Podcast appearances and mentions of caspian studios

Since 2014, Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic newsletter has landed in inboxes every single morning, offering ancient wisdom in bite-size, highly clickable form.It's also a masterclass in content marketing. In this episode, we're unpacking what B2B marketers can learn from The Daily Stoic with the help of Amanda Dyson, VP, Head of Marketing at FourKites.Together, we explore how to break the marketing mold, why the most impactful content is also the most practical, and how anchoring your message in core values makes it stick. Stoicism isn't just a philosophy; if done right, it's a blueprint for modern marketing.About our guest, Amanda DysonWith 20 years B2B software and SaaS marketing expertise, Amanda specializes in go-to-market strategy; consultative marketing; change and people management; lead generation; account based marketing; partner co-marketing; integrated digital marketing; email marketing; live and virtual events; corporate branding and storytelling; account segmentation and targeting; project and budget management, and strategic advisement.Amanda has run regional and global teams. She has a passion for people and results and a proven track record of success delivering on KPIs and OKRs. She has held successively responsible, cross-functional leadership positions in sales and marketing, including alliances, partnership marketing, ABM, demand generation, field marketing, solutions marketing, events, communications, and corporate marketing for global Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software companies.A California girl at heart, Amanda happily resides in Charlotte, North Carolina with her family of five. When she's not growing people or pipeline at leading tech companies, she enjoys spending time with her family in the mountains or at the beach, running daily, and practicing mindfulness. Amanda has an MBA from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University with a focus in Marketing, Finance and Supply Chain, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Economics with a Minor in Professional Writing from the University of California, Santa Barbara.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic Newsletter:Break the marketing mold. Stoicism may be ancient, but Ryan Holiday has made it feel new and modern. Amanda sees that reinvention as a creative north star. She says, “Let's do something wild. Some of my favorite marketing campaigns have just been weird stuff. It breaks the mold and it gets something done.” Ryan Holiday didn't market stoicism by copying academic textbooks, he made it approachable and surprising. B2B marketers should do the same. Surprise earns attention. A little weirdness, done with purpose, goes a long way.Make it usable, not just insightful. Ryan Holiday's greatest trick isn't sounding smart, it's making stoicism actionable. Amanda says,  “He does things in such a bite-size, practical way that you can hold onto it.” That's exactly how B2B content should work. Don't just publish thought leadership that nods at trends. Give your audience tools they can actually apply. Teach them something they'll remember at 4 PM on a chaotic Tuesday. If it doesn't help them do their job better, it's just noise.Anchor your content in core values. The Daily Stoic isn't random. It's rooted in four core tenets: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. Amanda draws the parallel for marketers: “It's all fostered and rooted in these core values or the stoic virtues, which you could look at your brand pillars in the same kind of light.” B2B content should be more than campaign-deep. When your content reflects your company's true values, it resonates longer and travels farther. Think less about filling the calendar, and more about reinforcing what you stand for. Quotes*“ I really challenge my teams to get back to storytelling. You gotta break out of the box, so let's do something wild. Some of my favorite marketing campaigns I've ever done have just been weird stuff: bobbleheads, robots on the beach. Random things that are not B2B software, but it breaks the mold and it gets something done. I think Ryan's done that with his marketing of stoicism. He's broken the mold, right? He reinvigorated this ancient philosophy, and so that's definitely a lesson I think we can learn from him too on content.”*“ So we are all about how do we take one thing and reuse it in different ways. I think if we look at Ryan and his newsletter, I kind of mentioned his repetition. I don't think he sends the exact same newsletter, you know, multiple times. But there's certainly similar messages where you can go back in your archives and dig those things up again and present it in a different way. Content is huge. It drives, internally and externally, all of our activities. But you gotta be really smart about how you do it and how you use it, 'cause you're competing with so much noise. It can definitely be challenging to again break that mold.”*“ Something that makes him a tremendous marketer is that he really believes in what he's selling us, right? He's created this brand that is a lifestyle. Stoicism is a philosophy, so there's a lot of high value attached to it and how you live your life.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Amanda Dyson, VP, Head of Marketing at FourKites[00:58] Why Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic Newsletter[03:04] The Role of VP, Head of Marketing at Four Kites[04:18] Origins of Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic[09:27] Understanding Tucker Max[13:12] Stoicism 101: Old Ideas for Modern Chaos[20:23] Building a Daily Ritual[22:21] Strategies for Writing Like a Pro[25:35] Inspiration as a Driver for Your Content[35:55] Creating Marketing Tactics That Actually Matter[39:00] FourKites' Content Strategy[40:31] What's Working for Amanda Now?[44:15] Measuring ROI at Four Kites[49:49] Advice for Marketing Leaders[51:27] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Amanda on LinkedInLearn more about FourKitesAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Bruce Cleveland, author of the best-seller “Traversing the Traction Gap" and CEO of Traction Gap Partners, a Market Engineering advisory firm.In this episode, Bruce outlines why most startups fail and explains market engineering, a term he coined  to represent the ideas around category design. He shares insights into creating a category and what goes into startup success. Key Takeaways:Market engineering involves the ideas around category design or redefinition thought leadership to create a category.There are distinct advantages to being a category leader; the category leader generates about 76% of  all the profits from a category. While there is a first-mover advantage, there are also some associated challenges.Thought leadership is an essential component of creating a category. People want to be around peers they admire, so gathering the right people together leads to an eventual tipping point that makes it easier for a company to sell.Quote:  One of the reasons that you need to actively be involved in the thought leadership part of category creation is people wanna hang out with other people who they think are smart, who have some cool ideas. And that I think happens with companies as well. So eventually some companies kind of climb out of the morass, the cacophony of, fighting the marketing battle and begin to emerge as the thought leaders in those. And then they collectively gather more people and more people. And finally there's a tipping point where that company is perceived as the category leader. And so it becomes really easy for those companies to then sell more.Episode Timestamps: *(02:26) The Trust Tree: Traversing the Traction Gap *(07:31) The importance of category design*(26:05) Thought Leadership in category creation*(35:39) How to evaluate startupsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Bruce on LinkedInLearn more about Traction Gap Partners or Traversing the Traction GapLearn more about Caspian Studios

Reinvention beats repetition every time. In a crowded market, it's reimagination that sets you apart.That's the real lesson behind The New Look, a drama that follows Christian Dior as he rebuilds a whole new vision of fashion. In this episode, we're taking inspiration from that spirit of transformation with the help of our special guest, Hrishi Kulkarni, Director of Customer Advocacy & Executive Programs at dbt Labs.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from narrative-driven branding, thoughtful reinvention, and the power of showing up with both creativity and compassion.About our guest, Hrishi KulkarniHrishi Kulkarni leads customer advocacy and executive programs at dbt Labs. Previously, Hrishi served as Head of Customer Marketing & Executive Programs at New Relic. He has also worked at Salesforce in Customer Engagement and Marketing and QStream in Customer Success and Professional Services. Hrishi brings with him over 16 years of experience in customer engagement. He is also an equality champion, SF LGBT Center board member and founder of LGBTQ+ ERGs in India and Asia.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The New Look:Storytelling is your superpower. In The New Look, Christian Dior tells stories through his fashion. His work is infused with personal meaning, from tributes to his sister to inspiration from his mother. Hrishi says, “Marketing is all about storytelling. I joined marketing because I love storytelling… it emotionally connects your product and your services to your audience.” In B2B, storytelling isn't fluff, it's how you make people care. It's how you stand out. Don't just tell your audience what your product does, tell them why it matters.Innovation only works when it's authentic. Dior's most memorable move wasn't a massive runway spectacle; it was an intimate, unexpected fashion show that broke every rule. Hrishi explains, “He's not going to have a huge fashion show… He's going to create it in a very small space, a very personalized experience. Which never before any designer had done.” That decision wasn't flashy for the sake of it. It was deeply intentional. For B2B marketers, it's a reminder that innovation doesn't mean gimmicks. It means staying true to your values and finding fresh, genuine ways to express them.Repetition kills good content. Dior didn't copy what worked, he created what was next. Hrishi says, “As a customer marketer… we have to be creative in identifying and securing the right stories and then finding innovative ways to amplify those stories. If you keep amplifying different stories also in similar ways, at some point it is going to fall flat.” B2B marketers often default to the same formats: another case study, another quote, another video. But to keep your audience engaged, you have to rethink how you tell your stories, not just what stories you tell.Quotes*“ I love storytelling. It's because, if you think about it, storytelling truly impacts people's hearts and minds. It emotionally connects your product and your services to your audience. And that's exactly what Dior has done with his fashion. Like the perfume story you shared earlier, right? It's inspired by his sister. Like a lot of his design of his costumes, of his art, his all comes inspired from his mother. So he truly shows us how storytelling can drive the fashion industry. He started his fashion through the art of storytelling. Also thinking outside the box. If you saw the show, he's constantly innovating. He's constantly thinking outside the box. And as a customer marketer, you have to be constantly creative in identifying and securing the right stories and then finding innovative ways to amplify those stories. If you keep amplifying different stories also in similar ways, at some point it is going to fall flat. So it's always “how can I be innovative with these stories?” And then of course thought leadership, right? It's storytelling or thinking outside the box, being creative to showcase the thought leadership of your customers, their brand.”*“ In terms of B2B, customers love to hear how other customers are doing, how they're using your platform. .And I always say that what makes a kickass story is it has to be data driven and there has to be some human element to it. And now that's your recipe of a powerful story. ”*“ In a B2B world, we create all these customer stories, but what's our end goal? Our end goal is how are my sales teams, my how are my account executives going to leverage this story with other prospects, with other customers. So truly thinking that buyer journey, how are your different stories going to influence every stage in that buyer journey?”*“ Being authentic is so important in marketing. That is something we learned from The New Look. Be authentic in what you do. The passion comes across genuinely. It comes across easily. It's very evident. Be innovative. Don't be afraid to take risks.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Hrishi Kulkarni, Customer Advocacy & Executive Programs Lead at dbt Labs[01:10] Why The New Look?[04:19] Customer Advocacy & Executive Programs at dbt Labs[06:54] Origins of The New Look[11:54] B2B Marketing Takeaways from The New Look[24:57] Building a Strong Content Strategy[27:53] Measuring ROI in Customer Marketing[32:08] dbt Labs Executive Sponsorship Program[34:12] Advice for Marketing LeadersLinksConnect with Hrishi on LinkedInLearn more about dbt LabsAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Escaping the underworld may not sound like a marketing strategy until you look at how Hades turned it into a blueprint for success.Developed by indie studio Supergiant Games, Hades isn't just a video game, it's a critically acclaimed masterpiece thanks to its iterative development, rich storytelling, and a fanbase that helped shape the game in real time. In this episode, we dive into the lessons marketers can learn from this roguelike phenomenon with special guest Zoe Hawkins, Director, Content Marketing & Integrated Campaign Strategy at Sumo Logic.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from fearless experimentation, community co-creation, and crafting content your audience can't help but share.About our guest, Zoe HawkinsZoe Hawkins is a former video game and tech journalist turned content marketer. She has over a decade of professional experience turning technical understanding into fluent communication. Working with a range of B2B tech companies, Zoe has helped create value across marketing and strategy. She also serves as co-lead for Sumo Logic's sustainability-focused ERG, the Planeteers. When not working, Zoe is usually absorbed in speculative fiction – video games, books, or streaming media. She's a mom to two cats and a grade-school-aged daughter, living with her husband in perpetually sunny Arizona.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Hades:Experimentation is the only way forward. In Hades, dying isn't a setback; it's part of the process. Zoe says, “You keep experimenting and you're gonna fail. And that's okay... Each time you learn and you grow and you do it better.” For marketers, it's a reminder that campaigns don't need to be perfect out of the gate. Failure isn't fatal. Failure is how you find what works.Build content with your community, not just for them. Supergiant launched Hades in early access, inviting players to shape the game as it evolved. Zoe explains, “They give feedback. It's almost like a co-design, co-development process with your fans.” B2B marketers can do the same by involving their audience early, whether through feedback loops, pilots, or beta content. Let your audience help build what they want. It not only strengthens relationships, but it also keeps them excited about what's coming next.Create content that people want to share. Hades isn't just a game people play, it's one they rave about. Zoe asks, “How do you make it that people are actually happy to use your product and excited to use it… not just customer loyalty, but advocacy? They wanna tell other people, ‘you will not believe how cool this thing is'.” That's exactly what Hades achieves through intentional design, standout storytelling, and undeniable personality. Marketers should aim for the same. Treat your content the way Hades treats gameplay, and your audience won't just consume it, they'll spread it.Quotes*“ You keep experimenting, and you're gonna fail. And that's okay. If I think about it, you come into a new team or you come into a new product launch or you come into a new organization, whatever it might be. And you think you know how to play the game, you think you know what it takes to succeed, to beat the boss, whatever that is. And you do the run according to the way that you've done it, maybe in other roles or other companies, and you die, you fail. It doesn't necessarily go a hundred percent to plan, and that's okay. And then you get to restart with a new weapon, a new strategy, a new approach, whatever that might be, and pull it back together. Bring it back in to say, ‘okay, let's, let's try it again. Let's run it again and see if we're successful this time.' And that just feels so liberating and then each time you learn and you grow and you do it better.”*“ I love the idea that they only make one game at a time, that they're so focused, and it comes through in the work. It's so polished, it's so well made, and clearly made with love, that transfers to me. And I think if we tie it back to that B2B marketing, I think about working in tech, working in SaaS, how do you give that moment of delight where it's not just like, ‘oh my gosh, your company saved me this amount of money or whatever, or this tool is worthwhile for me.' But how do you make it that people are actually happy to use your product and excited to use it, or have that sense of not just customer loyalty, but advocacy. They wanna tell other people, ‘you will not believe how cool this thing is.'”*“ One of my favorite kinds of content to make is case studies because we get to make our customer shine and tell their story… I know our story backwards and forward. What's your story? Why are you winning with this? Why are you succeeding with this? And being able to tell something cool that they figured out, a way they're using our product that we didn't even think about that's interesting or cool.”*“ Not being afraid to experiment, not being afraid to fail, I think, is such an important marketing lesson, because you're gonna have some risks that are gonna be great, and you're gonna take some risks that are gonna just completely flop. And that's okay. That's how we learn. That's how we try new things.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Zoe Hawkins, Director, Content Marketing & Integrated Campaign Strategy at Sumo Logic[02:20] Why Hades?[03:08] The Role of Director of Content Marketing and Integrated Campaigns at Sumo Logic[03:54] Origins of Hades[15:29] B2B Marketing Lessons from Hades[44:32] Importance of Humor in Branding and Content Strategy[49:47] Versatility of Video Content[54:11] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Zoe on LinkedInLearn more about Sumo LogicAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

This episode features an interview with Armen Najarian, CMO at Sift, an AI-powered fraud platform delivering identity trust for leading global businesses.Armen has 10 years of experience as a CMO across a variety of fraud prevention, digital identity, and cybersecurity organizations. He discusses how word of mouth and a strong brand has allowed them to become a leader in their space and also gives insight into Sift's top source for demand generation.Key Takeaways:It is riskier not to take risks. Marketers need to be willing to try something unconventional. If it fails, the world goes on. Giving your customers access to your data, if it answers important questions for them, can be a key driver of demand. Understand what your customers are curious about and what questions they are asking. If you can find a way to provide answers, the ROI will be significant. Quote:  ”Those that aren't taking risks are the ones taking risks, is the way I would look at this. Like we have to take risks -you know, it's gotten so noisy and some of the tried and true tactics like organic search, right, which is completely flipped on its head right now. Every CMO has a responsibility, anyone in marketing really, has a responsibility to really rethink the logic for what they're doing and take some risks.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:29) The Trust Tree: 10 years of CMO experience*(09:19) The Playbook: Answering your customers biggest questions*(38:24) The Dust Up: To create a category or not *(42:32) Quick Hits: Armen's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Armen on LinkedInLearn more about SiftLearn more about FibrLearn more about Caspian Studios

