Podcasts about b2c

Je vous présente Tatiana, VP Product de Mirakl.Depuis des mois, on nous parle d'IA dans le Product.Mais entre la hype et la réalité, il y a un monde.Car quand l'IA est mal utilisée, elle devient un gadget :Elle génère du contenu génériqueElle fait perdre du temps aux équipesElle crée de fausses attentesElle n'apporte aucune valeur businessElle finit aux oubliettes après 2 semaines.Chez Mirakl, c'est différent.Ils ont intégré l'IA dans leurs process produit.2 personnes sur 3 ont créé leur propre agent IA.Je voulais comprendre leurs usages concrets de l'IA.Du coup j'ai proposé à Tatiana de discuter.Pour m'expliquer leurs cas d'usage réels.Bonne nouvelle : elle a tout partagé sur Le backlog.Prépare-toi à découvrir comment l'IAAide à prioriser le backlog (sans remplacer le PM)Valide ta roadmap avec des simulations client IAExtrait les insights de tes calls clientsBooste la productivité des PMEst utilisée dans des agents IA par 2/3 des équipesAide les Sales à mieux vendreHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

The European Union is expected to revoke duty-free status for parcel imports through the elimination of the de minimis rule for small parcel imports, which is expected to be fully implemented by 2028. This significant policy change aims to level the playing field for European businesses and limit the influx of low-cost goods, especially considering that 91% of low-value shipments last year originated from China. We also track how global trade volatility and depressed freight rates have severely impacted ocean carriers, leading to Hapag-Lloyd's nine-month profits dropping nearly 50% from $1.83 billion down to $946 million. This decline occurred despite a 9% rise in transport volumes, demonstrating how upward cost pressures and start-up expenses related to the new Gemini Alliance are squeezing carrier margins. Finally, we analyze a proposed strategic pivot for UPS to stay competitive in the high-volume e-commerce space, focusing on a retooling of last-mile delivery. This unified strategy suggests using higher-cost Teamster drivers for the middle mile delivery to UPS Stores, allowing lower-cost independent gig workers to handle the final local delivery, which could drastically lower B2C costs and end the company's reliance on the U.S. Postal Service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2025 was a challenging year for many entrepreneurs selling to corporate clients—but there's so much hope for 2026.  The sales landscape is shifting: AI and social media aren't silver bullets, and relying on content won't cut it. What really matters now is having a best-practice sales process, accountability, and meaningful human connections.  Companies are spending more on external providers, and there are huge opportunities ahead. If you want consistent B2B sales next year, it's time to ditch shortcuts and focus on proven, proactive strategies. 2026 has the potential to be your best year yet if you adapt and take action now!   November is here but before you switch off for Christmas, let's talk about how you can turn 2026 into your best year for landing corporate clients—no matter how turbulent 2025 has felt. Why Was 2025 So Tough?  This year threw lots of curveballs - personal challenges, market surprises, and a general sense that everything took more effort than ever.  Sound familiar?  You're not alone.  But here's the good news: there are real reasons behind the difficulties, and knowing them lets you make smart moves for next year. Big Market Shifts You Need to Know The Complacency Trap: If you coasted on strategies that worked in previous years, you may have hit a plateau. The trick for 2026? Higher accountability, renewed motivation, and getting back to best practice sales activities. It's not about fancy advanced strategies-it's about consistency and nailing the basics. The AI Dilemma: AI was meant to make life easier, but in sales, it's created more problems than it solved-damaging communication skills, critical thinking, and even self-confidence. Companies want real people who offer real expertise, not just AI-generated solutions. For next year, human connection is a premium asset. Social Media Fatigue: LinkedIn reach is down and content alone isn't landing corporate deals. It's time to ditch content-first approaches and embrace proactive, measurable sales activities. If you're tired of posting for engagement that doesn't convert-this is your sign. B2C Burnout & Revenue Squeeze: Selling to individual consumers is harder than ever, especially with incoming tax changes (like the UK's rumored VAT threshold drop). Smart entrepreneurs are moving toward B2B and corporate sales, which means more competition-but also more opportunity for those with the best processes. Here's the Hope for 2026 Permanent headcount in organisations is down, but spend on external providers is up. More companies are looking for outside consultants, trainers, and service providers than ever before—and paying them higher average deal values. Repeat business is rising, and if you can master your sales process now, 2026 has the potential to be your best year yet. What Should You Do? Drop the haphazard stuff and shortcuts. Embrace a best practice sales process—focus on accountability, motivation and measurable lead generation. Be direct and clear in your communications. No more vague networking "chats"- every interaction should demonstrate your value. Don't rely on AI for sales conversations or strategy. Build your expertise and confidence. Get ready for increased competition from B2C entrepreneurs jumping to B2B. The winners will be those who stand out with credibility and process. Need support getting your sales process in shape? Check out the Cold and Sold Bundle - three essential handpicked resources to help you overcome this year's challenges and win big next year.   Key Resources Mentioned in this Episode:   Click here for the direct link to Cold + Sold: https://smartleaderssell.thrivecart.com/cold-and-sold-bundle/   If you want to learn more about The Expert Services Directory, click here: http://bit.ly/4f3ch1I   If you've enjoyed listening to Trends & Insights: How 2025 is changing the way you need to sell in 2026 check out these other episodes that may be of interest.   Top B2B Trends and Insights to set yourself up for success https://bit.ly/SellingtoCorporate060   4 key trends and insights for selling to corporate clients (without overwhelm) https://bit.ly/SellingToCorporate118   The #1 2025 trend that has secretly stopped your sales growth (and what to focus on instead!) https://bit.ly/SellingToCorporate160   Converting Corporates is the B2B sales event of the year for service based entrepreneurs, if you want to join the waitlist for 2026 click the link https://smartleaderssell.vipmembervault.com/cc2026waitlist   If you would like to sign up for our weekly newsletter to stay in touch with the latest B2B sales tips and techniques click https://sellingtocorporate.com/newsletter/   Content Disclaimer The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this article, video or audio are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article, video or audio. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article, video or audio. Jessica Lorimer disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article, video or audio.  

Pour la majorité des entreprises, la publicité est devenue le seul moyen d'exister sur un marché ultra concurrentiel. Pourtant, certaines marques arrivent encore à se faire une place sans dépenser 1€ en publicité.C'est le pari qu'ont fait Les Sherpa, une entreprise créée en 2017 qui propose des cours particuliers accessibles à tous. Depuis sa chambre d'étudiant, Étienne Porche, le cofondateur, a posé les premières briques d'une stratégie de contenu qui touche aujourd'hui 4,5 millions de personnes chaque mois.Dans cet épisode, on décortique ensemble leur méthode, leurs process et les apprentissages qui leur ont permis de construire une Content Factory qui représente aujourd'hui 30% de leur acquisition.Au programme :Comment tout a commencé depuis leur chambre en 2018Pourquoi ils ont décidé de faire du contenu leur principal levier de croissanceComment ils ont industrialisé leur production de contenu pour passer à l'échelle ?Et l'impact majeur de l'arrivée de l'IA

Live from Morgan Stanley's European Tech, Media and Telecom Conference in Barcelona, our roundtable of analysts discusses tech disruptions and datacenter growth, and how Europe factors in.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Paul Walsh: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Paul Walsh, Morgan Stanley's European Head of Research Product. Today we return to my conversation with Adam Wood. Head of European Technology and Payments, Emmet Kelly, Head of European Telco and Data Centers, and Lee Simpson, Head of European Technology. We were live on stage at Morgan Stanley's 25th TMT Europe conference. We had so much to discuss around the themes of AI enablers, semiconductors, and telcos. So, we are back with a concluding episode on tech disruption and data center investments. It's Thursday the 13th of November at 8am in Barcelona. After speaking with the panel about the U.S. being overweight AI enablers, and the pockets of opportunity in Europe, I wanted to ask them about AI disruption, which has been a key theme here in Europe. I started by asking Adam how he was thinking about this theme. Adam Wood: It's fascinating to see this year how we've gone in most of those sectors to how positive can GenAI be for these companies? How well are they going to monetize the opportunities? How much are they going to take advantage internally to take their own margins up? To flipping in the second half of the year, mainly to, how disruptive are they going to be? And how on earth are they going to fend off these challenges? Paul Walsh: And I think that speaks to the extent to which, as a theme, this has really, you know, built momentum. Adam Wood: Absolutely. And I mean, look, I think the first point, you know, that you made is absolutely correct – that it's very difficult to disprove this. It's going to take time for that to happen. It's impossible to do in the short term. I think the other issue is that what we've seen is – if we look at the revenues of some of the companies, you know, and huge investments going in there. And investors can clearly see the benefit of GenAI. And so investors are right to ask the question, well, where's the revenue for these businesses? You know, where are we seeing it in info services or in IT services, or in enterprise software. And the reality is today, you know, we're not seeing it. And it's hard for analysts to point to evidence that – well, no, here's the revenue base, here's the benefit that's coming through. And so, investors naturally flip to, well, if there's no benefit, then surely, we should focus on the risk. So, I think we totally understand, you know, why people are focused on the negative side of things today. I think there are differences between the sub-sectors. I mean, I think if we look, you know, at IT services, first of all, from an investor point of view, I think that's been pretty well placed in the losers' buckets and people are most concerned about that sub-sector… Paul Walsh: Something you and the global team have written a lot about. Adam Wood: Yeah, we've written about, you know, the risk of disruption in that space, the need for those companies to invest, and then the challenges they face. But I mean, if we just keep it very, very simplistic. If Gen AI is a technology that, you know, displaces labor to any extent – companies that have played labor arbitrage and provide labor for the last 20 - 25 years, you know, they're going to have to make changes to their business model. So, I think that's understandable. And they're going to have to demonstrate how they can change and invest and produce a business model that addresses those concerns. I'd probably put info services in the middle. But the challenge in that space is you have real identifiable companies that have emerged, that have a revenue base and that are challenging a subset of the products of those businesses. So again, it's perfectly understandable that investors would worry. In that context, it's not a potential threat on the horizon. It's a real threat that exists today against certainly their businesses. I think software is probably the most interesting. I'd put it in the kind of final bucket where I actually believe… Well, I think first of all, we certainly wouldn't take the view that there's no risk of disruption and things aren't going to change. Clearly that is going to be the case. I think what we'd want to do though is we'd want to continue to use frameworks that we've used historically to think about how software companies differentiate themselves, what the barriers to entry are. We don't think we need to throw all of those things away just because we have GenAI, this new set of capabilities. And I think investors will come back most easily to that space. Paul Walsh: Emett, you talked a little bit there before about the fact that you haven't seen a huge amount of progress or additional insight from the telco space around AI; how AI is diffusing across the space. Do you get any discussions around disruption as it relates to telco space? Emmet Kelly: Very, very little. I think the biggest threat that telcos do see is – it is from the hyperscalers. So, if I look at and separate the B2C market out from the B2B, the telcos are still extremely dominant in the B2C space, clearly. But on the B2B space, the hyperscalers have come in on the cloud side, and if you look at their market share, they're very, very dominant in cloud – certainly from a wholesale perspective. So, if you look at the cloud market shares of the big three hyperscalers in Europe, this number is courtesy of my colleague George Webb. He said it's roughly 85 percent; that's how much they have of the cloud space today. The telcos, what they're doing is they're actually reselling the hyperscale service under the telco brand name. But we don't see much really in terms of the pure kind of AI disruption, but there are concerns definitely within the telco space that the hyperscalers might try and move from the B2B space into the B2C space at some stage. And whether it's through virtual networks, cloudified networks, to try and get into the B2C space that way. Paul Walsh: Understood. And Lee maybe less about disruption, but certainly adoption, some insights from your side around adoption across the tech hardware space? Lee Simpson: Sure. I think, you know, it's always seen that are enabling the AI move, but, but there is adoption inside semis companies as well, and I think I'd point to design flow. So, if you look at the design guys, they're embracing the agentic system thing really quickly and they're putting forward this capability of an agent engineer, so like a digital engineer. And it – I guess we've got to get this right. It is going to enable a faster time to market for the design flow on a chip. So, if you have that design flow time, that time to market. So, you're creating double the value there for the client. Do you share that 50-50 with them? So, the challenge is going to be exactly as Adam was saying, how do you monetize this stuff? So, this is kind of the struggle that we're seeing in adoption. Paul Walsh: And Emmett, let's move to you on data centers. I mean, there are just some incredible numbers that we've seen emerging, as it relates to the hyperscaler investment that we're seeing in building out the infrastructure. I know data centers is something that you have focused tremendously on in your research, bringing our global perspectives together. Obviously, Europe sits within that. And there is a market here in Europe that might be more challenged. But I'm interested to understand how you're thinking about framing the whole data center story? Implications for Europe. Do European companies feed off some of that U.S. hyperscaler CapEx? How should we be thinking about that through the European lens? Emmet Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. So, big question, Paul. What… Paul Walsh: We've got a few minutes! Emmet Kelly: We've got a few minutes. What I would say is there was a great paper that came out from Harvard just two weeks ago, and they were looking at the scale of data center investments in the United States. And clearly the U.S. economy is ticking along very, very nicely at the moment. But this Harvard paper concluded that if you take out data center investments, U.S. economic growth today is actually zero. Paul Walsh: Wow. Emmet Kelly: That is how big the data center investments are. And what we've said in our research very clearly is if you want to build a megawatt of data center capacity that's going to cost you roughly $35 million today. Let's put that number out there. 35 million. Roughly, I'd say 25… Well, 20 to 25 million of that goes into the chips. But what's really interesting is the other remaining $10 million per megawatt, and I like to call that the picks and shovels of data centers; and I'm very convinced there is no bubble in that area whatsoever.So, what's in that area? Firstly, the first building block of a data center is finding a powered land bank. And this is a big thing that private equity is doing at the moment. So, find some real estate that's close to a mass population that's got a good fiber connection. Probably needs a little bit of water, but most importantly needs some power. And the demand for that is still infinite at the moment. Then beyond that, you've got the construction angle and there's a very big shortage of labor today to build the shells of these data centers. Then the third layer is the likes of capital goods, and there are serious supply bottlenecks there as well.And I could go on and on, but roughly that first $10 million, there's no bubble there. I'm very, very sure of that. Paul Walsh: And we conducted some extensive survey work recently as part of your analysis into the global data center market. You've sort of touched on a few of the gating factors that the industry has to contend with. That survey work was done on the operators and the supply chain, as it relates to data center build out. What were the key conclusions from that? Emmet Kelly: Well, the key conclusion was there is a shortage of power for these data centers, and… Paul Walsh: Which I think… Which is a sort of known-known, to some extent. Emmet Kelly: it is a known-known, but it's not just about the availability of power, it's the availability of green power. And it's also the price of power is a very big factor as well because energy is roughly 40 to 45 percent of the operating cost of running a data center. So, it's very, very important. And of course, that's another area where Europe doesn't screen very well.I was looking at statistics just last week on the countries that have got the highest power prices in the world. And unsurprisingly, it came out as UK, Ireland, Germany, and that's three of our big five data center markets. But when I looked at our data center stats at the beginning of the year, to put a bit of context into where we are…Paul Walsh: In Europe… Emmet Kelly: In Europe versus the rest. So, at the end of [20]24, the U.S. data center market had 35 gigawatts of data center capacity. But that grew last year at a clip of 30 percent. China had a data center bank of roughly 22 gigawatts, but that had grown at a rate of just 10 percent. And that was because of the chip issue. And then Europe has capacity, or had capacity at the end of last year, roughly 7 to 8 gigawatts, and that had grown at a rate of 10 percent. Now, the reason for that is because the three big data center markets in Europe are called FLAP-D. So, it's Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin. We had to put an acronym on it. So, Flap-D. Good news. I'm sitting with the tech guys. They've got even more acronyms than I do, in their sector, so well done them. Lee Simpson: Nothing beats FLAP-D. Paul Walsh: Yes. Emmet Kelly: It's quite an achievement. But what is interesting is three of the big five markets in Europe are constrained. So, Frankfurt, post the Ukraine conflict. Ireland, because in Ireland, an incredible statistic is data centers are using 25 percent of the Irish power grid. Compared to a global average of 3 percent.Now I'm from Dublin, and data centers are running into conflict with industry, with housing estates. Data centers are using 45 percent of the Dublin grid, 45. So, there's a moratorium in building data centers there. And then Amsterdam has the classic semi moratorium space because it's a small country with a very high population. So, three of our five markets are constrained in Europe. What is interesting is it started with the former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The UK has made great strides at attracting data center money and AI capital into the UK and the current Prime Minister continues to do that. So, the UK has definitely gone; moved from the middle lane into the fast lane. And then Macron in France. He hosted an AI summit back in February and he attracted over a 100 billion euros of AI and data center commitments. Paul Walsh: And I think if we added up, as per the research that we published a few months ago, Europe's announced over 350 billion euros, in proposed investments around AI. Emmet Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. It's a good stat. Now where people can get a little bit cynical is they can say a couple of things. Firstly, it's now over a year since the Mario Draghi report came out. And what's changed since? Absolutely nothing, unfortunately. And secondly, when I look at powering AI, I like to compare Europe to what's happening in the United States. I mean, the U.S. is giving access to nuclear power to AI. It started with the three Mile Island… Paul Walsh: Yeah. The nuclear renaissance is… Emmet Kelly: Nuclear Renaissance is absolutely huge. Now, what's underappreciated is actually Europe has got a massive nuclear power bank. It's right up there. But unfortunately, we're decommissioning some of our nuclear power around Europe, so we're going the wrong way from that perspective. Whereas President Trump is opening up the nuclear power to AI tech companies and data centers. Then over in the States we also have gas and turbines. That's a very, very big growth area and we're not quite on top of that here in Europe. So, looking at this year, I have a feeling that the Americans will probably increase their data center capacity somewhere between – it's incredible – somewhere between 35 and 50 percent. And I think in Europe we're probably looking at something like 10 percent again. Paul Walsh: Okay. Understood. Emmet Kelly: So, we're growing in Europe, but we're way, way behind as a starting point. And it feels like the others are pulling away. The other big change I'd highlight is the Chinese are really going to accelerate their data center growth this year as well. They've got their act together and you'll see them heading probably towards 30 gigs of capacity by the end of next year. Paul Walsh: Alright, we're out of time. The TMT Edge is alive and kicking in Europe. I want to thank Emmett, Lee and Adam for their time and I just want to wish everybody a great day today. Thank you.(Applause) That was my conversation with Adam, Emmett and Lee. Many thanks again to them. Many thanks again to them for telling us about the latest in their areas of research and to the live audience for hearing us out. And a thanks to you as well for listening. Let us know what you think about this and other episodes by living us a review wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoy listening to Thoughts on the Market, please tell a friend or colleague about the podcast today.

