Podcasts about HubSpot

In this special episode, host Minter Dial reconnects with celebrated marketing strategist and author David Meerman Scott for their third lively conversation together. As they reflect on their decade-long friendship, David Meerman Scott shares insights from the freshly updated edition of "Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead," co-authored with Brian Halligan, co-founder and former CEO of HubSpot. Together, they explore why the unconventional, fan-centric business lessons from the Grateful Dead are more relevant than ever in an age dominated by digital chaos and AI. David Meerman Scott unpacks the enduring legacy of the band, discussing the importance of human connection, fandom, and letting go—both in music and business. The discussion also dives into leadership transitions, from Jerry Garcia's era to the bold addition of John Mayer, examining how the band's openness to innovation has kept their music and message alive for new generations. Tune in for a conversation that covers everything from navigating change in business and life to the power of authentic experiences and the wisdom in embracing both risk and generosity. Whether you're a marketer, a Deadhead, or simply curious about how to build lasting legacies, this episode is packed with stories and actionable insights you won't want to miss.

Joe and Robert open the episode with major breaking news: Disney is reportedly finalizing a $1 billion investment in OpenAI along with a licensing deal that would allow creators to use select Disney IP inside OpenAI tools. The boys unpack what this actually means— Why Disney is making this move now How this could transform creator workflows What Disney gets strategically vs. what OpenAI gains Whether this is the first domino in a wave of entertainment–AI partnerships The $100 Billion Battle for Warner Bros. Discovery Next, Joe and Robert dig into the increasingly chaotic race for Warner Bros., as Paramount, Skydance, and Netflix position themselves for what could be a $100B mega-deal. They discuss: Who really has the leverage Which bidder makes the most strategic sense Potential antitrust concerns Who stands to win (and who almost certainly loses) if this deal happens Australia Moves to Ban Social Media for Kids Under 16 The conversation shifts to Australia's new legislation banning social media access for children under 16. Joe and Robert debate: Will it work? How would it even be enforced? Are governments finally becoming serious—or is this political theater? What responsibility platforms have in the mental-health crisis Special Segment: Robert's AI Music Persona, Lyla Rae Hightower A highlight of the episode, Robert takes listeners behind the scenes of creating his AI-powered music persona. He details: The creative spark behind the character Tools and workflows he used to bring the music to life Unexpected challenges in the process How he's distributing and promoting the project Why this experiment signals a new frontier for creators Spotify https://open.spotify.com/artist/09m7OjGKcL1aOKKqyhZjui   Apple Music https://music.apple.com/us/artist/lyla-rae-hightower/1857062007   YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDwdVLXGCWaO-SMOLuhSE8Q   Website https://lylahightower.com/ Winners & Losers Marketing Loser of the Week: Salesforce — Joe walks through the company's confusing decision to consider a name change and what it signals about the brand's broader struggles. Rants & Raves: Joe ends with commentary on Kara Swisher's reporting around Apple possibly buying Disney—and whether such a deal is even remotely plausible. Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing. ------- This week's sponsor: Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot. Their customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better. ------- Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/ Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/ Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/. Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/  Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/ ------- This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

Brandon Sammut (Chief People and AI Transformation Officer at Zapier), Jenny Molyneaux (VP of People, Vercel), and Valerie Gobeil (Head of Talent Management, Workleap) joined us for a live session on how HR teams are actually using AI today. We talked about how to get organizations AI-ready, avoid “AI debt,” make smarter build vs buy decisions, and we walked through live demos of AI-powered performance reviews, hiring workflows, interview coaching, engagement insights, and more.----  Downloadable PDF with top takeaways: https://modernpeopleleader.kit.com/episode272Sponsor Links:

2026 Content Predictions (Backed by Data)And What High-Earning Brands Are Doing to Adjust NOWThis episode? Buckle up because this isn't just a content pivot. This is a consumer revolution. Founder-led brands with clear positioning, proof-packed content, and an actual system are the only ones still scaling right now.That's not my opinion. That's what the data says.Here's the brutal truth:The old way of doing content?Gone. Buried. Over.In this episode, I'm walking you through exactly what's changing in 2026 and why your content and marketing plan have to evolve if you want to stay in the game.This isn't a content shift. It's an entire internet and industry shift. And if you're still playing like it's 2024 or 2025?You're gonna get left behind or become extinct.We're covering:

Your brand doesn't exist until it ranks on page one—and most founders have no idea how to make that happen.In this episode, we break down the exact playbook for getting a brand-new domain to show up in Google for your company name. After going through this process firsthand with Graphed.com, you'll learn how to choose a rankable name, build the right backlinks, trigger branded search behavior, and use Google Ads to accelerate the whole process.If you're launching anything new, this is the tactical blueprint you wish you had earlier.What You'll LearnWhy ranking for your brand name is the first real trust signal for any startupHow to pick a name and domain you can actually rank forThe “first 100 links” strategy that trains Google to recognize your brandSimple ways to generate branded search behavior across social and contentHow Google quietly tests your domain—and how to know when it's happeningHow to use Google Search Ads to accelerate ranking and protect your brandWhy .com still matters more than any other TLDTimestamps00:00 — Why your new domain must rank for your own brand name00:31 — Why ranking for your brand name is a critical early trust signal01:03 — The rookie mistake founders make when picking a brand name01:13 — What ideal, non-competitive SERPs should look like01:35 — Graphed.com's journey to finally ranking in position one01:45 — Overview of the process to teach Google your brand01:55 — Step 1: Build backlinks to your homepage03:29 — Step 2: Drive branded search with social posts & content04:21 — Step 3: Run Google Search Ads on your exact brand name05:45 — Why you should always buy the .com for your brand06:16 — Final thoughts + Graphed free trialKey Topics & Insights1. Ranking for Your Brand Name = Early-Stage TrustIf someone Googles your company and doesn't find you, credibility collapses. Ranking for your brand name is one of the first—and easiest—trust signals to secure. Graphed.com took ~2 months to rank, but with this framework, it can happen in as little as 24–48 hours.2. How to Choose a Rankable NameAvoid names already used by active companiesLook for search results filled with noise, not competitorsIdeal: two words, few syllables, easy to spellAnd always, always buy the .com3. Build the First 100 Backlinks (Brand-Name Anchors Only)Your #1 job early is to teach Google what your company is.Do this by:Building backlinks to your homepageUsing your brand name as the anchor text (not keywords)These are foundational “identity” links that help Google map brand → domain.How to build them:Submit to software directoriesUse link submission servicesCold email companies for guest post swapsLayer PR on top later4. Trigger Branded Search BehaviorOnce Google sees your backlinks, you need humans to reinforce the signal:Search your brand nameClick your domainSpend time on the pageGoogle then learns:“When people search this name, this is the site they want.”You create this behavior through:Social postsNewslettersPodcast mentionsRepeated use of the brand everywhere5. How Google Tests Your DomainGoogle will quietly experiment by showing your domain for branded queries.You'll see this in Search Console via:Rising impressionsIncreasing CTRSudden jumps in average positionThis is the moment Google “decides” you belong on page one.6. Accelerate Everything With Google Search AdsRun a brand campaign:Exact-match brand keywordMinimum bid: around $5Send traffic to homepageThis forces the association between brand name → your site, and accelerates your rise in organic search.Brand protection tips:Raise bids to block competitorsAdd sitelinks to take more SERP real estateOptional: multiple ad accounts (with caution)7. Why .com Still Beats Every Other DomainConsumers inherently trust .com more than .io, .co, .xyz, etc.It drives higher CTR and reduces friction in word-of-mouth.If the .com isn't available, pick a new name—don't settle.SponsorToday's episode is brought to you by Graphed – an AI data analyst & BI platform.With Graphed you can:Connect data like GA4, Facebook Ads, HubSpot, Google Ads, Search Console, AmplitudeBuild interactive dashboards just by chatting (no Looker Studio/Tableau learning curve)Use it as your ETL + data warehouse + BI layer in one placeAsk:“Build me a stacked bar chart of new users vs. all users over time from GA4”…and Graphed just builds it for you.