Reviving vinyl in the digital age sounded impossible until the creation of Record Store Day changed everything.Launched with Metallica at a San Francisco record shop in 2008, it became a global celebration of indie music culture and a blueprint for building real human connections. In this episode, we drop the needle on what marketers can learn from vinyl's resurgence with special guest Robert McCauley, Sr. Director of Content Marketing at Upwork.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from community-driven events, the power of exclusivity, and how to build content strategies that truly resonate.About our guest, Robert McCauleyRobert has 20+ years of experience in content marketing, editorial, and communications. At Upwork, he leads a team of more than two dozen amazing content marketers, customer marketers, and multimedia professionals. (In fact, you can find out more about how awesome they are by checking out this link: https://bit.ly/3PGXNcD.) Robert lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and their high-octane fourth-grader. Ask him about his vinyl collection if you're looking to waste an hour or two.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Record Store Day:Sell the experience, not just the product. Exclusivity and differentiation aren't just nice-to-haves; they're why people line up on Record Store Day. As Robert puts it, “Part of the reason that someone is gonna pay $40 for something that they could, in theory, get for free is because the artists and record labels have done a nice job of selling the exclusivity and the differentiation. And, frankly, understanding their audience.” In B2B marketing, it's a reminder that when you make your audience feel like they're getting something rare and tailored, they'll lean in.Community turns customers into believers. Record Store Day isn't really about what you buy, it's about who you're with. Robert says, “This is where the power of community really comes in. It feels like a celebration of music. It feels like a celebration of vinyl... it feels like an event, a way to connect with people that are passionate about something like you are.” That emotional connection is the secret ingredient. For marketers, if your audience feels seen and connected, your brand becomes more than a service. It becomes a shared story.Go analog to cut through the noise. In a world of constant digital overload, physical media feels almost radical. Robert explains, “Analog physical media can really make an impact. We're all flooded with digital stuff all day, every day... the thing that cuts through that are physical things because they're so far, few and far between nowadays.” For marketers, this is a cue to think tactile because sometimes, the most unforgettable touchpoint isn't a notification, it's something your audience can actually hold.Quotes*“ When done right and in a very strategic way, analog physical media can really make an impact, right? We're all flooded with digital stuff all day, every day. There's the whole joke of you going from kind of your midsize screen to your small screen, to your big screen over the course of the day. And the thing that cuts through that are physical things because they're sort of so far few and far between nowadays.”*“ Record Store Day at the end of the day is really an awesome in-person event. And in-person events, I think, in general, can be really effective for marketers. And again, when they're well thought out and done well. One of the great things about this is that, again, it's about community. It's about doing something that people appreciate and like. It's about feeling very kind of personalized to the things that they're passionate about. And, I think again, it just reinforces the fact that there are great ways of connecting with your customers much more directly and, of course, physically than over email or something. And they have a much stronger impact when you are face to face with someone and they remember your name, or you have a conversation, or you enjoy the coffee, or the excitement in the atmosphere that the event brought you. So I think it's the way that these are run are a good example of how in-person events can and should be run and can really make a difference to marketing efforts.”“  We always, as content marketers and B2B marketers, I think, worry that we have one opportunity to kind of hook our audience. If we don't do it now, if we don't get everything we need, this is gonna pass us by. There's this trust of, ‘Hey, I am confident that over time I'm gonna show you the value of my content in this case, my music, and I'm gonna get hooked.' And that will be rewarded down the line. It's definitely a long-term play, but it is very counter to, I think, a lot of our instincts of squeeze as much as we can as quickly as we can.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Robert McCauley, Sr. Director, Content Marketing at Upwork[01:26] Why Record Store Day?[03:21] Origins of Record Store Day[10:26] The Draw of Vinyl[16:51] Robert's First Record Store Day[20:15] Value of Physical Music in a Digital Age[28:58] B2B Marketing Lessons from Record Store Day[47:43] Upwork's Content Strategy[51:41] Upwork's Recent Content Creation[55:21] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Robert on LinkedInLearn more about UpworkAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Alison Lange Engel, CEO of Ceros, a company that provides tools and services that empower companies to create interactive content with unparalleled ease and efficiency, driving customer engagement.In this episode, Alison discusses the power of interactive content and how to differentiate your brand amidst increasing noise. She and Ian dive into the importance of being unique and how creativity is a competitive advantage. Key Takeaways:Creativity is a competitive advantage, even more so as copying assets gets easier with AI. CMOs need to get their teams off the treadmill and make space for creativity, inspiration and ideation. The sea of sameness is real, especially in B2B, and the world continues to get noisier. You have to disrupt and have conviction behind your big bets; check box marketing won't cut it anymore. Originality is as important as ever, but teams have to find ways to do more with less and won't succeed if they are only trying to differentiate themselves through words, tone, or processes.Quote:  You're going to miss the opportunity to differentiate and tell a unique story, right, if you have your team on a treadmill constantly. And that's how most people feel. But, as a leader, you've got to create space for it and find inspiration. Encourage your team to bring ideas. We would bring magazine clips in. People would bring in their pets. People brought in old, you know, pictures, family mementos, what matters to them. You've gotta get to the heart and soul of what you're trying to do to kind of unlock your team and have your company, you know, feel fresh, feel modern, and have people take risks, right? Great companies take risks and you have to kind of create that environment to do that. The brands that don't, are in trouble and the brands that do are the ones that win.Episode Timestamps: *(05:50) The Trust Tree: Experiences over static content*(25:36) The ROI of creativity*(36:29) Advice for CMOs on creativity and boldnessSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Alison on LinkedInLearn more about CerosLearn more about Caspian Studios

Eric Johnson, CIO at PagerDuty, shares why today's most impactful CIOs are evolving into strategic business leaders. He explains how AI is driving a fundamental shift in how IT organizations operate—moving from reactive support functions to proactive, value-creating business enablers.About the Guest: Eric Johnson is the Chief Information Officer at PagerDuty, responsible for PagerDuty's critical IT infrastructure, data management and enterprise systems. Prior to joining PagerDuty, he was the CIO at SurveyMonkey, DocuSign and Talend. Before that, Eric spent 12 years at Informatica driving the information technology vision and strategy as the company scaled to a modern SaaS architecture. He is an active advisor and board member to several early-stage companies and a regular contributor to IT thought leadership.Timestamps:*(05:20) -  Embrace shadow IT and AI tools*(18:40) -  Changing role of the CIO*(30:00) -  Security and cybersecurity awareness*(33:35) -   Future of automation and AIGuest Highlights:“In the CIO org, they need to be business experts as much as the partners that they work with… because AI and the use of it and finding those high value use cases, it's gonna take folks in the CIO org to be a lot more knowledgeable about how the company operates and processes.”“Obviously, certain roles are going to change much more than others, but I think across the board, roles are going to change.”“As these changes come, how do you reorient the organization—the humans in the organization—to be able to find that higher value work?”Get Connected:Eric Johnson on LinkedInIan Faison on LinkedInResources:Learn more about PagerDuty: www.pagerduty.comHungry for more tech talk? Check out these past episodes:Ep 59 - CIO Leadership in AI Security and InnovationEp 58 - AI-Driven Workplace TransformationEp 57 - The CIO Roadmap to Executive LeadershipLearn more about Caspian Studios: caspianstudios.comCan't get enough AI? Check out The New Automation Mindset Podcast for more in-depth conversations about strategies leadership in AI, automation, and orchestration. Brought to you by the automation experts at Workato. Start Listening: www.workato.com/podcast

A man crashes through walls. A woman joins him. Together, they run straight into the sky. No dialogue. Just music, motion, and a pair of Levi's jeans.This is Odyssey, the Levi's ad that changed how we think about brand storytelling. In this episode, we're unpacking its marketing lessons with our special guest, Paula Vivas, Head of US Marketing at Freepik.Together, we explore why storytelling is the most powerful strategy, how boldness builds lasting brand identity, and why emotional resonance is your greatest competitive edge.Because the best marketing doesn't just show a product, it makes you feel something real.About our guest, Paula VivasPaula Vivas is the Head of US Marketing at Freepik. She has over 15 years of experience in visual design, online marketing, and social media marketing, with a passion for creating and promoting engaging and innovative content.Paula is also the co-founder of Charis, a platform that celebrates AI‑empowered creativity. With that, they launched the Charis Awards, a global competition that showcases the best AI-generated images and their creators.Paula's experience spans across Product Marketing, Content Marketing, Events, Ads and Growth Marketing in the Tech industry.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Levi's Odyssey ad:Story is the strategy. The Levi's Odyssey ad didn't just sell jeans, it sold a feeling of liberation. Paula recalls watching it and thinking, “I want to be able to give a meaning to a brand.” The brilliance wasn't in the product, but in the story it told, breaking through walls, both literally and metaphorically. In marketing, stories aren't a “nice to have”; they're the whole point. When you anchor your brand in a powerful narrative, you move from transactional to transformational.Break through with brand identity. In the Levi's Odyssey ad, two people sprint through wall after wall, finally launching into the sky, all while wearing Levi's jeans. To Paula, it wasn't just an ad; it was a masterclass in brand symbolism. No voiceover. No product breakdown. Just raw, kinetic metaphor for freedom and durability. In B2B, the lesson holds: skip the specs and aim for the soul. The brands that break through aren't the loudest, they're the ones that hit instinct before intellect.Emotion is the ultimate differentiator. What makes the Levi's Odyssey ad timeless wasn't just its visuals; it was how it made Paula feel. In an era of AI-generated everything, emotion is your moat. Tools can replicate images, but not meaning. The best marketing doesn't just look good, it makes you feel something. Give your audience that, and they'll remember everything.Quotes*“ Let's make great content. Let's forget about Will Smith eating spaghetti. Let's forget about doing another Star Wars. Star Wars is going to be there, and of course, that's going to go viral because it's Star Wars. Let's create beautiful content for you to watch, and sit down and say, ‘This is what a creative mind can do. This is what we can do with AI.' Let's make something original. Let's create a path that's different.”*“ I don't think AI is going to take out anything. I think it needs to be humane. We need to be behind it. We need to be the person at the wheel. LLMs are created by us, so we have to be there, right? Our creative part is always gonna be there.”*“ If you give me a cookbook, that doesn't make me a chef. [AI] is not gonna take anybody away. It is just gonna make everyone better and faster and explode those creative parts of themselves.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Paula Vivas, Head of US Marketing at Freepik[02:32] Why Levi's Odyssey Ad?[03:09] Levi's Odyssey Ad Origin[08:01] Why Great Storytelling is Your Differentiator[15:17] What is Upscale Conf?[18:47] Freepik's SEO Strategy[21:58] How Freepik Simplifies Prompt Engineering[24:17] Behind the Scenes of Upscale Conf[27:22] What's Next for Upscale Conf[31:05] Freepik's Content and Brand Strategy[34:01] Breaking Down Freepik's Music Collection[37:11] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Paula on LinkedInLearn more about FreepikAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Jen Rapp, CMO at Superside, an AI-powered creative service, trusted by 500+ top brands. Jen has over 20 years of experience developing and executing marketing strategies for high-growth companies, with a particular focus on working alongside entrepreneurial leaders to scale.She discusses selling the vision and how doing good impacts marketing, sharing her lessons from her time at Patagonia and DoorDash. She also discusses winning on meta through quality creative and driving qualified leads through virtual summits. Key Takeaways:Don't sleep on meta ads. If your ICP is on Instagram, those ads can be some of the cleanest and most effective ads to drive pipeline, especially if you have quality creative. Virtual Summits, or essentially a stack of webinars, are a great way to get emails and drive pipeline if you are truly offering great content. Sell the vision, not the product. A focus on features, instead of stories, is rarely the way to go. Quote:“  I would not have said this a year ago, when I first joined the company - number one is our meta, paid meta spend. I came to this company and I saw how much we were spending on Meta, and I was like, whoa, what the hell are these people doing? They're making mistakes left and right. Nope. We drive a majority, or a lot, I shouldn't say a majority, a lot of our qualified pipeline through our Meta spend. Our Meta spend also acts as our top of funnel awareness driver.  When we turn off meta, we basically turn off the ability of our SDRs and our BDRs to convert people to SQLs. It is invaluable. So number one, my marketing team is like rallied around creating incredible creative for Meta.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:51) The Trust Tree: Making sure customers have confidence in you*(12:12) The Playbook: The power of Meta ads*(33:10) The Dust Up: Standing up to brilliant founders*(41:01) Quick Hits: Jen's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jen on LinkedInLearn more about SupersideLearn more about Caspian Studios

Marketing isn't just about tactics, it's about strategy. And most times, the smartest move is playing the long game.That's the strategy behind Settlers of Catan, a board game built on resource trading, calculated risks, and thinking three steps ahead. In this episode, we're drawing inspiration from its gameplay with our special guest, Jen Grant, Chief Marketing Officer at Dialpad.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from staying focused on their own path, anticipating competitor reactions, and building a diversified strategy that drives long-term growth. Because in both Settlers of Catan and marketing, the real power play is thinking beyond your next move.About our guest, Jen GrantBefore joining Dialpad as Chief Marketing Officer in October 2024, Jen served on the Dialpad Board of Directors, held C-level positions at Cube and Appify, led Looker's marketing, drove the rebrand of Elastic, and grew Box to an industry-leading enterprise content company. Jen holds an MBA from Wharton, a BA from Princeton, and has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Princeton Technology leaders.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Settlers of Catan:Play your own game. In Catan, constantly reacting to what others are doing can leave you scrambling. The same applies in B2B marketing. Jen encourages a more grounded approach: “You do much better, sort of very quietly focusing on your own growth.” Instead of chasing competitors or mimicking market leaders, build a strategy that aligns with your own long-term vision. Because sustainable growth isn't won through noise, but through quiet, deliberate moves.Always be forecasting. Winning at Catan means thinking ahead, not just about your next move, but the ones after that. Jen says,  “I actually really love the strategy part of it. Thinking about, okay, we're about to launch a particular feature. What's that gonna make the competition do?” In a competitive landscape, it's not enough to plan for what you control; you also need to anticipate how others will react. Great marketers operate like strategic game players. Don't bet on just one road to victory. Catan punishes one-dimensional players. You can't win by hoarding sheep alone, you need balance. Jen explains, “It is never one thing…It's all of the things at the same time, executed perfectly well.” Diversification isn't just about spreading risk; it's about orchestrating a full-spectrum effort that compounds over time. The most impactful marketing isn't siloed, it's symphonic.Quotes*“The thing about Catan, and other board games, this might come into play too, but you could potentially spend all of your time trying to crush the other players…And when you play a game a lot, you're like, oh, I'm gonna try this strategy this time, see what happens. And one of the things that I've definitely never seen work is if you focus all your energy on messing with other people. You do much better sort of very quietly, focusing on your own growth.”*“ I actually think the reason I like the game so much is the game theory of thinking ahead, 2, 3, 4 steps ahead. And so you're thinking how am I gonna achieve my goals, but what are they gonna do when I do, whatever it is, buy this road. I love that part of the game. I love thinking out ahead, okay, if we do this, then what are they gonna do? And for marketing, I think we often get caught up in the fun, creative part of marketing. But I actually really love the strategy part of it, of thinking about, okay, we're about to launch a particular feature. What's that gonna make the competition do? Are they gonna freak out? Are we kind of catching up to them? And maybe we shouldn't be so loud about it 'cause we should have had this before. All of the different implications of what you do in a market and then how the competition actually responds.”*“ So the thing about Catan at the very beginning of the game is that there are numbers on every square. And so you get to choose two places to put your little settlement, and there are three numbers for each of those settlements. So right there, you have six numbers, and the numbers are on resources. And what's really important, and many people don't think about this, is you wanna have all of the resources available to you on numbers that get rolled frequently, but you can't be on only two numbers. And it kind of speaks to diversifying tactics. So that to me goes right to marketing. Oftentimes, we'll get CEOs or CFOs, probably more likely. Just find that one thing that works really well and put all your budget into the one thing, and you're like, it is never one thing. Never, never, never is it one thing. It's all of the things at the same time executed perfectly well.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Jen Grant, Chief Marketing Officer at Dialpad[02:10] Why Settlers of Catan[03:08] The Role of CMO at Dialpad[04:52] Dialpad's Evolution[09:19] Dialpad's Super Bowl Ad[10:40] Origins of Settlers of Catan[16:23] B2B Marketing Lessons from Settlers of Catan[49:47] How Jen is Investing in Brand and Content[56:25] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Jen on LinkedInLearn more about DialpadAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Steve Rotter, CMO at DeepL, a global communications platform powered by Language AI.In this episode, Steve shares with us the power of a small uplift to your website when you see large scale website traffic, and the importance of pushing your point of view over your product features. He also dives into the value of brand in avoiding churn. Key Takeaways:Small changes to the website can have a small uplift, and when you are dealing with large-scale website traffic, that can have a big impact on the business. For large enterprises, don't underestimate the value of small optimizations on the website. People churn products, they don't churn from valued brands and communities. Make sure to invest in your brand accordingly. Explaining your POV over pushing your features, allows you to demonstrate the outsized impact of your product more effectively. Quote:  Brand is critical. My general sense is, people churn from products, they don't churn from communities, they don't churn from brands with personalities that they enjoy. So, we spend a lot of time looking at that in terms of, you know, what is the voice, what is the language, what is the identity of the brand?Episode Timestamps: *(04:11) The Trust Tree: People churn from products, not brands and communities *(24:13) The Playbook: Explain your point of view, over pushing all your features*(39:22) Quick Hits: Scott's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Scott on LinkedInLearn more about DeepLLearn more about Caspian Studios