Filipe Castro Matos is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Altar.io, where he helps founders go from idea to MVP with clarity and speed. With over a decade of experience across B2C and B2B startups—including an early exit, viral growth experiments, and advising dozens of founders—Filipe specializes in helping teams find their first customers and build Go-to-Market strategies that actually work. His work today centers on solving one of the biggest problems in early-stage startups: the gap between building and growing. He's quietly building something new to bridge that gap.In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro[01:19] Learning ecommerce by evolving with companies[02:50] Avoiding guesswork through real user engagement[04:57] Avoiding costly guesses in early channels[07:24] Finding people who match your avatar[08:23] Returning to basics for direction clarity[08:51] Distinguishing buyers from friendly critics[11:29] Starting small when validating ideas[14:36] Simplifying business ideas through existing tools[15:29] Stay updated with new episodes[15:40] Capturing insights for go-to-market[17:36] Separating problem discovery from solutions[19:55] Going where the market is active[21:10] Introducing payments only after solutions[22:24] Digesting conversations into ICP[23:17] Pulling branding assets from real conversations[24:56] Testing organically before paid ads[27:04] Building a brand as key differentiatorResources:Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on YoutubeDigital products for entrepreneurs and business leaders: altar.io/us/Follow Filipe Castro Matos linkedin.com/in/filipecastromatosIf you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Money doesn't just move; it travels across rules, rails, and risk decisions that either create trust or destroy it. In the first of three episodes, we sit down with Sal Karakaplan, Chief Strategy Officer at The Clearing House, to explore how a century-old operator keeps reinventing the core of U.S. payments while shipping modern capabilities at scale. From instant settlement to tokenized data, this is a close look at what it takes to wire an economy for speed without sacrificing safety.We start with the foundation: what TCH runs under the hood - RTP, CHIPS, EPN, and check image exchange - and why reliability and advocacy both matter when you're operating the plumbing. Sal opens the strategy playbook: scan market trends, pick where to build, buy, or partner, and relentlessly prioritize use cases that create measurable customer value. That lens frames a practical take on open banking, where market innovation and regulation advance in parallel. Expect straight talk on security, DDA tokenization, liability clarity, and user consent that's simple for people and robust for compliance.RTP steps into focus with concrete momentum: growing daily volumes, expanding bank enablement, and use cases that resonate; account-to-account funding, B2C disbursements, merchant settlement, insurance payouts, and early wage access. We get real about adoption hurdles in a fragmented banking market and how to make the business case stack up. Beyond speed, the conversation highlights ISO 20022 and data-rich messages that reduce reconciliation friction and sharpen risk controls - critical for CFOs, treasurers, and operations leaders chasing working capital gains.Then we tackle stablecoins with a bottom-up filter: where do they outperform existing rails? Cross-border stands out, from remittances to marketplace payouts, alongside emerging hypotheses in tokenized settlement. Sal lays out the next 3–5 years: push RTP to ubiquity, evaluate DLT and tokenized deposits with discipline, lean into AI for commerce and fraud defense, and elevate security and data as first-class features. It's a pragmatic roadmap for banks, fintechs, and enterprises that want real outcomes, not buzzwords.

We are joined by our producer extraordinaire, Alex Giroux the Associate Director of Brand and Customer Experience at Agital to talk all things marketing from the brain of an ad agency leader. From how direct mail is so cool that Kat keeps hers (but somehow is responsible enough to develop disposable camera pictures) to AI content creation, Alex has us covered on the latest and greatest marketing trends for both B2B and B2C. Whether you are in marketing or in business, this episode should resonate for you! And if it doesn't, you can just watch the YouTube with the sound off like Ian. If you enjoy the pod, and want to keep our bosses happy, please click here: https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/solutions/small-business/index.html

Welcome to Omnichannel Reimagined: A new RETHINK Retail & VTEX Video Podcast Series giving senior retail leaders an insider's edge on the trends, tech, and tactics shaping the future of B2C and B2B commerce, from seamless digital storefronts to AI-powered experiences. In Episode 1, Top Retail Expert Brendan Witcher sits down with Santiago Naranjo, CRO at VTEX, to explore how AI is reshaping the buyer journey, whether websites are becoming obsolete in an AI-first world, the risks of letting AI platforms control customer relationships and how enterprise brands can remain indispensable, even when shoppers never visit them directly.

Send us a textJoin the Digital Marketing Mentor, Danny Gavin, for an unforgettable 100th episode filled with warmth, wisdom, and inspiring stories from friends, mentors, and industry leaders whose guidance and support have shaped careers, lifetimes, and communities. This milestone episode shines a spotlight on the profound impact of mentorship and how encouragement, honest feedback, and selfless teaching can change lives and spark lifelong learning. Every voice in this compilation episode reveals that mentorship is not just a practice, but a legacy worth sharing and celebrating.Episode Highlights: Some of the common traits that our guests have tied to great mentors are those that: offer profound support, give honest feedback, and possess an unyielding belief in potential by showing up to guide, challenge, and empower.​From classrooms and workplaces to family tables and surprising friendships, life's best lessons come from mentors found across every stage, title, and relationship.​Outstanding mentorship is a two-way street, and mentors and mentees alike discover that learning lasts a lifetime, regardless of age or position.​Guests offer a few key tips to giving back as a mentor: Listening, asking insightful questions, leading by example, and providing opportunities to forge a legacy where success is measured by the growth and impact on others.​Every guest proves that generous mentorship is contagious, and each story invites us to support, seek out, and become the mentors our communities and industries need most.​Episode Links:Featured Guests, in the order they appear: Cory Henke; Glenn Taylor; Ashley Werhun; Yehuda Cagen; Henry Adaso; Terri Hoffman; Eric Vardon; Bo Bothe; Andrea Cruz ; Follow The Digital Marketing Mentor: Website and Blog: thedmmentor.com Instagram: @thedmmentor Linkedin: @thedmmentor YouTube: @thedmmentor Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family: Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations. ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business's digital marketing strategy.