In this episode, Avanish and Antonio discuss:BBVA's data transformation journey, including the strategic decision in 2017 to create a global data function at the executive committee level reporting to the CEO and ChairmanBuilding hybrid data architecture combining centralized lake house (AWS) with data mesh approaches to balance agility and control across global operations in regulated environmentsThe "eight robots" framework—a top-down AI transformation agenda targeting the most critical parts of BBVA's value chain, from digital client relationships to banker productivity to risk underwritingHow BBVA defines data democratization as "responsible access" not "open access," implementing strict governance while enabling self-service analytics in a highly regulated industryReal-world AI impact: solutions reducing tasks from 11 minutes to less than 1 minute, generative assistant "Blue" serving 20+ million clients in Spain and Mexico, and IVR improvements saving minutes to secondsThe partnership and ecosystem strategy leveraging enterprise-focused innovation through AWS, OpenAI, Google Gemini, and vertical solution providers to increase speed of learning and innovationWhy the "mode in this cycle is learning—how fast you can learn, how fast you can test hypotheses"—embracing experimentation and continuous improvement as models rapidly evolveAntonio's vision for the future: using AI and data to expand bankarization globally, serving underserved populations and fueling economic growth for families and businessesAbout the host:Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and served as a Board Member of Hubspot from 2018 to 2023; he currently serves on the boards of Birdie.ai, Flywl.com and Meta.com.br as well as a few non-profits and educational boards. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early to mid-stage startups in Silicon Valley.About Antonio Bravo, Global Head of Data at BBVAAntonio started his career in 2009 as a consultant focused in Technology, Media and Telecom. There he had the opportunity to learn how (mobile) internet growth blurs barriers between different industries and makes them converge. One of those industries is finance. He joined BBVA in 2011 to be part of its transformation strategy, and since then he has had different jobs. Started working in the Strategy & M&A area, with focus on the BBVA Ventures team (today Propel) investing in fintech startups, continued with a role in Digital Banking Strategy team, and later in 2015 assumed the responsibility of Business Development in South America (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Perú, Venezuela, Uruguay and Paraguay).He also held the responsibility of Agile Organization until July 2019, focused in scaling the Agile methodology through-out the entire organization, more than 33.000 people including holding and countries, to improve quality, time to market, productivity and team engagement.From July 2019 until September 2021 he held the responsibility of IT Strategy & Control within BBVA, a function that manages some of the core IT functions at a global level, such as IT strategy, finance, vendor management, PMO, first line of defense and IT spin-offs.Since September 2021 he holds the position of Head of Sustainability Strategy & Business Development, where he contributes to the design of the strategic plan for all segments and manages investment in descarbonization funds. In January 2024 he was also appointed as Head of Corporate and Investment Banking Strategy, Industrial client coverage and cross border business.In January 2025 was appointed Global Head of Data at BBVA. Antonio is responsible of leading the transformation of the Group towards a data-driven company.About BBVA:BBVA is a global financial services group founded in 1857. The bank is present in more than 25 countries, has a strong leadership position in the Spanish market, is the largest financial institution in Mexico and it has leading franchises in South America and Turkey. In the United States, BBVA also has a significant investment, transactional, and capital markets banking business.BBVA contributes with its activity to the progress and welfare of all its stakeholders: shareholders, clients, employees, providers and society in general. In this regard, BBVA supports families, entrepreneurs and companies in their plans, and helps them to take advantage of the opportunities provided by innovation and technology. Likewise, BBVA offers its customers a unique value proposition, leveraged on technology and data, helping them improve their financial health with personalized information on financial decision-making.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark

There's this THING that happens to a public speaker and storyteller that feels addicting. It happens after you've internalized your content and put in the reps. You're no longer consciously thinking about what to say next or how to say it. Instead, you can just walk up on stage, or fire up the camera, or switch on the mic, and just BE.Few speakers and storytellers have achieved that level of internalized, authentic performance like Scott Stratten (LinkedIn).Scott is a Hall of Fame public speaker and the founder of UnMarketing. He believes we can build a better business world based on integrity, community, and authenticity. Together with his wife and business partner Alison, they've written 6 bestselling business books, while Scott travels the world performing from stages to thousands of people at a time. To hear Scott is to experience just that. A performance.Today, we'll hear an incredible story Scott tells in his keynotes, then we'll talk shop about the mechanics of storytelling, the misnomers and opportunities in becoming a stronger public voice, and frankly, we have some of the most fun I've had on this show … ever.***ABOUT ME, JAY ACUNZOI work with entrepreneurs, execs, and teams on the journey from competent to resonant. To do that, I help transform your thinking into clear, captivating ideas, speeches, and IP. Stop chasing attention. Become the one others seek.I'm a former marketing leader at Google and HubSpot and globally touring speaker and author. I've spent 20 years building the exact thought leadership I now help clients create—as a practitioner-peer, not a coach with templates.Work with me 1:1, book me to speak, or explore free resources at jayacunzo.comDon't market more. Matter more.Think resonance over reach.Don't be the best. Be their favorite.***ENJOY THE SHOW? PLEASE SAY THANKS!Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Leave a rating on Spotify Thanks for listening!

If you've ever felt like you're drowning in marketing activity but starving for actual revenue, this episode of the Marketing Boost Solutions Podcast is the clarity you've been waiting for. Capt. Marco sits down with revenue strategist and HubSpot expert Jasz Rae Joseph, a powerhouse who has spent her career helping B2B companies align sales, marketing, and customer success into one cohesive, revenue-producing system. Jasz breaks down why businesses lose leads, how misaligned teams sabotage growth, and the simple automations that recover hidden revenue already sitting in your database.With her signature no-fluff approach, Jasz reveals how to streamline your tech stack, personalize your customer journey, and use segmentation, sequences, and micro-automation to convert more leads without adding complexity. From LinkedIn nurturing to sales-ready handoffs to real stories of clients generating six and seven figures from improved systems, this conversation is packed with practical, implement-today insights.

Most companies don't have a lead problem, they have a follow-up problem. In this episode of Sharkpreneur, Seth Greene interviews Jason Kramer, Founder & CEO at Cultivize, who breaks down how smart CRM strategy can transform “maybe someday” prospects into real revenue. Jason shares how his team helps manufacturing, roofing, finance, and home service businesses design, implement, and actually use CRM systems like HubSpot and Pipedrive so salespeople stop dropping the ball. With real-world case studies, including a roofing company that turned old quotes into seven-figure sales, Jason shows what's possible when technology, strategy, and authentic follow-up finally line up. Key Takeaways: → Why most growing businesses don't really know which marketing efforts are working, and how a properly set up CRM changes that. → The three simple criteria that define an ideal client for a CRM overhaul and why company size and sales team count matter. → The common problem shared by manufacturing, roofing, finance, and home service companies is that they send hundreds of proposals a year. → A behind-the-scenes case study of a roofing company that revived ignored quotes with a thoughtful, automated follow-up sequence. → How to design automated emails that feel genuine and personal, not robotic or canned, while still running on autopilot. Jason Kramer is the founder of Cultivize, a consulting firm that builds smart CRM strategies for business consultants and growth advisors. With over 20 years in marketing and business development, he helps experts transform their lead management systems into scalable growth engines. His process integrates CRM automation with email nurturing to create trackable, ROI-focused results for B2B and consulting clients. Jason's background includes work with global giants like Virgin Atlantic and Johnnie Walker, but today his focus is on supporting strategic advisors and fractional leaders who need visibility into what's working—and what's not—in their sales process. When he's not helping clients streamline their revenue systems, he's on the Hudson River with his family. Connect With Jason Kramer: Website: https://cultivize.com/ X: https://x.com/cultivize Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cultivize/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonleighkramer/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Perry is a marketing automation specialist who's been at it since 2002, from launching her first campaigns before most saw value in email, to beta testing HubSpot before it was a household name. Currently the Managing Partner at Duma Marketing, she's worked with both Fortune 500 giants and rising e-commerce brands, always championing sophisticated automation, clean segmentation, and authentic customer journeys. Her approach blends empathy with rigorous data—the kind of balance your listeners appreciate—and her hands-on methods in CRM, deliverability, and regulatory compliance make her a go-to for complex challenges. This conversation between Perry and Ella, explores the critical role of marketing automation and AI in processing consumer data and enhancing engagement for businesses, particularly for entrepreneurs and mid-sized companies. It emphasizes the necessity of these tools in creating tailored marketing strategies that resonate with diverse consumer segments.Learn even more from Perry at www.perrysheraw.com

This week we chat with Claire Hughes Johnson!Claire is the former COO of Stripe, where she played a critical role in scaling the company from 160 employees to more than 7,000 during its period of rapid global expansion. Before Stripe, she spent over a decade at Google, leading large international teams across multiple high-growth products and operations.She now serves on the boards of HubSpot, The Atlantic, Aurora, and several other organizations, is an active angel investor, and is the bestselling author of Scaling People, widely regarded as a modern classic on leadership, management, and organizational design.✨ This episode is presented by Brex.Brex: brex.com/trailblazerspodThis episode is supported by RocketReach, Gusto, OpenPhone & Athena.RocketReach: rocketreach.co/trailblazersGusto: gusto.com/trailblazersQuo: Quo.com/trailblazersAthena: athenago.me/Erica-WengerFollow Us!Claire Hughes Johnson: @chughesjohnson@thetrailblazerspod: Instagram, YouTube, TikTokErica Wenger: @erica_wenger

Send us a textWhen Google's algorithm changes caused HubSpot's traffic to plummet 80%, most companies would have panicked.Aja Frost saw an opportunity.As Senior Director of Global Growth at HubSpot, Aja led the transformation that helped HubSpot not only recover—but become the most-cited CRM in generative AI results.In this episode of FUTUREPROOF., Jeremy Goldman sits down with Aja to talk about how the rules of discovery, demand, and digital visibility are being rewritten in real time—and why Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) may be the next big discipline marketers can't afford to ignore.They discuss: 

