. Yeah. He has some really interesting guests here.

Ali Mirza: 04:07

Oh, he’s absolutely phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:11

And then you were saying the Rick Rubin one.

Ali Mirza: 04:13

Yeah. So I don’t actually listen to the Rick Rubin podcast. Not for any other reason other than that. I just don’t. Not to say it’s not good. I’m sure it’s great, but the episode where he has Rory Sutherland on there, that one is phenomenal.

It’s like three hours long. But man, I’ve probably listened to it like four times. And every single time I find it is so rich and so. It’s just, it’s phenomenal. You have to listen to it for an open state of mind and being like in a really good state of like mental fluidity and reserve, you know, reserve, suspend disbelief. Oh, phenomenal.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:55

What was so like? Why that one?

Ali Mirza: 04:57

It’s just the way in which they talk. I mean, like, the thing that I loved about it is they’re not I mean, they’re both nerds. But they didn’t talk like nerds, right? Like losers. Like, there’s people that just start telling you facts and data about things.

And I’m like, I don’t care. Like, I don’t care about the fact that there’s like 96.2, like, who cares to speak to me in an esoteric term and that because about like things that we have yet to prove that are worth exploring because data is derivative. So I don’t want to hear about what other people have already done. What I want to hear about is what are the things we can do. And that conversation is, like I said, it’s so rich, but it’s rich in ideas and in their own original ideas. But what it did for me is.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 05:52

This the one.

Ali Mirza: 05:52

Right here inspired I.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 05:53

Don’t want you to crash or anything, but is this the Rick Rubin?

Ali Mirza: 05:58

Don’t worry about it, I. Yes, don’t worry about it. I took a cigarette and sandwich and drive a stick shift all at the same time, so I’m good.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 06:09

Okay.

Ali Mirza: 06:13

You don’t know with that to do with that one.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 06:14

What about books?

Ali Mirza: 06:18

Books? I love Rory’s book. Alchemy. That’s an older book. I love. What else do I love? I love the book Radical Candor. By what else? There’s a lot of really good books out there. I love anything by Robert Greene. I think he’s a phenomenal writer. The way in which he writes, he basically created what I think he created a whole brand new way of writing with, you know, through telling a teaching principles and then hammering them home through parables. So I think that’s phenomenal. And then, I mean, he’s obviously inspired Ryan Holiday as well.

Oh, and then, you know, there’s another phenomenal book called Predatory Thinking by Dave Trott. It’s a great, great book, just all about like kind of a divergent way of thinking. So if you like anything by like Daniel Kahneman or, or even Daniel Pink, if you like those kinds of books, those are all like, I mean, again, nothing against like Daniel Pink, like I think Daniel Pink is a phenomenal author and I think an incredibly intelligent individual. But he it would be if you read Daniel Pink, he’s a great introduction to divergent thinking and great introduction to, you know, breaking conventional norms. But I think if you want to take it to that next level and get like a very aggressive take on it. Like Daniel Pink might be 101, Dave Trott would be 102. Maybe is the way I look at it. So that’s why I really like.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 08:04

I’m gonna have to check that out. Yeah I’m gonna. That’s the next book I’m going to buy on Audible. Actually, I did have Kim Scott A Radical Candor on the podcast. That’s a really good one.

Ali Mirza: 08:13

She’s great.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 08:14

Some of my favorite authors, I like the Never Split the Difference. Chris Voss, did you check that one out? Yeah, I feel like that was right up your alley.

Ali Mirza: 08:23

Yes, because.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 08:24

We were talking before we hit record about it doesn’t even start until you get a no. And that’s kind of Chris Voss talks about that when negotiation also. Right, right.

Ali Mirza: 08:33

Yeah. Yeah. And I think what I think with Chris Voss, one of his things is never drive to the no, not in so many words, but his whole thing is like until you can drive towards your conclusion, don’t kind of like close it up. It’s kind of the message I got from And he teaches some really good tactics on how to do that. So I think that’s great. Yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 08:55

I love it. Well, first of all, thanks. Thanks for letting me join you on your drive and we’ll see everyone next time. Thanks for the resources.

Ali Mirza: 09:03

Thank you.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 09:04

I’m excited. Jeremy Weisz. I’m here with Stacie Porter Bilger. This is part of the resources, great people, great resources. And we’re going to talk about tech stack because everyone loves to hear about software. But before we get into that, Stacie, just tell people where they can find you, your website and what you do.

Stacie Porter Bilger: 09:20

Stacie Porter Bilger, Proof Digital is our company. www.proofdigital.com. You know, we’re a performance marketing and web development firm. We just help companies grow and make good decisions in this very evolving digital space we live in.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 09:36

So one of my favorite questions is tech stack. What kind of software are you using as a company? And I always like hearing and other people do too.