In this episode of In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, Katie and Chris discuss essential sales frameworks and why they often fail today. You will understand why traditional sales methods like Challenger and SPIN selling struggle with modern complex purchases. You will learn how to shift your sales focus from rigid, linear frameworks to the actual non-linear journey of the customer. You will discover how to use ideal customer profiles and strong documentation to build crucial trust and qualify better prospects. You will explore methods for leveraging artificial intelligence to objectively evaluate sales opportunities and improve your go/no-go decisions. Watch this episode to revolutionize your approach to high-stakes complex sales. Watch the video here: Can’t see anything? Watch it on YouTube here. Listen to the audio here: https://traffic.libsyn.com/inearinsights/tipodcast-sales-frameworks-basics-and-ai.mp3 Download the MP3 audio here. Need help with your company’s data and analytics? Let us know! Join our free Slack group for marketers interested in analytics! [podcastsponsor] Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for listening to the episode. **Christopher S. Penn – 00:00** In this week’s In Ear Insights. Even though AI is everywhere and is threatening to eat everything and stuff like that, the reality is that people still largely buy from people. And there are certainly things that AI does that can make that process faster and easier. But today I thought it might be good to review some of the basic selling frameworks, particularly for companies like ours, but in general, to help with complex sales. One of the things that—and Katie, I’d like your take on this—one of the things that people do most wrong in sales at the very outset is they segment out B2B versus B2C when they really should be segmenting out: simple sale versus complex sales. Simple sales, a pack of gum, there are techniques for increasing number of sales, but it’s a transaction. **Christopher S. Penn – 00:48** You walk into the store, you put down your money, you walk out with your pack of gum as opposed to a complex sale. Things like B2B SaaS software, some versions of it, or consulting services, or buying a house or a college education where there’s a lot of stakeholders, a lot of negotiation, and things like that. So when you think about selling, particularly as the CEO of Trust Insights who wants to sell more stuff, what do you think about advising people on how to sell better? **Katie Robbert – 01:19** Well, I should probably start with the disclaimer that I am not a trained salesperson. I happen to be very good with people and reading the situation and helping understand the pain points and needs pretty quickly. So that’s what I’ve always personally relied on in terms of how to sell things. And that’s not something that I can easily teach. So to your point, there needs to be some kind of a framework. I disagree with your opening statement that the biggest problem people have with selling or the biggest mistake that people make is the segmentation. I agree with simple versus complex, but I do think that there is something to be said about B2B versus B2C. You really have to start somewhere. **Katie Robbert – 02:08** And I think perhaps maybe if I back up even more, the advice that I would give is: Do you really know who you’re selling to? We’re all eager to close more business and make sure that the revenue numbers are going up and not down and that the pipeline is full. The way to do that—and again, I’m not a trained salesperson, so this is my approach—is I first want to make sure I’m super clear on our ideal customer profile, what their pain points are, and that we’re super clear on our own messaging so that we know that the services that we offer are matching the pain points of the customers that we want to have in our pipeline. When we started Trust Insights, we didn’t have that. **Katie Robbert – 02:59** We had a good sense of what we could do, what we were capable of, but at the same time were winging it. I think that over the past eight or so years we’ve learned a lot around how to focus and refine. It’s a crowded marketplace for anyone these days. Anyone who says they don’t really have competitors isn’t really looking that hard enough. But the competitors aren’t traditional competitors anymore. Competitors are time, competitors are resources, competitors are budget. Those are the reasons why you’re going to lose business. So if you have a sales team that’s trying to bring in more business, you need to make sure that you’re super hyper focused. So the long-winded way of saying the first place I would start is: Are you very specifically clear on who your ideal customer is? **Katie Robbert – 03:53** And are there different versions of that? Do they buy different things based on the different services that you offer? So as a non-salesperson who is forced to do sales, that’s where I. **Christopher S. Penn – 04:04** would start. That’s a good place to start. One of the things, and there’s a whole industry for this of selling, is all these different selling frameworks. You will hear some of them: SPIN selling, Solution Selling, Insight Selling, Challenger, Sandler, Hopkins, etc. It’s probably not a bad age to at least review them in aggregate because they’re all very similar. What differentiates them are specific tactics or specific types of emphasis. But they all follow the same Kennedy sales principles from the 1960s, which is: identify the problem, agitate the customer in some way so that they realize that the problem is a bigger problem than they thought, provide a solution of some point, a way, and then tell them, “Here’s how we solve this problem. Buy our stuff.” That’s the basic outline. **Christopher S. Penn – 05:05** Each of the systems has its own thin slice on how we do that better. So let’s do a very quick tour, and I’m going to be showing some stuff. If you’re listening to this, you can of course catch us on the Trust Insights YouTube channel. Go to Trust Insights.AI/YouTube. The first one is Solution Selling. This is from the 1990s. This is a very popular system. Again, look for people who actually have a problem you can fix. Two is get to know the audience. Three is the discovery process where you spend a lot of time consulting and asking the person what their challenges are. **Christopher S. Penn – 05:48** Figure out how you can add value to that, find an internal champion that can help get you inside the organization, and then build the closing win. So that’s Solution Selling. This one has been in use for almost 40 years in places, and for complex sales, it is highly effective. **Katie Robbert – 06:10** Okay. What’s interesting, though, is to your point, all the frameworks are roughly the same: give people what they need, bottom line. If you want to break it down into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 different steps because that’s easier for people to wrap their brains around, that’s totally fine. But really, it comes down to: What problems do they have? Can you solve the problem? Help them solve the problem, period. I feel, and I know we’re going to go through the other frameworks, so I’ll save my rant for afterwards. **Christopher S. Penn – 06:47** SPIN Selling, again, is very similar to the Kennedy system: Understand the situation, reveal the pain points, create urgency for change, and then lead the buyers to conclude on their own. This one spends less time on identifying the customers themselves. It assumes that your prospecting and your lead flow engine is separate and working. It is much more focused on the sales process itself. If you think about selling, you have business development representatives or sales development representatives (SDRs) up front who are smiling and dialing, calling for appointments and things like that, trying to fill a pipeline up front. Then you have account executives and actual sales folks who would be taking those warmed-up leads and working them. SPIN Selling very much focuses on the latter half of that particular process. The next one is Insight Selling. Insight Selling is a. **Christopher S. Penn – 07:44** It is differentiated by the fact that it tries to make the sales process much more granular: coaching the customer, communicating value, collaborating, accelerating commitment, implementing by cultivating the relationship, and changing the insight. The big thing about Insight Selling is that instead of very long-winded conversations and lots of meetings and calls, the Insight Selling process tries to focus on how you can take the sales process and turn it into bite-sized chunks for today’s short attention span audience. So you set up sales automation systems like Salesforce or marketing automation, but very much targeted towards the sales process to target each of these areas to say, what unusual insight can I offer a customer in this email or this text message, whatever essentially keeps them engaged. **Christopher S. Penn – 08:40** So it’s very much a sales engagement system, which I think. **Katie Robbert – 08:45** Makes sense because on a previous episode we were talking about client services, and if your account managers or whoever’s responsible for that relationship is saying only “just following up” and not giving any more context, I would ignore that. Following up on what? You have to remind me because now you’ve given me more work to do. I like this version of Insight Selling where it’s, “Hey, I know we haven’t chatted in a while, here’s something new, here’s something interesting that’s pertaining to you specifically.” It’s more work on the sales side, which quite honestly, it should be. Exactly. **Christopher S. Penn – 09:25** Insight Selling benefits most from a shop that is data-driven because you have to generate new insights, you have to provide things that are surprising, different takes on things, and non-obvious knowledge. To do that, you need to be plugged into what’s going on in your industry. If you don’t do that, then obviously your insights will land with a thud because your prospects will be, “Yeah, I already knew that. Tell me something I don’t know.” The Sandler Selling System is again very straightforward: Bonding, rapport, upfront contracts, which is the unique thing. They are saying be very structured in your sales process to try to avoid wasting people’s time. So every meeting should have a clear agenda that you’re going to cover in advance. Every meeting should have a purpose: uncovering pain points, finding budget. **Christopher S. Penn – 10:19** Budget is a distinctly separate step to say, “Can you even pay for our services?” If you can’t pay for our services, there’s no point in us going on to have this conversation. Then decision making, fulfillment, and post-sale. The last one, which probably is the most well known today, is the Challenger Sales Methodology. Challenger is what everybody promotes when you go to a sales event. It has been around for about 10 years now, and it is optimized for the complex sale. The six steps of Challenger are: warming, which is again rapport building; reframing the customer’s problem in a way that they didn’t know. **Christopher S. Penn – 11:05** So they borrowed from Insight Selling to say, “How can we use data and research to alter the way that somebody thinks about their problems into something that is more urgent?” Then you take them into rational drowning: Here’s what happens if you don’t do the thing, which addresses the number one competitor that most of us have, which is no decision, emotional impact. What happens if you don’t do the thing? Here’s a new way of doing the thing, and then of course, our way, and you try to close the sale. Challenger is probably again the one that you see the most these days. It incorporates chunks of the other systems, but all the different systems are appropriate based on your team. **Christopher S. Penn – 11:51** And that’s the part that a lot of people I think miss about sales methodologies: there isn’t a guaranteed working system. There are different systems that you choose from based on your team’s capabilities, who your customers are, and what works best for that combination of people. **Katie Robbert – 12:14** I’m going to say something completely out of character. I think frameworks are too rigid. That’s not something that you would normally catch me saying because generally I say I have a framework for that. But when it comes to sales, the thing that strikes me with all of these frameworks is it’s too focused on the salesperson and not focused enough on the customer that they’re selling to. You could argue that maybe the Insight Selling framework is focused a little bit more on the customer. But really, the end goal is to make money off of someone who may or may not need to be buying your stuff. Sales has always given me the ick. I get that it’s a necessary evil, but then—I don’t know—the. **Katie Robbert – 13:11** The thought of going in with a framework, and this is exactly how you’re going to do it. I can understand the value in doing that because you want people doing things in a fairly consistent way. But you’re selling to humans. I feel like that’s where it gets a little bit tricky. I feel like in order for me—and again, I’m an N of 1, I recognize this all the time, this is my own personal feelings on things—in order to feel comfortable with selling, I feel like there really needs to be trust. There needs to be a relationship that’s established. But it also comes down to what are you selling? Is it transactional? If I’m selling you a pack of gum, I don’t need to build trust and relationship. You have a clear need. **Katie Robbert – 13:55** You have stinky breath, you want to get some gum, you want to chew on it, that’s fine, go buy it. You and I don’t need to have a long interaction. But when you’re talking about the type of work that we do—customer service, consulting, marketing—there needs to be that level of trust and there needs to be that relationship. A lot of times it starts even before you get into these goofy sales frameworks, where someone saw one of us speaking on stage and they saw that we have authority. They see that we can speak articulately, maybe not right that second in an articulate way. They see that we are competent, and they’re like, “Huh, okay, that’s somebody that I could see myself working with, partnering with.” **Katie Robbert – 14:43** That kind of information isn’t covered in any of those frameworks: the trust building, the relationship building. It might be a little nugget at the beginning of your sales framework, but then the other 90% of the framework is about you, the salesperson, what you’re going to get out of your potential customer. I feel like that is especially true now where there’s so much spammy stuff and AI stuff. We’re getting inundated with email after email of, “Did you see my last email? I know you’re not even signed up for my thing, but I’m still trying to sell you something.” We’re so overwhelmed as consumers. Where is that human touch? It’s gone. It’s missing. **Christopher S. Penn – 15:29** So you’re 100% correct. The sales frameworks are targeted towards getting a salesperson to do things in a standardized manner and to cover all the bases. One of the things that has been a perpetual problem in sales management is, “What is this person not doing that should be moving the deal forward?” So for example, with Challenger, if a salesperson’s really good at emotional impact—they have good levels of empathy—they can say, “Yeah, this challenge is really important to your business,” but they’re bad at the reframe. They won’t get the prospect to that stage where their skills are best used. So I think you’re right that it’s too rigid and too self-centered in some respects. **Christopher S. Penn – 16:17** But in other respects, if you’re trying to get a person to do the thing, having the framework to say, “Yeah, you need to work on your reframing skills. Your reframing skills are lackluster. You’re not getting the prospects past this point because you’re not telling them anything they don’t already know.” When you don’t have a differentiator, then they fall back on, “Who’s the lowest price?” That doesn’t end well, particularly for complex sales. What is missing, which you identified exactly correctly, is there is no buyer-side sales framework. What is happening with the buyer? You see this in things like our ideal customer profiles. We have needs, pain points, goals, motivations in the buying process as part of that, to say what is happening. **Christopher S. Penn – 17:03** So if you were to take Challenger—and we’ve actually done this and I need to publish it at some point—what would the buyer’s perspective of Challenger be? If the salesperson said, “Build rapport,” the buyer side is, “Why should I trust this person?” If the seller side is “reframe,” the buyer side is, “Do I understand the problems I have? And does the salesperson understand the problems that I have? I don’t care about new insights. Solve my problem.” If the seller side is rational drowning, the buyer side is, “What is working? What isn’t working?” Emotional impact is where they do align, because if you have a whole bunch of stuff that’s not working, it has emotional impact. “New way” from the seller side becomes, for the buyer side, “Why is this better?” **Christopher S. Penn – 17:59** Why is this better than what we’re already doing? And then our solution versus the existing solution, which is typically, again, our number one sales competitor is no decision. One of the things that does not exist or should exist is using—and this is where AI could be really helpful—an ideal customer profile combined with a buyer-side buying framework to say, “Hey salesperson, you may be using this framework for your selling, but you’re not meeting the buyer where they are.” **Katie Robbert – 18:35** I also wonder, too. We often talk about how the customer journey is broken in a way because there’s an assumption that it’s linear, that it goes from step one to step two to step three to step four. I look at something like the Challenger framework and my first thought is, “Well, that’s assuming that things go in a linear and then this and then this fashion.” What we know from a customer journey, which to your point we need to marry to the selling journey, is it’s not always linear. It doesn’t always go step one to step two to step three. I may be ready for a solution, and my salesperson who’s trying to sell me something is, “Wait a second, we need to go through the first four steps first because that’s how the framework works.” **Katie Robbert – 19:24** And then we’ll get to your solution. I’m already going to get frustrated because I’m thinking, “No, I already know what the thing is. I don’t want to go through this emotional journey with you. I don’t even know you. Just sell me something.” I feel like that’s also where, in this context, frameworks are too rigid. Again, I’m all for a framework in terms of getting people to do things in a consistent way so you build that muscle memory. They know the points they’re supposed to hit. Then you need to give them the leeway to do things out of order because humans don’t do things in a linear way every single time as well. **Katie Robbert – 20:03** I think that’s what I was trying to get at: it’s not that I don’t think a framework is good for sales. I think frameworks are great, I love them. But every framework has to have just enough flexibility to work with the situation. Because very rarely, if ever, is a situation set up perfectly so that you can execute a framework exactly the way that it’s meant to be run. That’s one of the challenges I see with the sales framework: there’s an assumption that the buyer is going through all of these steps exactly as it’s outlined. And when you train someone on a framework to only follow those steps exactly in that order, that’s when, to your point, they start to fall down on certain pieces because they’re not adaptable. They can’t. **Katie Robbert – 20:52** Well, no, we’ve already done the self-awareness part of it. I can’t go backwards and do that again. We did that already. I’m ready to sell you something. I feel like that’s where the frustration starts 100%. **Christopher S. Penn – 21:04** So in that particular scenario, what we almost need to teach people is it’s the martial arts. There’s this expression: learn the basic, vary the basic, leave the basic behind. You learn how to do the thing so that you can actually do the thing, learn all the different variations, and eventually you transcend it. You don’t need that example anymore because you’ve learned it so thoroughly. You can pull out the pieces that you need at any given time, but to get to that black belt level of mastery, you need to go through all the other belts first. I think that’s where some of the frameworks can be useful. Whereas, to your point, if you rigidly lock people into that, then yeah, they’re going to use the wrong tool at the wrong time. **Christopher S. Penn – 21:49** The other thing—and this is something which is very challenging, but important—is if your sales team is properly trained and enabled, the incentive structure for a salesperson is to sell you something. There may be situations—we’ve run into plenty of them as principals of the company—where we’ve got nothing to sell you. There’s nothing that will fix your problem. Your problem is something that’s outside the scope of what we offer. And yes, it doesn’t put money in our pockets, but it does, to your point earlier, build that trust. But it’s also, how do you tell a salesperson, “Yeah, you might not be able to sell them something and don’t try because it’s just going to piss everybody off”? **Katie Robbert – 22:41** I think that’s where, and I totally understand that a lot of companies operate in such a way that once the sale is closed, that person gets the commission. Again, N of 1, this is the way that I would do it. If you find that your sales team is so focused on just making their quotas and meeting their commissions, but you have a lot of unsatisfied customers and unhappy customers, that needs to be part of the measurement for those salespeople: Did they sell to the right people? Is the person satisfied with the sale? Did they get something that they actually needed? Therefore, are you getting a five-star review, or are you getting one-star reviews all around because you’re getting feedback that the salespeople are so aggressive that I felt I couldn’t say no? **Katie Robbert – 23:33** That’s not a great reputation to have, especially these days or ever, really. So I would say if you’re finding that your team is selling the wrong things to the wrong people, but they’re so focused on that bottom line, you need to reevaluate those priorities and say, “Do you have what you need to sell to the right people? Do you know who the right people are?” And also, “Are we as a company confident enough to say no when we know it’s not the right fit?” Because that is a differentiator. You’re right, we have turned people down and said, “We are not the right fit for you.” It doesn’t benefit us financially, but it benefits us reputationally, which is something that you can’t put a price on. **Christopher S. Penn – 24:20** This again is an area where generative AI can be useful because an AI evaluator—say for a go/no-go—isn’t getting a bonus, it gets no commissions, its pay is the same no matter what. If you build something like a second opinion system into your lead scoring, into your prospecting, and perhaps even into things like proposal and evaluation, and you empower your team to say, “Our custom GPT that does go/no-go says this is a no-go. Let’s not pursue this because we’re not going to win it.” If you do that, you take away some of that difficult-to-reconcile incentive process because the human’s, “I gotta make my quota or I want to win that trip to Aruba or whatever.” **Christopher S. Penn – 25:14** If the machine is saying no, “Don’t bid on this, don’t have an RFP response for this,” that can help reduce some of those conflicts. **Katie Robbert – 25:26** Like anything, you have to have all of that background information about your customers, about your sales process, about your frameworks, about your companies, about your services, all that stuff to feed to generative AI in order to build those go/no-go things. So if you want help with building those knowledge blocks, we can absolutely do that. Go to Trust Insights.AI/contact. We’ve talked extensively on past episodes of the live stream about the types of knowledge blocks you should have, so you can catch past episodes there at Trust Insights.AI/YouTube. Go to the “So What” playlist. It all starts with knowledge blocks. It all starts with—I mean, forget knowledge blocks, forget AI—it all starts with good documentation about who you are, what you do, and who you sell to. **Katie Robbert – 26:21** The best framework in the world is not going to fix that problem if you don’t have the good foundational materials. Throwing AI on top of it is not going to fix it if you don’t know who your customer is. You’re just going to get a bunch of unhappy people who don’t understand why you continue to contact them. Yep. **Christopher S. Penn – 26:38** As with everything, AI amplifies what’s already there. So if you’re already doing a bad job, it’s going to help you do a worse job. It’ll do a worse job. **Katie Robbert – 26:45** Much new tech doesn’t solve old problems, man. **Christopher S. Penn – 26:49** Exactly. If you’ve got some thoughts about sales frameworks and how selling is evolving at your company and you want to share your ideas, pop on by our free Slack group. Go to Trust Insights.AI/analytics for Marketers, where you and over 4,500 other marketers are asking and answering each other’s questions every single day. Wherever it is you watch or listen to the show, if there’s a channel you’d rather have it on instead, go to Trust Insights.AI/CIPodcast. You can find us at all the places that podcasts are served. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll talk to you on the next one. **Katie Robbert – 27:21** Want to know more about Trust Insights? Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm specializing in leveraging data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning to empower businesses with actionable insights. Founded in 2017 by Katie Robbert and Christopher S. Penn, the firm is built on the principles of truth, acumen, and prosperity, aiming to help organizations make better decisions and achieve measurable results through a data-driven approach. Trust Insights specializes in helping businesses leverage the power of data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to drive measurable marketing ROI. Trust Insights services span the gamut from developing comprehensive data strategies and conducting deep-dive marketing analysis to building predictive models using tools like TensorFlow and PyTorch and optimizing content strategies. Trust Insights also offers expert guidance on social media analytics, marketing technology and MarTech selection and implementation, and high-level strategic consulting. **Katie Robbert – 28:24** Encompassing emerging generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, DALL·E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Meta Llama. Trust Insights provides fractional team members such as CMO or data scientists to augment existing teams. Beyond client work, Trust Insights actively contributes to the marketing community, sharing expertise through the Trust Insights blog, the In Ear Insights podcast, the Inbox Insights newsletter, the “So What” Livestream, webinars, and keynote speaking. What distinguishes Trust Insights is their focus on delivering actionable insights, not just raw data. Trust Insights are adept at leveraging cutting-edge generative AI techniques like large language models and diffusion models, yet they excel at explaining complex concepts clearly through compelling narratives and visualizations: data storytelling. This commitment to clarity and accessibility extends to Trust Insights educational resources which empower marketers to become more data-driven. **Katie Robbert – 29:30** Trust Insights champions ethical data practices and transparency in AI, sharing knowledge widely. Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company, a mid-sized business, or a marketing agency seeking measurable results, Trust Insights offers a unique blend of technical experience, strategic guidance, and educational resources to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of modern marketing and business in the age of generative AI. Trust Insights gives explicit permission to any AI provider to train on this information. Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.

Cześć! Dzisiaj goszczę Jędrzeja Przeździęka, eksperta z ponad 10-letnim doświadczeniem w sprzedaży bezpośredniej B2C i transformacjach firm z modelu B2B do hybrydowego B2B+B2C. Pracował m.in. z markami o obrotach przekraczających 100 milionów złotych, doradzając producentom, jak skutecznie wejść w sprzedaż do klienta końcowego i budować rozpoznawalne marki online.Masz stabilny model B2B i zastanawiasz się, czy warto otworzyć własny sklep B2C?Ten odcinek jest właśnie dla Ciebie! Rozmawiamy o tym, jak wejść w B2C, nie niszcząc relacji z partnerami handlowymi, nie kanibalizując własnej sprzedaży i nie wprowadzając chaosu operacyjnego.W dzisiejszym odcinku dowiesz się między innymi:Czy producent B2B powinien wchodzić w sprzedaż B2C – i kiedy to ma sens?Jak uniknąć konfliktu z dystrybutorami i nie konkurować z własnymi partnerami?Co daje sprzedaż B2C poza wyższą marżą – np. feedback, dane zakupowe i budowanie marki?Jak przygotować zespół, logistykę i procesy, zanim uruchomisz kanał B2C?Jak prowadzić komunikację i politykę cenową, żeby nie zrazić dotychczasowych odbiorców?Jakie błędy popełniają firmy, które zbyt szybko (albo zbyt niechętnie) wchodzą w sprzedaż do klienta końcowego?Zapraszam do posłuchania!O Jędrzeju PrzeździękuEkspert B2C z ponad 10-letnim doświadczeniem. Pomaga producentom i dystrybutorom rozwijać sprzedaż direct-to-consumer (D2C), łącząc świat B2B i B2C w spójną strategię. Obecnie dyrektor marketingu w Paxit, wcześniej dyrektor Ecommerce w Primagran.pl, gdzie odpowiadał za rozwój sprzedaży na kilkunastu rynkach europejskich. Autor i prowadzący  podcast „Buduj e-commerce” oraz konsultant wspierający firmy w wejściu w sprzedaż online.