MIA es la inteligencia artificial de Time to Hire que no reemplaza al recruiter, sino lo potencia. Pruébala gratis por 15 días sin compromiso en https://lp.timetohire.ai/saas-demasiados-cvs?utm_source=podcasts&utm_medium=audio&utm_campaign=genuine-media&utm_content=host-lead ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Regístrate para el Maratón de Webinars de Hubspot del 2,3 y 4 de diciembre en: http://offers.hubspot.es/planea-tu-2026?utm_campaign=genuinam  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If you send more follow up emails, you'll sell more stuff. The last report I saw was from Hubspot and it said email is the most profitable marketing channel online. It said email gets a 4,000% ROI. That's amazing. Especially since most people don't send follow up emails at all. Probably because writing email sequences is a PAIN. Until now. In this one, I show you exactly how to use AI to create killer email follow-up sequences that actually convert. You'll discover my 3-step process for creating AI email sequences that sound like YOU (not like AI). Plus I show you real results from my own campaigns. (6.76% conversion from leads I got for free.) The tool I used to create the entire email sequence is https://oJoy.ai You can try it for free if you want

The boys kick things off with a Black Friday breakdown and what it tells us about the K-shaped economy we now live in. Joe and Robert dig into spending trends, why some consumers are thriving while others are cutting back, and what this split means for marketers heading into 2026. They look at whether this year's patterns are temporary or structural, and what smart brands should prepare for next. From there, they turn to YouTube. Advertisers continue to shift budgets to the platform, and the data shows that YouTube is both the present and the future of television. Joe and Robert talk about how ultra-niche creators might be the biggest hidden opportunity for small and mid-sized brands looking to win in the influencer economy. The final story covers X and the platform's new "About Your Account" settings. Is it meaningful, helpful, or even newsworthy? The boys debate whether this is a real improvement or just another attempt to show activity without fixing the core issues. Winners and Losers Winner: Time Joe highlights Time as an example of a legacy brand doing things right, with a renewed focus on email subscribers and a strong commitment to in-person events. A modern media model built on direct relationships, not algorithms. Loser: Omnicom and the PR industry Robert takes the gloves off with a critique of Omnicom and the state of PR. He questions whether the industry is adapting fast enough to the shifts in trust, media fragmentation, and brand storytelling. Rants and Raves Robert's Rant Robert digs into a recent IPG study and why he believes it misses the mark. He breaks down the assumptions behind the research and what marketers should actually pay attention to. Joe's Rave Joe shares new research on gratitude and why it matters far more than most marketers realize. A positive scientific reminder that appreciation is a performance advantage, not just a personal virtue. Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing. ------- This week's sponsor: Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot. Their customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better. ------- Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/ Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/ Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/. Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/  Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/ ------- This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

DJ Casto joined us on The Modern People Leader to share how Synchrony is co-designing the future of work with employees.We talked about active listening at scale, building trust by being great not perfect, rethinking leadership for a flexible workforce, and why treating the employee experience like a product creates real business impact.---- Downloadable PDF with top takeaways: https://modernpeopleleader.kit.com/episode271Sponsor Links:

Steal These Workflows: 7 AI tools to build your startup in days, not months: https://clickhubspot.com/ehg Ep. 383 Can 50 people really do the work of 500 in the new AI era? Kipp, Kieran and guests Grant Lee, co-founder and CEO of Gamma, and Kristin Fracchia, who leads Marketing at Gamma, dive into the revolutionary AI workflows and org design lessons powering Gamma's $2B company—plus how any team can scale smarter with fewer resources.  Learn more on building lean, high-growth teams with generalists over specialists, scaling creative and professional workflows with AI, bridging the gap between AI-first startups and Main Street businesses, and the hacks and use cases driving productivity for millions. Recorded live at GROW Europe. Mentions Growing a startup? Get the tools, education, and support you need with HubSpot for Startups. Exclusive discounts + a full growth platform: http://hubspot.com/startups Subscribe to Mindstream newsletter https://www.mindstream.news/ Gamma https://gamma.app/ Grant Lee https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantslee Kristin Fracchia https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinfracchia Zapier https://zapier.com/ Make https://www.make.com/en N8N https://n8n.io/ Clay https://www.clay.com/ Granola https://www.granola.ai/ Wispr https://wisprflow.ai/ Kimi K2 https://www.kimi.com/ Get our guide to build your own Custom GPT: https://clickhubspot.com/customgpt We're creating our next round of content and want to ensure it tackles the challenges you're facing at work or in your business. To understand your biggest challenges we've put together a survey and we'd love to hear from you! https://bit.ly/matg-research Resource [Free] Steal our favorite AI Prompts featured on the show! Grab them here: https://clickhubspot.com/aip We're on Social Media! Follow us for everyday marketing wisdom straight to your feed YouTube: ​​https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGtXqPiNV8YC0GMUzY-EUFg  Twitter: https://twitter.com/matgpod  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matgpod  Join our community https://landing.connect.com/matg Thank you for tuning into Marketing Against The Grain! Don't forget to hit subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts (so you never miss an episode)! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-against-the-grain/id1616700934   If you love this show, please leave us a 5-Star Review https://link.chtbl.com/h9_sjBKH and share your favorite episodes with friends. We really appreciate your support. Host Links: Kipp Bodnar, https://twitter.com/kippbodnar   Kieran Flanagan, https://twitter.com/searchbrat  ‘Marketing Against The Grain' is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by Hubspot Media // Produced by Darren Clarke.