Stacie Porter Bilger: 09:45

Absolutely different areas. Obviously, the big thing is getting things done. So project management. We use Monday. Google is also part of that process.

And systems we’re leveraging AI and ChatGPT to systemize between talking between both of those pieces. Those are those are a Slack is also a vital communication tool as well in there. So those are those are on the project management kind of communication every day. Use other tech stack. I mean, we have a pretty broad tech stack with what we do.

So if you’re looking from a standpoint of analytics and data and SEO, you obviously go to Google Analytics, Google, Semrush, you also Semrush, SpyFu. That’s a good tool, SEOquake. Those are all good from a standpoint of gathering competitive intelligence strategy. Those are quick, quick wins tools that we use. There’s a few other ones in that those.

But those are the every day from a business standpoint, like a lot of businesses operations, you know, quick QuickBooks. And that’s always you know, everybody has to have all that going and automated as quickly as possible. So those are the big buckets. Now there’s a ton others. But those are the big buckets.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 11:12

You know it’s funny. Because you know I find a lot I don’t know if this is the case for you, but sometimes people don’t. Just the fundamentals like Google Analytics. You mentioned like people want the nifty cool new ones, but I find a lot of people I talk to don’t even have Google Analytics installed on their website, and like that alone would give them data.

Stacie Porter Bilger: 11:33

That’s the best data. So you can. So Semrush was a tool that we use all the time. We pay a lot of money for it. We actually have, you know, enterprise level use of that tool, but it’s pulling secondary data.

The data that you have that’s superior data is Google Analytics, Semrush, Tag Manager. You know, another tool that we like to use is Microsoft Clarity. It helps you understand behavior on a site, that’s a great tool to use. SEOquake is kind of a browser tool that you can kind of spy on other sites and understand how they’re looking from a standpoint.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:14

Is that a Chrome plugin?

Stacie Porter Bilger: 12:15

It’s a Chrome plugin.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:16

It’s a Chrome plugin? Okay, cool.

Stacie Porter Bilger: 12:17

Yeah yeah yeah. So but the purest data and to your point, I mean, people don’t have their sitemap in their, you know, submitted into Google Search Console. Those are, those are basic things of dotting i’s and crossing t’s of if you want to win the online game.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:36

I’m curious, any productivity software? I’ll mention a few that I love. Yeah, yeah like LastPass. I love yeah, just save me time. TextExpander.

Stacie Porter Bilger: 12:49

We use 1Password very similar to LastPass. We did use LastPass. We moved over to one password. 1Password. We have also servers and those I mean, Cloudflare, other things from a standpoint of security and pieces as well.

But systems I mean one password, when you have lots of team members and you have lots of passwords, if you don’t have a password protective tool like LastPass or a one password, you’re in trouble because you don’t want to be sharing that across emails or even Slack or anything. So that’s a really important productivity. Monday again, is our is our is there’s there’s other ones like a Monday.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 13:32

Yeah, We. Use Clickup.

Stacie Porter Bilger: 13:32

Clickup.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 13:33

Clickup. Yeah.

Stacie Porter Bilger: 13:34

But Monday, we live in Monday. Everything has a every project has a, you know a board every client has a board, every task is inputted tracking time as well as in there. So that’s all kind of there. But we, you don’t want to make it too complex, but you need to make sure that you adopt it. You’re a solid project management system is vital as well as a good CRM. I mean, some of those pieces on CRM and email marketing different.

We are in various ones because clients are in various ones. We have a lot of e-commerce sites. So as clients. So Klaviyo is our e-commerce one. Yeah, it is, but we have clients who are MailChimp too.

So we understand those integrations as well. But there’s others I mean, CRM, to me it’s all about I mean, it’s same with project management. It’s about using it.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:33

Yeah, it’s using it.

Stacie Porter Bilger: 14:34

Exactly. Sorry. We got a friend join us. Sorry about that.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:37

I love it.

Stacie Porter Bilger: 14:41

But yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:41

It doesn’t matter what I mean if it’s being used. Right? Because project management, if you look at Monday, there’s Clickup, there’s Trello, there’s Asana, there’s right. You know, there’s a million of them, but, you know, it only works if we use it.

Stacie Porter Bilger: 14:54

Yeah, it only works if we use it. And so and, and the, you know, CRM, it’s the same thing. You need to have a hierarchy. You know what. What’s your you know what data you need to put in there. Okay. What are the groups? What are the tags? And everybody needs to follow that process. So you know, some people use we actually use Monday. But Pipedrive, HubSpot, you name it, there’s a lot of them out there.

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