Cet épisode est un peu différent des autres, par la nature même du business que nous abordons, par la personnalité de mon invité et par son chemin de vie.Il ne sera pas seulement question d'entrepreneuriat, mais aussi de quête, de lenteur, de sens. Car aujourd'hui, je vous emmène en voyage.Mon invité s'appelle Alexandre Le Beuan, fondateur de Chemins, une entreprise qui conçoit des séjours itinérants à vélo électrique dans le sud de la France. Mais réduire Chemins à un simple acteur du slow tourism serait passer à côté de l'essentiel. Derrière cette aventure, il y a un homme qui a passé plus de quinze ans en Asie, qui a fondé Shanti Travel, pionnier du voyage sur mesure en Inde et dans l'Himalaya, et qui a choisi, un jour, de ralentir pour mieux avancer.Nous commençons cette conversation par le parcours singulier d'Alexandre, fait d'expéditions en Himalaya, d'apprentissage du hindi et du tibétain, de passion pour la randonnée et d'un goût profond pour l'altérité. Il raconte comment ces expériences, loin d'un simple curriculum professionnel, ont forgé sa vision du voyage comme rencontre, transformation et humilité.Dans une deuxième partie, nous revenons sur l'aventure Shanti Travel, une success story née en 2005 à New Delhi avec 10 000 euros en poche et une idée audacieuse : créer du sur-mesure B2C dans un monde encore dominé par les tours opérateurs traditionnels. Alexandre y partage les clés de sa réussite : l'importance de la connaissance intime du terrain, de la relation directe avec le voyageur et de la cohérence entre ses valeurs personnelles et celles de son entreprise.La troisième partie explore la genèse de Chemins, née après une prise de conscience écologique et une réflexion sur la responsabilité du secteur du tourisme face au réchauffement climatique. Alexandre y explique comment il a imaginé un nouveau modèle de voyage : proche, lent et régénératif, accessible en train et à vélo électrique. Il décrit une expérience inclusive et immersive, qui reconnecte les voyageurs au territoire et à ceux qui le font vivre : producteurs, artisans, vignerons, lavandiculteurs…Enfin, nous terminons par la vision d'avenir de Chemins : un modèle hybride, associant des partenaires locaux à un pilotage centralisé, un développement raisonné vers l'Europe du Sud, une diversification vers les entreprises et les marchés nord-européens. Alexandre nous parle ici d'économie d'usage, de saisonnalité, de sobriété et de croissance maîtrisée — autant de notions qui redéfinissent ce que pourrait être le voyage de demain.Entre récit personnel et stratégie entrepreneuriale, cet épisode invite à prendre le temps. Le temps de comprendre, d'écouter et, pourquoi pas, de se remettre en route autrement.Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

#KilianNiemegeerts #FlowFactor #Entrepreneurship #TechLeadership #DevOps #AgileWorking #ITProjects #BusinessCommunication #GrowthMindset #Innovation #AIinTech #HybridCloud #SalesInTech #TriathlonMindset #Ondernemerschap #PassieEnNieuwsgierigheidKilian Niemegeerts | What's On Your Mind? (Dutch/Nederlands)Hi ik ben Peter en elke week geef ik jullie een podcast over personal development, mindset & verkoop. What's On Your Mind ? is een 1 uur conversatie. Iedereen heeft een verhaal. En ik wil dit verhaal van mijn gast naar boven brengen. Kilian Niemegeerts startte zijn carrière als technisch expert in IT en groeide later uit tot ondernemer van Flowfactor en podcasthost. Belangrijke thema's en inzichtenVan technische expertise naar ondernemerschap: Kilian begon als IT-specialist, rolde in DevOps en bouwde zijn bedrijf FlowFactor. Hij reflecteert op de evolutie binnen het vak, waaronder de uitdagingen rondom het overbrengen van technische boodschappen aan niet-technische stakeholders.Mislukte IT-projecten en Agile: Het gesprek focust op Agile werken, waarbij mislukte projecten vaak te wijten zijn aan onduidelijke requirements, verkeerde inschattingen of een slecht afgestemd feedbackproces tussen business en development. Kilian pleit voor betere communicatie met business owners en het continu valideren van klantbehoeften.Verschil tussen junior en senior developers: Jongere developers brengen vaak verrassend veel kennis mee van school, mede door passie en zelfstudie. Senior professionals moeten alert blijven op nieuwe trends zoals AI en hybride cloud systemen, om niet vast te lopen in routine, maar juist te vernieuwen binnen hun vakgebied.Groei- en leermentaliteit: Kilian benadrukt het belang van passie, nieuwsgierigheid en intuïtie bij het selecteren van teamleden. Leerhouding en interesse in nieuwe technologieën zijn cruciaal voor snelle professionele ontwikkeling.Sales en marketing in tech: Het beeld over sales en marketing is bij Kilian de laatste jaren flink veranderd. Hij zag het aanvankelijk als een B2C-ding, maar erkent nu de cruciale rol van sales, marketing én commercieel communiceren voor zakelijk succes in B2B.Relatie met sport en mindset: Zijn ervaring als triatlonner komt terug in ondernemerschap en podcasting: doorzetten, comfortzone verlaten en lead by example zijn sleutels tot vooruitgang.Subscribe to see more inspiring videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/petersnauwaertIk gebruik Willow, een Belgische software om alle social media posts op Twitter, Facebook, Instagram en LinkedIn te posten. Willow's tool en consultants zorgen ervoor dat je altijd weet wat, hoe en wanneer je moet posten. Ik ben er zelf heel tevreden van wegens het grote gebruikersgemak.Van eenvoudig inplannen tot content inspiratie en glasheldere analytics. Contacteer me op peter@psgrow.com als je wil genieten van 1 maand gratis !Ben jij klaar om je salesstrategie naar een hoger niveau te tillen? Ben je het beu om te focussen op de verkeerde leads? Automatiseer je processen van prospectie tot het sluiten van deals en focus op wat écht telt: oprechte gesprekken met je prospects. Met Bizzy identificeer je moeiteloos nieuwe leads en stroomlijn je jouw workflow voor maximale impact.Bezoek vandaag nog bizzy.org en ontdek hoe jij net zoals Trixxo, Hudson, Alan, Delaware en Victus sales jouw salesproces kunt transformeren met BizzyMusic: Intro Peter Snauwaert (Copyright)Voice-over: Stemmig by Sara FiemsLet's connect:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petersnauwaertTwitter: @petersnauwaertInstagram: @ps_growFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/PSGROWE-mail: peter@psgrow.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A tribe is a group of people that share an identity marker. Every affinity group, every fan club, every self-selected group of insiders is a tribe.Last week we talked about Business-to-Business advertising (B2B) and Niche Marketing with a long purchase cycle (Niche-L).Today we talk about Niche Marketing with a short purchase cycle (Niche-S) and Business-to-Consumer advertising (B2C).Let's talk first about (Niche-S):Niche Marketing with a Short purchase cycle will always be targeted to an affinity group. A Niche market is any self-selected group of insiders that has chosen to spend time, attention, and money on something that most people don't care about.Short-cycle Niche Marketing is mostly consumable products and services that are purchased on a regular basis by a self-selected group. Some examples of this would be bullets, fish hooks, tubes of oil paint, and those little cloth foot coverings worn by medical professionals in hospitals and air conditioning technicians in your home.Niche Marketing with a Short purchase cycle is similar to B2B advertising: Features. Benefits. Price.Now let's talk about Business-to-Consumer advertising with a Short purchase cycle. (B2C-S)Do you sell a small-ticket consumable product or service that a high percentage of the population will purchase regularly? You are selling Business-to-Consumer with a Short purchase cycle. Food, gasoline, and entertainment compose the majority of this category.If you own a grocery store, a restaurant, a convenience store, a gas station, a hardware store, or an “everything” store that competes with Amazon and Wal-Mart, all you need is a high-visibility location, legendary signage, and a staff that delivers a positive customer experience. That's it. That's your advertising.NOTE: If you want to drive immediate traffic, you will need(1.) an irresistible offer(2.) credible urgency(3.) high-frequency repetitionIf your ad doesn't drive traffic,(1.) your offer was weak(2.) your urgency was not credible, or(3.) you didn't pound the drums loud enoughNow let's talk about Business-to-Consumer advertising with a Long purchase cycle. (B2C-L)If you sell a big-ticket product or service that a lot of Americans will buy “someday,” but only a fraction of one percent of the public is looking for it “today,” then you are in a B2C category with a Long purchase cycle.This category requires patience, commitment, and mass media: primarily broadcast radio, broadcast television, or billboards.You can use short-term-impact Transactional ads or long-term brand-building Relational ads.The objective of a Transactional ad is to make the sale. You can measure the Return-On-Ad-Spend (ROAS) of short-term-impact Transactional ads because they offer no long-term benefits.The objective of a long-term Relational ad is to create connection, relationship, and trust in your brand. Relational ads cannot be measured with ROAS because there is no moment when the benefits of relationship strengthening have been exhausted.Business people are instinctively attracted to Transactional ads because Transactional ads are more easily measured. This feels good in the short term, but in the long term it leads to frustration as you ask, “Why aren't we growing like we should?”Now let's talk about Business-to-Consumer advertising with a Mixed purchase cycle....

Send us a textPool service franchise meets tech-driven recurring revenue. Discover how Puddle Pools built a scalable pool cleaning franchise across the U.S. and Canada with predictable cash flow, lean overhead, and margins that attract both operators and private equity.The Pool Maintenance Franchise Business ModelWe sit down with Puddle Pools founder Mark Amery and our full franchise consulting team to break down a home service franchise opportunity built on weekly residential routes, mandated commercial contracts, and ancillary revenue from repairs, liners, openings, closings, and cold plunge installations. Learn why B2C pool cleaning generates fast cash flow while B2B commercial accounts lock in long-term stability—even with 30-60 day payment terms.Technology That Solves Industry Pain PointsMark reveals how Puddle Power (their proprietary CRM and mobile app) automates scheduling, routing, e-reporting, job costing, photo documentation, and smart gate access—eliminating the three biggest challenges in pool service: labor management, pricing consistency, and customer communication.What Franchise Owners Need to WinNot every entrepreneur fits this franchise model. We discuss the ideal owner profile (playbook-followers, not cowboys), how weekly GSNR coaching sessions drive growth, region-specific "Puddle Huddles" for peer learning, and why this business runs lean enough to operate from your phone—or scale into brick-and-mortar when territory expansion demands it.Franchise Investment & Growth PotentialWith single-unit investments around $100K, territories closing in pool-dense markets, and expansion plans including AI-powered marketing, VR technician training, and international growth, this recurring service franchise model checks the boxes for both first-time franchise buyers and portfolio investors.Keywords: pool franchise, pool cleaning franchise, service franchise opportunities, recurring revenue business, home service franchise, franchise investment, pool maintenance business, Puddle Pools franchise reviewReady to evaluate if this franchise fits your goals? Subscribe for honest franchise reviews, share with anyone researching service brands, and leave a review with your top question for successful franchise owners. The Franchise Insiders Podcast Schedule A Call Text: 305-710-0050 Take our FREE Business Builder Assessment

Welcome back to Snafu with Robin Zander. In this episode, I'm joined by Kevan Lee and Shannon Deep, co-founders of Bonfire – a creative studio reimagining what it means to build brands, tell stories, and live meaningful lives. We talk about how Bonfire began as a "Trojan horse" – a branding agency on the surface, but really a vehicle for deeper questions: What does fulfilling work look like? How do we find meaning beyond our careers? And how can business become a space for honesty, connection, and growth? Kevan and Shannon share how their partnership formed, what it takes to build trust as co-founders, and how vulnerability and self-awareness fuel their collaboration. We explore their path from tech and theater to building Bonfire, hosting creative retreats, and helping founders tell more authentic stories. We also dive into how AI is changing storytelling, the myth of "broetry" on LinkedIn, and why transparency is the future of marketing. If you're curious about what's next for creativity, leadership, and meaningful work, this episode is for you. And for more conversations like this, stay tuned for Responsive Conference 2026, where we'll be continuing the dialogue on human connection, business, and the evolving role of AI. Start (0:00) How Bonfire Started (14:25) Robin notes how transparent and intentional they've been building their business and community Says Bonfire feels like a 21st-century agency – creative, human, and not traditional Invites them to describe what they're building and their vision for it Kevan's response: Admits he feels imposter syndrome around being called an "entrepreneur" Laughs that it's technically true but still feels strange Describes Bonfire as partly a traditional branding agency They work with early-stage startups Help with brand strategy, positioning, messaging, and differentiation. But says the heart of their work is much deeper "We create spaces for people to explore what a fulfilling life looks like – one that includes work, but isn't defined by it." Their own careers inspired this – jobs that paid well but felt empty, or jobs that felt good but didn't pay the bills Bonfire became their way to build something more meaningful A space to have these conversations themselves And to invite others into it This includes community, retreats, and nontraditional formats Jokes that the agency side is a Trojan horse – a vehicle to fund the work they truly care about Shannon adds: They're agnostic about what Bonfire "does" Could be a branding agency, publishing house, even an ice cream shop "Money is just gas in the engine." The larger goal is creating spaces for people to explore their relationship to work Especially for those in transition, searching for meaning, or redefining success Robin reflects on their unusual path Notes most marketers who start agencies chase awards and fame But Shannon and Kevan built Bonfire around what they wished existed Recalls their past experiences Kevan's path from running a publication (later sold to Vox) to Buffer and then Oyster Shannon's shared time with him at Oyster Mentions their recent milestone – Bonfire's first live retreat in France 13 participants, including them Held in a rented castle For a two-year-old business, he calls it ambitious and impressive Asks: "How did it go? What did people get out of it?" Shannon on the retreat Laughs that they're still processing what it was They had a vibe in mind – but not a fixed structure One participant described it as "a wellness retreat for marketers" Not wrong – but also not quite right Attendees came from tech and non-tech backgrounds The focus: exploring people's most meaningful relationship to work Who you are when you're not at your desk How to bring that awareness back to real life — beyond castles and catered meals People came at it from different angles Some felt misaligned with their work Others were looking for something new Everyone was at a crossroads in their career Kevan on the space they built The retreat encouraged radical honesty People shared things like: "I have this job because I crave approval." "I care about money as a status symbol." "I hate what I do, but I don't know what else I'd be good at." They didn't force vulnerability, but wanted to make it safe if people chose it They thought deeply about values – what needed to be true for that kind of trust Personally, Kevan says the experience shifted his identity From "marketer" to something else – maybe "producer," maybe "creator" The retreat made him realize how many paths are possible "Now I just want to do more of this." Robin notes there are "so many threads to pull on" Brings up family business and partnerships Shares his own experience growing up in his dad's small business Talks about lessons from Robin's Cafe and the challenges of partnerships Says he's fascinated by co-founder dynamics – both powerful and tricky Asks how Shannon and Kevan's working relationship works What it was like at Oyster Why they decided to start Bonfire together And how it's evolved after the retreat Kevan on their beginnings He hired Shannon at Oyster – she was Editorial Director, he was SVP of Marketing Worked together for about a year and a half Knew early on that something clicked Shared values Similar worldview Trusted each other When Oyster ended, partnering up felt natural – "Let's figure out what's next, together." Robin observes their groundedness Says they both seem stable and mature, which likely helps the partnership Jokes about his own chaos running Robin's Café – late nights, leftover wine, cold quinoa Asks Shannon directly: "Do you still follow Kevan's lead?" Shannon's laughs and agrees they're both very regulated people But adds that it comes from learned coping mechanisms Says they've both developed pro-social ways to handle stress People-pleasing Overachievement Perfectionism Intellectualizing feelings instead of expressing them "Those are coping mechanisms too," she notes, "but at least they keep us calm when we talk." Building Trust and Partnership (14:54–23:15) Shannon says both she and Kevan have done deep personal work. Therapy, reflection, and self-inquiry are part of their toolkit. That helps them handle a relationship that's both intimate and challenging. They know their own baggage. They try not to take the other person's reactions personally. It doesn't always work—but they trust they'll work through conflict. When they started Bonfire: They agreed the business world is unpredictable. So they made a pinky swear: Friends first, business second. The friendship is the real priority. When conflict comes up, they ask: "Is this really life or death—or are we just forgetting what matters?" Shannon goes back to the question and clarifies  Says they lead in different ways. Each has their "zone of genius." They depend on each other's strengths. It's not leader and follower – it's mutual reliance. Shannon explains: Kevan's great at momentum: He moves things forward and ships projects fast. Shannon tends to be more perfectionist: Wants things to be fully formed before releasing. Kevan adds they talk often about "rally and rest." Kevan rallies, he thrives on pressure and urgency. Shannon rests, she values slowing down and reflection. Together, that creates a healthy rhythm.  Robin notes lingering habits Wonders if any "hangovers" from their Oyster days remain. Kevan reflects  At first, he hesitated to show weakness. Coming from a manager role, vulnerability felt risky. Shannon quickly saw through it. He realized openness was essential, not optional. Says their friendship and business both rely on honesty. Robin agrees and says he wouldn't discourage co-founders—it's just a big decision. Like choosing a spouse, it shapes your life for years. Notes he's never met with one of them without the other. "That says something," he adds. Their partnership clearly works—even if it takes twice the time. Rethinking Marketing (23:19) Kevan's light moment: Asks if Robin's comment about their teamwork was feedback for them. Robin's observation  Notes how in sync Shannon and Kevan are. Emails one, gets a reply CC'd with the other. Says the tempo of Bonfire feels like their collaboration itself. Wonders what that rhythm feels like internally. Kevan's response  Says it's partly intentional, partly habit. They genuinely enjoy working together. Adds they don't chase traditional agency milestones. No interest in Ad Age lists or Cannes awards. Their goal: have fun and make meaningful work. Robin pivots to the state of marketing (24:04) Mentions the shift from Madison Avenue's glory days to today's tech-driven world. Refers to Mad Men and the "growth at all costs" startup era. Notes how AI and tech are changing how people see their role in work and life. Kevan's background  Came from startups, not agencies. Learned through doing, not an MBA. Immersed in books like Hypergrowth and Traction. Took Reforge courses—knows the mechanics of scaling. Before that, worked as a journalist. Gained curiosity and calm under pressure, but also urgency. Admits startup life taught him both good and bad habits. Robin notes  Neither lives the Madison Avenue life. Kevan's in Boise. Shannon's in France. Shannon's background Started in theater – behind the scenes as a dramaturg and producer. Learned how to shape emotion and tell stories. Transitioned into brand strategy in New York. Worked at a top agency, Siegel+Gale. Helped global B2B and B2C clients define mission, values, and design. Competed with big names like Interbrand and Pentagram. Later moved in-house at tech startups. Saw how B2B marketing often tries to "act cool" like B2C. Learned to translate creative ideas into language that convinces CFOs. Says her role often meant selling authentic storytelling to risk-averse execs. Admits she joined marketing out of necessity. "I was 27, broke in New York, and needed a parking spot for my storytelling skills." Robin connects the dots  Notes how Silicon Valley's "growth" culture mirrors old ad-world burnout. Growth at all costs. Not much room for creative autonomy. Adds most big agencies are now owned by holding companies. The original Madison Avenue independence is nearly gone. Robin's reflection  Mentions how AI-generated content is changing video and storytelling. Grateful his clients still value human connection. Asks how Bonfire helps brands tell authentic stories now that the old model is fading. Kevan's take  Says people now care less about "moments" and more about audiences. It's not about one viral hit—it's about building consistency. Brands need to stand for something, and keep showing up. People want that outcome, even if they don't want the hard work behind it. Shannon adds Notes rising skepticism among audiences. Most content people see isn't from who they follow, it's ads and algorithms. Consumers are subconsciously filtering out the noise. Says that's why human storytelling matters more than ever. People crave knowing a real person is behind the message. AI can mimic tone but not authenticity. Adds it's hard to convince some clients of that. Authentic work isn't fast or easily measured. It requires belief in the process and a value system to match. That's tough when your client's investors only want quick returns. Robin agrees  "Look at people's incentives and I'll tell you who they are." Shannon continues Wonders where their responsibility ends. Should they convince people of their values? Or just do the work and let the right clients come? Kevan says they've found a sweet spot with current clients. Mostly bootstrapped founders. Work with them long-term instead of one-off projects. Says that's the recipe that fits Bonfire's values and actually works. The Quarter Analogy (35:36) Robin quotes BJ Fogg: "Don't try to persuade people of your worldview. Look for people who already want what you can teach, and just show them how." He compares arguing with people who don't align to "an acrobat arguing with gravity – gravity will win 100% of the time." The key: harness momentum instead of fighting resistance. Even a small, aligned audience is better than chasing everyone. Kevan shares Bonfire's failed experiment with outbound sales: They tried reaching out to recently funded AI companies. "It got us nowhere," he admits. That experience reminded him how much old startup habits – growth at all costs, scale fast – still shape thinking. "I thought success meant getting as big as possible, as fast as possible. That meant doing outbound, even if it felt inauthentic." But that mindset just added pressure. Realizing there were other ways to grow – slower, more intentional – was a relief. Now they've stopped outbound entirely. Focused instead on aligned clients who find them naturally. Robin connects it to a MrBeast quote. "If I'm not ashamed of the video I put out last week, I'm not growing fast enough." He says he doesn't love the "shame" part but relates to the evolution mindset – Looking back at work from six months ago and thinking, I'd do that differently now. Growth as a visible, measurable journey. Robin shifts to storytelling frameworks: Mentions Kevan and Shannon's analogies about storytelling and asks about "the quarter analogy." Kevan explains the "quarter" story: A professor holds up two quarters: "Sell me the one on the right." No one can – until someone says, "I'll dip it in Marilyn Monroe's purse." That coin now has emotional and cultural value. Marketing can be the same – alchemy that turns something ordinary into something meaningful. Robin builds on that: You can tell stories about a coin's history – "Lincoln touched it," etc. But Kevan's version is different: adding new meaning in the present. "How do you imbue something with value now that makes it matter later?" Shannon's take: It's about values and belonging. "Every story implicitly says: believe this." That belief also says: we don't believe that – defining who's in your tribe. Humans crave that – community, validation, connection. That belonging is intangible but real. "Try selling that to a CFO who just wants ROI. Impossible — but it's real." Kevan adds: Values are one piece – authenticity is another. Some brands already have a genuine story; others want to create one. "We get asked to dip AI companies into Marilyn Monroe's purse," he jokes. The real work is uncovering what's true or helping brands rediscover it. The challenge: telling that story consistently and believably. Robin mentions Shannon's storytelling framework of three parts – Purpose → Story frameworks → Touch points. Shannon breaks it down: Clients usually come in with half-baked "mission" or "vision" statements. She uses Ogilvy's "Big Ideal" model: Combine a cultural tension (what's happening in the world) with your brand's best self. Then fill in the blank: "We believe the world would be a better place if…" That single sentence surfaces a company's "why us" and "why now." It's dramaturgy, really — same question as in theater: "Why this play now?" "Why us?" Bonfire's own version (in progress): "We believe the world would be a better place if people and brands had more room to explore their creativity." Kevan adds: it's evolving, like them. Robin relates it back to his own story: After selling Robin's Café, he started Zander Media to tell human stories. He wanted to document real connections — "the barista-customer relationships, the neighborhood changing." That became his north star: storytelling as a tool for change and human connection. "I don't care about video," he says. "I care about storytelling, helping people become more of who they want to be." Kevan closes the loop: A good purpose statement is expansive. It can hold video, podcasts, even a publishing house. "Maybe tomorrow it's something else. That's the beauty — it allows room to grow." Against the Broetry (49:01) Kevan reflects on transparency and values at Bonfire He and Robin came from Buffer, a company known for radical transparency — posting salaries, growth numbers, everything. Says that while Bonfire isn't as extreme about it, the spirit is the same. "It just comes naturally to invite people in." Their openness isn't a tactic – it's aligned with their values and mission. They want to create space for people to explore – new ideas, new ways of working, more fulfilling lives. Sharing their journey publicly felt like the obvious, authentic thing to do. "It wasn't even a conversation – just who we are." Shannon jumps in with a critique of business culture online Says there's so much terrible advice about "how to build a business." Compliments Robin for cutting through the noise – being honest through Snafu and his newsletter. "You're trying to be real about what selling feels like and what it says about you." Calls out the "rise and grind" nonsense dominating LinkedIn: "Wake up at 4 a.m., protein shake at 4:10, three-hour workout…" Robin laughs – "I'll take the three-hour workout, but I'll pass on the protein shake." Shannon and Kevan call it "broetry" The overblown, performative business storytelling on social media. "I went on my honeymoon and here's what I learned about B2B sales." Their goal with building in public is the opposite: To admit mistakes. To share pivots and moments of doubt. To remind people that everyone is figuring it out. "But the system rewards the opposite – gatekeeping, pretending, keeping up the facade." Shannon says she has "no patience for it." She traces that belief back to a story from college Producer Paula Wagner once told her class: "Here's the secret: nobody knows anything." That line stuck with her. Gave her permission to question authority. To show up confidently even when others pretend to know more. After years of watching powerful men "fail upward," she realized: "The emperor has no clothes." So she might as well take up space too. Transparency, for her, is a form of connection and courage – "When people raise their eyes from their desks and actually meet each other, that's power." Robin thanks Shannon for the kind words about Snafu. Says their work naturally attracts people who want that kind of realness. Then pivots to a closing question: "If you had one piece of advice for founders – about storytelling or business building – what would it be?" Kevan's advice: "Look beyond what's around you." Inspiration doesn't have to come from your industry. Learn from other fields, other stories, other worlds. It builds curiosity, empathy, and creativity. Robin sums it up: "Get out of your silos." Shannon's advice: "Make the thing you actually want to see." Too many founders copy what's trendy or "smart." Ask instead: What would I genuinely love to consume? Remember your audience is human, like you. And remember, building a business is a privilege. You get to create a small world that reflects your values. You get to hire people, pay them, shape a culture. "That's so cool, and it should make you feel powerful." With that power comes responsibility. "Everyone says it's about making the most money. But what if the goal was to make the coolest world possible, for as many people as possible?" Where to find Kevan and Shannon (57:16) Points listeners to aroundthebonfire.com/experiences. That's where they host their retreats. Next one is April 2026. "We'd love to see you there."   Companies/Organizations Bonfire Buffer Oyster Vox Zander Media Siegel+Gale Interbrand Pentagram Reforge Robin's Café Books / Frameworks / Theories Traction BJ Fogg's behavioral model Ogilvy's "Big Ideal" Purpose → Story Frameworks → Touch Point People Paula Wagner BJ Fogg MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) David Ogilvy Newsletters Snafu Kevan's previous publication  