How to Build a Winning Strategy for Your B2B Brand In a fast-paced business environment, marketers, agencies, and consultants must proactively help clients differentiate their brands in the marketplace. One way of doing this is by analyzing the strategy, messaging, and brand positioning, both for their own brands and key competitors. So how can teams conduct this kind of brand research and competitive analysis in a way that's insightful, efficient, and actionable for planning the next steps? Tune in as the B2B Marketers on Mission Podcast presents the Marketing DEMO Lab Series, where we sit down with Clay Ostrom (Founder, Map & Fire) and his SmokeLadder platform designed for brand research, messaging and positioning analysis, and competitive benchmarking. In this episode, Clay explained the platform's origins and features, emphasizing its role in analyzing brand positioning, core messaging, and competitive landscapes. He also stressed the importance of clear, consistent brand positioning and messaging, and how standardized make it easier to compare brands across multiple business values. Clay also highlighted the value of objective, data-driven analysis to identify brand strengths, weaknesses, and gaps, and how tools like SmokeLadder can save significant time in gathering insights to build trust with clients. He provided practical steps for generating, refining, and exporting brand messaging and analysis for internal or client-facing use. Finally, Clay also discussed how action items and recommendations generated from analysis can immediately support smart brand strategy decisions and expedite trust-building with clients. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4_o1PzF1Kk Topics discussed in episode: [1:31] The purpose behind building SmokeLadder and why it matters for B2B teams [12:00] A walkthrough of the SmokeLadder platform and how it works [14:51] SmokeLadder's core features [17:48] How positioning scores and category rankings are calculated [35:36] How differentiation and competitors are analyzed inside SmokeLadder [44:07] How SmokeLadder builds messaging and generates targeted personas [50:24] The key benefits and unique capabilities that set SmokeLadder apart Companies and links: Clay Ostrom Map & Fire SmokeLadder Transcript Christian Klepp  00:00 In an increasingly competitive B2B landscape, marketers, agencies and consultants, need to proactively find ways to help their clients stand out amidst the digital noise. One way of doing this is by analyzing the strategy, messaging and positioning of their own brands and those of their competitors. So how can they do this in a way that’s insightful, efficient and effective? Welcome to this first episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast Demo Lab Series, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Clay Ostrom about this topic. He’s the owner and founder of the branding agency Map and Fire, and the creator of the platform Smoke Ladder that we’ll be talking about today. So let’s dive in. Christian Klepp  00:42 All right, and I’m gonna say Clay Ostrom. Welcome to this first episode of the Demo Lab Series. Clay Ostrom  00:50 I am super excited and very honored to be the first guest on this new series. It’s awesome. Christian Klepp  00:56 We are honored to have you here. And you know, let’s sit tight, or batten down the hatches and buckle up, and whatever other analogy you want to throw in there, because we are going to unpack a lot of interesting features and discuss interesting topics around the platform that you’ve built. And I think a good place to start, perhaps Clay before we start doing a walk through of the platform is, but let’s start at the very beginning. What motivated you to create this platform called Smoke Ladder. Clay Ostrom  01:31 So we should go all the way back to my childhood. I always dreamed of, you know, working on brand and positioning. You know, that was something I’ve always thought of since the early days, but no, but I do. I own an agency called Map and Fire, so I’ve been doing this kind of work for over 10 years now, and have worked with lots and lots of different kinds of clients, and over that time, developed different frameworks and a point of view about how to do this kind of work, and when the AI revolution kind of hit us all, it just really struck me that this was an opportunity to take a lot of that thinking and a lot of that, you know, again, my perspective on how to do this work and productize that and turn it into something that could be used by people when we’re not engaged with them, in some kind of service offering. So, so that was kind of the kernel of it. I actually have a background in computer science and product. So it was sort of this natural Venn diagram intersection of I can do some product stuff, I can do brand strategy stuff. So let’s put it together and build something. Christian Klepp  02:46 And the rest, as they say, is history. Clay Ostrom  02:49 The rest, as they say, is a lot of nights and weekends and endless hours slaving away at trying to build something useful. Christian Klepp  02:58 Sure, sure, that certainly is part of it, too. Clay Ostrom  03:01 Yeah. Christian Klepp  03:02 Let’s not keep the audience in suspense for too long here, right? Like, let’s start with the walk through. And before you share your screen, maybe I’ll set this up a little bit, right? Because you, as you said, like, you know, you’ve built this platform. It’s called Smoke Ladder, which I thought was a really clever name. It’s, you like to describe it as, like, your favorite SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tool, but for brand research and analysis. So I would say, like, walk us through how somebody would use this platform, like, whether they be a marketer that’s already been like in the industry for years, or is starting out, or somebody working at a brand or marketing agency, and how does the platform address these challenges or questions that people have regarding brand strategy, analysis and research? Clay Ostrom  03:49 Yeah, yeah. I use that analogy of the SEO thing, just because, especially early on, I was trying to figure out the best way to describe it to someone who hasn’t seen it before. I feel like it’s a, I’m not going to fall into the trap of saying, this is the only product like this, but it has its own unique twists with what it can do. And I felt like SEO tools are something everybody has touched at one point or another. So I was using this analogy of, it’s like the s, you know, Semrush of positioning and messaging or Ahrefs, depending on your if you’re a Coke or Pepsi person. But I always felt like that was just a quick way to give a little idea of the fact that it’s both about analyzing your own brand, but it’s also about competitive analysis and being able to see what’s going on in the market or in your landscape, and looking specifically at what your competitors are doing and what their strengths and weaknesses are. So does that resonate with you in terms of, like, a shorthand way, I will say, I don’t. I don’t say that. It’s super explicitly on the website, but it’s been in conversation. Christian Klepp  05:02 No, absolutely, absolutely, that resonated with me. The only part that didn’t resonate with me is that I’m neither a coke or a Pepsi person. I’m more of a ginger ale type of guy. I digress. But yeah, let’s what don’t you share your screen, and let’s walk through this, right? Like, okay, if a marketing person were like, use the platform to do some research on, perhaps that marketers, like own company and the competitors as well, right? Like, what would they do? Clay Ostrom  05:32 Yeah, so that’s, that is, like you were saying, there’s, sort of, I guess, a few different personas of people who would potentially use this. And initially I was thinking a little more about both in house, people who, you know, someone who’s working on a specific brand, digging really deep on their own brand, whether they’re, you know, the marketing lead or whatever, maybe they’re the founder, and then this other role of agency owners, or people who work at an agency where they are constantly having to look at new brands, new categories, and quickly get up to speed on what those brands are doing and what’s the competitive space look like, you know, for that brand. And that’s something that, if you work at an agency, which obviously we both have our own agencies, we do this stuff weekly. I mean, every time a new lead comes in, we have to quickly get up to speed and understand something about what they do. And one of the big gaps that I found, and I’d be curious to kind of hear your thoughts on this, but I’ve had a lot of conversations with other agency owners, and I think one of the biggest gaps is often that brands are just not always that great at explaining their own brand or positioning or differentiation to you, and sometimes they have some documentation around it, but a lot of times they don’t. A lot of it’s word of mouth, and that makes it really hard to do work for them. If whatever you’re doing for them, whether that’s maybe you are working on SEO or maybe you’re working on paid ads or social or content, you have to know what the brand is doing and kind of what they’re again, what their strengths and weaknesses are, so that you can talk about that. I mean, do you come across that a lot in your work? Christian Klepp  07:33 How do I say this without offending anybody? I find, I mean jokes aside, I find, more often than not, in the especially in the B2B space, which is an area that I operate in, I find 888 point five times out of 10. We are dealing with companies that have a they, have a very rude, rudimentary, like, framework of something that remotely resembles some form of branding. And I know that was a very long winded answer, but it’s kind of sort of there, but not really, if you know what I mean. Clay Ostrom  08:17 Yeah. Christian Klepp  08:17 And there have been other extreme cases where they’ve got the logo and the website, and that’s as far as their branding goals. And I would say that had they had all these, this discipline, like branding system and structure in place, then people like maybe people like you and I will be out on a job, right and it’s something, and I’m sure you’ve come across this, and we’ll probably dig into this later, but like you, it’s something I’ve come across several times, especially in the B2B space, where branding is not taken seriously until it becomes serious. I know that sounds super ironic, right, but, and it’s to the point of this platform, right, which we’re going to dig into in a second, but it’s, it’s things, for instance, positioning right, like, are you? Are you, in fact, strategically positioned against competitors? Is your messaging resonating with, I would imagine, especially in the B2B context, with the multiple group target groups that you have, or that your company is, is going after? Right? Is that resonating, or is this all like something that I call the internal high five? You’ve this has all been developed to please internal stakeholders and and then you take it to market, and it just does not, it just does not resonate with the target audience at all. Right? So there’s such a complex plethora of challenges here, right? That people like yourself and like you and I are constantly dealing with, and I think that’s also part of the reason why I would say a platform like this is important, because it helps to not just aggregate data. I mean, certainly it does that too, but it helps. To put things properly, like into perspective at speed. I think that might be, that might be something that you would have talked about later, but it does this at speed, because I think, from my own experience, one of the factors in our world that sometimes works against us is time, right? Clay Ostrom  10:19 No, I totally agree, yeah, and, you know, we’re lucky, I guess would be the word that we are often hired to work on a company strategy with them and help them clarify these things. Christian Klepp  10:33 Absolutely. Clay Ostrom  10:34 There are a million other flavors of agencies out there who are being hired to execute on work for a brand, and not necessarily being brought in to redefine, you know what the brand, you know they’re positioning and their messaging and some of these fundamental things, so they’re kind of stuck with whatever they get. And like you said, a lot of times it’s not much. It might be a logo and a roughly put together website, and maybe not a whole lot else. So, yeah, but I think your other point about speed is that was a huge part of this. I think the market is only accelerating right now, because it’s becoming so much easier to start up new companies and new brands and new products. And now we’ve got vibe coding, so you can technically build a product in a day, maybe launch it the next day, start marketing it, you know, by the weekend. And all of this is creating noise and competition, and it’s all stuff that we have to deal with as marketers. We have to understand the landscape. We’ve got to quickly be able to analyze all these different brands, see where the strengths and weaknesses are and all that stuff. So… Christian Klepp  11:46 Absolutely. Clay Ostrom  11:46 But, yeah, that, I think that the speed piece is a huge part of this for sure. Christian Klepp  11:51 Yeah. So, so we’re okay, so we’re on the I guess this, this will probably be the homepage. So just walk us through what, what a marketing person would do if they want to use this platform, yeah? Clay Ostrom  12:00 So the very first thing you do when you come in, and this was when I initially conceived of this product, one of the things that I really wanted was the ability to have very quick feedback, be able to get analysis for whatever brand you’re looking at, you know, right away to be able to get some kind of, you know, insight or analysis done. So the first thing you can do, and you can do this literally, from the homepage of the website, you can enter in a URL for a brand, come into the product, even before you’ve created an account, you can come in and you can do an initial analysis, so you can put in whatever URL you’re looking at, could be yours, could be a competitor, and run that initial analysis. What we’re looking at here, this is, if you do create an account, this is, this becomes your, as we say, like Home Base, where you can save brands that you’re looking at. You can see your history, all that good stuff. And it just gives you some quick bookmarks so that you can kind of flip back and forth between, maybe it’s your brand, maybe it’s some of the competitors you’re looking at and then it gives you just some quick, kind of high level directional info. And I kind of break it up into these different buckets. Clay Ostrom  13:23 And again, I’d love to kind of hear if this is sort of how you think about it, too. But there’s sort of these different phases when you’re working on a brand. And again, this is sort of from an agency perspective, but you first got the sort of the research and the pitch piece. So this is before maybe you’re even working with them. You’re trying to get an understanding of what they do. Then we have discovery and onboarding, where we’re digging in a little bit deeper. We’re trying to really put together, what does the brand stand for, what are their strengths and weaknesses? And then we have the deeper dive, the strategy and differentiation. And this is where we’re really going in and getting more granular with the specific value points that they offer, doing some of that messaging analysis, finding, finding some of the gaps of the things that they’re talking about or not talking about, and going in deeper. So it kind of break it up into these buckets, based on my experience of how we engage with clients. Does that? Does that make sense to you, like, does that? Christian Klepp  14:28 It does make sense, I think. But what could be helpful for the audience is because this, this almost looks like it’s a pre cooked meal. All right, so what do we do we try another I mean, I think you use Slack for the analysis. Why don’t we use another brand, and then just pop it into that analysis field, and then see what it comes out with. Clay Ostrom  14:51 So the nice thing about this is, if you are looking at a brand that’s been analyzed, you’re going to get the data up really quickly. It’ll be basically pop up instantly. But you can analyze a brand from scratch as well. Just takes about a minute or so, basically, to kind of do some of the analysis. So for the sake of a demo, it’s a little easier just to kind of look at something that we’ve got in there. But if it’s a brand that you know, maybe you’re looking at a competitor for one of your brands, you know, there’s a good chance, because we’ve got about 6000 brands that we’ve analyzed in here, that there’s a good chance there’ll be some info on them. But so this is pipe drive. So whoever’s not familiar Pipedrive is, you know, it’s a CRM  (Customer Relationship Management), it’s, it’s basically, you know, it’s a lighter version of a HubSpot or Salesforce basically track deals and opportunities for business, but this so I flipped over. I don’t know if it was clear there, but I flipped over to this brand brief tab. And this is where we we get, essentially, a high level view of some key points about the brand and and I think about this as this would be something that you would potentially share with a client if you were, you know, working with them and you wanted to review the brand with them and make sure that your analysis is on point, but you’ll see it’s kind of giving you some positioning scores, where you rank from a category perspective, message clarity, and then we’ve got things like a quick overview, positioning summary, who their target persona is, in this case, sales manager, sales operation lead, and some different value points. And then it starts to get a little more granular. We get into like key competitors, Challenger brands. We do a little SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis, and then maybe one of the more important parts is some of these action items. So what do we do with this? Yeah, and obviously, these are, these are starting points. This is not, it’s not going to come in and, you know, instantly be able to tell you strategically, exactly what to do, but it’s going to give you some ideas of based on the things we’ve seen. Here are some reasonable points that you might want to be looking at to, you know, improve the brand. Make it make it