Polished is out. Grit is in. If you want your brand to cut through the noise, it might be time to take a cue from the underground music scene.In this episode, we're taking lessons from 90s indie rock with special guest Scott Rayburn, CMO of DataArt. Together, we talk about how brands can market with meaning, stay relevant in the digital age, and create content that hits like your favorite song.About our guest, Scott RayburnScott Rayburn is the Chief Marketing Officer at DataArt. He's experienced in leading cross-functional, high-performing content, GTM/sales, comms, operations, and creative teams, and skilled in content strategy, sales enablement, demand generation, SEO, product marketing, website strategy, branding, partner marketing, and providing creative direction.Scott has been with DataArt since 2023. Prior to his current role, he served as Director of GTM & Content at global technology services company Wizeline. He has also led product marketing at companies like The Risk Management Association and Proscia.What B2B Companies Can Learn From 90s Indie Rock:Lead with authenticity.
Great marketing doesn't have to be glossy, it just has to be real. The best indie rock bands of the '90s didn't rely on flashy production or major label backing to build loyal followings. They embraced raw sound, DIY, and intimate venues, and that resonated deeply with fans. Scott draws a parallel to modern marketing: “People can see through BS… you actually generally will get better results from the kind of authentic stuff.”Think in lifetimes, not just campaigns.
The strongest brands create lasting emotional connections, much like your favorite bands. “These bands that started in the eighties are still filling up 5,000-person theaters today,” Scott explains. Why? Because their fans feel a deep, emotional connection. For marketers, this means nurturing your audience beyond the funnel. Build a brand people want to grow old with, not just click on once.Stay active on every channel.
Indie rock bands don't just put out an album and disappear. Scott says, “Even if they're not making new songs, they need these channels to stay relevant, to sell tickets, to sell merch. It's all kinds of tied to marketing. And this is a tie between the authenticity and customer lifetime value. It's really activating that in a digital age.” Marketers need to do the same. A strong multi-channel strategy ensures your message reaches people where they are, whether that's a blog, a webinar, an event, or a TikTok feed. Being present across platforms consistently helps brands stay top of mind, accessible, and adaptable to change.Quotes*“ This authenticity that we were talking about with these bands, people can see through BS. Whether it's like an Instagram reel or a LinkedIn ad, or an email campaign. It can still work. Your marketing can still work if it's completely polished. But I think, and I see from some results that come from a company work that DataArt is doing. You actually generally will get better results from the kind of authentic stuff. And this is kind of where you see brand maybe driving more revenue than demand generation, but who can actually count the dollars from brand? Well, not me, but maybe someone can let me know. So those conversations are happening.”*“ These bands that started in the eighties are still filling up 5,000-person theaters today… There's this multi-channel approach, which is a huge part of marketing and content marketing. You notice they're all on Spotify. They all have websites, they all have social media. Even if they're not making new songs, they need these channels to stay relevant, to sell tickets, to sell merch, e-commerce. It's all kind of tied to marketing. And this is a tie between the authenticity and customer lifetime value. It's really activating that in a digital age.*“ The number one thing I've noticed in content marketing is the huge need to transition from the faceless 1000-word blog post to something that's more interactive. The quote with somebody's face on your social media post is gonna perform five times better than the faceless five AI trends.”*“ You can't do everything yourself. Build a good team around you. Be T-shaped 'cause you're not gonna be a marketing leader if you're not T-shaped…And try to create some way that you can stay focused on your strengths, and then lean on others who have strengths of their own. Have this kind of holistically built type of leadership team.”Time Stamps[0:55] Scott Rayburn, CMO at DataArt[02:02] Why 90s Indie Rock?[03:53] What is Record Store Day?[04:55] The Role of CMO at Data Art[06:38] Origins of 90s Indie Rock[10:50] The Indie Rock Movement and Its Impact[20:30] Building Community Through Music[31:11] B2B Marketing Takeaways from 90s Indie Rock[38:39] How You Can Be More Authentic in Your Marketing[46:55] Advice for marketing leaders[47:29] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Scott on LinkedInLearn more about DataArtAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Bill Macaitis, Founder & CEO, SaaS CMO Pro, where he shares growth strategies for SaaS and AI companies. His past roles include CMO positions at Slack and Zendesk, and SVP of Marketing at Salesforce. Bill joins the podcast to discuss findings from a recent survey of over 300 B2B marketers that gives insights into marketing strategies and budgets. He shares what they learned about marketing versus sales budgets, the most common attribution model, and more. Key Takeaways:Companies that are growing the fastest, invest the most in marketing. While cause and effect of that correlation is unclear, it's an interesting finding. Pipeline generation was one of the most tracked metrics for CMOs, which is a nice move away from only looking at MQLs or leads. Unfortunately, awareness was rarely tracked, making it hard for marketing teams to invest in long-term initiatives. A lot of companies, 65 percent, continue to use first or last touch attribution models.  Quote:  So, what we learned is a lot of companies, I think especially in their earlier stages -  percent still use first- or last- touch.  It's kind of crazy. I'm still shocked by it.  I remember my time at Salesforce,  I was running the marketing ops team at that point, along with a couple other teams, and  I just did a deep dive into attribution. Like I really wanted to understand like, hey, how many touches are people having with us before they became a lead? And then how many touches before they became a customer? What we would see is people would have 10, 20, 30 interactions or touches with us before they became a lead, and then they'd have like another 20 or 30 before they became a customer. And just imagine giving all the credit to the very first or last thing. And by the way, it's one of the reasons Google got so big was because a very common last touch thing is they will search on your company name. Branded search, right? And it's like, oh, like the SEM guys are like, this is amazing, right? We need to spend more on Google because they're producing these massive deals. And it's like, well wait, what about all the stuff in the middle?Episode Timestamps: *(03:48) Marketing Strategies and Budgeting*(22:31) Attribution Models in Marketing*(26:44) Top Metrics for B2B SaaS and AI Companies*(31:06) Marketing's Role in Revenue and ExpansionSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Bill on LinkedInLearn more about SaaS CMO ProLearn more about Caspian Studios

Siroui Mushegian, CIO at Barracuda, shares how she's building a smart, secure foundation for AI—-from setting up an AI council, to governing agents, and creating employee guidelines that protect innovation. She also shares how AI is transforming IT operations and unlocking new levels of productivity across the enterprise.About the Guest: Siroui Mushegian is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Barracuda. Siroui joined Barracuda most recently from BlackLine, where she was responsible for all aspects of BlackLine's internal corporate IT. Before BlackLine, she held executive IT leadership roles at PBS's WNET New York Public Media, the NBA, Ralph Lauren, and Time, Inc. Bringing more than 20 years of executive and IT leadership experience, Siroui has successfully built strong operational environments that eliminate technology silos, elevated the maturity and impact of technology within her enterprises and delivered measurable and scalable business outcomes. Siroui holds a Master of Business Administration in Management and Strategy from Fordham University's Gabelli School of Business and a bachelor's in mathematics and finance from University of Connecticut.Timestamps:*(04:10) -  Skills for Future CIOs*(07:00) -  Barracuda's AI and Automation Projects*(08:50) -  Tips for AI Security *(33:25) -   The Importance of Community and CollaborationGuest Highlights:“ A lot of people are worried they are going to work themselves right out of a job. It remains very important for us to keep our position as thought leaders to hold that mantle high.”“ Your partnerships with your colleagues and leaders across the enterprise will help you get more done than any AI agent will.”“ I love the concept of the education we're getting ready to roll out  in a curated way to people who are going to take these tools and come up with solutions that I could never in my life think of because I don't sit in their shoes every day.”Get Connected:Siroui Mushegian on LinkedInIan Faison on LinkedInResources:Learn more about Barracuda: barracuda.comHungry for more tech talk? Check out these past episodes:Ep 58 - AI-Driven Workplace TransformationEp 57 - The CIO Roadmap to Executive LeadershipEp 56 - Best Proactive Cybersecurity Strategies for CIOsLearn more about Caspian Studios: caspianstudios.comCan't get enough AI? Check out The New Automation Mindset Podcast for more in-depth conversations about strategies leadership in AI, automation, and orchestration. Brought to you by the automation experts at Workato. Start Listening: www.workato.com/podcast

At 83 years old, Martha Stewart is still as relevant as ever, and she just released a new documentary to prove it. Martha takes us through the highs, lows, and reinventions of her iconic career.In this episode, we're diving into the world of Martha and the power of documentaries with our special guest, Amy Holtzman, Chief Marketing Officer at CHEQ. Together, we're exploring what B2B marketers can learn from bringing documentary-style storytelling into their marketing and the legacy Martha Stewart built. We're talking about how to build an authentic brand, own your unique style, and stay top of mind for decades.Because let's be real: who wouldn't want their brand to have Martha Stewart-level resilience?About our guest, Amy HoltzmanAmy Holtzman is Chief Marketing Officer at CHEQ. Amy brings 20 years of marketing experience to CHEQ, including tenure as CMO and head of marketing at Spring Health, AlphaSense, and Splash. She is also a founding member of Chief, a private network that connects and supports female leaders, and co-founder of NYC-based Women in Revenue Marketing.  What B2B Companies Can Learn From Martha:Resilience builds a legacy.
Martha Stewart's documentary doesn't shy away from the tough moments, and that's part of what makes her story so powerful. In business, as in life, setbacks are inevitable. Amy Holtzman puts it simply: “You gotta show up the next day… roll with the punches and figure out how you get through it.” Resilience and conviction aren't just admirable traits,  they're essential for building a brand that lasts for decades.Own your style.
Martha's perfectionism is part of her brand. She's unapologetically herself, and it's helped her stand out for decades. Amy encourages marketers to take a page from that approach. She explains, “ Martha's an unapologetic perfectionist… Martha owns it, and it's what made her successful. And I think you have to not necessarily own Martha's style, but you have to own your own style.” In B2B marketing, embracing your quirks and leaning into what makes you different is more powerful than playing it safe.Build trust through authenticity.
Martha's documentary reminds us that connection comes from honesty. Her brand works because it's consistent and deeply personal. Amy says the same holds true in marketing, “As humans, we crave connection…I  think people shy away from it and B2B a lot of times because they're worried… I think that's what we want. And we can also kind of sniff bulls*** a mile away.” Don't hide behind jargon or trends. The more human your brand feels, the more trust you'll build.Quotes*“  You're gonna get knocked down…But you gotta show up the next day. You have to kind of do it all in stride. If you wanna make it right and make a name for yourself and for your business, you have to just like roll with the punches and figure out how you get through it.”*“ You gotta own what makes you special and unique, right? Martha's an unapologetic perfectionist. She insists on things being her way. A lot of times like women can get negative feedback about that and Martha owns it, and it's what made her successful. And I think you have to not necessarily own Martha's style, but you have to own your own style. It's hard to change. You can adapt in certain situations, but you're not gonna change who you are. And I do think you've gotta own it. You gotta own your own unique style. And sometimes that's not what everybody loves, but it's also what makes you and also your brand special and unique.”*“ I feel like as humans we crave connection and look for commonalities, right? And I think people shy away from it, and B2B a lot of times, because they're worried. What if somebody doesn't like that thing or doesn't have the same values that I have? We need to think about what those things are that we share, but also, there's room to be ourselves and be authentic, like Martha, a bit more too. Because, as humans, I think that's what we want, right? And we can also kind of sniff bullsh** a mile away, right? When somebody's not who they say they are. So I think there's room for a bit more.”*“ I know we're probably all sick of like everything AI, but I actually think it's incredibly important to stay really up to speed and think about it beyond productivity.”Time Stamps[0:55] Amy Holtzman, Chief Marketing Officer at CHEQ[02:07] Why Martha, the Martha Stewart Documentary[02:40] The Role of CMO at CHEQ[05:09] Breaking Down Martha[14:22] B2B Marketing Takeaways from Martha[19:57] The Importance of Authentic Storytelling[25:27] Why You Should Be Documenting Brand Moments[32:36] CHEQ's Marketing Strategy[36:14] The Power in Reinventing and Not Replicating[42:22] The Future of AI in MarketingLinksConnect with Amy on LinkedInLearn more about CHEQAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Jenny Force, VP of Global Demand Generation at Meltwater, a company with a suite of solutions that spans media, social, consumer, and sales intelligence. Jenny discusses her experience launching the company's first big summit, as well as the work they have done to automate their inbound process to maximize each MQL.Key Takeaways:Launching a new big initiative and then proving ROI to the executive team requires careful positioning and careful measurement against KPIs.Automating the process for inbound leads through tech removes manual human intervention and puts the sellers into positions where they can do their job at a more impactful level.Imbuing campaigns with humor, while a little scary, can cause a big lift in engagement.Quote: We've been really investing and not just spending more money to get more MQLs. It's making, not to sound cliche, but every MQL count. It's about automating the process. Here at Meltwater, we're a 20-year-old company, we're very sales-centric and there's a lot of energy that used to be put behind outbound. So, it was changing the narrative around inbound. Until we totally make this change as a business where everyone in the business is shouting to get an inbound lead and are super excited about it, it's how can I get every single lead responded to in under an hour without any delays? And it's been a bit of a journey to put the right tech in place to automate those processes that we can, take out that manual human intervention and then put the sellers into the business so they can actually sell. So, I've got some tech around instant meeting scheduling, self-serve demos, a conversational email that we've put in. And honestly, I feel like that has already had such an impact on our conversion rates. I wouldn't get rid of it.Episode Timestamps: *(06:03) The Trust Tree: Improving inbound efficiency and increasing deal velocity*(14:32) The Playbook: Launching a summit and investing in automation *(45:53) The Dust Up: Changing inbound KPIs to get a seat at the table *(49:30) Quick Hits: Jenny's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jenny on LinkedInLearn more about MeltwaterLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Luke Arno, CRO at Transcend, a privacy platform that empowers brands to enhance regulatory stances and improve customer relationships through data transparency, consent, and control.Luke dives into the different marketing strategies needed when you are prioritizing data privacy and aiming to only engage with prospects who opt in. He also discusses making the sales function an advisor and consultant to potential customers. Key Takeaways:One size fits all messaging is not successful and does more damage than good. It needs to go. Marketing while prioritizing data privacy is a different ball game and requires a series of calculated investments based on the target market. Empowering your sales leaders as thought leaders, and asking them to act as advisors, makes them very valuable at events. Quote: “ How do we most effectively deliver thought leadership or ask the right questions from our customers about the problems they're solving? And we invest deeply in enabling our sales force  to be subject matter experts, and then therefore we rely on them to help scale, to meet our customers and open up the conversation in a trusted environment. Hence the name of the segment, the trust tree. But that whole process requires sales rep to put their sales position down and, effectively, ship the paradigm for how they think about engaging customers as more of a consultant or an advisor.  So, we try and delight our customers with a sales free experience, but we do rely deeply on the employees we hire at every function to effectively manage the conversation as a trusted advisor.”Episode Timestamps: *(07:47) The Trust Tree: Thoughts on marketing strategy from a CRO  *(21:52) The Playbook: The psychology of prospecting*(37:03) The Dust Up: Show up prepared to articulate your position*(40:45) Quick Hits: Luke's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Luke on LinkedInLearn more about TranscendLearn more about Caspian Studios

Saket Srivastava is the Chief Information Officer at work management platform Asana. Saket oversees Asana's IT organization, including optimizing technology systems and processes, connecting technology strategy to overarching business strategy, and ensuring that technology infrastructure supports organizational goals. Previously, Saket held executive positions at Square, Guidewire Software, and other leading technology companies. Saket holds a Master of Computer Applications (MCA) from the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, and an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.Timestamps:*(01:30) -  Asana's Impact and Internal Operation*(08:15) -  AI and Employee Experience*(13:25) -  Collaboration and Cross-Departmental Partnership*(19:05) -  Future Trends and SkillsGuest Highlights:“When you add business understanding with technology understanding, that makes a deadly combination where you can serve and help move the needle for your business.”“The reality is we get sold all the time, every day. When you show up as a practitioner, as a peer, and you're ready to talk about the good, the bad, the ugly, there's a lot of power.”“ Good news is bad news being delivered early. It's so important to be able to create a healthy environment where you can talk about those risks.”Get Connected:Saket Srivastava on LinkedInIan Faison on LinkedInResources:Learn more about Asana: http://asana.com/Hungry for more tech talk? Check out these past episodes:Ep 57 - The CIO Roadmap to Executive LeadershipEp 56 - Best Proactive Cybersecurity Strategies for CIOsEp 55 - Engineering Leadership for Scale, Agility, and MomentumLearn more about Caspian Studios: caspianstudios.comCan't get enough AI? Check out The New Automation Mindset Podcast for more in-depth conversations about strategies leadership in AI, automation, and orchestration. Brought to you by the automation experts at Workato. Start Listening: www.workato.com/podcast

Playing it safe doesn't cut it anymore. If you want to grab eyeballs, you need to be bold, unexpected, maybe even a little chaotic.That's the magic of Taskmaster, a competition show where thinking sideways often beats playing it straight. And in this episode, we're taking a page from its playbook with the help of our special guest, Vanessa Hope Schneider, Head of Brand at Descript.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from chaos, creativity, and knowing when to follow the rules (and when to completely ignore them).About our guest, Vanessa Hope SchneiderVanessa Hope Schneider is Head of Brand at Descript. There, she leads brand, content, product marketing and community. Her focus is growing the community of creators and communicators using Descript to make videos and podcasts. She's working to drive engagement and success through feature announcements and community education, and is developing campaigns that illustrate Descript's perspective on creative work, and the role AI should have in it.Vanessa has previously served as Director of Host Community at Airbnb, Head of Marketing at Clara Labs, and VP of Marketing at One Medical.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Taskmaster:Think laterally. Lateral thinking is about solving problems creatively rather than relying on the most direct or traditional approach. Vanessa encourages marketers to lean into that mindset: “Sometimes your goal is most efficiently achieved by just doing the best practice... but other times you need to break out in your approach.” In B2B marketing, that might mean reimagining how you run events, pitch your product, or tell a story. It's not about copying what others are doing, but finding the unexpected angle. Like in Taskmaster, the real wins often come from knowing when to be efficient and direct, and when to be bold, playful, or completely off-script.Know when you're the picture and when you're the frame. Sometimes your brand should be the star of the show. Other times, you should be supporting someone else's spotlight moment. Vanessa explains, “It doesn't always have to be your brand. It shouldn't always be your brand. Sometimes it's the voices of your customers. It's their success stories.” In the same way, Taskmaster contestants might earn points by hyping up the host, marketers should recognize when to uplift others for the bigger win.Develop your signature style. In Taskmaster, contestants approach identical tasks in wildly different ways, and that's the fun of it. Over time, you start to recognize their unique flair. The same is true for brands. Vanessa says, “It is valuable and compelling to find your style and stick to it, and then approach each new challenge from that perspective.” A strong, consistent style becomes part of your brand identity and how your audience remembers you.Quotes*“ One of the keys to success on Taskmaster and when making content is committing to the bit. If you're self-conscious, if you're mugging for the camera, if you're trying to do too many things at once, if you're distracted, the audience isn't gonna go there with you. Your readership isn't gonna go there with you, your customers aren't gonna go there with you. You have to summon the will, the courage, the focus to go all in, and that's when exciting things are gonna happen. And you might be able to find different types of creativity because you're blocking all that other distraction out.”*” B2B marketers should enjoy lateral thinking. So, sometimes your goal is most efficiently achieved by just doing the best practice, doing it well, and task faster. That would be reading the task and just doing what the task tells you to do. But other times, you need to break out in your approach. You need to be more iconoclastic or more unexpected. You're not gonna win Taskmaster or marketing if you're only doing one or the other. You have to know when to be literal and direct and when to think in new directions. Sometimes you're gonna get the most points if you just speed run the task, but other times you're gonna get points for creativity.”*“ There are instances when you are, as a contestant on Taskmaster, absolutely the star of the show, and you wanna be boisterous and you wanna be attention-grabbing. And of course, we as marketers all can think of instances where we wanna do that with our brand, but in other instances. You kind of wanna be a supporting character. So in Taskmaster, sometimes the best thing to do is make it about Greg because he's a taskmaster and he is very ego-driven…And so the analog for marketers would be. Who are you uplifting in your work? It doesn't always have to be your brand. It shouldn't always be your brand. Sometimes it's the voices of your customers. It's their success stories, so find opportunities to do both.”*“ Your style is your brand…It is valuable and compelling to find your style and stick to it, and then approach each new challenge from that perspective.”*“ The challenge of making content about content is knowing when should I be specific and speak directly to those priority audiences and their priority use cases? And when should I pop up a level and speak in a more generalized way about capabilities and benefits, and trust that the audience will know how that applies to the specific thing they're trying to make?”Time Stamps[0:55] Vanessa Hope Schneider, Head of Brand at Descript[03:38] Why Taskmaster?[04:47] The Role of Head of Brand at Descript[07:09] Empowering Creatives With Descript's Tools[08:15] Descript's Company-Wide Film Fests[09:21] The Origins of Taskmaster[16:43] Understanding Taskmaster's Production Value[21:37] B2B Marketing Takeaways from Taskmaster[32:31] Importance of Investing in Content[41:31] Importance of Video in Modern Marketing[48:27] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Vanessa on LinkedInLearn more about DescriptAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Kamal Thakarsey, CMO at Smartling, an AI Translation Platform that helps companies grow globally, faster. Kamal shares his strategy to stand out in a crowded market. He also dives into understanding trends, educating your customer, and testing even your smallest hypothesis.Key Takeaways:Fight complacency in your messaging. Companies may be comfortable with what they are doing, and comfortable sticking with the status quo, so you need to demonstrate the value of changing their approach. Test everything, from button colors to CTAs and beyond. Testing often surprises you and proves your hypotheses wrong. If you're in a crowded market, focus on truly understanding your market and customers. Investing in that research can support your efforts to differentiate. Quote:   Being an established market, there's lot of kind of noise that's happening and every company kind of raising your hand and saying, we do this, we do this.I think for us also a big part of our strategy is like standing out really like trying to show the market that like we are kind of being industry leaders and helping the space move forward. , I think it's also really about for us, also about how we really highlight kind of the value we bring to an organization and a team. Not just like, tactically, here's some solutions, we help you kind of of do better, but like, what do we actually bring the table and how are we going to help you be successful? I think to me, that's really just like foundational to them, like how we kind of run our programs and campaigns and how more effective they can be, rather than just kind of de facto doing things because we should be doing them. So, you know, one thing I really stress is just really continue to do like market research and understanding, you know, what are their priorities? What are the business initiatives? What are their executives and leaders asking them on an ongoing basis?How can we then understand those trends and that feedback and really put together, you know, smart, timely, relevant campaigns that are going to reach them? Because, like I said, we're in a crowded market with a lot of different vendors, both in the software and the services side, and we have to stand out.Episode Timestamps: *(03:35) The Trust Tree: Capturing the marketing and targeting accounts *(12:24) The Playbook: Driving intent through search*(36:59) The Dust Up: Advocating for self-service *(41:50) Quick Hits: Kamal's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Kamal on LinkedInLearn more about SmartlingLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Gaurav Agarwal, COO and Revenue Leader at ClickUp, an all-in-one productivity platform that replaces all individual workplace productivity tools with a single, unified platform. Gaurav shares his thoughts on keeping your content strategy relevant and the iteration and testing needed to go viral. He also discusses maintaining a blend of B2B and B2C tactics to achieve scalable success.Key Takeaways:Content strategy and going viral is much more about consistency and iteration than it is about the spark of one amazing ideas. Rigorous and experimentation leads to long-term ROI. To stay relevant in marketing, you have to keep up to date on generational trends and new formats of reaching people. You can't get comfortable being a great marketer in an outdate channel. You have to keep bets in your portfolio that have an asymmetric upside, which you can only do if you are willing to take on a certain amount of risk. Don't get too excited about immediate ROI. Quote: A huge part of perfecting craft is you want to stay relevant.  I know amazing marketers  who are gods of Facebook and building viral content on Facebook.  And they fought the short form vertical video format with TikTok so much. They looked down upon it because they thought that this is cringy, this is shot on an iPhone. And I'm like, why are you doing this to yourself? Like, do you not want to be culturally relevant in the next decade? So, a huge part of a great team is staying hungry and not thinking that you've arrived because content, media, consumer preferences, even software is a generational business.  You have to stay on with the formats of what the future is and keep moving towards that direction versus be so happy that I'm this amazing marketer on Facebook. Dude, like your time is up. Facebook pages don't get any distribution anymore. Episode Timestamps: *(03:29) The Trust Tree: Size of audience and LTV should drive your marketing strategy *(11:18) The Playbook: Strategic iteration to go viral on social *(38:03) The Dust Up: Adapt content to different channels and stay true to your brand ethos *(43:52) Quick Hits: Gaurav's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Gaurav on LinkedInLearn more about ClickUpLearn more about Caspian Studios