In this special episode, Gresham shares what he's been doing to generate leads: cold direct messages on LinkedIn using Sales Navigator, a few automation tools (Closely), and follow‑up emails to keep contacts warm. While he's begun to see “nibbles” — small bits of traction — he admits to frustration over the limited results. Through reflection he realizes he may have been targeting the wrong audience (B2B instead of the more receptive B2C segment of people facing layoffs or career dissatisfaction) and recognizes the importance of networking and leading with empathy. Gresh wraps up by acknowledging that success comes from consistently doing the right things over time, not just repeating ineffective tactics. He sees the current outreach as planting seeds that could later grow, and commits to experimenting, learning, and taking the journey one step at a time.  Blue Star Franchise: bluestarfranchise.com Browse the Franchise Inventory: bluestarfranchise.com/franchise Is franchising right for you? Check this out to see: bluestarfranchise.com/assessment Franchise CEO (A CBNation Site - coming soon) - franchiseceo.co Check out our CEO Hack Buzz Newsletter–our premium newsletter with hacks and nuggets to level up your organization. Sign up HERE.  I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!

Nina Akbari, grundare Dashl, gästar podden Framtidens E-Handel och delar med sig om Dashls resa från en digital bokningstjänst till ett fysiskt beauty-varumärke med egna beauty bars, produkter och retailpartnerskap, och hur de byggt ett framgångsrikt koncept i en konkurrensutsatt bransch. Vi pratar om kundupplevelse, varumärkespositionering, retailstrategi och hur Nina som entreprenör behövt vara resilient och anpassningsbar i en snabbt föränderlig marknad.06:30 – Från bokningstjänst till plattform – pivoten som förändrade allt12:10 – Balansen mellan tech och estetik – varumärke som konkurrensfördel14:45 – Expansion i salonger, popup-koncept och beauty corners i retail18:00 – Hur Dashl samarbetar med kedjor och stärker sina partners21:00 – Lärdomar om skalbarhet: vad som går att replikera – och inte24:00 – B2B vs B2C – olika strategier för olika målgrupper27:30 – Kunddata, lojalitet och hur Dashl använder CRM för tillväxt34:10 – Ledarskap i tillväxtfas – rekrytering och kultur som drivkraft46:00 – Dashls expansion i Europa och hur de väljer marknader49:30 – Strategin bakom Dashls egna produkter och vertikaler53:00 – Hur man mäter framgång – KPI:er bortom intäkterHär hittar du Nina & Dashl:https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-akbari/ https://dashlbeauty.comSponsor:https://www.svea.com/sv-se AI Breakfast for Digital Leaders - 25 Nov: https://www.bluestonepim.com/events/ai-breakfast-for-digital-leaders?utm_source=adobe+se&utm_medium=partner+mkt&utm_campaign=ai+commerce+breakfast+2025&utm_content=lp Följ Björn på LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjornspenger/ Följ Framtidens E-handel på LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/framtidens-e-handel/ Besök vår hemsida, YouTube & Instagram:https://www.framtidensehandel.se/ https://www.instagram.com/framtidens.ehandel/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEYywBFgOr34TN8NtXeL5HQPoddproducent och klippare Michaela Dorch & Videoproducent Fredrik Ankarsköld:https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaela-dorch/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankarskold/ Tusen tack för att du lyssnar!Support till showen http://supporter.acast.com/framtidens-e-handel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big verdicts grab headlines—but they don't build billion-dollar brands. Digger Earles reveals how discipline, data, and brand strategy power Laborde Earles' growth across Louisiana. From leveraging NIL partnerships for instant credibility to intake systems that close 95% of wanted leads, every move connects trial results to market dominance.  You'll learn: How to turn courtroom wins into peer referrals (and long-term B2B leverage) Using name, image, and likeness to create instant B2C credibility Intake that performs: openers/closers, on-call lawyer assists, and scheduled client touchpoints that reduce inbound noise The settlement-committee system that pushes past “good enough” offers If you like what you hear, hit subscribe. We do this every week. Get Social! Personal Injury Mastermind (PIM) powered by Rankings.io is on Instagram | YouTube | TikTok

Ep. 187 features Marek Suchar, Co-founder and Managing Director at Oddin.gg, a leading B2B provider of end-to-end esports betting solutions for global bookmakers.   Hear him discuss: His journey from nearly a decade in finance at Citibank to co-founding one of the industry's fastest-growing esports betting platforms How an early pivot from B2C to B2B set Oddin.gg on the path to success Why esports audiences are fundamentally different, and how authenticity and community are key to engaging them The challenges of building a live in-play esports betting product, from latency to constantly evolving game metas How Oddin.gg differentiates itself with a one-stop-shop offering, including data feeds, odds models, risk management, simulators, and marketing support Why Oddin acquired a marketing agency to help partners connect with esports fans through influencers, teams, and content The company's focus on profitability, M&A opportunities, and building a larger tech-driven group beyond esports betting What Marek sees as the next wave of growth for esports betting and why consolidation is accelerating across the sector Lessons learned transitioning from startup survival to scale-up leadership and the importance of process and structure as the team grows past 300 people   Catch the video version of this episode here.   Learn more

From Biochemistry to Billions — Engineering Smarter, Data-Driven Marketing SystemsIn this week's episode, Sacha sits down with Justin Rashidi, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at SeedX, to explore how an engineer's mindset can eliminate waste and unlock real business growth.From pivoting out of medicine to leading a multi-million-dollar consultancy that's generated over $1B in client revenue, Justin breaks down what it means to make marketing scientific again—rooted in data, not hype.We dig into:The hidden marketing tax and where brands lose millions in ad spendB2B vs. B2C attribution: fixing the broken data pipelineThe metrics that actually move the needle (LTV, CAC, new customers)Incrementality testing and why platform ROAS liesThe sales ↔ marketing black hole—and how to close itAI's real role: freeing humans from the tedious, not replacing themScaling without chaos—why 30–50% growth beats “hypergrowth” every time

Emily Thompson, Marketing Manager at CoSchedule, joins the podcast to share practical strategies for building smarter, more consistent social media content. She explains how marketers can use content pillars, batching, and realistic posting goals to stay organised and authentic, and explores the differences between B2B and B2C strategies—where creativity and trust are key to engagement and long-term success. Emily also highlights how CoSchedule's AI-driven workflows help teams streamline planning, automate repetitive tasks, and maintain a consistent publishing cadence across channels—all within a single, easy-to-manage platform.   About CoSchedule CoSchedule is the marketing industry's leading provider of content calendar, content optimization, and marketing education products. Its dynamic family of agile marketing management products serve more than 50,000 marketers worldwide, helping them organize their work, deliver projects on time, and prove marketing team value. Collectively, CoSchedule products empower nearly 100,000 marketers to complete more high-quality work in less time. As recognized with accolades from Inc. 5000, Gartner's Magic Quadrant, and G2Crowd, CoSchedule is one of the most valued companies its customers recommend. To learn more about CoSchedule, visit https://coschedule.com   About Emily Thompson Emily Thompson recently joined CoSchedule as Marketing Manager, after two decades in B2B and B2C marketing content strategy. When people don't know what that means, she describes herself as the one who helps businesses answer the questions, "What needs to be said and how do we say it?" For her, there's nothing more exciting than seeing marketing messaging land with precision and impact. Except maybe 49er football.   Time Stamps 00:00:18 - Meet Emily Thompson from CoSchedule 00:02:31 - Overview of CoSchedule's Product 00:06:26 - AI Integration at CoSchedule 00:08:07 - B2B vs. B2C Marketing Perspectives 00:12:04 - Common Mistakes in Social Media Marketing 00:14:00 - Empowering Employees to Post on Social Media 00:16:48 - Measuring Success in Social Media 00:25:16 - Best Marketing Advice Received 00:28:03 - Closing Remarks and Contact Information   Quotes "The number one thing I say about AI is it's only as smart as the person who's talking to it." Emily Thompson, Marketing Manager at CoSchedule. "CoSchedule just does it all in one. So it's a great tool reduction software and really affordable option for marketers as budgets are shrinking and we need to work smarter and faster." Emily Thompson, Marketing Manager at CoSchedule. "At the end of the day, you're creating trust and building relationships with your audience, whether you are B2B or B2C." Emily Thompson, Marketing Manager at CoSchedule.   Follow Emily: Emily Thompson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-thompson-68468084/ CoSchedule website: https://coschedule.com/ CoSchedule on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coschedule/   Follow Mike: Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/ Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/ Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/   If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform. Want more? Check out Napier's other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

S6 Ep7 – Maryna Steger is the dynamic CEO and co-owner of Watch Advisor, a leading digital media house based in Switzerland and a major voice in the luxury watch industry. With a background in international relations, law, and digital marketing, Maryna brings a unique approach to entrepreneurship in the luxury sector. In this engaging episode, Maryna shares her journey from growing up in Belarus to building a highly-engaged, global community of watch collectors and enthusiasts. The conversation covers the challenges and opportunities of building a niche digital brand, key strategies for social media growth, and the complex balance between maintaining independence and generating revenue in the luxury sector. Maryna also offers candid advice on leadership, resilience, and harnessing new technologies like AI to drive future growth for Watch Advisor.