stronger. Christian Klepp  17:13 Gotcha. Gotcha. Now, this is all great clay, but like, I think, for the benefit of the audience, can we scroll back up, please. And let’s just walk through these one by one, because I think it’s important for the audience/potential future users,/ customers of Smoke Ladder, right? To understand, to understand this analysis in greater depth, and also, like, specifically, like, let’s start with a positioning score right, like, out of 100 like, what is this? What is this based on? And how was this analyzed? Let’s start with that. Clay Ostrom  17:48 Yeah, and this is where the platform really started. And I’m going to actually jump over to the positioning tab, because this will give us the all the detail around this particular feature. But this is, this was where I began the product this. I kind of think of this as being, in many ways, sort of the heart and soul of it. And when I mentioned earlier about this being based on our own work and frameworks and how we approach this, this is very much the case with this. This is, you know, the approach we use with the product is exactly how we work with clients when we’re evaluating their positioning. And it’s, it’s basically, it’s built off a series of scores. And what we have here are 24 different points of business value, which, if we zoom in just a little bit down here, we can see things like reducing risk, vision, lowering cost, variety, expertise, stability, etc. So there’s 24 of these that we look at, and it’s meant to be a way that we can look across different brands and compare and contrast them. So it’s creating, like, a consistent way of looking at brands, even if they’re not in the same category, or, you know, have slightly different operating models, etc. But what we do is we go in and we score every brand on each of these 24 points. And if we scroll down here a little bit, we can see the point of value, the exact score they got, the category average, so how it compares against, you know, all the other brands we’ve analyzed, and then a little bit of qualitative information about why they got the score. Christian Klepp  19:27 Sorry, Clay, Can I just jump in for a second so these, these attributes, or these key values that you had in the graph at the top right, like, are these consistent throughout regardless of what brand is being analyzed, or the least change. Clay Ostrom  19:42 It’s consistent. Christian Klepp  19:43 Consistent? Clay Ostrom  19:44 Yeah, and that was one of the sort of strategic decisions we had to make with the product. Was, you know, there’s a, maybe another version of this, where you do different points depending on maybe the category, or, you know, things like that. But I wanted to do it consistent because, again, it allows us to look at every brand through the same lens. It doesn’t mean that every brand you know there are certain points of value that just aren’t maybe relevant for a particular brand, and that’s fine, they just won’t score as highly in those but at least it gives us a consistent way to look at so when you’re looking at 10 different competitors, you know you’ve got a consistent way to look at them together,. Christian Klepp  20:26 Right, right, right. Okay, okay, all right, thanks for that. Now let’s go down to the next section there, where you’ve got, like this table with like four different columns here. So you mentioned that these are being scored against other brands in their category. Like, can you share it with the audience? Like, how many other brands are being analyzed here? Clay Ostrom  20:51 Yeah, well, it depends on the category. So again, we’ve got six, you know, heading towards 7000 brands that we’ve analyzed collectively. Each category varies a little bit, but, you know, some categories, we have more brands than others. But what this allows us to do is, again, to quickly look at this and say, okay, for pipe drive, a big focus for pipe drive is organization, simplification. You know, one of their big value props is we’re an easier tool to use than Salesforce or HubSpot. You can get up to speed really quickly. You don’t have all the setup and configurations and all that kind of stuff. So this is showing us that, yes, like their messaging, their content, their brand, does, in fact, do a good job of making it clear that simplicity is a big part of pipe drive’s message. And they do that by talking about it a lot in their messaging, having case studies, having testimonials, all these things that support it. And that’s how we come up with these scores. Is by saying, like the brand emphasizes these points well, they talk about it clearly, and that’s what we base it on. Christian Klepp  22:04 Okay, okay. Clay Ostrom  22:06 But as you come, I was just gonna say as you come down here, you can see, so the green basically means that they score well above average for that particular point. Yellow is, you know, kind of right around average, or maybe slightly above, and then red means that they’re below average for that particular point. So for example, like variety of tools, they don’t emphasize that as much with pipe drive, maybe compared to, again, like a Salesforce or a HubSpot that has a gazillion tools, pipe drive, that’s not a big focus for them. So they don’t score as highly there, but you can kind of just get a quick view of, okay, here are the things that they’re really strong with, and here are the things that maybe they’re, you know, kind of weak or below average. Christian Klepp  22:58 Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s certainly interesting, because I, you know, I’ve, I’ve used the, I’ve used the platform for analyzing some of my clients, competitor brands. And, you know, when I’m looking at this, like analysis with the scoring, with the scoring sheet, it, I think it will also be interesting perhaps in future, because you’ve got a very detailed breakdown of, okay, the factors and how they’re scored, and what the brand value analysis is also, because, again, in the interest of speed and time, it’d be great if the platform can also churn out maybe a one to two sentence like, summary of what is this data telling us, right? Because I’m thinking back to my early days as a product manager, and we would spend hours, like back then on Excel spreadsheets. I’m dating myself a little bit here, but um, and coming up with this analysis and charts, but presenting that to senior management, all they wanted to know was the one to two sentence summary of like, come on. What are you telling me with all these charts, like, what is the data telling you that we need to know? Right? Clay Ostrom  24:07 I know it’s so funny. We again, as strategists and researchers, we love to nerd out about the granular details, but you’re right. When you’re talking to a leader at a business, it does come down to like, okay, great. What do we do? And so, and I flipped back over to slacks. I knew I had already generated this but, but we’re still in the positioning section here, but we have this get insights feature. So basically it will look at all those scores and give you kind of, I think, similar to what you’re describing. Like, here’s three takeaways from what we’re seeing. Okay, okay, great, yeah, so we don’t want to leave you totally on your own to have to figure it all out. We’ll give you, give you a little helping hand. Christian Klepp  24:53 Yeah. You don’t want to be like in those western movies, you’re on your own kid. Clay Ostrom  24:59 Yeah. We try not to strand you again. There’s a lot of data here. I think that’s one of the strengths and and challenges with the platform, is that we try to give you a lot of data. And for some people, you may not want to have to sift through all of it. You might want just sort of give me the three points here. Christian Klepp  25:19 Absolutely, absolutely. And at the very least they can start pointing you in the right direction, and then you could be, you could then, like, through your own initiative, and perhaps dig a little bit deeper and perhaps find some other insights that may be, may be relevant, right? Clay Ostrom  25:35 Totally. Christian Klepp  25:36 Hey, it’s Christian Klepp here. We’ll get back to the episode in a second. But first, I’d like to tell you about a new series that we’re launching on our show. As the B2B landscape evolves, marketers need to adapt and leverage the latest marketing tools and software to become more efficient. Enter B2B Marketers on a Mission Marketing Demo Lab where experts discuss the latest tools and software that empower you to become a better B2B marketer. Tune in as we chat with product experts. Provide unbiased product reviews, give advice and deliver insights into real world applications and actionable tips on tools and technologies for B2B marketing. Subscribe to the Marketing Demo Lab, YouTube channel and B2B Marketers on a Mission, on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Christian Klepp  26:21 All right. Now, back to the show, if we can, if we could jump back, sorry, to the, I think it was the brand brief, right? Like, where we where we started out, and I said, let’s, let’s dig deeper. Okay, so then, then we have, okay, so we talked about positioning score. Now we’re moving on to category rank and message clarity score. What does that look like? Clay Ostrom  26:41 Yeah. So the category rank is, it’s literally just looking at the positioning score that you’ve gotten for the brand and then telling you within this category, where do you sort of fall in the ranking, essentially, or, like, you know, how do we, you know, for comparing the score against all the competitors, where do you fall? So you can see, with Slack, they’re right in the middle. And it’s interesting, because with a product like Slack, even though we all now know what slack is and what it does and everything. Christian Klepp  27:18 Yeah. Clay Ostrom  27:19 The actual messaging and content that they have now, I think maybe doesn’t do as good of a job as it maybe did once upon a time, and it’s gotten as products grow and brands grow, they tend to get more vague, a little more broad with what they talk about, and that kind of leads to softer positioning. So that’s sort of what we’re seeing reflected here. And then the third score is the message clarity score, which we can jump into, like, a whole different piece. Christian Klepp  27:48 Four on a tennis not a very high score, right? Clay Ostrom  27:52 Yeah. And again, I think it’s a product, of, we can kind of jump into that section. Christian Klepp  27:57 Yeah, let’s do that, yeah. Clay Ostrom  27:59 But it’s, again, a product, I think of Slack being now a very mature product that is has gotten sort of a little vague, maybe a little broader, with their messaging. But the message clarity score, we basically have kind of two parts to this on the left hand side are some insights that we gather based on the messaging. So what’s your category, quick synopsis of the product. But then we also do some things, like… Christian Klepp  28:33 Confusing part the most confusing. Clay Ostrom  28:36 Honestly to me, as I get I’d love to hear your experience with this, but coming into a new brand, this is sometimes one of the most enlightening parts, because it shows me quickly where some gaps in what we’re talking about, and in this case, just kind of hits on what we were just saying a minute ago. Of the messaging is overloaded with generic productivity buzzwords, fails to clearly differentiate how Slack is better than email or similar tools, etc. But also, this is another one that I really like, and I use this all the time, which is the casual description. So rather than this technical garbage jargon, you know, speak, just give me. Give it to me in plain English, like we’re just chatting. And so this description of it’s a workplace chat app for teams to message, collaborate, share files. Like, okay, cool. Like, yeah, you know, I get it. Yeah, I already know what slack is. But if I didn’t, that would tell me pretty well. Christian Klepp  29:33 Absolutely, yeah, yeah. No, my experience with this is has been, you know, you and I have been in the branding space for a while. So for the trained eye, when you look at messaging, you’ll know if it’s good or not, right. And we come I mean, I’m sure you do the same clay, but I also come to my own like conclusions based on experience of like, okay, so why do I think that that’s good messaging, or why do I think that that’s confusing messaging? Or it falls short, and why and how can that be improved? But it’s always good to have validation with either with platforms like this, where you have a you have AI, or you have, you have a software that you can use that analyzes, like, for example, like the messaging on a website, and it dissects that and says, Well, okay, so this is what they’re getting, right? So there’s a scoring for that, so it’s in the green, and then this is, this is where it gets confusing, right? So even you run that through, you run that through the machine, and the machine analyzes it as like, Okay, we can’t clearly, clearly define what it is they’re doing based on the messaging, right? And for me, that’s always a it’s good. It’s almost like getting a second doctor’s opinion, right? And then you go, Aha. So I we’ve identified the symptoms now. So let’s find the penicillin, right? Like, let’s find the remedy for this, right? Clay Ostrom  30:56 Yeah, well, and I like what you said there, because part of the value, I think, with this is it’s an objective perspective on the brand, so it doesn’t have any baggage. It’s coming in with fresh eyes, the same way a new customer would come into your website, where they don’t know really much about you, and they have to just take what you’re giving at face value about what you present. And we as people working on brands get completely blinded around what’s actually working, what’s being communicated. There’s so much that we take for granted about what we already know about the brand. And this comes in and just says, Okay, I’m just, I’m just taking what you give me, and I’m going to tell you what I see, and I see some gaps around some of these things. You know, I don’t have the benefit of sitting in your weekly stand up meeting and hearing all the descriptions of what you’re actually doing. Christian Klepp  31:59 I’m sorry to jump in. I’m interested to know, like, just, just based on what we’ve been reviewing so far, like, what has your experience been showing this kind of analysis to clients, and how do they respond to some of this data, for example, that you know, you’re walking us through right now? Clay Ostrom  32:18 Yeah, I think it’s been interesting. Honestly, I think it can sometimes feel harsh. And I think again, as someone who’s both run an agency and also built worked on brands, we get attached to our work on an emotional level. Christian Klepp  32:42 Absolutely. Clay Ostrom  32:42 Even if we think about it as, you know, this is just work, and it’s, you know, whatever, we still build up connections with our work and we want it to be good. And so I think there’s sometimes a little bit of a feeling of wow, like that’s harsh, or I would have expected or thought we would have done better or scored better in certain areas, but that is almost always followed up with but I’m so glad to know where, where we’re struggling, because now I can fix it. I can actually know what to focus on to fix, and that, to me, is what it’s all about, is, yes, there’s a little bit of feelings attached to some of these things, maybe, but at the end of the day, we really want it to be good. We want it to be clear. We don’t want to be a 4 out of 10. We want to be a 10 out of 10. And what specifically do we need to do to get there? And that’s really what we’re trying to reveal with this. So I think, you know, everybody’s a little different, but I would say the reactions are typically a mix of that. It’s like, maybe an ouch, but a Oh, good. Let’s work on it. Christian Klepp  33:55 Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. So we’ve got brand summary, we’ve got fundamentals, then quality of messaging is the other part of it, right? Clay Ostrom  34:02 So, yeah, so this, this is, this is where the actual 4 out of 10 comes. We have these 10 points that we look at and we say, Okay, are you communicating these things clearly? Are you communicating who your target customer is, your category, your offering, where you’re differentiated benefits? Do you have any kind of concrete claim about what you do to support you know what you’re what you’re selling? Is the messaging engaging? Is it concise? You’ll see here a 7% on concise. That’s basically telling us that virtually no brands do a good job of being concise. Only about 7% get a green check mark on this, and kind of similar with the jargon and the vague words big struggle points with almost every brand. Christian Klepp  34:55 Streamline collaboration. Clay Ostrom  34:58 So we can see here with Slack. You know some of the jargon we got, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), MQLs (Marketing Qualified Lead), if you’re in the space, you could argue like, oh, I kind of know what those things are. But depending on your role, you may not always know. In something like Salesforce marketing cloud, unless you’re a real Salesforce nerd, you probably have no idea what that is. But again, it’s just a way to quickly identify some of those weak points, things that we could improve to make our message more clear. Christian Klepp  35:27 Yes, yes. Okay, so that was the messaging analysis correct? Clay Ostrom  35:33 Yeah. Christian Klepp  35:33 Yeah. Okay. So what else have we got? Clay Ostrom  35:36 Yeah, so I think one other thing we could look at just for a sec, is differentiation, and this is this kind of plays off of what we looked at a minute ago with the positioning scores. But this is a way for us to look head to head with two different brands. So in this case, we’ve got Slack in the red and we’ve got Discord in the greenish blue. And I think of these, these patterns, as sort of the fingerprint of your brand. So where you Where are you strong? Where are you weak? And if we can overlay those two fingerprints on top of each other, we can see, where do we have advantages, and where does our competitor have advantages? So if we come down, we can sort of see, and this is again, for the nerds like me, to be able to come in and go deep, do kind of a deep dive on specifically, why did, why does Discord score better than Slack in certain areas. And at the bottom here we can see a kind