Simon Sinek says that a lot of organizations can talk about what they do and how they do it. But he says, “Very few organizations know why they do what they do.” And it's the ‘why' that is the most important. In this episode, we're taking this lesson and more from Simon Sinek with the help of our special guest, Guru Sundar.Together, we talk about finding your ‘why', looking for inspiration in unexpected places, and timing your content so it feels fresh. About our guest, Guru SundarGuru Sundar is VP of Marketing at Abridge, a leader in generative AI for healthcare. Guru has been with the company since September 2023. He previously served as VP of Marketing at Looking Glass Factory and Butterfly Network. Guru holds a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University and an MSc in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Simon Sinek:Find your ‘why'. Figure out the reason your work is important and use that in your content. Guru says, ”Every company should have a ‘why' that's rooted in a large problem. And it may be broken into a subset of problems that you tackle over time, but like really focus on that ‘why.'”Look for inspiration in unusual places. Inspiration for your content can come from unexpected places. Guru says, ”Drawing inspiration from outside is culturally ingrained in how we do what we do at Abridge, because if you look at who's next to you, you're not going to innovate. But if you look way far out and break down like, ‘Oh, that brand or that person is having similar challenges, but they're making t-shirts, but I can draw some inspiration from them,' or like ‘That person over there is making music, or they're making some form of art that no one's ever seen before.'”Time your delivery so content stays fresh. Finesse is everything when delivering content to your audience. Guru says, ”No one likes fatigue. And so you have to keep fatigue, freshness, innovation in mind as you're generating these pieces of content. You could have like four or five different content streams. And people need to hear things multiple times, but they don't need to hear it seven times in a row. A lot of the content is developing the right things for your audience that are innately interesting. If you just ask someone, ‘Hey, is this interesting? Is this useful?' They say yes. But then serving it at the right frequency, at the right time, in the right form factor and package, is what I think differentiates okay marketers from incredible marketers.”Quotes*”Drawing inspiration from outside is culturally ingrained in how we do what we do at Abridge, because if you look at who's next to you, you're not going to innovate. But if you look way far out and break down like, ‘Oh, that brand or that person is having similar challenges, but they're making t-shirts, but I can draw some inspiration from them,' or like ‘That person over there is making music, or they're making some form of art that no one's ever seen before.'”*”Every company should have a ‘why' that's rooted in a large problem. And it may be broken into a subset of problems that you tackle over time, but like really focus on that ‘why.'”*”You can break marketing down into two mainstreams. It's like  amazing content that resonates with your audience, you know, your buyer, your end user, and then you have to serve it on all the right channels with the right frequency, usage, et cetera, like cut it up the right way. But content is everything. So it's like, what is it that's going to inspire your buyers? What is it that's going to inspire your end users? And it's keeping it provocative.”*”No one likes fatigue. And so you have to keep fatigue, freshness, innovation in mind as you're generating these pieces of content. You could have like four or five different content streams. And people need to hear things multiple times, but they don't need to hear it seven times in a row. A lot of the content is developing the right things for your audience that are innately interesting. If you just ask someone, ‘Hey, is this interesting? Is this useful?' They say yes. But then serving it at the right frequency, at the right time, in the right form factor and package, is what I think differentiates okay marketers from incredible marketers.”*”If I was to give advice to others, like, really understand your personas, and make sure you know what they need and do it in the most authentic way. If you don't believe in the content, don't serve the content.  And I think a lot of people in marketing just check the box. ‘We need to do emails. We need to do ads. We need to do a white paper,' but like, why are you doing it? And then assess like, ‘Did this work? Did this not work?' And use that as impetus to drive the next thing. But you have to really believe in your content. And I think a lot of people are very tactical and that's where I think it falls flat.“*”The way we operate at Abridge is like you almost have this mentality that this is the last time you're ever gonna create a piece of content. So make it last, make it meaningful.  At some point, you gotta pull back and appreciate everything you've done. Take stock of it. But in the moment, like, don't look back. Don't look too far forward. Focus on today and crush it. And when you think about content that way, it's like, ‘I'm going to really focus on this piece of content. I don't really care what we've done in the past. I don't care what we're going to do in the future. I want to make this count.'”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Guru Sundar, VP of Marketing at Abridge[1:53] Guru Sundar's Journey into Marketing[4:31] The Role and Vision at Abridge[7:35] The Importance of Brand and Inspiration[16:37] Simon Sinek's Golden Circle[19:29] Personal Mission and Healthcare Innovation[23:25] The Impact of Transparency in Healthcare[25:20] AI and Deeper Understanding in Healthcare[25:46] The Importance of Patient History[27:53] Marketing and Storytelling in Healthcare[31:41] Challenges in B2B Healthcare Marketing[33:09] Clinician and Patient-Centric Solutions[43:12] The Role of Content in Marketing[50:34] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Guru on LinkedInLearn more about Simon Sinek and “Starting with Why”About Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Ural Cebeci, SVP Marketing at Braze, a customer engagement platform that allows any marketer to collect and take action on data from any source, so they can creatively engage with customers in real time, across channels.Ural shares his perspective on the challenges and hesitations surrounding personalization, and his thoughts on how to move forward. He also dives into understanding digital body language and customer signals.Key Takeaways:A good demand strategy requires two things: GTM alignment and having the infrastructure to understand the business through data. To have a strong brand, you need healthy, long-term customer relationships, which requires understanding digital body language and customer signals. Marketers have valid hesitations around personalization, due to compliance and data privacy issues, and fear of eroding customer trust. As a result, using channels to continually get consent from customers adn actually delivering value is key. Quote:   ”In the end, in order to have a strong brand, you need to have healthy and long -term customer relationships. And we all acquire customers, users, through campaigns, but then retaining them really means connecting with the human behind that anonymous user or anonymous visitor. And that brings back the whole digital body language. Like we understand what that user is signaling, like what is at the surface versus what they are saying with their engagement, like what they say and collect that data and then like use that to drive better and more meaningful customer relationships.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:55) The Trust Tree: Understanding the business through data*(11:46) The Playbook: Any channel is cuttable, you need to understand your marketing mix*(25:59) The Dust Up: Alignment and committing to the same idea*(27:43) Quick Hits: Ural's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Ural on LinkedInLearn more about BrazeLearn more about Caspian Studios

AI is changing so much about how we create content. So we thought we'd bring in the founders of a brand new tool for making rich, interactive 3D content using AI.We're talking with Co-Founders Charles Migos and Bharat Vasan.And together, we talk about how to make the most out of AI tools, including mocking up ideas, iterating quickly and taking risks.About our guests, Charles Migos and Bharat VasanCharles Migos is Co-Founder & CEO at Intangible. He has over 30 years of experience in the tech industry, specializing in UX and product design. He has previously worked for Microsoft and Apple. Prior to Intangible, Charles served as VP of Product Design at Unity Technologies, where he established a core design practice, principles and philosophy. He also founded a centralized design organization and drove double-digit NPS, CSAT, engagement KPIs and revenue improvement across their portfolio with product design efforts.Bharat Vasan is an experienced investor, executive and board member with 15+ years of leadership in technology. He has a strong track record as a founder and operator in multiple sectors:• Connected Sensors & Devices• Consumer Software and Media• Healthcare, Fitness & Wellness• IoT Sensors / Smart HomeBharat is currently a founder of Intangible.ai, which uses AI to build the world's simplest 3D storytelling tool for creators in games, film, web and XR.Prior to Intangible, Bharat was an investment partner at The Production Board, a $450M venture capital fund, where he built on his experience as an angel investor with a deep network of founders. He helped invest in and create value at businesses ranging from foundry/seed, all the way to growth/IPO. As COO for fund, he also helped the firm fundraise and navigate market cycles in 3 of the most volatile years in venture capital.Bharat also has a strong track record as a P&L operator for growth and early-stage companies, having led his businesses through multiple rounds of financing and acquisitions. Bharat has raised over $500m for his companies, with multiple exits (founded BASIS Science, acq. by Intel; President August Home, acq. by Assa Abloy; CEO of PAX Labs, achieved unicorn status).Bharat is an active public speaker and Board member for venture-backed startups, and nonprofits.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Intangible.ai:Mock up ideas. You can make effective prototypes of a content idea with AI. It lets you get your idea across without having to invest a lot of time or money in a first draft. Charles says, “A storyboard is probably the most important artifact in the process after the script itself. Why? Because it is very low fidelity, but there is very high bandwidth in what it communicates. So like, I as the cinematographer, the director, the set designer, the costume designer, the visual effects supervisor, whomever, looks at A 2D sketch and understands exactly what it means for them creatively. So that idea that you can work from very low or coarse levels of detail, but get to very high levels of detail over time in the way that the process requires is super important. And is as enabling for those film creators or game creators as it will be for these other use cases we hope to activate around live event and architecture, urban design, live event productions and theater and all of that good stuff.”Iterate quickly. Something not quite right with the first version? Iterate quickly using AI. It can even give you multiple drafts or versions of the same idea. Bharat says, ” If you're trying to do a Pixar movie or a documentary, or you're trying to make an interactive game, that's the stuff that feels harder. And it feels like AI can simplify some of that. I can give you a first draft, I can give you a second draft, and I can do it in real time.” Take risks. Because you're not having to spend too much time or money mocking up your ideas with AI, it allows you to take some risks. Get really wild and see how far your ideas can take you. Bharat says, ”One thing that's happened to businesses because budgets have gotten so big, everyone's super risk averse, so you get more lookalike content. And one reason you don't see great content on channels like we used to, or the box offices, because, you know, when your budget is that large, you can't afford to take a lot of creative risks.  So one reason we started the company where we are is if we can make that beginning process easy, if it's easier for Netflix to review more pitches, if it's easier for them to get a better scent, maybe they start taking more diverse bets.”Quotes*” When we found ourselves in this moment around generative AI, I knew that the time had come. Like we could apply generative AI in a way that was designed for creatives to do their best work ever. And I'm an ardent believer that creativity is a team sport.” - Charles Migos*” There's a lot of anxiety about, is AI gonna take over jobs? What is it gonna do to the creative industry? I see it slightly differently. I see it as a way to revert back to the original joy.” - Bharat Vasan*” Those people who feel somewhat threatened by the technological advance, we want to re-weaponize them so that they have more tools and skills that they can employ in different ways to ensure that bright, creative minds are in charge of the content that we enjoy as lovers of the space and consumers of that content.” - Charles Migos*” If you're trying to do a Pixar movie or a documentary, or you're trying to make an interactive game, that's the stuff that feels harder. And it feels like AI can simplify some of that. I can give you a first draft, I can give you a second draft, and I can do it in real time. But the agency that people feel when they're able to do that in real time is really, really powerful. And they share that with other people, other people give them feedback. At least when I build stuff, that gives me energy. I made something as a kid, you know, with my little Lego bricks. I shared it with my friends. They go, ‘That's really cool.' They want to build it with me. That's the fun part about being in this business.” - Bharat Vasan*”Now that AI has come along, we feel like that's the last unconquered thing. You can set up a 3D set, you can figure out how to film it before you spend a dollar on production. And then people know what it looks like, feels like, when you're pitching that to a client, to a movie studio, they get a sense of what that's like as well. And so everyone gets more confidence on the creative project before going into production. And one of the things that's broken about the business is everyone has to place that bet in millions and millions of dollars without knowing what's going to come out of it at the end of the day. And often it might not even be a storyboard, it might just be a script or a blurb. And then you're just hoping and praying that someone's going to do something good with it.” - Bharat Vasan*”A storyboard is probably the most important artifact in the process after the script itself. Why? Because it is very low fidelity, but there is very high bandwidth in what it communicates. So like, I as the cinematographer, the director, the set designer, the costume designer, the visual effects supervisor, whomever, looks at A 2D sketch and understands exactly what it means for them creatively. So that idea that you can work from very low or coarse levels of detail, but get to very high levels of detail over time in the way that the process requires is super important. And is as enabling for those film creators or game creators as it will be for these other use cases we hope to activate around live event and architecture, urban design, live event productions and theater and all of that good stuff.” - Charles Migos*”One thing that's happened to businesses because budgets have gotten so big, everyone's super risk averse, so you get more lookalike content. And one reason you don't see great content on channels like we used to, or the box offices, because, you know, when your budget is that large, you can't afford to take a lot of creative risks.  So one reason we started the company where we are is if we can make that beginning process easy, if it's easier for Netflix to review more pitches, if it's easier for them to get a better scent, maybe they start taking more diverse bets.” - Bharat VasanTime Stamps[00:55] Meet Intangible.ai Co-founders Charles Migos and Bharat Vasan[01:34] Charles' Early Inspirations[03:26] Bharat's Journey and Inspirations[04:26] Founding Intangible AI[04:30] The Vision Behind Intangible AI[05:59] Challenges in the Creative Industry[09:38] The Role of AI in Creativity[20:42] User Experience and Design Thinking[26:01] The Complexity and Fear of AI in Creativity[27:53] Supporting Creative Intent with AI[29:06] Generative AI and the Future of Content Creation[30:33] Revolutionizing B2B Marketing with AI[36:07] The Role of Taste in Creative AI Tools[42:14] Simplifying the Creative Process[46:44] Empowering Original Ideas and Risk-Taking[51:19] Final Thoughts and Closing RemarksLinksConnect with Bharat and Charles on LinkedInLearn more about Intangible.aiAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Emma Robinson, B2B Marketing Lead at Canva, a global online visual communications platform on a mission to empower the world to design.In this episode, Emma dives into Canva's shift from individual to enterprise functionality, sharing her thoughts on the inherent value of investing in brand at any stage. She also dives into the increasing importance of word-of-mouth and avoiding the sea of sameness in B2B marketing. Key Takeaways:Brand and creative help you to get potential buyers thinking and feeling, and help you differentiate among a sea of sameness in B2B marketing, and pushes buyers towards action. While analyst relations are still important, word-of-mouth and peer-driven buying are increasingly important, potentially reducing some of the importance of analyst reports. Traditional SEO is changing, and having high-quality, insight rich content with an authentic point of view will be important. Quote:  Traditional SEO is probably changing somewhat. I mean, most of us who have searched something in recent times will not necessarily be searching just in Google. So, finding ways to make sure that our content will be trained by an LLM in the right ways, you know, people still need answers, but they're getting them in a very different way now.  Image search and, you know, tech search  and all these different things that will inevitably change what we know  as traditional SEO. So, I think for that, it's again, back to the point about being grounded in really good quality content, like colored content that has a point of view that does feel less AI oriented and more  really rich in insights insights, for example, like primary research, those types of things, but that's still going to stay. And then I think influencer marketing and things like podcasts and so forth, like all of those sort of authentic moments are going to matter in kind of the new world. So, we're definitely rethinking our search strategy there, and so more to come on that.Episode Timestamps: *(03:33) The Trust Tree: Changing perceptions and moving into enterprise*(23:16) The Playbook: Thinking and feeling to action *(39:53) The Dust Up:  Do you invest in brand equity for the long term? *(43:53) Quick Hits: Emma's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Emma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-robinson-mtkg/Learn more about Canva: https://www.linkedin.com/company/canva/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://www.linkedin.com/company/canva/