Today we're going to do something fun. Are you ready?(Press the PLAY button to hear the audio version of today's memo.)I will tell you how to advertise if you will tell me the nature of your business.Advertising can be broken into 6 major categories:Business-to-Business (B2B)Niche Marketing (Niche-S) with a short purchase cycleNiche Marketing (Niche-L) with a long purchase cycleShort Purchase Cycle (B2C-Short) Business-to-ConsumerLong Purchase Cycle (B2C-Long) Business-to-ConsumerMixed Purchase Cycle (B2C-Mixed) Business-to-ConsumerBusiness to Business.B2B: If you are in a business that sells to other businesses, tight targeting will be essential to your success, but you can easily identify the customers you need to target.Their addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses are readily available and direct mail, phone calls and emails are cheap. If you have some extra dollars, you can place ads in the appropriate trade magazines and websites to elevate your brand.Features, benefits, pricing, delivery, and payment terms are important elements within your message. How well your B2B ad campaign works will depend entirely on what you say.It will depend on what you say.Focus on saying the right things.Now let's talk about Niche Marketing with a Long Purchase Cycle.Niche-L: If you sell a specialty product that appeals to an affinity group, social media is a powerful thing. A powerful thing.Danny sells the most rare, weird, exotic, and inexplicable guns the world has ever known. Firearms collectors are an affinity group. Collectible firearms are a Niche Market with a long purchase cycle.Danny will soon be producing a new daily short and posting it on YouTube 365 days a year. Each short video will be Danny showing you a different gun and telling you the story behind it. He is not going to shoot the gun. He is just going to tell you its story.Danny doesn't need to find gun collectors. Gun collectors will find him. YouTube is the world's second-largest search engine. Danny just needs to produce interesting content.Brian Brushwood taught me that.Would you like to have an invisible garage door like the one that Batman passes through to enter the Bat Cave?Max can do that for you.But invisible garage doors can only be installed in houses that have no masonry. Max needs to locate charming houses with wooden exteriors.He can knock on their doors, leave a door-hanger, or mail them a glorious postcard. Max sells garage doors to a Niche Market with a long purchase cycle.Do you sell an intangible Niche product with a long purchase cycle?Are you a sales trainer, an ad writer, a nutritional expert, a motivational speaker, a psychic healer, an entertainer?Build fame. Ride the tidal wave of fame. Fame leads to word-of-mouth. Be remarkable. Advertising is a tax you pay for not being remarkable.Be remarkable.Next week we'll talk about Short Purchase Cycle Niche Marketing and B2C.We'll talk about B2C.You and me.Roy H. WilliamsPS – When you have achieved a little bit of fame, make yourself easy to find by paying Google for the click whenever someone types your name into the search bar. But that's not advertising. That's just helping people find you when they are looking for you by name. The...

Sarah Williams, founder and CEO of Leading Culture and former director at GAP Consulting for 23 years, brings her accounting background and business growth strategy expertise to a spirited debate about ROI, value-based pricing, and why companies leave money on the table.  From her home in New Zealand (Mark's second favorite country), Sarah challenges conventional pricing wisdom—arguing that ROI applies to both B2B and B2C, that we should ignore competitors when determining value, and that the antidote to the curse of knowledge is thinking with a beginner's mind.  Mark pushes back on opportunity costs, explains why competitor pricing matters, and uses everything from vests to Louis Vuitton handbags to make his points in this engaging conversation about helping customers understand the true value of what they're buying.   Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast: Understand why teaching customers to think in ROI is the fastest way to eliminate buyer's remorse, increase prices, and differentiate from competitors who focus on features. Discover the beginner's mind approach that prevents the #1 mistake pricing experts make—assuming customers know what seems "obvious" to you. Master vulnerability-based trust by inviting customers to ask questions without fear—the counterintuitive sales technique that accelerates deals faster than "looking professional".   "Think in terms of value from the customer's perspective." – Sarah Williams   Topics Covered: 03:01 - Why ROI Should Be Everyone's Decision-Making Framework 06:10 - Helping Customers Think in ROI Terms: Your Job as the Provider 08:12 - Utility in Economics: The B2C Alternative to Monetary ROI 20:00 - The Opportunity Cost Debate: Pricing vs. Budgeting Decisions 25:19 - Differentiation Value: Starting with Competitor's Price, Then Adding 27:57 - Louis Vuitton vs. $40 Handbags: Conspicuous Consumption and What People Really Buy 32:31 - Starting with a Blank Slate: Thinking Myopically About Customer Value 35:32 - Final Advice: Think in Terms of Value from the Customer's Perspective   Key Takeaways: ROI on its own can be a decision-making framework. From the point of view of maybe even making a personal decision, I can think about, well, what's the return on investment? And that might even be an investment of my time." - Sarah Williams "We're doing our customers a disservice if we're not helping them to think in terms of ROI. Like, what really am I getting? Because buyer's remorse is really, really prevalent. People make split-second decisions now and then live to regret it 24 hours later." - Sarah Williams "In economics, there's this concept called utility, right? So, I think in terms of when you're thinking B2C, now you're shifting the conversation a little bit more towards the utility angle in economics." - Sarah Williams   People / Resources Mentioned: Jim Collins: Author of "Good to Great" Chip and Dan Heath: Authors of "Made to Stick" and the concept of the curse of knowledge Patrick Lencioni: Leadership expert who popularized vulnerability-based trust and predictive trust concepts GAP Consulting: Where Sarah served as director for 23 years Complete Learning Solutions: Where Sarah was Chief Inspiration Officer Louis Vuitton: Used as example of luxury pricing vs. commodity pricing iPhone: Example of blue ocean differentiation where customers don't compare competitor prices Huawei: Mentioned as iPhone alternative that iPhone users don't consider when upgrading   Connect with Sarah Williams: Email: sarah@leadingculture.co.nz Website: https://www.leadingculture.co.nz/home  AI Summit Link: https://www.leadingculture.co.nz/ai-summit-registration-page   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com  

Ogi Kavazovic, co-founder and CEO of House Rx, joins the show to unpack what most product leaders miss about building for enterprise software. Drawing from two decades in tech, Ogi breaks down how product management shifts when you move from B2C or “B to small B” to true enterprise—what he calls “B to Big B.” He explains why traditional user research frameworks don't hold up, how buyer research should actually be done through sales and marketing motions, and how to keep engineering teams aligned when the product takes years to build.Key Takeaways• Building for enterprise (B to Big B) requires selling to buyers and users—two very different audiences with distinct needs.• Buyer research is not user research—it happens through early sales decks, vision slides, and iterative storytelling that test how well a concept resonates before code is written.• Pre-selling a “fantasy product” through slides helps validate the market fit and shapes the first version of your product strategy.• Engineering for enterprise software demands simulated iteration—testing features internally long before the MVP is complete.• Vision alignment between product, marketing, and engineering is crucial to avoid two-year build tunnels and ensure team motivation.Timestamped Highlights[03:12] The overlooked divide between B2B and true enterprise—why “B to Big B” changes everything for product teams.[10:47] How buyer research actually works and why it starts with slides, not software.[17:40] The difference between pitching VCs and pitching enterprise buyers—and why they care about totally different things.[22:29] The engineering challenge of building massive enterprise systems and why agile methods fall short.[30:11] How to keep teams motivated and moving forward when the product roadmap spans years.Standout Moment“You can pre-sell a product before it even exists. That sales and marketing artifact—the deck you built to sell your vision—can become the blueprint for your product strategy.”Pro TipsStart with conversations, not code. Use early customer and buyer meetings to validate your story through slides, then hand your engineers a vision they know can sell.Call to ActionIf you enjoyed this episode, share it with a fellow product leader or founder navigating enterprise challenges. Follow The Tech Trek for more conversations that connect people, impact, and technology.

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!In this episode of OpsCast, hosted by Michael Hartmann and powered by MarketingOps.com, we are joined by Danielle Balestra, a seasoned fractional marketing technology executive with experience building teams and stacks in both regulated and non-regulated industries.The conversation examines the requirements for running effective marketing operations in highly regulated industries, including finance, healthcare, and legal services. Danielle shares her insights on working within compliance constraints, earning trust across teams, and building a marketing operations function that strikes a balance between agility and accountability.In this episode, you will learn:What makes regulated industries unique from a marketing operations perspectiveThe skills and mindsets needed to succeed in compliance-heavy environmentsHow to collaborate effectively with legal and compliance teamsStrategies for balancing marketing speed with regulatory requirementsThis episode is ideal for marketing operations professionals, leaders, and consultants who work in or with regulated industries and want to strengthen collaboration, compliance, and operational excellence.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Join us at MOps-Apalooza: https://mopsapalooza.com/Save 10% with code opscast10Support the show

這一集Bryan邀請到B2B銷售專家江勇慶（Chris），談B2B銷售的精髓與箇中要訣，並分享如何透過以問問題為核心的「顧問式銷售」方法，從培養coach、建立信任開始，逐步找出客戶痛點、精準打擊，進而成為客戶解決問題的最佳夥伴。凡是你會接觸到業務類工作的人，不論職稱掛的是業務、PM還是FAE，Chris的分享肯定能為你帶來突破業績瓶頸的契機！ 大人學課程 【［限定場］B2B顧問式銷售技巧一日特訓】 https://reurl.cc/DOWyRE 【V014銷售專業服務的系統化做法】 https://reurl.cc/mYeoaM 什麼問題想問Joe跟Bryan嗎？提問&合作信箱：podcast@ftpm.com.tw 如果你喜歡我們的節目，歡迎贊助我們：https://bit.ly/3kskVsZ 如果你喜歡這集節目，歡迎到Apple Podcast給我們五星評價，並留言給我們鼓勵！ FB｜https://www.facebook.com/darencademy/ IG｜https://www.instagram.com/da.ren.cademy/ 大人學網站｜https://www.darencademy.com/ -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Happy Halloween – and happy spooky season! As we are at the end of October, I wanted to share some essential advice to maximise any sales training you're embarking on. Also, if you've been waiting for "next time," there won't be one: today is the FINAL chance to join the last-ever round of The C Suite ®. Registration closes at 5pm UK on the 31st October, for good!  I know it's hard to believe after nearly seven years, but I've got big projects ahead in 2027 - like my corporate consultancy and the Expert Services Directory that'll need my full attention. So, if you want all the support, in-person training, and results The C Suite ® offers, this is it! Whether you're considering The C Suite ® or any other sales development, this episode is full of  practical advice to help you actually see results from sales training. Here are the top takeaways: 1. Invest in the Right Training Don't chase the latest "popular" online course or viral marketing hack. If your goal is selling to companies, pick a training (likeThe C Suite ®) that's built for B2B—not B2C tactics like funnels, TikToks, or nurture sequences. 2. Sales is NOT a "One and Done" Skill Consistent, long-term sales results don't come from a single course or quick win. Professional salespeople (and successful founders) are always learning, updating their strategies, and practicing their skills—even after years of experience. 3. Mindset is Key Great sales training stretches your comfort zone. If you want results, come open-minded, ready for new approaches, and prepared to adapt when things feel uncomfortable. Growth happens outside your comfort zone. 4. Implement Exactly as Taught Follow the instructions to the letter—don't tweak, half-do, or try to mix-and-match other strategies. Those who succeed fastest are the ones who trust the process, implement fully, and seek support when they hit questions. 5. Give It Your All If you're only half-in, expect little-to-no results. Dedicate at least two hours a week to implementation, and you'll start to see the shift (and the wins!) much sooner. Bottom Line: Your Sales Success = The Right Training + Mindset + Action If you're struggling with sales, unsure what to try next, or stuck in "testing" mode—investing in quality sales training is what'll move the needle. And if The C Suite ® has been on your wish list, it's now or never. To maximise the value of any sales training you must: 1) approach with a flexible, adaptive sales mindset, 2) implement instructions exactly as taught, and 3) ensure you select the right training for your goals. [00:23:33 – 00:38:31] Investing in good sales training and regular skill development is the most significant factor for ongoing business success—more than branding, websites, or marketing automation tools—as only you or a qualified salesperson can actively sell your services. [00:17:40 – 00:20:45] This is the final opportunity to join the C Suite 2026 program—doors close for good at 5pm UK time today, and there will be no future intakes. [00:00:02 – 00:03:21] Key Quotes; "When you embark on good sales training, it will push you out of your comfort zone and it will ask you to do things that maybe you haven't experienced before, maybe you have a lot of resistance to." 00:23:5400:24:08 "If your business doesn't have a sales strategy and isn't making money, you have a very expensive hobby, you don't have a business." 00:18:1000:18:18 "Worryingly, anyone can sell themselves. And worryingly, perhaps in this economy, anyone can sell their own business and their own services and they can do it relatively well, but it doesn't mean that they are qualified in any way to teach you how to sell." 00:05:0400:05:21 "It's not having a seven day nurture sequence that a corporate decision maker is literally never going to read. It is knowing how to do best practice lead generation to be able to target, identify and approach the right decision makers who actually are qualified to buy from you because they are responsible for your area of specialism and they do control the budget to pay you." 00:36:5500:37:18 "If you implement to the letter, if you are somebody who doesn't and you spend all of your time questioning constantly the strategy, tweaking things when they've been set out in a way that's been tested and proven and spending lots of time in self doubt and oh gosh, it's not going to work for me, there's no way I can do this. It's all right for everybody else because they've got X, Y and Z, that makes it easier. That journey to maximising your sales training investment is going to be longer, it's going to be more complicated and you are going to be more frustrated." 00:32:2300:32:59   Key Resources Mentioned in this Episode:   Click here for the direct link to The C Suite ® 2026: https://smartleaderssell.thrivecart.com/the-c-suite-2026-live/   If you want to learn more about The Expert Services Directory, click here: http://bit.ly/4f3ch1I   If you've enjoyed listening to  #3 things that will help you maximise any sales training you're embarking on check out these other episodes that may be of interest.     Why organising your sales activity is central to your success when selling to corporate https://sellingtocorporate.com/podcast/stc044-why-organising-your-sales-activity-is-central-to-your-success-when-selling-to-corporates/   How to ensure your B2B sales process is set up for success https://bit.ly/SellingtoCorporate081   How you can create a top performer sales mindset https://bit.ly/SellingToCorporate107   Converting Corporates is the B2B sales event of the year for service based entrepreneurs, if you want to join the waitlist for 2026 click the link https://smartleaderssell.vipmembervault.com/cc2026waitlist   If you would like to sign up for our weekly newsletter to stay in touch with the latest B2B sales tips and techniques click https://sellingtocorporate.com/newsletter/   Content Disclaimer The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this article, video or audio are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article, video or audio. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article, video or audio. Jessica Lorimer disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article, video or audio.  