of a quick summary. So slack is stronger in simplification, saving time, Discord has some better messaging around generating revenue, lowering costs, marketability. But again, this gives us a way to think about what are the things we want to double down on? So what do we want to actually be known for in the market? Because we can’t be known for everything. You know, buyers can maybe only remember a couple things about us. What are those couple things where we’re really strong, where we really stand out, and we’ve got some separation from the competitors. Christian Klepp  37:18 Right, okay, okay, just maybe we take a step back here, because I think this is great. It’s very detailed. It gets a bit granular, but I think it’s also going back to a conversation that you and I had previously about, like, Okay, why is it so important to be armed with this knowledge, especially if you’re in the marketing role, or perhaps even an agency talking to a potential client going in there already armed with the information about their competitors. And we were talking about this being a kind of like a trust building mechanism, right? For lack of a better description, right? Clay Ostrom  38:03 Yeah, I think to me, what I like about this, and again, this does come out of 10 years of doing work, this kind of work with clients as well, is it’s so easy to fall into a space of soft descriptions around things like positioning and just sort of using vague, you know, wordings or descriptions, and when you can actually put a number on it, which, again, it’s subjective. This isn’t. This isn’t an objective metric, but it’s a way for us to compare and contrast. It allows us to have much more productive conversations with clients, where we can say we looked at your brand, we we what based on our analysis, we see that you’re scoring a 10 and a 9 on simplicity and organization, for example. Is that accurate to you like do you think that’s what you all are emphasizing the most? Does that? Does that resonate and at the same time, we can say, but your competitors are really focused on there. They have a strong, strong message around generating revenue and lowering costs for their customers. Right now, you’re not really talking about that. Is that accurate? Is that like, what you is that strategically, is that what you think you should be doing so really quickly, I’ve now framed a conversation that could have been very loose and kind of, you know, well, what do you think your strategy is about? What do you know? And instead, I can say, we see you being strong in these three points. We see your competitors being strong in these three points. What do you think about that? And I think that kind of clarity just makes the work so much more productive with clients, or just again, working on your own brand internally. So what do you think about that kind of perspective? Christian Klepp  40:08 Yeah, no, no, I definitely agree with that. It’s always and I’ve been that type of person anyway that you know you go into a especially with somebody that hasn’t quite become a client yet, right? One of the most important things is also, how should I put this? Certainly the trust building part of it needs to be there. The other part is definitely a demonstration of competence and ability, but it’s also that you’ve been proactive and done your homework, versus like, Okay, I’m I’m just here as an order taker, right? And let’s just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it right? A lot and especially, I think this has been a trend for a long time already, but a lot of the clients that I’ve worked with now in the past, they want to, they’re looking for a partner that’s not just thinking with them, it’s someone that’s thinking ahead of them. And this type of work, you know what we’re seeing here on screen, this is the type of work that I would consider thinking ahead of them, right? Clay Ostrom  41:18 No, I agree. I think you framed that really well. Of we’re trying to build trust, because if we’re going to make any kind of recommendations around a change or a shift, they have to believe that we know what we’re talking about, that we’re competent, that we’ve done the work. And I think I agree with you. I think like this, it’s kind of funny, like we all, I think, on some base level, are attracted to numbers and scores. It just gives us something to latch on to. But I think it also, like you said, it gives you a feeling that you’ve done your work, that you’ve done your homework, you’ve studied, you’ve you’ve done some analysis that they themselves may have never done on this level. And that’s a big value. Christian Klepp  42:08 Yes, and a big part of the reason just to, just to build on what you said, a big part of the reason why they haven’t done this type of work is because it’s not so much. The cost is certainly one part of it, but it’s the time, it’s a time factor and the resource and the effort that needs to be put into it. Because, you know, like, tell me if you’ve never heard this one before, but there are some, there are some companies that we’ve been working with that don’t actually have a clearly, like, you know, a clear document on who their their target personas are, yeah, or their or their ICPs, never mind the buyer’s journey map. They don’t, they don’t even have the personas mapped out, right? Clay Ostrom  42:52 100% Yeah, it’s, and it’s, I think you’re right. It’s, it’s a mix of time and it’s a mix of just experience where, if you are internal with a brand, you don’t do this kind of work all the time. You might do it at the beginning. Maybe you do a check in every once in a while, but you need someone who’s done this a lot with a lot of different brands so that they can give you guidance through this kind of framework. But so it’s, you know, so some of it is a mix of, you know, we don’t have the time always to dig in like this. But some of it is we don’t even know how to do it, even if we did have the time. So it’s hopefully giving, again, providing some different frameworks and different ways of looking at it. Christian Klepp  43:41 Absolutely, absolutely. So okay, so we’ve gone through. What is it now, the competitor comparison. What else does the platform provide us that the listeners and the audience should be paying attention to here? Clay Ostrom  43:55 So I’ll show you two more quick things. So one is this message building section. So this is… Christian Klepp  44:03 Are you trying to put me out of a job here Clay? Clay Ostrom  44:07 Well, I’ll say this. So far in my experience with this, it’s not going to put us out of a job, but it is going to hopefully make our job easier and better. It’s going to make us better at the work we do. And that’s really, I think that’s, I think that’s kind of, most people’s impression of AI at this point is that it’s not quite there to replace us, but it’s sure, certainly can enhance what we do. Christian Klepp  44:36 Yeah, you’ll excuse me, I couldn’t help but throw that one out. Clay Ostrom  44:38 Yeah, I know, trust me, I’m this. It’s like I’m building a product that, in a sense, is undercutting, you know, the work that I do. So it is kind of a weird thing, but this message building section, which is a new part of the platform. It will come in, and you can see on the right hand side. And there’s sort of a quick summary of all these different elements that we’ve already analyzed. And then it’s going to give you some generated copy ideas, including, if I zoom in a little bit here, we’ve got an eyebrow category. This is again for Slack. It’s giving us a headline idea, stay informed without endless emails. Sub headline call to action, three challenges that your customers are facing, and then three points about your solution that help address those for customers. So it’s certainly not writing all of your copy for you, but if you’re starting from scratch, or you’re working on something new, or even if you’re trying to refresh a brand. I think this can be helpful to give you some messaging that’s hopefully clear. That’s something that I think a lot of messaging misses, especially in B2B, it’s, it’s not always super clear, like what you even do. Christian Klepp  45:56 Don’t get me started. Clay Ostrom  45:59 So hopefully it’s clear. It’s, you know, again, it’s giving you some different ideas. And that you’ll see down here at the bottom, you can, you can iterate on this. So we’ve got several versions. You can actually come in and, you know, you can edit it yourself. So if you say, like, well, I like that, but not quite that, you know, I can, you know, get my human touch on it as well. But yeah, so it’s a place to iterate on message. Christian Klepp  46:25 You can kind of look at it like, let’s say, if you’re writing a blog article, and this will give you the outline, right? Yeah. And then most of the AI that I’ve worked with to generate outlines, they’re not quite there. But again, if you’re starting from zero and you want to go from zero to 100 Well, that’ll, that’ll at least get you to 40 or 50, right? But I’m curious to know, because we’re looking at this now, and I think this, I mean, for me, this is, this is fascinating, but, like, maybe, maybe this will be part of your next iteration. But will this, will this generate messaging that’s already SEO optimized. Clay Ostrom  47:02 You know, it’s not specifically geared towards that, but I would say that it ends up being maybe more optimized than a lot of other messaging because it puts such an emphasis on clarity, it naturally includes words and phrases that I think are commonly used in the space more so than you know, maybe just kind of typical off the shelf Big B2B messaging, Christian Klepp  47:27 Gotcha. I had a question on the target persona that you’ve got here on screen, right? So how does the platform generate the information that will then populate that field because, and when I’m just trying to think about like, you know, because I’ve been, I’ve been in the space for as long as you have, and the way that I’ve generated target personas in the past was not by making a wild guess about, like, you know, looking at the brand’s website. It’s like having conducting deep customer research and listening to hours and hours of recordings, and from there, generating a persona. And this has done it in seconds. So… Clay Ostrom  48:09 Yeah, it’s so the way the system works in a couple different layers. So it does an initial analysis, where it does positioning, messaging analysis and category analysis, then you can generate the persona on top of that. So it takes all the learnings that it got from the category, from the product, from your messaging, and then develops a persona around that. And it’s, of course, able to also pull in, you know, the AI is able to reference things that it knows about the space in general. But I have found, and this is true. I was just having a conversation with someone who works on a very niche brand for a very specific audience, and I was showing him what it had output. And I said, Tell me, like, Don’t hold back. Like, is this accurate? He said, Yeah, this is, like, shockingly accurate for you know, how we view our target customer. So I think it’s pretty good. It’s not again, not going to be perfect. You’re going to need to do some work, and you still got to do the research, but, but, yeah. Christian Klepp  49:13 Okay, fantastic, fantastic. How do, I guess there’s the option, I see it there, like, download the PDF. So anything that’s analyzed on the platform can then be exported in a PDF format, right? Like, like, into a report. Clay Ostrom  49:28 Yeah, right now you can export the messaging analysis, or, sorry, the the messaging ideation that you’ve done, and then in the brand brief you can also, you can download a PDF of the brand brief as well. So, those are the two main areas. I’m still working on some additional exports of data so that people can pull it into a spreadsheet and do some other stuff with it. Christian Klepp  49:49 Fantastic, fantastic. That’s awesome, Clay. I’ve got a couple more questions before I let you go. But this has been, this has been amazing, right? Like and I really hope that whoever’s in the one listening and, most importantly, watching this, I hope that you really do consider like, you know, taking this for a test drive, right? How many I might have asked you this before, because, you know, I am somebody that does use, you know, that does a lot of this type of research. But how much time would you say companies would save by using Smoke Ladder? Clay Ostrom  50:24 It’s a good question. I feel like I’m starting to get some feedback around that with from our users, but I mean, for me personally, I would typically spend an hour or two just to get kind of up to speed initially, with a brand and kind of look at some of their competitors. If I’m doing a deep dive, though, if I’m actually doing some of the deeper research work, it could be several hours per client. So I don’t know. On a given week, it might depend on how many clients you’re talking to. Could be anywhere from a few hours to 10 hours or more, depending on how much work you’re doing. But, yeah, I think it’s a decent amount. Christian Klepp  51:07 Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, this definitely does look like a time saver. Here comes my favorite question, which you’re gonna look at me like, Okay, I gotta, I gotta. Clay Ostrom  51:17 Now bring it on. Let’s go. Christian Klepp  51:22 Folks that are not familiar with Smoke Ladder are gonna look at this, um, and before they actually, um, take it upon themselves to, like, watch, hopefully, watch this video on our channel. Um, they’re gonna look at that and ask themselves, Well, what is it that Smoke Ladder does that? You know that other AI couldn’t do, right, like, so I guess what I’m trying to say is, like, Okay, why would they use? How does the platform differ from something like ChatGPT, Perplexity or Claude, right? To run a brand analysis? Clay Ostrom  52:00 Yeah, no, I think it’s a great question. I think it’s sort of the it’s going to be the eternal AI question for every product that has an AI component. And I would say to me, it’s three things. So one is the data, which we talked about, and I didn’t show you this earlier, but there is a search capability in here to go through our full archive of all the brands we’ve analyzed, and again, we’ve analyzed over 6000 brands. So the data piece is really important here, because it means we’re not just giving you insights and analysis based on the brand that you’re looking at now, but we can compare and contrast against all the other brands that we’ve looked at in the space, and that’s something that you’re not going to get by just using some off the shelf standard LLM  (Large Language Model) and doing some, you know, some quick prompts with that. The next one, I think, to me that’s important is it’s the point of view of the product and the brand. Like I said, this is built off of 10 plus years of doing positioning and messaging work in the space. So you’re getting to tap into that expertise and that approach of how we do things and building frameworks that make this work easier and more productive that you wouldn’t get, or you wouldn’t know, just on your own. And then the last one, the last point, which is sort of the kind of like the generic software answer, is you get a visual interface for this stuff. It’s the difference between using QuickBooks versus a spreadsheet. You can do a lot of the same stuff that you do in QuickBooks and a spreadsheet, but wouldn’t you rather have a nice interface and some easy buttons to click that make your job way, way easier and do a lot of the work for you and also be able to present it in a way that’s digestible and something you could share with clients? So the visual component in the UI is sort of that last piece. Christian Klepp  54:01 Absolutely. I mean, it’s almost like UX and UI one on one. That’s, that’s pretty much like a big part of, I think what it is you’re trying to build here, right? Clay Ostrom  54:13 Yeah, exactly. It’s just it’s making all of those things that you might do in an LLM just way, way easier. You know, you basically come in, put in your URL and click a button, and you’re getting access to all the data and all the insights and all this stuff so. Christian Klepp  54:29 Absolutely, absolutely okay. And as we wrap this up, this has been a fantastic conversation, by the way, how can the audience start using Smoke Ladder, and how can they get in touch with you if they have questions, and hopefully good questions. Clay Ostrom  54:47 Yeah, so you can, if you go to https://smokeladder.com/ you can, you can try it out. Like I said, you can basically go to the homepage, put in a URL and get started. You don’t even have to create an account to do the initial analysis. But you can create FREE account. You can dig in and see, you know, play around with all the features, and if you use it more, you know, we give you a little bit of a trial period. And if you use it beyond that, then you can pay and continue to use it, but, but you can get a really good flavor of it for free. Christian Klepp  55:16 Fantastic, fantastic. Oh, last question, because, you know, it’s looking me right in the face now, industry categories. How many? How many categories can be analyzed on the platform? Clay Ostrom  55:26 Yeah, yeah. So right now, we have 23 categories in the system currently, which sounds like a lot, but when you start to dig into especially B2B, it’s we will be evolving that and continuing to add more, but currently, there’s 23 different categories of businesses in there. Christian Klepp  55:46 All right, fantastic, fantastic. Clay, man. This has been so awesome. Thank you so much for your time and for your patience and walking us through this, this incredible platform that you’ve built and continue to build. And you know, I’m excited to continue using this as it evolves. Clay Ostrom  56:06 Thank you. Yeah, no. Thanks so much. And you know, if anybody, you know, anybody who tries it out, tests it out, please feel free to reach out. We have, you know, contact info on there. You can also hit me up on LinkedIn. I spend a lot of time there, but I would love feedback, love getting notes, love hearing what’s working, what’s not, all those things. So yeah, anytime I’m always open. Christian Klepp  56:30 All right, fantastic. Once again, Clay, thanks for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Clay Ostrom  56:36 Thanks so much. Talk to you soon. Christian Klepp  56:37 All right. Bye for now.