You would never send a postcard instead of an email, create a zine instead of a white paper, or take polaroids instead of digital headshots. But that's why you, the digital marketer, should do it.There's an appeal to all of these lo-fi, analog mediums that call back to yesteryear. A nostalgia. A deliberate denial of modernity. Not only would it surprise your audience, it would lure them right in.So in this episode, we're making a case for lo-fi content. We're doing so by pulling marketing lessons from Ken Layne's Desert Oracle.With the help of our special guest, Chief Evangelist at Contentful, Nicole France, we talk about creating lo-fi content, bucking convention, taking a distinct perspective, and much more.About our guest, Nicole FranceNicole France is Chief Evangelist at Contentful. Nicole is a passionate customer advocate evangelizing new ways of thinking about content and organizing the work of digital business. It's the wave of the future — and her mission is to make sure everyone knows why. She brings the perspective and critical thinking of an industry analyst and the first-hand experience of a practitioner. Before joining Contentful, Nicole worked as an analyst at Constellation Research and Gartner. She also held a variety of strategy and marketing roles at Fujitsu, Equinix, ITSMA, and Cisco. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Nicole enjoys the outdoors, flying small planes, and embarking on yet another house project in her spare time.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Desert Oracle:Create lo-fi content. Make a zine, a radio show or podcast, a book or comic book. Something your audience can touch and can use to get a bit deeper into your world. Make your brand real for them. Nicole says that when it comes to Desert Oracle, “There's something here that kind of harkens back to what the arts and crafts movement was. In the industrial revolution, you know, this idea of kind of going back to this craft, this artisanal, this very human, this very lo-fi way of doing things. And ironically enough, I think there's a real space for that, even in these digital channels.”Buck convention. Feeling disillusioned with the mainstream take on building an audience? Ken Layne grows his audience by creating niche, tangible content with a strong sense of place and it has garnered a dedicated following. In 2024, 44% of Spotify listeners were new to the Desert Oracle podcast, and it ranked among the top 5 or top 10 podcasts for 5,000 listeners. Nicole says, “ [Ken Layne] is actively rejecting conventional wisdom about how you build an audience. And yet that is absolutely part of what is making him successful at doing it. And it's almost like the extent to which I think of Patagonia a lot of times in this kind of context, where Patagonia is telling you, like, use the stuff you already have. And that somehow is part of what makes you want to keep going back to Patagonia. This is what makes people so loyal to Patagonia is the bigger mission. And like weirdly telling people not to buy it somehow is what makes them want to go and buy more, which is sort of, but not actually their intent.”Take a distinct perspective. What is the story that is unique to you? That's the story you want to tell. Nicole says, “ That distinctiveness in that perspective and that point of view, I think that's something that really effective brands gravitate toward anyway. They're good at it consciously and sometimes unconsciously as well. And I think B2B marketing needs more of that. You know, where what we offer our customers, regardless of what we're selling is typically not generic stuff. So why should our marketing sound like generic stuff? And yet a whole hell of a lot of it does. For a long time, we've been in a world where there's a tremendous volume of noise and the kinds of things that get cut through are things like Ken Layne's curmudgeonly, somewhat dismissive and yet somehow totally compelling take on the world. That's what draws people in."Curate an experience. Ken Layne curates an experience that captures the mystical nature of Joshua Tree and the greater Mojave Desert. And he does it by appealing to the senses - more than just the sight that digital content requires. You hear the voices of the desert through his podcast and radio show. You can hold an artifact of the desert: the Desert Oracle zine. His multimedia approach creates a world unique to Desert Oracle. And you get the inside scoop. Nicole says, “ There is a very specific point of view, it is Ken Layne's point of view. But he also brings in a bunch of stories from other people and from other places and sometimes from other times as well.  he's curating an experience for you. And I think that is a really powerful takeaway here.”Quotes*” What Ken Layne does with Desert Oracle is paint this very compelling picture of a place. In some cases, a literal place, like when he's hiking out in Joshua tree, or in some cases, it's more of almost like a spiritual place, a conceptual place that we want to be in.*” How do we get back in touch with the things that are really fundamental, that really are the most important in our existence and nature and, you know, as people? And then how do we associate those meaningful things with what we do in the rest of our lives?”*” [Ken Layne] is actively rejecting conventional wisdom about how you build an audience. And yet that is absolutely part of what is making him successful at doing it. And it's almost like the extent to which I think of Patagonia a lot of times in this kind of context, where Patagonia is telling you, like, use the stuff you already have. And that somehow is part of what makes you want to keep going back to Patagonia. This is what makes people so loyal to Patagonia is the bigger mission. And like weirdly telling people not to buy it somehow is what makes them want to go and buy more, which is sort of, but not actually their intent.”*” When you have a really compelling idea or message at the core, you can find all of these different ways of communicating it really effectively.”*” We found the podcast and then we found the publication. And I guess it really speaks to this idea that multimedia is everywhere. It's in a whole bunch of different stuff. And I think that is actually a really important message and takeaway here, too.  I think that  this idea of being able to explore different aspects of the story and the story world is really key.  Knowing where your audience is, but also being able to bring your audience to where you are, or where you want them to be.  Like, I have totally been brought in and then bought into the world of Desert Oracle. How I got there is almost immaterial, but like there are all these different places that I'm getting this enjoyment from, being part of that world and I feel like I have found a path that brought me in there.”*”[Desert Oracle] is not for everybody for sure, but boy, it creates an incredibly loyal and dedicated audience. That's actually what we want to do as B2B marketers as well.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Nicole France, Chief Evangelist at Contentful[3:45] Nicole France's Role at Contentful[4:54] The Creation of Desert Oracle[7:07] Ken Layne's Career Journey[10:17] Marketing Lessons from Desert Oracle[13:57] The Power of Authenticity in Marketing[14:49] The Role of Generative AI in Marketing[39:06] The Importance of Longevity in Content Creation[41:34] Final Thoughts and ConclusionLinksConnect with Nicole on LinkedInLearn more about ContentfulAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Jean-Christophe Pitié, CMO and Chief Partner Officer at Contentsquare, an experience intelligence platform that helps you gain a deep understanding of your customers' whole online journey.In this episode, Jean-Christophe shares his approach to merging brands while minimizing friction and negative impact. He also discusses the future of SEO and how they are experimenting with influencing LLMs.Key Takeaways:The future of SEO may shift to thinking about how to influence LLMs, and what they say about your brand. While it's currently unclear how to do this, it will likely become increasingly important in the coming years.When merging multiple brands, move slowly and very carefully monitor your work to look for friction and negative impacts.Investing in the martech stack is uncuttable since data is essential to the modern marketer.Quote: We did two major acquisitions in the last two years, and we had three websites under three brands. So we are going through this major rebranding, combining and merging the three brands and phasing out two of the three brands. And so I would say that's a massive project and experiment too. It's like, how do you merge these brands and which have followers, minimizing the business impact, minimizing customer friction? Break things along the journey, so you have to take things. So this, you can identify what you bring to customer journeys or customer flow you're breaking. And as you shift the traffic, for example, SEO, as you start to rebuild SEO, it takes time. Paid search, you cannot do it all. So we said the main learnings are, we knew that would be things breaking and it's happening. So take it slowly, monitor, monitor, monitor very quickly. And we have a weekly committee where we monitor how it's going and the transition is happening. So yes, be slow and patient. Don't break things, or as little as possible.Episode Timestamps: *(03:04) The Trust Tree: Useful organizational design structures *(08:57) The Playbook: Influencing LLMs*(31:51) The Dust Up The challenge of monetization*(33:54) Quick Hits: JCP's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jean-Christophe on LinkedInLearn more about ContentsquareLearn more about Caspian Studios

A fly fisherman goes to part of the river where the trout are feeding, uses a fly that mimics the insect hatching at that time, and times their cast to land just-so.A marketer goes where their target audience is, posts content in-sync with what's trending, and times their campaign to land just-so. It's that same idea of tuning into the media landscape and knowing your audience that will land you the big fish. There are so many marketing lessons we can take from fly fishing. And in this episode, we're tying the two together through an analysis of A River Runs Through It.With the help of our special guest, CMO Simpro Rachel Truair, we're talking about how rhythm and timing are everything, going where you're most likely to find success, and much more.About our guest, Rachel TruairRachel Truair is a seasoned marketing leader with over 15 years of experience in driving revenue and growth for high-growth startups and Fortune 100 enterprises. She combines foundational best practices from her corporate background with agile and innovative approaches from her scale up experience, leading and mentoring teams through successful exits in IPOs and acquisitions. Her teams have won the Forrester Return on Integration Award, the Oracle "Markie" Award, and nominated for the 6Sense Breakthrough Award.Currently, as the CMO of Simpro, a $120M+ ARR private equity-backed field service management software company headquartered in Brisbane, Australia, Rachel is responsible for aligning marketing strategy to business outcomes and creating predictable, scalable sources of revenue. She leverages her expertise in go to market strategy, account based marketing and leading global marketing teams to source pipeline driving ninety percent of Simpro's annual revenue.As an equestrian and fly fisherwoman, Rachel is passionate about conservation and the outdoors, serving on the non-profit board of the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center. She is a mom of two and holds a BA from St. Edward's University and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business.What B2B Companies Can Learn From A River Runs Through It:Rhythm and timing are everything. Marketing, like fishing, takes practice, skill and finesse. Rachel says when it comes to flyfishing, “ It's not about strength. It's not about muscling it into something. It's about understanding the rhythm and the timing. A lot of times you want to just try to get to the end and be really perfect at something and put all of your strength into it and throw it as far as you can. But the reality is that actually makes it worse. It makes it harder. And if you can start to learn the rhythm, the feel, the timing of it, you can really start to see improvement.” Go where you're most likely to have success. In other words, go where your target audience is. Whether that's social media, email, podcasts, or wherever. You're literally fishing for customers. Rachel says, ” You really need to focus on the areas where you have the highest probability for success and be testing and iterating within those areas. But you also have to believe that the fish are there, right? You have to know that this is the right area where they would be.  And you can't waste time on the areas where you don't have belief.”It's all about storytelling. We all know about big fish stories. With fishing, just like marketing, it's all about having a story to tell. Ian says, “It is about the thing that you can go tell other people and when you get to come back. Whether it's from an event or your podcast series, and you get to go back and everyone says, ‘What'd you get?' You have to have conviction. You go to the place, you try your best. And if you don't get all the leads or opportunities or whatever it is, that you get that story that you can go back and say, ‘Hey, this is why this was worth it. '” What's your story?  Quotes*”Cost per lead these days really doesn't mean anything. I could spend a dollar on 3,000 spam leads and that doesn't mean that I'm going to get any new sales or great deals out of it. What is hard is to measure the value of what you're spending money on that creates valuable, sustainable growth. And customers who love the product and have success with the product. That's really not just about spending certain money up front to attract those customers, but also following those customers in their journey and understanding. How are you going to make them successful?”*” You really need to focus on the areas where you have the highest probability for success and be testing and iterating within those areas. But you also have to believe that the fish are there, right? You have to know that this is the right area where they would be.  And you can't waste time on the areas where you don't have belief.”*”Marketing [like fishing] is about the story, it is about the thing that you can go tell other people and when you get to come back. Whether it's from an event or your podcast series, and you get to go back and everyone says, ‘What'd you get?' You have to have conviction. You go to the place, you try your best. And if you don't get all the leads or opportunities or whatever it is, that you get that story that you can go back and say, ‘Hey, this is why this was worth it. '”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Rachel Truair, CMO at Simpro[4:20] The Story Behind A River Runs Through It[9:36] Fly Fishing Techniques and Marketing Parallels[15:17] The Deeper Meaning of Fly Fishing[22:22] Personal Fly Fishing Experiences and Marketing Insights[25:51] Focusing on High Probability Areas[26:39] Defining Success in Marketing[28:06] Fly Fishing Team Building Experience[[38:39] Fishing Stories and Marketing Lessons[44:52] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Rachel on LinkedInLearn more about SimproAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Drew Chapin, CMO at Certinia, a platform that connects all aspects of services operations, from services estimation and delivery to customer success management and financial planning and accounting. In this episode, Drew discusses monitoring buying signals and generating the right traffic to your website. He also dives into inheriting a rebrand and some of the nuances of marketing in a private equity owned company. Key Takeaways: Cold calls, cold emails and the days of expecting someone to fill out a form to get content are over. B2B marketers need to stop making friction or blockers.Nothing fails like success. If you just continue to execute what has worked in the past, you're going to miss innovation opportunities. Aspire for a champagne flute funnel over a martini glass funnel. Maybe not as many leads are coming in at the top, but they are higher quality and converting and much higher rates through the funnel. Quote: “85 percent of the time the buyer will go with the first vendor that they contact. So, building that trust with the buyer over time is critically important. And so, you know, in the old days, you put a form in front of every piece of content and we would optimize around the contact information.  And then you'd pass that along to some BDR and they would just be banging their head against the wall, calling people who weren't on the buying committee. They weren't ready to talk to a salesperson, you know, and it just was waste so much waste. And so what we're trying to do now is we're trying to monitor the activity at the target account level and look for buying signals”Episode Timestamps: *(02:51) The Trust Tree: Stretching the dollar in a PE-owned company*(06:28) The Playbook: Generating quality traffic to the website *(24:28) The Dust Up: Proving ROI to the board *(26:59) Quick Hits: Drew's quit hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Drew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapindrew/Learn more about Certinia: https://www.linkedin.com/company/certinia/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/

Over 85 million people play Pokemon Go every month.* They're out there, wandering the real world, finding, catching and battling with their cute little virtual creatures. But the experience is real and the people they play with are real. You could say it's one of the most successful in-person activations ever. Pokemon Go is proof that in-person activations act as an extremely effective marketing strategy.That's one of the lessons we're taking from Pokemon in this episode with the help of our special guest, fractional CMO Veronica Saron. Together, we also talk about providing game balance, paying attention to metrics, and much more.*As of the first half of 2024About our guest, Veronica SaronVeronica Saron is a marketing leader, formerly of Niantic (Pokémon GO) and AI-powered Neeva (acquired by Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW) in May 2023). Her journey has led her through the worlds of gaming, DAOs, artificial intelligence, web3, and the metaverse. Recently, she led the marketing team at Neeva, revolutionizing the search experience by embedding AI answers into an advertiser-free search engine. Her team's efforts around Neeva's AI-powered positioning – paired with frequent high-profile updates – illuminated their innovative approach, attracted industry leaders and led to their acquisition by Snowflake.Over a decade ago, Veronica co-founded OwlSpark, Rice University's entrepreneurship accelerator, marking the start of her tech journey. After serving Fortune 500 and Global 2000 clients as a strategy consultant and having a stint as a coordinator at Google, she joined Niantic. There, she led the team that transformed Pokémon GO into a global phenomenon, collaborating with esteemed partners like Google, Apple, Samsung, Nintendo, McDonald's, Verizon, Longchamp, Gucci, Northface, and 7-Eleven, as well as countless global SMBs, community creators, and influencers. She has since stepped into roles as an investor and advisor, shaping the future of tech startups. Outside of work, she enjoys stovetop espresso, practicing muay thai, and playing the saxophone. What B2B Companies Can Learn From Pokemon:Provide game balance. Veronica says, “ When people talk about gamification, it needs to be at the right level of difficulty for you to not just get frustrated and give up. A really good game  will start you off on level one and then you progress through difficulty levels.” And when you apply this to marketing, Ian says, “ Your sales process getting really hard for no freaking reason is the most frustrating thing ever.” So take your customers on a journey, and give them the experience appropriate to where they are in their buying process.Look at the metrics. And give them more weight than verbal feedback. Data speaks louder than words. Veronica says, “ When Pokemon Go was in beta, the metrics were really good. Like the retention rates, the activation rates. All the metrics were up and to the right. But people were giving really bad feedback. They were like, ‘I hate this. Why is it not like that? Why isn't it working this way? Why isn't it doing that? Why isn't it doing this?' And the reason why the team launched the game is because the metrics just spoke louder than what people were saying.”Plan in-person activations.  And create immersive environments for your audience. Veronica says, “ When you think about B2B events, you think about conferences and these kind of old school vibes, and I  don't think that's the cutting edge anymore. If you want to do B2B marketing well, take a page out of B2C. There've been some incredible in-person events.” When she worked on Pokemon Go, they were able to do successful in-person events even during COVID and they were able to grow the business despite restrictions.Quotes*”  With Pokemon Go and with any product, there's always going to be core users who are like super users. And they will have all these ideas. They'll want certain features. They'll want certain things fixed. They will be really loud. And then you get the rest of everybody that's the silent majority. A huge part of what product marketers have to do is prioritize feedback based on what is actually going to move the needle in terms of our goals. Because if you just listen to the core users all the time, you'll just make this thing that's only for a very specific super user. You have to balance that feedback with what's going to work for the majority as well.”*”Figure out what problem you're solving. Who is it for? Figure that out first and then you can start to think about being precious about your brand. Once you have something to protect, like the Pokemon company, then you can get precious about it.”*” Sometimes we get caught up in our own core mindset and we forget we have to take the customer through a journey and through a ‘balanced game,' if you will.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Veronica Saron, Fractional CMO at early stage startups[1:33] Veronica's Journey with Pokemon[5:02] The Origin Story of Pokemon[10:07] Pokemon's Global Impact[16:01] Marketing Pokemon Go[29:16] The Business Model of Pokémon Go[35:06] B2B Marketing Lessons from Pokémon Go[35:53] The Importance of Game Balance in B2B[41:46] Brand Consistency and Product Market Fit[46:44] The Power of In-Person EventsLinksConnect with Veronica on LinkedInAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Niloy Sanyal, CMO at LeanTaaS, a growth-stage company that creates software solutions combining lean principles, predictive and prescriptive analytics, and machine learning to transform hospital and infusion center operations.In this conversation, Niloy and Ian debate the merits of last touch versus multitouch attribution models. They also dive into the potential of AI SDRs and the benefits of ungating the content on your website. Key Takeaways:While reporting last touch attribution may help CMOs establish credibility, there are benefits to thinking in terms of multitouch and how to best determine the next best touch. B2B still has a way to go to fully leverage the capacity of our current LLMs, not to mention the new versions coming out. There is immense opportunity in AI SDRs and BDRs. If you may the CEO fill out a form on your website, you've lost them. Ungating content allows high level prospects to consume the information they need. Quote: I am absolutely bullish on the impact of generative AI in the tactic of, to start with BDR and AE sales motions as part of our broader ABM execution. But very soon our comms execution, and every part of the marketing execution. But right now, early days, so I don't want to oversell it. But, the promise of what this can do without any improvement on the LLM. Like we were having this debate last night with another thought leader and I don't need chat GPT 5 to come out. I think 4. 0 or 4 is good enough and it's actually great. We just haven't caught up in a B2B environment to take advantage of it. And what I'm seeing from our early experiments, we've been at it now for three, four months, is absolutely astounding in what it can do. It's not going to replace BDRs. Let's be clear, you're in the Bay Area. If you  drive from, you know, Peninsula to the city, I almost feel half the billboards these days are on like AI-automated SDR, BDR type of a thing. Not in my space. It's not going to automate that any, replace rather, but it can supercharge. Those individuals and it can supercharge. So I'm very excited about where we are. Episode Timestamps: *(04:00) The Trust Tree: Last Touch Versus Multi-Touch*(30:07) The Playbook: The Potential of Gen AI SDRs and BDRs*(44:05) Quick Hits: Niloy's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Niloy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niloysanyal/Learn more about LeanTaaS: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leantaas/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/