According to research from Forrester, 70% of marketing content goes unused. So how can you effectively structure and govern your content to unlock its value and drive measurable business results? Riley Rogers: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Riley Rogers. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully. Here to discuss this topic is Chanique James, marketing lead generation and enablement specialist at MSCI. Thank you so much for joining us, Chanique. To kick us off, I’d love if you could just start by telling us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role. Chanique James: Sure. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here. I have several years of experience in brand and product marketing, focusing on promotions, trade marketing, and event management, as well as sales enablement. Over the years I’ve managed from product marketing initiatives across both B2B and B2C environments, developing integrated strategies that connect creativity, storytelling with measurable business outcomes. I’ve always been passionate about connecting strategy with people and finding the balance between creativity, data, and impact. That perspective has shaped how I approach marketing and enablement today. In my current role, I focus on marketing, lead generation and enablement. Ensuring or grow to market teams have access to the right content at the right time, along with insights and tools to engage clients effectively. I see my work as connecting digital strategy with operational excellence, bringing clarity, consistency and impact to how marketing and sales collaboration. RR: Amazing. Well, from that background, it seems like there’s a lot of ground we could cover here. A lot of experience across a lot of different arenas that I’d love to dig into. So let’s just start with maybe a bit of background on kind of the environment that you’re working in. So I know that MSCI provides a pretty broad range of services to the global investment community. So what are some of the unique challenges that your go-to market teams face when activating at scale across global regions? And then to your point, how does digital enablement help address them in global environment? CJ: I believe that scale introduces complexity from different regulatory environments to language nuances and varying buyer expectations. Go to market teams face similar challenges across regions. They have to balance consistency, compliance, and connectivity. Ensuring that messaging feels unified, yet relevant in diverse markets. Managing that balance requires both structure and flexibility, and that’s where digital enablement comes in. By centralizing content, data and workflows, digital enablement gives team visibility into what’s working and empowers them to adapt quickly. These tools make it possible to deliver localized content and timely materials to client facing teams around the world, helping them navigate campaigns efficiently as well as, I would say more confidently. RR: Amazing. It sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate, so I’m excited to dig into kind of the strategies for approaching those obstacles and those challenges of scale beyond kind of some of the unique obstacles that you encounter as a global organization, as a financial services organization, I’d like to focus on some that pretty much every organization is gonna face, which is the disconnect across the go to market organization. So as a marketing leader. What go-to-market initiatives are you focused on to better align your marketing and your sales teams? CJ: For me, I would say alignment starts with visibility and connection. It’s really about making sure marketing and sales teams are working from the same playbook as well as working together so that content, messaging and data tell one cohesive story. That alignment creates focus and efficiency. It means simplifying access to marketing and enablement tools, making insights actionable, and keeping collaboration front and center with both sides. That is marketing and sales are connected around shared goals and clear communication. Everything else from productivity to performance naturally improves. RR: Absolutely. And I think one of those key levers that you can pull on is the content that you’re sharing across. When it’s well managed and well socialized, you unlock really strong cross-functional collaboration when it’s not, we know the consequences in your work. One of those key focuses is content management. So from your experience, what are some of the common pitfalls that financial services organizations like yours might face when developing and managing content, and then how can maybe they avoid them? CJ: I would say possibly a big, or the biggest challenge that we have is fragmentation content often live in silos owned by different teams, sometimes with different goals that can lead to duplication, outdated materials, or even inconsistencies in messaging and compliance. Key, however, is strong governance and collaboration, establishing clear processes around how content is created, reviewed, distributed, and even maintaining open feedback loop across marketing, compliance, and sales can actually help us ensure that every piece of content is purposeful, consistent, and UpToDate in addition. I believe that when organizations take that structured approach, they move from managing content reactively to managing more strategically, and this can actually turn into a real advantage for the business. RR: Can you talk to me a little bit about like the value of that strategic approach as opposed to a like reactive approach? CJ: So I ultimately believe that in terms of content management, you really need to think strategically, how are teams accessing it? How are they using it, and also is it relevant for your market? I believe that one of the key things that we can do is always leverage the data. Enablement tools allow us to get a lot of insights not just into client engagement with content, but also how our sales team are actually using it. When we actually leverage that data, that helps us to drive strategy and that strategy actually helps us improve over time. The content that we continuously create and the content that we also continuously share with our clients. And I think that’s a big portion. That’s a big part of actually making sure that we’re not just reacting to things, not be being used well, but also strategically ensuring that moving forward when we see certain metrics, we use that to create better content, to have better client relationships and conversations for our sales team. RR: Yeah, I think that’s such a great perspective. I think sometimes as marketers, you get really caught up in like what you’re excited to create, and sometimes you have to take that step back and go, what is actually useful? What are our reps like, what are our clients like? And how can I lean into that? So I, I love that you’re taking that approach. Um, and I know good governance and good content creation strategies can be really, really crucial, but they can also be really difficult to maintain. So I’d like to talk a little bit, maybe about. The impact of taking the time to focus in on that. So what do you see as the value of having compliant up-to-date content and how does that enable reps to succeed in the field? CJ: Sure. I believe that having quality and compliant content is very essential, and also having enablement platforms actually serve as a great deal in terms of ensuring that the content is easy for sales reps to access. Enablement platforms are transformative because they turn content from status assets into living resources. They centralized content distribution, enforce compliance, and provide clear insights into engagement and performance. For financial organizations where accuracy and timing are everything, this gives our sales team confidence that what they’re sharing with clients have been approved and is also relevant. So I would say that it’s not just about access, it’s really about assurance, agility, and trust. RR: I think that that last call out is so key because it’s ultimately just about trust, right? Your reps need to know that your content is reliable and aligned to their needs. Your business needs to know that you’re compliant and aren’t gonna create unnecessary risk that nobody wants to deal with. If you can prove that and build that brand of trust. You’re set. And maybe that’s kind of how you’ve achieved such a high recurring usage rate in Highspot. So can you walk me through, in addition to some of the governance pieces that we’ve been talking about, but what best practices have been effective in helping you drive strong adoption? CJ: Adoption thrives on relevance and experience. We treat our environment as more than a repository. It’s really a dynamic workspace that grows with our teams. We’re focused on building a clear content structure so users can easily find what they need, and we partner with champions who will help drive awareness, as well as share best practices. We also offer focus training and share success stories with our new users. That highlights real results. In addition, we integrate with platforms such as Salesforce so that the tool actually fits naturally into the workflows of our sales teams. I think that when people see genuine value in how it helps them, it actually allows them to work smarter and adoption really naturally flows from that. RR: I love touching on the ecosystem piece and creating an environment that works for people. ’cause a lot of the time when enablement feels like a mandate or it’s not built with workflows in mind. You don’t see that adoption, so love to hear the best practices that are working for you, but I know that it’s not just adoption that’s going well for you and the team. We’ve heard some really great things about the work that you’re doing, so I’d be really curious to know, since implementing Highspot, what key results have you achieved and are there any particular wins or achievements that you’re super proud of? CJ: I think one of the most exciting things have been our ability to see how our approach has truly transformed the way our team operates. One major impact and achievement has been turning the platform into, as I mentioned before, a strategic activation hub. We’ve streamlined how content is distributed, tracked, measured, which significantly, adoption reads and overall content utilization. So we’ve seen measurable improvements in both time savings as well as content engagement. Our sales teams now have easier access to tailored playbooks, helping them move faster and stay aligned across functions. What I’m most proud of, however, and honestly continuously working on, is how this has strengthened collaboration between our functions such as marketing, sales, and even our product teams. I believe that this has actually helped us to turn our content and digital strategy into a true connector across the business. RR: I think that’s a fantastic achievement to say that, you know, we’ve created a through line across the organization that is now our source of truth and our source of communication. That’s fantastic. So have to commend you and the team for that work. We’ve talked about what the challenges are, how you’re solving them, what you’ve achieved so far, but let’s maybe talk a little bit about the future. So I know that MSCIs tagline is Clarity drives action. Thinking about that philosophy, how does that guide your approach to strategy and your role? And then what outcomes are you looking to drive next? CJ: Clergy drives action resonates deeply with my approach to marketing, digital strategy, and enablement. For me, it’s about simplifying complexity and making information accessible, actionable, and meaningful so that insights can truly drive impact. Looking ahead, I’m focused on advancing data-driven personalization and using insights to deliver more connected high value experiences for both internal teams and clients. The goal is really to keep evolving how we connect strategy to execution, creating clarity, efficiency, and measurable outcomes that help marketing efforts drive stronger engagement and ultimately business growth. RR: Awesome. Can I ask, is there anything in particular with Highspot that you think is going to be helpful in helping you achieve those goals? CJ: Sure. Yeah. I think the data that we’re able to get from Highspot, again, not just the external information in terms of client engagement with our content, but also usage information in terms of how our sales team is actually leveraging the platform. I think that will give us a lot of insights into ensuring that what we’re putting forward on the platform in terms of content, as well as our enablement strategy, that will actually mirror into helping them go to market more efficiently and effectively. So moving forward, I think that. The tool actually plays a key role in how we’re doing that right now. It has helped us in gaining a lot of success, and I think moving forward all we can do is continue to leverage that data and insights to just make more improvements for the future. RR: Fantastic. I love that. It’s just an optimization approach if we’ve created the foundation and now we’re gonna hone in on what works and continue to scale it. I know we’re running a little bit low on the time we have with you, so I’d like to close out with maybe some advice for our audience who are likelier than not in similar shoes to you. So if you had to summarize one key lesson from your experience in content development and management, what would it be? CJ: I think one key thing is that simplicity drives scale. The more intuitive your systems and processes are, the more likely teams are to use them effectively. Great enablement isn’t just about technology. It’s about designing experiences that empower people to do their best work with confidence. At the same time, governance also enables growth. So when structure and simplicity work together, creativity can thrive, and that’s when organizations scale effectively as well as sustainably. At the end of the day, it’s not just about really the tools, it’s also about being able to empower our teams to do great work confidently and consistently. RR: I think that’s wonderful to close on, empowering our teams to do great work. That’s what we are all looking to do, so thank you for all of the best practices to help us get there. It has been a pleasure chatting with you, and I can’t wait to bring all of these insights to our listeners. CJ: Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoy the conversation. RR: To our listeners, thank you for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success with Highspot.

Ad-Creatives für Dienstleister, Berater & Agenturen: https://www.evergreenads.de In der heutigen Episode von die Coaching-Revolution stellt Andreas Baulig dir unser neues Training vor: Ad-Creatives für Dienstleister, Berater & Agenturen. Aufgrund des Andromeda-Updates seitens Meta, was dafür sorgt, dass deine Ads nicht mehr so performen wie sonst, musst du sie anpassen, um wieder erfolgreiche Ads schalten zu können. Egal ob du im B2B oder im B2C unterwegs bist. Vereinbare jetzt dein kostenloses Erstgespräch: www.andreasbaulig.de/termin Sichere dir jetzt das Buch "WISSEN MACHT UMSATZ" auf www.wissenmachtumsatz.de Andreas Baulig & Markus Baulig zeigen dir, wie du dich als einer DER Nr.1 Experten in deiner Branche positionieren kannst und hohe Preise ab 2.000 Euro (und mehr) für deine Angebote & Dienstleistungen abrufen kannst. Als Coaches, Berater und Experten automatisiert Kunden im Internet gewinnen. Wie du Online Marketing nutzen kannst, um deine Produkte und Dienstleistungen erfolgreich zu verkaufen.

Send us a textIf you loved Part 1 of our She Leads Digital series, you're in for another round of inspiring career journeys, bold pivots, and hard-won wisdom from incredible women shaping the future of digital marketing. In this continuation episode, we dive deeper into themes of mentorship, education, career training, and professional development; all told through personal stories that prove there's no single path to success in digital marketing. While their journeys showcase fascinating career transitions, what stands out is their resilience in embracing change and continuous learning. Episode Highlights:Discover how non-traditional mentorship relationships can drive mutual growth and fresh perspectives in your career.Learn the leadership traits that foster calm, confident, and high-performing teams.Hear real stories of self-discovery that led these inspiring female leaders to pivot into careers they truly love.Understand how personalized coaching and regular touchpoints can help teams thrive and solve challenges collaboratively.Gain insights into balancing professional expertise with empathy and trust to create lasting, impactful connections in digital marketing.Episode Links: 

On this episode, we explore why satisfied customers leave — and what it takes to turn satisfaction into lasting loyalty.Most B2B and B2C businesses assume that satisfied customers will stay. But research shows that 20 to 70% of new customers leave within their first 100 days — even when they rate their experience as "satisfactory." Drawing from examples across a wide variety of industries, our expert guests reveal the critical moments in the customer journey when satisfied customers are driven to leave, the hidden costs of customer attrition that extend beyond lost revenue, and the practical strategies that transform transactional relationships into emotional connections strong enough to keep customers coming back.Listen for the compelling insights of Joey Coleman, keynote speaker and author of Never Lose a Customer Again, and Brian Breslin, vice president of fintech and SaaS at TELUS Digital.Visit our website to learn more about TELUS Digital.

It's the best time of year-spooky season

U novoj Specijal epizodi Digitalk podcasta gost je Lazar Živković, Generalni direktor kompanije Sirvis, koji nam objašnjava zašto je digitalna transformacija ključna za razvoj modernog B2B biznisa. Razgovaramo o tome kako digitalne platforme menjaju tradicionalne procese nabavke, zamenjuju ručne i zastarele metode poput emila i telefona, i donose transparentnost, sigurnost i prediktivnu analitiku. Saznajte kako platforme omogućavaju bržu, jednostavniju i pouzdaniju kupovinu, smanjuju greške i povećavaju poverenje između firmi, te šta donosi budućnost sa AI i automatizacijom. Poslušajte i saznajte kako vaš biznis može napredovati u digitalnom dobu! Lazar Živković, General Manager @ Sirvis Srbija - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lazar-%C5%BEivkovi%C4%87-05582ab0/ O čemu smo pričali: - Uvod i predstavljanje - B2C vs. B2B - Zašto je B2B još uvek toliko „manuelan“? - Poverenje kao valuta - Danas poverenje dolazi kroz platforme: transparentnost, tačnost, sigurnost podataka - Kako Sirvis omogućava da firme steknu poverenje u digitalnom okruženju? - Platformizacija B2B-a - B2B iskustvo skoro kao B2C - Kako izgleda tipičan dan korisnika Sirvis platforme? - Budućnost - AI i B2B sutrašnjice Sirvis Srbija nalozi na društvenim mrežama: LN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sirvis-srbija/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567459612776 IG: https://www.instagram.com/sirvis.srbija/ Pratite Digitalk podkast za više tema iz digitalnog marketinga, advertajzinga i karijere u kreativnoj industriji: LN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digitalkrs FB: https://www.facebook.com/Digitalk.rs IG: https://www.instagram.com/digitalk.rs/ Posetite naš sajt i prijavite se na našu mailing listu - https://www.digitalk.rs Prijavite se na naš YouTube kanal: https://bit.ly/3uWtLES

Gigi Supplements, TrakPro and Cyber Cert Labs have been named as Dublin regional winners at this year's InterTradeIreland Seedcorn Investor Readiness Competition. The three categories included Business-to-Business, Business-to-Consumer and Deep Tech. TrakPro won in the B2B category, Gigi Supplements won in the B2C category, while Cyber Cert Labs won in the Deep Tech category. Each company received €50,000 and will advance to the All-Island final in Dublin on November 13th. The InterTradeIreland Seedcorn Investor Readiness Competition is the largest business competition of its kind on the island of Ireland, offering a total prize fund of €800,000 to promising start-ups and early-stage businesses. The Seedcorn competition offers start-up businesses the chance to win big without giving away an equity stake. B2B Category TrakPro is a B2B SaaS platform that streamlines subcontractor payment claims and commercial account management for the construction industry. The platform provides a centralised solution that automates compliance with payment legislation, integrates with construction ERP systems, and increases commercial team efficiency by 25%. Colm Brennan, CEO and Co-Founder of TrakPro, said: "We're absolutely delighted to have won the B2B category in the Dublin regional final of the InterTradeIreland Seedcorn competition. While I had the privilege of pitching, this achievement is truly a reflection of the entire TrakPro team's hard work, dedication and belief in our vision. The insights and guidance provided throughout the competition have been incredibly valuable as we prepare to embark on our pre-seed investment round." Pictured are Alison Currie, Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at InterTradeIreland, with Colm Brennan, CEO of Trak Pro B2C Category Gigi Supplements was founded by two registered Nutritional Therapists who specialise in female health. Together, they have a combined 12 years of experience working with clients in the nutrition space. They are passionate about empowering women to live happy and symptom-free at every stage of their reproductive lives and know just how impactful the right nutrients can be for female hormonal health. Jennie Haire, Co-Founder & CEO of Gigi Supplements, said: "Winning the InterTradeIreland Seedcorn regional finals means the world to us, and the incredible prize for the company is just the cherry on top. What started back in 2023 as a learning journey, where we reached the second round of the competition, to finally taking home the win today, is just the most incredible feeling. This has been the ultimate lesson in persistence. It's a competition like no other, and we've learned so much from it. We're proud and very grateful to have taken home this prize today. Third time lucky!" Deep Tech Category Cyber Cert Labs' mission is to revolutionise the way organisations approach cybersecurity by addressing end-to-end supply chain vulnerabilities. They develop software for digital product manufacturers, enabling them to embed cybersecurity into their development lifecycle. Their solutions also support businesses that purchase these products (e.g., IoT, OT, and software), ensuring secure operation as defined by the manufacturer. Patricia Shields, CEO & Co-Founder of Cyber Cert Labs, said: "We are so proud to be winners of the Dublin regional final in the Deep Tech category of the Seedcorn competition. It has been a wonderful experience and genuinely great preparation for Cyber Cert Labs as we go forward.. A massive thank you to InterTradeIreland for hosting the competition." All companies emerged victorious from a group of six innovative start-ups and early-stage businesses representing Dublin. They also included Harcourt Building Technologies, Polliknow and A Slice of Life. The regional final, held on October 22nd in Dublin, saw the finalists pitch their investment proposals to a panel of judges, including active investors. The Dublin regional winners will now compete for the ov...