CMOs face fragmented marketing spend across multiple brand portfolios. Danielle Pederson, CMO of Amaze, unified five creator-focused brands under one umbrella without losing individual brand equity. She implemented a phased taxonomy approach using "by Amaze" modifiers, consolidated three separate CRMs into HubSpot, and built a scalable architecture that allows new acquisitions to integrate immediately into the unified brand system.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

En este episodio de Historia para Tontos, nos sumergimos en uno de los mayores enigmas del mundo antiguo: los Pueblos del Mar, esas confederaciones guerreras que aparecieron como tormenta en el Mediterráneo y pusieron de cabeza a egipcios, hititas, micénicos y medio mundo. çHablamos de quiénes pudieron ser, por qué llegaron en masa, cómo lograron derribar civilizaciones enteras y por qué su paso marcó el inicio de la Edad Oscura del Mediterráneo. Exploramos sus rutas, sus guerras, sus misteriosas alianzas (o desmadres organizados), y las teorías más locas que los arqueólogos han propuesto para explicar su origen. Dale laik, suscribete y picale a la campanita para poder ver todos nuestros episodios, andaleeeeee. ✨️

CMOs face fragmented marketing spend across multiple brand portfolios. Danielle Pederson, CMO of Amaze, unified five creator-focused brands under one umbrella without losing individual brand equity. She implemented a phased taxonomy approach using "by Amaze" modifiers, consolidated three separate CRMs into HubSpot, and built a scalable architecture that allows new acquisitions to integrate immediately into the unified brand system.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brian Halligan is Co-founder and Board Member at HubSpot, a software company that helps businesses with inbound marketing, sales, and customer service. He played a central role in pioneering inbound marketing, redefining how organizations grow in a digital-first world. As a longtime CEO, he guided HubSpot from a startup to a global platform serving hundreds of thousands of companies. Today, Brian continues to shape the future of modern business through his work as an advisor, educator, and thought leader. In this episode… Modern leaders face an era where customer expectations shift rapidly, technology evolves at breakneck speed, and companies must scale without losing their identity. How can founders refine their leadership approach while staying aligned with their teams and long-term vision? And what insights emerge when reflecting on the principles that drive sustainable growth? Brian Halligan's perspective highlights that strong leadership requires adaptability, clear communication, and a willingness to evolve as an organization grows. With deep experience scaling teams, he explains that leaders must transition from hands-on operators to culture architects who empower others through trust and clarity. He underscores the importance of candid feedback systems, thoughtful hiring, and balancing automation with authenticity in modern marketing. Together, these principles help companies build scalability, strengthen alignment, and maintain the customer-centric focus needed in a changing landscape. In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz, co-hosted by Tyler Lane, interviews the AI clone of Brian Halligan, Co-founder at HubSpot, to discuss essential leadership lessons. They explore how leaders evolve during scale, why authenticity matters in an AI-driven marketing world, and how strategic thinking shapes high-performing teams. Brian also shares insights on building strong sales organizations and evaluating acquisitions effectively.