Not all remakes are created equal. The Dune of 2021 is not the Dune of 1984. Maybe we should say not all “retellings” are created equal. Because both movies are based on the 1965 book. But film critic Roger Ebert scathingly called the first one "an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion." Ouch.The second one - the one we're talking about today - is a different story. It's been called “aesthetically perfect,” and the “faithful retelling of a complicated story.” And it won a handful of Academy Awards.So we're talking about what makes a great retelling and how to use those lessons in your marketing content. With the help of our special guest, VP of Corporate Marketing at Cribl, Ryan Mattison, we also talk about delivering a singular experience, doing partnership-driven marketing, and much more.About our guest, Ryan MattisonRyan Mattison is VP of Corporate Marketing at Cribl, where he leads the corporate marketing team, and looks after brand, creative, communications, and events. Prior to joining Cribl in July 2024, Ryan served as VP of Brand & Communications at ThoughtSpot. There, he led brand, creative and design, communications, PR and analyst relations, customer marketing, employee advocacy, investor relations and content marketing functions. Since joining as an individual contributor in 2017, he built the team from the ground up to deliver world class campaigns that cut through a highly competitive landscape, improve ThoughtSpot's reputation and awareness among key audiences, and generated pipeline that led to revenue.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Dune:Deliver a singular experience. And deliver it in the format that optimizes the experience. Like how Dune was presented on iMax. The large format made the experience of the sounds and the vast landscape of the film a more immersive and real experience. Ryan says, ”Deliver an authentic experience, and people will pay for it. That idea of being intentional and connecting it with a really authentic value prop, that for Dune was super real. That large screen format with the premium sound is going to really, really differentiate your experience with the movie.”Partner up.  Find other companies to cross promote content with. Dune did this with the video game Fortnite, allowing players to buy a “skin” so their avatar looks like a Dune character. Ryan says, “Dune also did probably one of the best jobs in recent years of doing partnership-driven marketing. Theater going is skewing older and older, but something like Fortnite,  has a much younger skewed audience. They were like, ‘We need to target a younger demographic because if we can get kids or young folks to ask their parents to go see Dune and their parents were already kind of thinking about going, now it's a family thing. And you're not selling one ticket or two tickets. You're selling four, five, six tickets at one time.” Ryan adds, “ How do you find the right partner that's not just the easy partner, but the partner where you're able to find or open up new channels, new demographics, new audiences in a way that feels like there's intentional value being delivered?”Create a remake. Or as Ian says, “Try it again for the first time.” Because the movie Dune that came out in 2021 was a remake of the 1984 movie. Or really it was a retelling of the same story with little regard for the first version. And because of the generational difference between viewers, Ian says, “This [2021 version] was the first interaction with Dune for, I would bet, a massive percentage of the audience that saw this. They never read the books. They didn't watch the first movie.  But for people like your mom, it's like, ‘Hey, try it again for the first time.' Like, ‘Yeah, I know you saw the old movie. This is nothing like that. Just try it again.” It reframes everyone's idea of the original story, and gives a totally new experience of it. So make a remake but keep it fresh.Throw the party. Ian says, “ If you make something worth talking about,  throw the party so that the people can talk about it.” That's what this podcast is all about, getting people to talk about Remarkable content and spreading knowledge of it through word of mouth. He adds, “ If you make content also make the event, make a premiere, make a big deal out of it.” Also because you deserve to celebrate good content and the hard work that went into it.Quotes*” There is no time when somebody is engaging with any facet of your brand or your business in which you shouldn't be representing the perception that you want to drive.  Every one of those is an opportunity to tell your story in a potentially different channel, different way.”*”Deliver an authentic experience, and people will pay for it. That idea of like, being intentional, and connecting it with a really authentic value prop, that for Dune, was super real. That large screen format with the premium sound is going to really, really differentiate your experience with the movie.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Ryan Mattison, VP of Corporate Marketing at Cribl[0:56] B2B Marketing Lessons from Dune[4:11] Marketing at Cribl[7:16] The Storytelling Power of Corporate Marketing[9:18] Dune: From Book to Blockbuster[12:09] Denis Villeneuve's Vision for Dune[15:28] Marketing Strategies Behind Dune's Success[22:56] Partnership-Driven Marketing Insights[27:24] The Challenge of Marketing B2B Products[27:46] Lessons from the Dune Movie Marketing[28:57] The Role of Mega Stars in Movie Success[31:23] The Importance of Authentic Marketing[35:32] Building Anticipation and Word of Mouth[44:20] The Power of the CEO's Voice[48:52] Upcoming Events and Final ThoughtsLinksConnect with Ryan on LinkedInLearn more about CriblAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Melton Littlepage, the CMO at 1Password, a password manager trusted by businesses and consumers alike. In this episode, Melton shares his thoughts on building big bets into your budget and how the lightning strike strategy can increase awareness, even on a limited budget. He also talks about how he's structured his team to create harmony with sales and the importance of focusing on expansion marketing. Key Takeaways:The lightning strike strategy, spending a large portion of your marketing budget on a message over a number of weeks, can increase awareness better than spreading your budget evenly across the  year. CMOs can be very focused on acquisition, but they should not forget to focus on expansion marketing and the value they can generate there. One-on-one sales and marketing partnerships can help ensure both teams are on the same page and operating in harmony.Quote:  I'm a huge believer in lightning strikes. Lightning strikes are so important to us. If you're not familiar with the lightning strike concept in marketing, it's when you align the entire business, everything about the business where you could possibly project the message into the market, the website, all digital marketing, organic, social, paid social, the sales behavior, your presence at an event, everything in this tiny period of time says one thing. And you say it in deafeningly loud. You deploy 25 or 30 or 40 percent of your marketing budget into a window of time that could be just one or two weeks. And you absolutely blast your way into awareness inside your target buyer audience. This goes against the nature of the CMO, right? The CMO, like we all have these spreadsheets of targets where I need to deliver exactly this many MQLs consistently month in and month out with a little bit of seasonality built in and I can't afford variability. Like I definitely can't miss a month. And I don't know if a lightning strike is going to move the needle and so I peanut butter spread my budget evenly. But the problem is unless you have a massive budget, and most of us don't have a massive budget, then you're constantly below the visible line. You're just relegating yourself to being below the visible line.”Episode Timestamps: *(06:52) The Trust Tree: Leveraging solution marketing as you move to enterprise selling *(23:05) The Playbook: Lightning strikes and increasing awareness *47:00) The Dust Up: Navigating CEO-decisions *(49:00) Quick Hits: Melton's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Melton on LinkedInLearn more about 1passwordLearn more about Caspian Studios

Everyone loves getting the insider view.It's like getting let in on a secret. There's an exclusivity to it that's all too appealing. So why not lure your audience in with the chance to be a fly on the wall in your story?That's one of the things we're talking about today with the help of our special guest, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at CSG, David Pendery. Together, we're taking marketing lessons from The West Wing including pitting two characters against each other with opposing views, going for the walk-and-talk, and much more.About our guest, David PenderyDavid Pendery is an award-winning creative, business-focused enterprise marketing & communications leader with extensive experience building brands and businesses, connecting stakeholder needs to company solutions and driving impactful results for 10-figure and Fortune 500 B2B and B2C organizations. He has more than 20 years of experience elevating the visibility, media sophistication and global internal and external interactions of diverse national and international public and private organizations in a wide variety of industries, representing some of the most well-known B2B and B2C brands.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The West Wing:Give the fly-on-the-wall insider view. Let your audience in on the inside scoop of your story. David says in The West Wing, “ It was like you were a fly on the wall in these super secret conversations, right? The way it was written, I think is what was so successful about it.  You just felt like you were the secret observer and it drew people in.” And Ian adds that “ fly on the wall content is crazy valuable.  You feel like you are intruding on a conversation that you are not invited to. And like, that's incredibly cool for the audience.”Pit two characters against each other with opposing views. It's an easy formula for a compelling plot, it's repeatable, and it works every time. Plus you have one of the greatest writers - Aaron Sorkin - using it in his content. Ian says, “ The way that Sorkin wrote the show, is The West Wing happens in the west wing of the White House. So he would repeatedly say to his staff, ‘Our show is at its best when it's one of our characters that we love, they're disagreeing with another character that we love, and they are on either side of something. And it is happening in the West Wing.'”Go for the walk-and-talk. In The West Wing, a character is often walking down the hallway and other staffers are coming up and updating them or giving them important information on the way. The movement gives the information immediacy and importance. Which are great attributes to lend your content. Ian says, “ I think it's an interesting thing to put your CEO or executive or whoever it is - your persona - and it's a really good way to get video content, right? It's like having them walking and having other people come up to them and jump in and do this. You never see that in B2B, never. You never see that. And it's funny. It's pretty cool.”Quotes*”The biggest thing is you've got to establish some credibility with the stakeholders. So I think it's not really something you're going to be able to come in and do on day one, but if you can prove some value, if you can deliver on the results that you've been tasked with delivering, you'll build up this credibility bank and your stakeholders will let you push the envelope a little bit more.  That credibility allows you to be a little bit more experimental, a little bit more agile, and not get too hung up when things don't always work exactly the way you had hoped.”*”Have your A players up front, make sure you've got the right people surrounding you. Having the right people in the right seats on the bus, so to speak, I think is super important because you wouldn't have that same sort of beautiful orchestration that you saw with The West Wing if it wasn't for the right blend of talents and personalities and experiences in all the right seats.”*”Well, so much B2B marketing is so perfectly staged, right? You've got the perfect talking head and everything's polished and overproduced. You've got the perfect soundtrack and the perfect graphics and everything else. And I think sometimes just getting something a little bit more raw like that walk-and-talk kind of gives you that. It's a little unfiltered. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be the 15th take to get the talking points just right. It's just a real, authentic kind of moment that I think is a lot more endearing. And people are much more interested in something that isn't perfect, cause it's more relatable.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet David Pendery, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at CSG[1:41] Why the West Wing?[4:00] The Origins of the West Wing[11:52] Marketing Lessons from the West Wing[26:24] Embracing Raw and Authentic B2B Marketing[26:59] The Importance of Creativity in Marketing[28:36] Understanding Customer Needs Through Direct Conversations[30:57] Timing and Flexibility in B2B Marketing[37:59] The Role of Personal Branding in Company Success[43:54] Investing in Content and Brand Strategy[47:03] Exciting Trends and Future Plans[48:00] Final Thoughts and Advice for CMOsLinksConnect with David on LinkedInLearn more about CSGAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Alex Saric, CMO at Ivalua, a company that empowers businesses to effectively manage all categories of spend and all suppliers, increasing profitability, improving ESG performance, lowering risk, and improving employee productivity. In this conversation, Alex shares his insights into pitching to and engaging with analysts, and how Ivalua has lead in reports since he joined the organization. He also dives into the ways he supports his team in building a dynamic website and when events with significant impact aren't measurable in terms of ROI. Key Takeaways:There is a strategy to sharing your value with analysts in order to lead in their reports. Sharing strategically chosen customer stories and assessing what influences each analyst can go a long way. In addition to the basics of creating a great website and tracking traffic, you need to create a dynamic website. Empowering your team to make minor changes and request major changes can allow you to adjust quickly and improve your website strategy. There is a tendency to focus on fixing problems, but don't forget to also assess how to improve and scale what is working well. Quote:  Yes, I'll say when I joined,  we at the time were not a leader in almost any of these reports that were out there. I think we had broken into one. In the  7 years, and knock on wood, I don't want to jinx myself, we've been the leader in every single report from Gartner and Forrester since then. And I'd say, you know, what I really did, it was probably one of my first priorities, given how important it is in our industry, I reached out to the analysts, started meeting one-on-one with the key analysts there. And of course, you know, I'm going to tell them my pitch,  but they're smart enough to know take it with a grain of salt. I think the important thing is to start introducing them to customers because that's where you get a lot of credibility, if the customers back up what you're saying. And you can be very strategic. So, you know, I was very careful in, the competitor that was kind of the top competitor at the time, making sure I introduced the analyst to customers that had switched from that competitor, which would privately both talk about us, but also kind of badmouth,  their past vendor and that really helped kind of flip the switch and start building credibility what I was saying was actually true. And also improving the rankings. And besides the rankings, they're also influencing a lot of deals behind the scenes and I think they start recommending us a lot more after that. Episode Timestamps: *(03:27) The Trust Tree: Structuring the team to tap into regional expertise *(09:27) The Playbook: Engaging with analysts and leading in reports *(33:34) The Dust Up: Healthy tension with other functions*(34:42) Quick Hits: Alex's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexsaric/Learn more about Ivalua: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ivalua/about/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/

Every person on your team has strengths and…non-strengths. So position them to make the most out of their top skills.It's like how in soccer, you position your top goal-scorer as a forward, not running defense, right? The same is true with marketing. In this episode, we're drawing parallels between soccer and marketing. With the help of our special guest, former Director of Brand Strategy, Storytelling & Advocacy at Ciscy, Cindy Valladares, we're taking marketing lessons from the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team. Together, we talk about using your talent the right way, taking calculated risks, and putting fear in the heart of your competitors.About our guest, Cindy ValladaresCindy Valladares is a marketing executive who recently led brand strategy, storytelling and advocacy for Cisco's cybersecurity business unit. A product marketer at heart, she lives by the NIHITO (nothing interesting happens in the office) motto. Cindy has been a speaker at various security, risk and privacy conferences in North America, Europe and Latin America, where she focuses on topics that affect the information security industry. She is a regular contributor at the Cisco Secure blog, shares her perspective on Twitter @cindyv, and can also be found on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/cindyvalladares/. She holds an international MBA from the University of Ottawa in Canada, and a BBA in Marketing and International Business.What B2B Companies Can Learn From the USWNT:Take calculated risks. You have to try new things and take some risks. That's how you keep your content fresh and find the big successes. Cindy says that when Emma Hayes took over coaching the U.S. Women's National Team, “she made some very unpopular choices, right? Alex Morgan, who everybody thought was going to be called in the roster, she was left out. And so [Emma] had new creative ideas that she wanted to try, and took some calculated risks. And like we say, nothing tried, nothing gained, and you can see the results.” And a few months later, they won the 2024 Paris Olympics.Use your talent the right way. Match their strengths and skills to the role. And put them on tasks they'll perform well on. When everyone is doing work they're good at and that utilizes their strengths, it benefits the whole team. Ian says, “ Part of the Emma Hayes thing is Trinity Rodman flying down the right side of your team is super valuable because she's like one of the best in the world and she's fast and athletic and all that. Having her spam a cross into nobody even though she's good at that too doesn't help your team. That's not a more valuable action. Whereas her trying to take on the defender one on one, if she does win, and now she's driving at the goal with nobody in between her and the goal, that's way more valuable. And like, I think that that's part of what marketing is about, is figuring out what are the more high leverage things that you can do that make a huge difference.”Put fear in the heart of your competitors. Or more like envy. You want your competitors to look at your content and be jealous. Ian says, “ Every team that we played in the Olympics  is absolutely terrified of the front three of our country sprinting after them  with their defenders on their heels. It's like the most terrifying thing in the world is Trinity Rodman sprinting at their backline, right? And I think about this with competitors with your content campaign. Like I talk about the edutainment graph, rated on a scale of one out of 10 educational, one out of 10 entertaining. So rank your content on the graph and before you even plan to make something, is your competitor going to see this and be like, ‘Oh, I'm so jealous, this is great,' Or is it just something that they're gonna like, ‘All right?'” Quotes*”It's  really important in marketing organizations to lead with a leadership style that creates empathy and allows others to do their best, not a culture of fear.”*” That's an important element of a leader, understanding who you have on your team, what motivates and drives them, and how can you create an environment where they can perform and outperform?”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Cindy Valladares, former Director of Brand Strategy, Storytelling & Advocacy at Cisco[3:41] History and Achievements of the US Women's National Soccer Team[6:38] Equal Pay and Gender Equality Advocacy[8:09] Emma Hayes' Impact on the US Women's National Soccer Team[13:36] Marketing Lessons from Soccer[21:38] Emma Hayes' Coaching Strategies[24:25] Recognizing and Utilizing Team Strengths[25:17] Leveraging Senior Executives in Content[26:49] Maximizing Talent and High-Value Actions[29:11] Understanding Your Audience in Content Strategy[32:36] Creating Impactful and Entertaining Content[35:30] Balancing Brand Awareness and Demand Generation[39:27] Favorite Content Campaigns and Their ImpactLinksConnect with Cindy on LinkedInAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Liz Carter, CMO at Reputatio, a company helping brands understand and improve their reputations. In this conversation, Liz discusses the differences between brand and reputation and the current challenges of building trust with today's consumers. She also shares her thoughts on experimentation within tight budgets.Key Takeaways:Brand is not synonymous with reputation, Your brand is who you aspire to be, while your reputation reflects how consumers perceive you based on their experiences. Bridging the gap is essential for success.When budgets are tight, think about how you can do small experiments and how you can best leverage them, but keep experimenting. With AI and misinformation, it is a challenging time to to build consumer trust in the marketplace, and brands should be paying special attention to how they are perceived by target audiences. Quote: In an environment where budgets are getting cut and things are being tightened or whatever, you know, you have to think about like, is now a time for experimenting with big dollars or is it time for little experiments and what can you get out of that? And so, I mean, again, it's a balancing act of knowing sort of what's happening in the market or in your business specifically at a given time and how and when to sort of look for those opportunities.Episode Timestamps: *(08:17) The Trust Tree: The difference between brand and reputation *(14:07) The Playbook: Bringing crazy ideas to your CFO *(34:41) The Dust Up: Alignment and clear expectations *(35:57) Quick Hits: Liz's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Liz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-carter-a9842a2/Learn more about Reputation: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reputation-com/about/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/