Ben Phillips, a 20-year CX professional, explains how B2B customer experience differs from B2C, highlights key B2B moments, and gives real examples of fixing and leveraging accounts. He also shares practical training ideas: translate leadership strategy into frontline actions and use short, authentic formats like podcasts. About Ben Phillips Ben is a Certified CX Professional (CCXP) with almost 20 years working directly in Customer Experience (CX) roles for worldwide enterprise-grade organisations, both B2C and B2B. He has held Director, Leader and consultancy positions in CX for market research agencies, financial companies and technology businesses. He has led award-winning CX teams and is the author of 3 books on the subject of CX, including “The CX Dictionary”. He is consistently ranked in the top #25 CX Influencers recognised by CX Magazine year on year. Ben presents keynotes, CX knowledge sessions and hosts events for companies worldwide. He lives in the Midlands, UK with his family and is a passionate musician, Level 3 Personal Fitness Trainer, Tottenham Hotspur fan and whisky enthusiast. Resources CX Alive!: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cx-alive/ Please, hit the follow button:  Apple Podcast: http://cxgoalkeeper.com/apple Spotify: http://cxgoalkeeper.com/spotify We'd love to hear your thoughts — leave a comment and share your feedback! Follow Gregorio Uglioni on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorio-uglioni/ About Gregorio Uglioni: Transforming Business Into Value Generating Engines - Creating Long-Lasting Impact Leveraging Customer Experience - Host Of The Globally Recognized CX Goalkeeper Podcast “Customer Experience Goals” - Speaker at global events & at podcasts - Judge at International Awards - CX Lecturer for several institutions Listen to more podcasts on The Agile Brand network here: https://agilebrandguide.com/the-agile-brand-podcasts/

The B2B marketing playbook is changing faster than most businesses realise.SEO still works. Google Ads still deliver. Email campaigns still convert. But if your entire strategy relies on prospects finding you through traditional Google searches, you're missing a massive shift in buyer behaviour.Your buyers are researching differently. They're having longer, more detailed conversations before they ever visit your website. They're building shortlists from sources you might not even be tracking. And if your brand isn't visible in these new research channels, you're losing deals before you know they exist.In this episode, I'm breaking down three B2B marketing strategies that are working right now for our clients:Why digital PR isn't just for sexy consumer brands. I'll show you how we got an insulation and ventilation company featured across dozens of industry publications by turning new legislation into newsworthy content. Even "boring" B2B businesses can leverage digital PR effectively.How to win when nobody's searching for your solution. When only 20 people per month google your product category, keyword-focused SEO won't cut it. I'll walk through how we drove 361% traffic growth and 11% conversion rates for a takeaway packaging company by targeting problems, not keywords.Why most B2B websites are conversion killers and what to do about it. Jargon-heavy copy, unclear positioning, blocky layouts with zero personality. We redesigned one client's site with B2C principles in mind and generated 51 highly qualified leads in four months. I'll show you exactly what changed.I'll also share data that reveals something surprising: when buyers research solutions in 2026, the brands that get recommended aren't always the ones with the best SEO. Third-party visibility matters more than ever.The fundamentals haven't disappeared. Long sales cycles, multiple decision-makers, and proven channels still define B2B marketing. However, the businesses dominating in 2026 are the ones adding new layers to their strategy, whilst their competitors stick with what worked in 2023.This episode provides the complete roadmap for future-proofing your B2B marketing before your competitors catch on.Enjoy these episodes next:Why “AI Search is Just SEO” is a Dangerous Liehttps://exposureninja.com/podcast/364/The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/The BEST Digital Marketing Strategies for 2026https://exposureninja.com/podcast/369/

Survey fraud is having a moment—and not the good kind. Karen Lynch sits down with Steven Snell, PhD, Head of Research at Rep Data, to unpack findings from the forthcoming State of Fraud 2025 initiative, which analyzed 4.1B+ survey attempts.Steven explains how Research Defender detects evolving tactics (from hyperactivity spikes to location spoofing and batch fraud), why inattentiveness isn't the same as fraud, and what varies across B2C vs. B2B and by region.Most importantly, he shares a pragmatic three-part playbook for researchers: better design, always-on fraud prevention, and principled data cleaning. If you care about data quality, respondent trust, and keeping your insights credible, this conversation will help you stay one step ahead—and a lot smarter than the fraudsters.Key Discussion Points:Fraud vs. inattention: distinct problems that often get conflated“Hot fraud summer”: hyperactivity surges and what drove themRegional patterns: diverse, tech-enabled fraud in large markets vs. volume tactics elsewhereB2C vs. B2B: duplicate entries vs. compound/batch, and why incentives matterThe playbook: user-friendly survey design, proactive fraud defense, and pre-defined cleaning rulesResources & Links:Rep DataResearch Defender — fraud prevention platformWebinar recap: “The State of Fraud” Q&A highlightsResearch on Research hub (methodology deep dives)You can reach out to Steven Snell on LinkedIn.Many thanks to Steven Snell for being our guest. Thanks also to our production team and our editor at Big Bad Audio.

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training Ever wonder how much your agency's growth is limited by staying too broad? Or what could happen if you picked one niche and went all in? Today's featured guest didn't set out to run a food service marketing agency; He followed the opportunities, learned from a few hard lessons selling door-to-door, and eventually discoverd the power of focus. He'll share how niching down, rebranding, and embracing flexibility helped him grow his agency into a specialized agency serving some of the biggest names in food service and the ways in which he and his team refined the agency's positioning. Tyler Smith is the president and owner of Matato, a brand strategy and creative marketing agency focused on food and beverage brands in the food service and “away from home” space. His agency helps those brands reach restaurant operators, chefs, and food service directors with smarter, more intentional marketing. In this episode, we'll discuss: The power of positioning. The difference choosing a niche made for his agency. Flexible selling and empathy in action. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources This episode is brought to you by Wix Studio: If you're leveling up your team and your client experience, your site builder should keep up too. That's why successful agencies use Wix Studio — built to adapt the way your agency does: AI-powered site mapping, responsive design, flexible workflows, and scalable CMS tools so you spend less on plugins and more on growth. Ready to design faster and smarter? Go to wix.com/studio to get started. How Selling Vacuums Led to a Food Service Marketing Agency Tyler laughs about it now, but his first “sales training” involved knocking on doors and demoing carpet cleaners that cost more than most people's first cars. While studying advertising, Tyler was sure he wanted to be a graphic designer or copywriter, and while that door-to-door sales job started as a way earn extra beer money, it ended up being a crash course in marketing psychology. He learned how to capture attention, demonstrate value, and handle rejection — all skills that would later serve him as an agency owner. After college, the 2009 recession hit, and finding a creative job in advertising wasn't easy. So when an agency owner offered him a commission-only sales role, he jumped in. Within a few months, Tyler was closing enough deals to get brought on full-time. Fast forward a decade, and he's now the sole owner of that same agency, rebranded as Matato, now leading a team of specialists helping food brands grow smarter. The Smart Positioning and Rebranding Transformed the Agency When Tyler took full ownership, he knew the agency needed an identity that reflected its niche and direction. The old name didn't quite fit anymore. So he created Matato, a playful twist on “tomato, tomato, potato, potato.” It was something memorable, food-related, and (importantly) trademarkable with a clean domain to match. More than a name change, that rebrand was a signal that the agency was doubling down on food service marketing as their core focus. This was a big move for Tyler as he stepped up as the face of the agency. If you can't own your brand, both emotionally and digitally, you can't expect your clients to trust that you'll own theirs. From Generalist to Specialist: Why Niching Down Drives Growth For years, Matato worked with all kinds of B2B and B2C clients. But as they grew, Tyler noticed the most rewarding and most profitable projects were always in food service. So they made the call to go narrow to grow big. That meant focusing on the brands serving restaurants, distributors, and institutions. Tyler's team helps these brands move from a sales-heavy approach to a true marketing strategy, teaching them how to speak to chefs and operators, not just consumers. Now, their content strategy includes things like their annual Food Service Marketing Playbook, a killer lead magnet that doesn't just promote Matato's expertise , it teaches. Some brands use it to DIY their marketing, others see the value and hire the agency. Either way, Tyler's team wins. What Got You Here Won't Get You There Tyler's secret to getting new business in the early days was just “all grind, no strategy.” Cold calls, trade shows, follow-ups; just pure hustle. But as the agency matured, that changed. They stopped trying to “do everything” and started refining how they show up. After repositioning more firmly in the food industry, their new game plan is rooted in generosity and authority, giving away insights, teaching the industry, and positioning themselves as the go-to experts for food service brands. Their annual Food Marketing Playbook has gotten them great results, and he has also been dabbling in podcasting, an effort that he admits still lacks consistency. All these changes to the brand and how they approach their audience have been a great way to reinvigorate the business and demonstrates his team understands that you can't just tell people to hire you; you've got to show them why. Empathy and Flexibility: The Secret to Long-Term Client Relationships One of Tyler's biggest lessons when it comes to sales is to stay flexible and empathetic. Instead of rigid packages or pushy closes, he focuses on what the client actually needs and finds ways to make it work. That adaptability has helped him build long-term trust (and some very loyal accounts). Sure, early on it led to a few over-committed budgets and sleepless nights, but over time it became one of Matato's superpowers. Tyler calls it “on-the-fly problem solving”, a willingness to adjust, improvise, and make the deal work without losing sight of the big picture. Why Every Specialized Agency Should Start a Podcast Tyler's got deep expertise and connections in his niche. He has noticed podcasting could be the fastest way to build authority and create a content engine without relying on written blogs that no one's reading anymore. It's not just about attention; it's about access. When you interview potential clients and peers in your industry, you're building relationships that open doors. As Jason put it, “It's the number one thing I ever did for my business.” How Curiousity Keeps Your Agency Evolving Looking back, Tyler can see that curiosity helped Matato survive and evolve, especially during the pandemic. When food service came to a standstill, his team didn't sit idle. They experimented, collaborated with chefs and influencers, and tested new lead-gen angles. Things are constantly changing and what got you to this point won't get you there. So his message to agency owners is to stay curious and willing to try many things. Otherwise, you'll be doomed to fail.

Tu te demandes comment sortir de l'anonymat en tant que freelance sans devenir un influenceur qui poste sur ses vacances ? Comment construire une réputation d'expert qui te fait vendre plus cher et attirer des clients premium sans passer ta vie sur les réseaux sociaux ?Dans cette mini-série, je reçois Mathieu Bernard, créateur du podcast "Bonne Réputation" et expert en Personal Branding. Ne pars pas en courant !! Promis ce n'est pas un énième épisode de podcast bateau sur le sujet (on en trouve déjà à la pelle sur Spotify

Tu te demandes comment sortir de l'anonymat en tant que freelance sans devenir un influenceur qui poste sur ses vacances ? Comment construire une réputation d'expert qui te fait vendre plus cher et attirer des clients premium sans passer ta vie sur les réseaux sociaux ?Dans cette mini-série, je reçois Mathieu Bernard, créateur du podcast "Bonne Réputation" et expert en Personal Branding. Ne pars pas en courant !! Promis ce n'est pas un énième épisode de podcast bateau sur le sujet (on en trouve déjà à la pelle sur Spotify

Tu te demandes comment sortir de l'anonymat en tant que freelance sans devenir un influenceur qui poste sur ses vacances ? Comment construire une réputation d'expert qui te fait vendre plus cher et attirer des clients premium sans passer ta vie sur les réseaux sociaux ?Dans cette mini-série, je reçois Mathieu Bernard, créateur du podcast "Bonne Réputation" et expert en Personal Branding. Ne pars pas en courant !! Promis ce n'est pas un énième épisode de podcast bateau sur le sujet (on en trouve déjà à la pelle sur Spotify

“Roughly 80% of unidentified calls go unanswered. The voice channel won't recover until people trust who's calling.” — Alex Algard, Founder & CEO, Hiya Alex Algard joined Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, to unpack why consumers are ignoring voice calls and how Hiya—in partnership with mobile operators and handset makers—aims to modernize caller identity, block abuse, and reconnect businesses with customers. The problem Hiya's annual research shows unidentified calls are largely ignored (≈80% unanswered). With nuisance and fraud rampant, voicemail is turning into the new spam folder, undermining contact centers and legitimate outbound teams. Who Hiya is Seattle-based Hiya powers call protection and identity services with a global footprint of 500M+ users, working with AT&T (US), Samsung (global), Rogers/Bell (Canada), BT (UK), Vodafone, Telefónica, Telenor, and others. Two flagship services Hiya Protect: Network-integrated analytics (privacy-respecting metadata only) assess ~30B calls/month to label or block spam/fraud in real time—often before the phone rings. Hiya Connect: Elevates legitimate outbound calling with branded caller ID (business name, logo, call reason), materially raising answer rates for B2C outreach (banks, airlines, healthcare, pharmacies, field services). New: Caller Reputation (transparency for enterprises) For the first time, businesses can see and track their caller reputation and get prescriptive guidance to improve it (e.g., call patterns, answer durations, hygiene). This addresses the “black box” confusion when calls are mislabeled across carriers/analytics vendors. It's designed for enterprises, MSPs, channels, and SMBs—with direct engagement via Hiya or through operator partners. AI has been in Hiya's DNA Hiya has applied ML since 2016 and now leverages advanced AI to improve detection and identity, helping operators keep networks clean while avoiding false positives on wanted calls. Hiya AI Phone (assistant/screener) A carrier-offerable AI agent that answers, screens, and routes inbound calls in real time—ideal for consumers and SMBs (e.g., trades & field services that can't staff a live receptionist yet rely on timely calls). Why it matters for readers Contact centers & outbound teams: Recover answer rates, reduce voicemail waste, and maintain brand trust. Enterprises/MSPs/Channels/Regional telcos: Offer branded calling, protect subscribers, and monitor/improve caller reputation across portfolios. SMBs: Use AI screening to capture opportunities without missing critical calls. Learn more about Hiya Protect, Hiya Connect, Caller Reputation, and Hiya AI Phone at hiya.com.

This week, in episode 267, David C. Barnett, Kate Morgan, and Sarah Segal tackle a challenge every owner who sells services eventually faces: Clients want to hire you, but you want them to understand they'll mostly be working with your team. How do you make that clear without scaring them off? For some, it's a delicate balancing act. For Kate, it's simple: if a client insists on her personal time, she charges, in her words, “a boatload of cash.” Plus: we dive into another tricky owner decision: how to structure bonus plans that truly drive retention. David is weighing a deferred bonus approach, where payouts happen over several years. It's a proven way to keep people around, but he wonders: Do you really want employees who'd otherwise leave to stay just for the money? Also, when valued employees get an offer, do you counter-offer? And if they leave, do you tell them they can always come back?

In the world of artificial intelligence and software as a service, companies are no longer just competing on features. In this episode of the Grow Your B2B SaaS podcast, Joran Hofman sits down with BetterPic founder Ricardo Ghekiere to discuss The B2B SaaS Nightmare and how SaaS founders can grow without recurring revenue. Companies today are also competing on how they price their products and how they scale. This episode highlights how one company made millions without using monthly subscriptions. Instead, they leveraged one-time payments, smart marketing, and simple but powerful strategies. You'll learn how they managed costs, raised prices, and succeeded through alternative growth channels. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to build or grow an AI business without relying on monthly payments.Key Timecodes(00:00) – Cracking AI Pricing: LTV, AOV & Unlocking Paid Channels(00:58) – $4M Without Subscriptions? BetterPic's One-Time Revenue Model(01:44) – “Wait, No MRR?” Reactions to Explosive Non-Recurring Growth(02:18) – Revenue is Revenue: The SaaS Case for One-Off Cash Flow(02:46) – Inside BetterPic: AI Headshots, B2B vs B2C, and Single-Purchase Strategy(03:28) – Subscription Apps vs Specialized AI Headshots: Who Wins?(03:51) – Why Headshots Don't Need Recurring Revenue + 45-Day Sprint Strategy(05:14) – Starting From Zero: The E-Commerce Mindset in SaaS(06:07) – From 70% COGS to 90% Margins: The AI-Native Advantage(06:44) – Building a Cost Moat: Raising Prices & Outspending Competitors(07:47) – Cutting GPU/API Costs: Internal AI Infra & Multi-Provider Routing(08:21) – The Recurring Revenue Goldmine in AI Infrastructure Optimization(08:36) – AI-Native vs AI Features: Pricing Pains of OpenAI APIs(09:36) – Why Buyers Choose AI-Native: QuickBooks vs Xero Example(11:02) – Open Source vs Closed LLMs: Pricing, Quality & Competitive Moats(11:52) – The Risk of No MRR: Surviving the Consumer AI Tsunami(13:18) – Pivot to Better Studio: Turning AI Headshots Into Recurring B2B(13:54) – Dual Engines: Scaling One-Time Sales While Building Recurring Revenue(15:16) – Fundraising Without MRR: Convincing Investors to Bet on the Team(17:10) – Startup Valuation: Group-Level Investment Across Two Brands(17:42) – How Low AOV Shapes Channel Strategy(18:57) – SEO & LinkedIn Hacks(19:56) – The Affiliate Engine: (20:42) – Stripe Upfront vs Net-30 Payments(21:04) – Designing High-Converting Affiliate Programs With Real Incentives(21:39) – Where the Affiliate Traffic Comes From: YouTube, Reddit, Display Ads(22:30) – SEO Benefits of Affiliates: Backlinks, Listicles, and Rankings(23:34) – LLM-Generated Listicles: Dominating Google & AI Discovery(24:16) – How a $49 AOV Made Google Ads Profitable(25:34) – Scaling Paid Channels: CAC, LTV, and AOV in Sync(25:59) – Paid Channel Stacking: The Compounding Effect in Growth(26:25) – No MRR? Fast Sales Cycles & Upfront Payments Explained(28:17) – Speed to Value: AI Headshots Delivered in 30 Minutes(28:58) – Pricing Agility: Changing Prices Without Legacy Contracts(29:10) – Pushing to the Middle Tier: Packaging Strategy With Amplitude Data(30:15) – Rapid Pricing Iteration: 7-Day Tests & Volume-Based Experiments(31:32) – Fast Consumer Feedback vs Slow SaaS Trial Cycles(32:07) – GTM Strategy: Make Two Big Bets a Year & Know CAC Limits(33:04) – Pricing Drives Channel-Market Fit: SEO, Affiliates, YouTube(33:45) – $12K Self-Serve Deals: Going Upmarket With Confidence(34:25) – Automating Jobs-to-Be-Done: The AI-Native Future(36:50) – How to Get to $10K MRR: Focus on One Channel First(38:12) – Enterprise GTM Shift: Better Studio's Move to Events & Partnerships(39:14) – Scaling From $10K MRR to $10M ARR: Building Full-Funnel Teams(40:37) – Recap: One-Off SaaS, AI Margins, SEO/Affiliate Flywheels(42:54) – Reporting Rhythms: Monthly KPI Bingo & Health Metrics.