Marketing is a serious business. Even when it's silly.See, you still want your silly, funny content to be well planned, well-executed, and well distributed. In this episode, we're talking about how to take your sillies seriously.That's one of the marketing lessons we're taking from Hamburger Helper's Watch the Stove Mixtape. With the help of our special guest, HiBob CMO Sarah Reynolds, we also talk about how to run little content experiments, listening to your customers, and doubling down on your big wins.About our guest, Sarah ReynoldsSarah Reynolds (they/them) is Chief Marketing Officer at HiBob. An openly non-binary executive, Sarah writes widely about diversity and inclusion, pay equity, the future of work, and the intersection of bias, ethics, and technology. They love spicy food, and can frequently be found in their garden tending to their many varieties of hot chili pepper plants.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Hamburger Helper:Take your sillies seriously. If you're going to make funny or silly content, it should still be well planned and executed. Otherwise it can come off as cringey and become something you're not proud of. Ian says, “ [Hamburger Helper] did take the art part of [the mixtape] seriously. And that's when the music is actually good. If it was a stupid a** song that sounded bad, it would not have gone viral. It wouldn't have been popular.”Run little content experiments. Before you go through all the trouble of building out a campaign, tease the idea to your audience and see what catches. Ian says, “ I love the little cheap or free experiments that you can run by just throwing the tweet out there, putting it in an article, putting it in your newsletter, teasing something. So few people tease stuff because they're worried that if they don't do it, that somehow this is going to like disappoint some corporate overlords. But if you tease something and nobody ever asks you about it ever again, you probably shouldn't have made it in the first place. If you tease something and you don't do it and people ask you about it, then you have more reason to go make the thing.” Hamburger Helper's mascot, Lefty, tweeted about dropping a mixtape and it was the tweet that got the most engagement. So when their marketing team was tasked with doing something unique and different, they knew it was time to make the mixtape.Listen to your customers. If you tease your content ideas and you get lots of engagement, make the content. Give the people what they want. Sarah says, “ The original idea for [the mixtape] was a tweet from multiple years before the mixtape dropped where Lefty made a joke about releasing a mixtape and suddenly it was their most liked tweet of all time. And then subsequently over the intervening years, would make occasional jokes about the mixtapes almost ready and like the customers, the fans are like, ‘Yes, do it. I dare you.' And I mean at that point, you got years of data saying customers want this, right? Is it our core business? No, but let's see what happens if we give it to them.”If you have a big win, make a sequel. Or even a series. Like Hamburger Helper should have made a second or even third mixtape because this one did so well. Ian says, “ Once you have a hit, just keep winning.  It's so hard in the marketing world to ever give anybody something that they love. And once you do it, you just gotta keep going with it.  I think my biggest takeaway is once you find something good, build it into a series.”Quotes*"My first focus was inclusivity and accessibility. Let's make sure that the way that we represent ourselves is really holding true to our corporate values that focus on DEIB, that really speaks to every single person that we want to. Let's make sure that we look at things like color contrast. Let's make sure that we look at things like the typography that we're using and the brand styling that we're using, and we're making it so that it's accessible to all of the people that we want to reach, not just because my queer, disabled, non binary a** told you to do so, but because this is genuinely what we believe as a brand, and this is what we want to put out into the world, and this is what we want people to know about us, we want to lead in this space. So does that come with a very clear, direct ROI number? No, it doesn't. It comes with doing the right thing and being different and making sure that we're prioritizing the things that really matter to us and to our community and to our audience. We're being something for someone in a way that maybe not every brand in this space is thinking about.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Sarah Reynolds, CMO at HiBob[1:16] The Origin of the 'Watch the Stove' Mixtape[4:03] HiBob: Revolutionizing HR Tech[5:44] Creating the ‘Watch the Stove' Mixtape: From Idea to Execution[11:12] The Impact and Legacy of 'Watch the Stove'[33:00] Risks and Rewards in Marketing[36:18] The Power of Listening to Customers[43:31] Embracing Authenticity in Marketing[45:28] Content That Provides Value[49:43] Balancing Data and Vibes[54:55] Final Thoughts and PlugsLinksConnect with Sarah on LinkedInLearn more about HiBobAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Calen Holbrooks, VP of Demand Gen at Airtable, the no-code app platform that empowers people closest to the work to accelerate their most critical business processes. In this episode, Calen shares with us how she thinks about “big C and little c community” and why it is important to invest in, even when it is harder to measure. She also dives into her approach to accessible content and how they increased their conversion rates through a homepage refresh.Key Takeaways:We know that people are consuming content in a binge-like format; we should let them binge! While sales' desire to gate content is understandable, ungating is a no-brainer, especially given all of the data we have now. Investing in community pays dividends and drives intent. While some community investments are more measurable than others, it doesn't mean you should not invest in those less-measurable communities. The homepage is crucial, and refreshing it to tweak the way Airtable told their story resulted in a 25 percent conversion increase. Quote: “ I'm surprised at how  slow organizations have been to adopt some of this, ungate 80 percent of what you're doing strategy. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, like, I get it. The processes with marketing to BDR to sales handoffs require a lot of this sort of traditional lead flow of things. Not to point fingers, but I do blame a little bit on the sales side and sort of  what they need to be why we can't do that. But it seems like a no-brainer when we have the amount of data that we have today… When we know everybody is scrolling and consuming content in a binge-like format, like, let them binge!”Episode Timestamps: *(03:53) The Trust Tree: The evolution to enterprise selling *(21:26) The Playbook: Investing in community and tracking account propensity *(34:23) The Dust Up: Demand gen versus brand araguments *(41:42) Quick Hits: Calen's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Calen on LinkedInLearn more about AirtableLearn more about Caspian Studios

How are you celebrating your hero product? Better yet, how are you activating your audience to celebrate your hero product?7-Eleven has a lot to teach us about that with their Bring Your Own Cup Day. If you've never taken part, they encourage customers to bring in a vessel of choice to fill with Slurpee.They've seen people bring in cowboy hats, kiddie pools, even a prosthetic leg, and fill them to the brim with that slushy, cold, refreshing fizzy iconic drink.And customers are posting about it. It's ALL over social media. Having your customers post to their own social media about your product is just about any marketer's dream.So let's talk about how to do it! In this episode, we're talking about marketing lessons from 7-Eleven's Bring Your Own Cup Day.With the help of our special guest, Chief Revenue Officer & Head of Marketing at Black Crow AI, JoAnn Martin, we talk about activating your community around your hero product, leaving it to the internet, and increasing the value of your engagement with customers.About our guest, JoAnn MartinJoAnn Martin is Chief Revenue Officer & Head of Marketing at Black Crow AI. Prior to joining the company in November 2023, she served as VP of Marketing at Electric. She has also held marketing leadership roles at Searchspring, Hanzo and Provenir. She serves as an advisor to UserGems.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Bring Your Own Cup Day:Activate your community around your hero product. Create opportunities for your audience to celebrate your core product. JoAnn says, “ It's finding the product and the fit with the market and figuring out how you put that in front of the right customer, which is really foundationally strategic marketing.  And that gives you great opportunities to have those celebrations or to create those experiences.” And Ian says, “It's important to have a day,” like 7-Eleven's Bring Your Own Cup Day, which celebrates their hero product, the Slurpee, by having customers bring in their own vessel of choice. It's silly and fun and highlights the Slurpee as an iconic product.Leave it to the internet. Ask your audience online for input on your marketing. For instance, have them name a product, or get ideas for your next campaign. JoAnn says, “ When you leave things to the internet, great things can happen. But also it can go wheels off very fast. But that's part of the beauty of it, right? Is the wheels off-ness, is why it's novel and fun and you feel part of something. So you never know where it's going to go.” So maybe put some limits around what you ask for, but it's a resource ready to be tapped into.Increase the value of your engagement with customers. Think about diversifying your offerings within the same vertical or to appeal to the same target buyer.  JoAnn says, “A lot of companies struggle with, ‘How do we find something else that increases the value of our engagement with a customer?' Or ‘How do we build in an upsell strategy with our B2B SaaS company?' You've launched a core product for your customers. And customers love that core product. But as you grow as a company, you need to be able to develop more value for them. And you need to be able to develop more value to broaden your addressable market. And one of the learnings I take away is that they went and found that value. And for us as B2B marketers, maybe we can be a little more creative about the way that we find that additional value we can bring to our customers all the time.” Like 7-Eleven was already appealing to kids with their penny candy and video games. Add on to that an option for sugar-caffeine-fizz fix and the Slurpee was bound to become a hit too.Quotes*” How do I better partner with my product teammates? What's this Product-Marketing relationship? How do we get away from Product builds a thing and throws it all over the wall and Marketing figures out how to talk about it?' And it's a challenge. And I think this is a great example that those two disciplines are actually very tightly intertwined. And as marketers and product leaders and startups, we have to figure out how we're coming together to figure out what is that thing that celebrates our core product? What is the core product we put in front of a customer that has great fit for that customer and how do we figure out how to talk about it with them?”*” The concept of really tightly intertwining your product and how your customers experience that product and how you talk about it is really inspiring.”*” Great companies lean into the kind of messy pieces, but you have to be willing to lean into the kind of absurd, messy parts of the business.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet JoAnn Martin, Chief Revenue Officer & Head of Marketing at Black Crow AI[2:49] The Concept and Impact of BYOC Day[5:50] The Backstory Behind Slurpees[11:24] Marketing Strategies and Customer Engagement[15:09] Innovative Marketing and Product Development[28:32] Upcoming Exciting Projects at Black Crow AILinksConnect with JoAnn on LinkedInLearn more about Black Crow AIAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Lyndsey Rojas, CMO at IFS Ultimo, a SaaS enterprise asset management solution, focused on maintenance & safety and well known for a rapid deployment, ease of use and an unparalleled time to value. In this episode, Lyndsey dives into leveraging partner marketing to move from a regional to a global player and making sure communication is transparent to maintain 98 percent customer retention. Key Takeaways:Investing in your team, particularly with all the rapid changes in tech and AI, is uncuttable. It's essential to equip your team to use new technologies and to be strong storytellers.Transparency through the full buyer's journey helps reduce friction in the customer experience by setting accurate expectations, ultimately resulting in high customer retention.Partnerships are especially valuable during times of budget constraints because it allows you to do more with less and helps companies move from regional players to global brands.Quote: Search, paid search and social, they keep changing the game on us. The algorithm changes, cookie lists, all these things keep changing. It keeps us on our toes, and it is like a game you play. You know, you think, oh, I'll pull this lever, and maybe the cost-per-click will go down. And,  it's not something that you can figure out one time and be okay with it.  But, for us, like most B2B tech companies I think, it is the number one traffic generator for our website. It is the top two lead generator for us. So, it is something that we absolutely have to stay on topEpisode Timestamps: *(02:35) The Trust Tree: Authentic communications and creating efficiency for customers *(12:55) The Playbook: Doing more with less through partnerships *(32:40) The Dust  Up: Setting objectives with sales *(33:45) Quick Hits: Lyndsey's Quick Hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Lyndsey on LinkedInLearn more about IFS Ultimo Learn more about Caspian Studios

The role of the marketer is changing. Scott Galloway, aka Prof G, says that to be successful today, marketers have to act as “coaches, advisors and strategists” to their company.That's what we're talking about in today's episode with the help of our special guest, VP of Marketing & Corporate Strategy at Verbit, Michael Rosman.Together, we talk about finding the right channel, being bold, and avoiding clickbait.About our guest, Michael RosmanMichael Rosman is VP of Marketing & Corporate Strategy at Verbit, having joined the company in April 2022. He has extensive work experience in Corporate strategy and Marketing. Prior to this, he worked at Amdocs, where he held various roles including Customer Business Executive, Director of Corporate Strategy, and Manager of Corporate Strategy from May 2016 to April 2022.Before joining Amdocs, Michael worked at Degania Medical as the Head of Strategy, Business Development & Innovation from May 2015 to May 2016. Michael also has experience at Biometrix, where he served as the Head of Strategic Planning and subsequently as the Interim COO from November 2011 to May 2015.Michael started his career at Tefen Management Consulting in July 2007, where he worked as a Senior Consultant for over four years. During his time at Tefen, he successfully led cross-functional and international teams on various projects in industries such as pharmaceuticals, automotive, chemicals, and healthcare.Michael Rosman completed his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Tel Aviv University between the years 2004 and 2008. Later, between 2011 and 2012, he pursued an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Scott Galloway:Find the right channel. Test different channels to see which one your content achieves the best reach and resonance on. People on LinkedIn might engage with your content way more than on your blog. Use that to your advantage by creating more content gauged for your LinkedIn audience. Michael says, “Finding the right channel is a big takeaway for me. So I know everybody has the standard channels of paid ads and events and SEO and whatever is, but find a channel that maximizes your impact. Figure out your puzzle. Figure out who you are and something that might be unique [to you]. Maybe it's a channel that doesn't exist for anybody else.”Be bold. Know what you stand for and express it clearly and without fear of losing your audience. Michael says, “Go all in on something. [Scott Galloway] has so much conviction and so much belief in doing what he does, he can really go all out.” When you express your message authentically and with clarity, your content will resonate with your intended audience.Avoid clickbait. Make sure the meat of your content is valuable to your audience. Don't just give it all away in the title. Michael says, ”So many times, people have a hot take-y headline to lure you, to get you in, but then there's nothing else. All of the content that you wanted to consume is in the title and everything else is meaningless. [But] Whenever I tune in [to one of Scott Galloway's podcasts], I always feel like it was worth my time. I came in, I came for value, and it consistently delivers value. It's always interesting. There's always substance behind the title.”Quotes*”I really think about niching down, and about the shorts, shows and moonshots sort of positioning. You want to create stuff that your people can tap into for a minute or two. You want to create stuff that they can subscribe to and get like an hour a week. And then you want stuff that's definitive, could be viral and bingeworthy. If you have 15 different personas that you're selling to, if you could create a single bingeable asset for those 15 personas, that's far more valuable than creating 150 pieces of content for those 15 things.” - Ian Faison*”The world changes every minute. What was published a week ago is now no longer potentially relevant. So it's your job as a brand to reach forward into the future and say, ‘I think that based on what we know, what we're saying on our proprietary information and what our customers are saying, I think that this is where the world is going.” -  Ian FaisonTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Michael Rosman, VP of Marketing & Corporate Strategy at Verbit.ai[2:19] Verbit's Marketing and Customer Insights[7:29] Scott Galloway's Marketing Philosophy[10:42] The Journey and Impact of Scott Galloway[19:31] The Power of Serialized Content[24:52] Marketing Takeaways from Prof G[29:42] The Value of Definitive Works in Content[31:07] Challenges in Content Creation for Multiple Personas[32:04] The Importance of Niching Down and Binge-Worthy Content[39:39] Balancing Quality, Speed, and Cost in Video Production[42:16] The Future of AI in Content Creation[45:48] Verbit's Content StrategyLinksConnect with Michael on LinkedinLearn more about Verbit.aiAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Louise Clements, CMO at WorkJam, the world leader in the digital frontline workplace, revolutionizing how HQs and their frontline workforces work together.In this episode, Louise discusses why she is no longer looking at attribution and is instead focusing on intent. She also dives into how she is using AI to automate and improve their marketing efforts and managing joint ownership of the funnel with sales. Key Takeaways:AI makes marketing better by giving the team more time to reflect and think. CMOs should be investing in automation. Marketing is increasingly owning go-to-market and jointly owning the funnel with sales. This is a bit of an evolution, and it allows you to focus on influence over attribution. Obsessing over first and last touch attribution is not useful. CMOs should focus on driving intent. Quote: “One thing that we've done is we've sort of stopped worrying about first touch and last touch attribution. I don't care. Is it ultimately working? You can drive yourself insane, worrying about specifics. Instead, it's looking at how all of those channels connect. And I think one of the greatest things in the last couple of years is, we've got these fabulous new tools. As B2B marketers, whether you use Sixth Sense or Demandbase or whatever, you can go in and understand intent in a way that we never could. So ,what I'm looking at is, are we driving intent? And then, let's time box that campaign and everybody who came in or who we touched. I want to understand what's the time lag? Are they going to come back? And I'm looking at things like that way more.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:41) The Trust Tree: The power of investing in PR *(15:28) The Playbook: Focus on driving intent *(41:05) The Dust Up: Agencies and fighting over scope*(42:30) Quick Hits: Louise's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Louise on LinkedInLearn more about WorkJamLearn more about Caspian Studios

Rich Horwath, CEO of Strategic Thinking Institute and best-selling author, shares strategies that help CIOs to elevate their strategic thinking—providing a roadmap for transitioning from technical leaders to visionary business executives. Drawing from his advisory work with top-tier technology leaders, Horwoth breaks down the critical skills needed to move beyond operational management and position themselves as strong CEO candidates.About the Guest: Rich Horwath is the founder and CEO of the Strategic Thinking Institute where he facilitates strategy workshops to help executive leadership teams think, plan, and act strategically to set direction, create advantage, and maximize their leadership performance. He is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of eight books on strategic thinking, including his new book: STRATEGIC: The Skill to Set Direction, Create Advantage, and Achieve Executive Excellence. He's published two articles in the Harvard Business Review this past year and has helped more than one million leaders develop their strategic thinking and planning skills over the past two decades in pursuit of his vision to teach the world to be strategic.Timestamps:*(01:35) - The CIO to CEO Journey*(07:25) - Innovation and Competitive Strategy*(28:45) - Future State Thinking for CIOs*(44:05) - Transitioning from CIO to CEOGuest Highlights:“The great CIOs understand that it's not about copying. It's about creating and innovating by understanding the competition.”"If you're really being strategic, you're going to tick a lot of people off internally and externally."“What are we trying to achieve? And how are we going to do it? So planning can be too complex sometimes, but it boils down to those two questions.”Get Connected:Rich Horwath on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/richhorwathIan Faison on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaisonResources:Learn more about the Strategic Thinking Institute: www.strategyskills.comHungry for more tech talk? Check out these past episodes:Ep 56 - Best Proactive Cybersecurity Strategies for CIOsEp 55 - Engineering Leadership for Scale, Agility, and MomentumEp 54 - AI Business Strategy for CIOsLearn more about Caspian Studios: www.caspianstudios.comCan't get enough AI? Check out The New Automation Mindset Podcast for more in-depth conversations about strategies leadership in AI, automation, and orchestration. Brought to you by the automation experts at Workato. Start Listening: www.workato.com/podcast

The marketing terrain is rough out there. In many ways, traversing the roots, rocks and mud of extreme trail running is like navigating the shifting marketing landscape.Both demand endurance, adaptability and a strategic mindset. Those are a few of the things we're talking about today. In this episode, we're taking marketing inspiration from extreme trail running with the help of our special guest, DeepL CMO Steve Rotter.Together, we talk about being agile, stepping where others have stepped, how to plot your own route, and aiming for progress over perfection.About our guest, Steve RotterSteve Rotter, an entrepreneur, evangelist, and author, brings over two decades of tech marketing leadership experience to his role as CMO at DeepL. With a track record as a two-time founder with two M&A deals and three unicorns under his belt, Steve is deeply passionate about innovative marketing, AI, and brand building. Prior to DeepL, Steve served as CMO of FourKites, where he spearheaded remarkable growth and revenue increases through targeted account-based marketing and PLG strategies, serving industry titans like Coke, Walmart, and Ford. His expertise extends to CMO roles at OutSystems and Acrolinx, where he drove unicorn growth, established category leadership, and facilitated successful acquisitions. He's also held leading tech-industry marketing positions at Adobe, Motorola, and Brightcove.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Extreme Trail Running:Agility is key. Be on the lookout for disruptions, like changes in buying pattern, that mean you may have to change course. Steve says he was out running “and we had a couple of days of rain because of the recent hurricane. And all of a sudden a trail that was normally a certain way had about a 10 foot river running through it, and you had to cross it and not try not to get too wet and fall over. And the course that you thought was one way is different.” This is true with marketing as well. The landscape is always changing. You have to adapt to what's in front of you to keep going.Step where others have stepped. If you've seen others have success with a particular marketing strategy, try it. Use their success to your advantage. Ian says, “If you have somebody's footprints right there in front of you, you can just stay right in their footprints.” Like in extreme trail running, you know stepping in the same place as the person in front of you is a safe bet.When there is no path, slow down just enough to plan your route. But don't take too long to do it. Ian says, “There's this balance of speed versus slowing down to plan your route. And I think that like a lot of times, in my opinion, B2B marketing teams slow down and plan way too much. And they're way overly concerned with the perfect plan rather than running. At the end of the day, you have to move. You have to keep moving. So many people are just crippled by indecision.”Progress over perfection. Don't wait for perfect data to make great content. Use what information you have to move forward. Steve says, “In many cases, you have very data-driven businesses and by definition, marketing has become almost a data-driven skill set that has to be present. But in many ways, it's that analysis paralysis that slows them down because they're waiting for perfect data. We can't wait for perfection. We have to show progress.”Quotes*”I think that's actually a really healthy discipline for marketing teams, is not just to be on that hamster wheel all the time, but to take some time out and say, ‘Look, what do we really want to do? What do we want to say? What's our message? What's our story? What's our creative angle?' And rarely do you achieve that in moments of extreme distraction, right? It's that focus time that kind of drives those light bulb moments.”*”A leadership approach that is acceptable has a tolerance and there's no fear of failure. If you have marketers that are afraid, like if they make a mistake, they're going to get yelled at or fired, then of course they're going to take time because they're going to just wait for perfect. Whereas if you build a culture in your marketing team around speed, velocity, and learning from your mistakes, then you got a good recipe.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Steve Rotter, CMO at DeepL[1:48] The Connection Between Trail Running and Marketing[6:42] Psychology and Support in Extreme Trail Racing[12:54] Preparation and Training for Trail Running[16:56] Marketing Strategies and Team Dynamics[22:15] Balancing Speed and Planning in B2B Marketing[23:55] Overcoming Analysis Paralysis[24:24] The Importance of a Fearless Marketing Culture[25:05] Navigating Unpredictable Terrain[29:12] The Little Things in Marketing[31:46] Educating the Market on AI[34:37] Leveraging Customer Stories[37:54] Advice for CMOs on Content Strategy[40:04] Uncovering Hidden StoriesLinksConnect with Steve on LinkedInLearn more about DeepLAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Millie Hogue, VP of Marketing at Hakkōda, a modern data consultancy that helps companies harness cloud platforms and AI capabilities.In this episode, Millie discusses the power of co-marketing with major partners like Snowflake, personalized one-to-one advertising strategies and optimizing tech stacks to maximize ROI.Key Takeaways:Marketers are wasting an extraordinary amount of budget on unused tech spend. Part of a CMO's strategy should include making sure they are optimizing on their investments in tech. If you want to partner with big organizations like Amazon and Snowflake, building a reputation for quality and reliability can help you compete for their attention and become a go-to partner for execution.Shift from the mindset of optimizing for productivity, and optimize for impact. Quote: “I was reading an article the other day about marketing budgets and where everyone's allocating and how all of that is shifting. And marketing technology was the big thing that kind of kept coming up. And the takeaway from that was that right now, if you ask CMOs, they had a whole survey for 2024 Q1, about 50 percent of our tech stack is actually being utilized right now. So, of our technology investments, half, and that was so striking to me as someone who works in a data and technology space and knowing where this kind of industry is headed. There is no way that marketing is going to continue to exist if we have that much inefficiency in our technology spend. So, I think when I'm looking at strategy, not just for my next two quarters, but for my next three years, that's a huge piece of it. How do you invest in the right tooling and make sure that it's actually being adopted by your team? Because it looks a lot like we're kind of failing as an industry at that right now.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:53) The Trust Tree: The power of comarketing*(21:39) The Playbook: Deanonimizing website traffic, intent data and personalized marketing *(41:38) The Dust Up: Marketing and sales should not be fighting over attribution*(43:40) Quick Hits: Millie's quick hits  Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Millie on LinkedInLearn more about HakkōdaLearn more about Caspian Studios

A three-tier showstopper cake may have beautiful pipework and neatly done icing, but if it's overbaked and dry on the inside, it's not a good cake.The same is true for marketing. If it has no message but it's beautiful, it's not good marketing. Focusing on substance over style is one of the many lessons we're taking from The Great British Baking Show in this episode.Together with the help of our special guest, VP of Corporate Marketing at Trellix, Sara Aiello, we talk about being brand classy, going for substance over style, and trusting your gut.About our guest, Sara AielloSara drives impactful brand and communication initiatives that inspire, inform, and elevate global businesses. At Trellix, she led the brand launch of Trellix from FireEye and McAfee Enterprise. Previously, as Head of Growth & Engagement for Amazon's large item business, she accelerated business growth and customer engagement. At BlackBerry, as Vice President of Field Marketing, Sara led global marketing and sales enablement teams, enhancing the company's technology recognition. During her tenure at Cisco, she spearheaded the security customer experience practice, significantly advancing customer adoption. She also led the successful marketing strategy for a billion-dollar service rebrand. As Director of the Executive Briefing Center for Cybersecurity at The Boeing Company, Sara's expertise in customer experience played a pivotal role in securing critical contracts.Sara holds a Master of International Business from Seattle University and a Bachelor of Science from Clarkson University.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Great British Baking Show:Be brand classy. Create content that has integrity and stands proudly for your brand. Think about making something that's evergreen instead of trendy or reactive. Sara says, “You can never go wrong with being brand classy. Something that lives on, endures. Sometimes you'll want to take a quick hit at a competitor or something like that, but that's not going to age well. And so always be kind of brand classy in what you do.”Go for substance over style. Every so often in The Great British Baking Show, a contestant will create a beautiful confection that doesn't taste as good as it looks. That's when Paul Hollywood says, “Style over substance.” In content, you want to make something that has meaning while also being visually attractive. So always think about your message first before focusing on the beauty of it. Sara says, “You have to actually know what you want to say first before you start thinking about how beautiful or whimsical you want it to look.”Trust your gut. Tune in to what feels right and rings true to your brand. In The Great British Baking Show, contestants have to navigate the technical challenge often based on their gut alone, having to make a cake based on directions like, “Make a genoise sponge.” You may not always have all the information in marketing either, but Sara says, “Be comfortable with not having all your information.” Trust that your gut will lead you in the right direction.Quotes*”One thing we haven't hit on is the storytelling aspect. You really identify and make memories with the bakers and the way that the show tells their backstory. And so you feel really connected. And I think that marketers should remember the power of storytelling. A lot of times, we want to go into stats and figures, but that's really not going to engage our emotional side of our brain, which is what we need to be persuaded.”*”ROI, marketers love to talk about this. I think it really comes down to setting clear goals. A lot of times, especially when it comes on the brand side as opposed to the demand side of marketing, it isn't super easy to see and have metrics, so it's really important to set clear goals from the start. So then you can see if you're succeeding or not.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Sara Aiello, VP of Corporate Marketing at Trellix[1:00] B2B Marketing Lessons from The Great British Baking Show[5:10] Behind the Scenes of The Great British Baking Show[11:11] Relating The Great British Baking Show to Marketing[17:52] The Importance of Visuals and Positivity in Marketing[23:24] The Human Element in B2B Marketing[25:46] The Power of Storytelling in Marketing[34:25] Building the Trellix Brand[38:04] Engaging Content Strategies[46:35] Final Thoughts and Advice for Marketing LeadersLinksConnect with Sara on LinkedInLearn more about TrellixAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This episode features an interview with Susanne Rodriguez, CMO at Auvik, a cloud-based IT management platform that reduces friction and increases agility.In this episode, Susanne talks about how they think about growing market share by getting customers to switch to Auvik and their big investments in community. She also discusses the future of paid search and why they are focused on authentic forums like Reddit. Key Takeaways:Despite the “paid search is dying” narrative, paid search remains a high ROI channel. Continue leveraging search but prepare for shifts by building a presence in other forums like Reddit and focusing on authentic community building.Campaigns focused on switching customers over from competitors can be part of a strategy to gain market share. Categorizing potential customers into "easy switchers," "difficult switchers," and "non-switchers” can help target campaigns.Auvik saw success with their rapid response campaigns, partially because they so specifically catered the reward to their target customer, which attracted qualified prospects and encouraged meaningful product engagement.Quote: “  I mentioned Reddit as part of a, one of our three paid channels that are uncuttable, but we also have a really large effort to build awareness and conversation and community in Reddit more organically. And that's just because, as we talk about the future of search and search disappearing, if we think about where Google could potentially drive people, it's to these forums like Reddit. And so we're working hard to build our presence there organically, too. Reddit's tricky, though. You have to be authentic on Reddit in a way that you don't have to be on any other platform. They will call you up.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:26) The Trust Tree: Getting customers to switch from competitors *(10:14) The Playbook: Paid search and authentic forums *(27:34) The Dust Up: Get aligned and come armed with data *(29:38) Quick Hits: Susanne's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Susanne on LinkedInLearn more about AuvikLearn more about Caspian Studios

Making big marketing investments is a huge deal. But lucky for you, we're here to help.We're bringing you five keys to deliver on a big investment.And we're taking those lessons from the Olympics with the help of our special guest, VP of Marketing at AppsFlyer, Carolyn Bao.Together, we're talking about capitalizing on a cultural moment, committing to the long haul, ensuring activation is fully prepared, and so much more.About our guest, Carolyn BaoCarolyn Bao serves as the Vice President of Marketing for AppsFlyer, for the North America region, driving multi-channel efforts for the AppsFlyer mobile attribution and marketing analytics platform. She is an accomplished marketing executive with over 20 years of leadership experience at technology companies, specializing in software and SaaS marketing go-to-market strategy, data-driven business innovation and building high-performing marketing teams. She has deep domain knowledge of marketing tech stack and advertising technologies. Beyond her commercial role, she nurtures the entrepreneurial spirit as an MBA@Rice faculty member and a founding board member of Silicon Valley Leadership Community.Recognized with accolades such as LinkedIn's “Top Voices” and Product Marketing Alliance's “Top 100 PMMs,” Carolyn is celebrated for bringing products like Facebook Attribution to global markets, building high-performing marketing teams, and thought leadership in ‘women in leadership,' ‘marketing management' and ‘mobile growth strategies' through key speaking engagements for educational and professional events. Carolyn built her career portfolio through leadership roles at technology powerhouses including Moomoo, Facebook, Visa, and Yahoo.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Olympics:Capitalize on a cultural moment. Pick something in the cultural zeitgeist to inspire your content. If it's already resonating and getting talked about, your content will too. Carolyn says, “I think leveraging critical cultural moments is one of the key growth drivers for any marketing department.” And she adds, “Really think through for your category, what is that cultural moment that we really want to capitalize on? In B2B marketing, not everybody competes in the Olympics. But we do compete in terms of how many in-person interactions we have with other practitioners. And that's where these in-person conferences immediately became popular again after we came out of COVID. So I think that's maybe something to really think about, is what is your Olympics equivalent.”Commit to the long haul. Big investments in content mean lots of planning for the pre-, during and post periods. How can you maximize the campaign and make the most of the big investment? Carolyn says, “Not a lot of companies have the ability to plan in massive time horizons, like every four years. A lot of marketing teams are probably working one to three quarters out for most of it. But I do think it's interesting to think of like, what are the big, massive bets that you can make that you might not be able to make every year that can show who you are as a brand.”Ensure activation is fully prepared. Don't sell yourself short by creating content without planning through distribution and activation. Make sure it's fully considered and you're making the most of that investment. Carolyn says, “To activate marketing around the Olympics at this scale is massive. This is sort of our Coachella for marketers, because we don't get to have this many dollars to spend for the majority of us. And meanwhile, even if we are with a huge brand, it is not often that we have this kind of massive celebration. So the scale is super important. The second piece that's very interesting is in terms of how to ensure marketing is done right. There is a great deal of discipline in running a smooth marketing operation, which I think everyone can still also relate to because no matter big or small, for our marketing campaigns to be successful, we have to also wear that operational hat. And I think there's a lot to be unpacked from studying how the Olympics have been done.”Commit to the production cost. Big ideas come with a cost. Follow through with the full potential of the project, including the price of it. But the good news is that marketers have become a lot more efficient. Carolyn says, “Savvy marketers are not doing marketing content production the same way as old time marketers. Because they create these stories, they run it on mobile marketing channels, they run with a very small dollar amount, and they already got data to tell them what stories resonate with who. It pulls their feedback loop a lot shorter.”Know your ICP. Ensure your content will land with its intended audience by truly knowing your ICP. This means understanding their values, what motivates them, and the value you can offer them. Carolyn says, “Deeply understand whom it is you're really trying to influence. Knowing your ICP and knowing what you want your ICP to think or do differently from your storytelling is critical.”Quotes*”With constraints, creativity really differentiates a good storyteller from a mid storyteller, leveraging the Gen Alpha language. The more you understand the limitations, the better it is you stay focused and think about within all of these constraints, what else could we do?”*“If you are building a B2B brand, really make sure that there is a founder side of the humanized story. So that it's not just this brand, but it's actually the why the company was founded and how the founders have built the company.”*” Let's ground our work back to marketing fundamentals. Our marketing fundamentals is storytelling and we really need to understand whom we're talking the story to, what we want them to think or do differently. This is the first. The second piece is, please do not be afraid of developing that left brain as a marketer because the tools to help us measure our work and tell us the feedback of how well our storytelling did are becoming a lot more available. If you don't know, search it up, use chat GPT, but really, really deeply understand marketing measurement and the data that is at your disposal to make you a better marketer. The third piece that's super critical is do not forget stakeholder management because with the village that supports us is what we can work on our day to day, the blocking and tackling, but also when the time is right, advocate for big activation like the Olympics and really make history. Have fun with it.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Carolyn Bao, VP of Marketing at AppsFlyer[2:54] B2B Marketing Lessons from the Olympics and AppsFlyer[4:14] Olympic Marketing Campaigns and Sponsorships[36:09] Human-Centric Storytelling in Marketing[42:28] Key TakeawaysLinksConnect with Carolyn on LinkedInLearn more about AppsFlyerAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.