We had to bring this one back — because it's just that good. Today's guest is our good friend Carly Baker, now leading Media Partnerships at HubSpot Originals (yes, that HubSpot). She's been a big part of our journey, and every time she's on the show…

Hey CX Nation,In this week's episode of The CXChronicles Podcast #273, we welcomed Varun Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO of Enterpret based in New York, NY. Enterpret provides custom AI to transform how you understand customers – from feedback chaos into clear, confident action. Harness superintelligence that feels like intuition, so your product and CX leaders never miss a signal.The Enterpret platform supercharges teams via advanced LLMs to help brands like Notion, The Farmer's Dog, and Perplexity build better products and experiences.In this episode, Varun and Adrian chat through the Four CX Pillars: Team, Tools, Process & Feedback. Plus share some of the ideas that his team think through on a daily basis to build world class customer experiences.**Episode #273 Highlight Reel:**1. On a mission to connect product leaders with their customers2. Pioneering customer intelligence with AI 3. Understand your customers wants & needs 4. Creating actionable reporting to lift your CX & EX 5. VOC support to help grow your business Click here to learn more about Varun SharmaClick here to learn more about EnterpretHuge thanks to Varun for coming on The CXChronicles Podcast and featuring his work and efforts in pushing the customer experience & contact center space into the future. For all of our Apple & Spotify podcast listener friends, make sure you are following CXC & please leave a 5 star review so we can find new members of the "CX Nation". You know what would be even better?Go tell your friends or teammates about CXC's custom content, strategic partner solutions (Hubspot, Intercom, & Freshworks) & On-Demand services & invite them to join the CX Nation, a community of 15K+ customer focused business leaders!Want to see how your customer experience compares to the world's top-performing customer focused companies? Check out the CXC Healthzone, an intelligence platform that shares benchmarks & insights for how companies across the world are tackling The Four CX Pillars: Team, Tools, Process & Feedback & how they are building an AI-powered foundation for the future. Thanks to all of you for being apart of the "CX Nation" and helping customer focused business leaders across the world make happiness a habit!Reach Out To CXC Today!Support the showContact CXChronicles Today Tweet us @cxchronicles Check out our Instagram @cxchronicles Click here to checkout the CXC website Email us at info@cxchronicles.com Remember To Make Happiness A Habit!!

Alexis Ohanian is a tech entrepreneur and investor whose enterprises have shaped the internet as we know it. He co-founded Reddit and, as an investor, has backed household names like Coinbase, Hubspot, and Patreon, among others. He is the Founder and General Partner of Seven Seven Six, an early stage venture capital firm. Now he's reshaping the world of women's sports. In 2020, he co-founded the NWSL Los Angeles expansion team, Angel City, and this past May he bought an eight percent stake in Chelsea Women.  He joined Leadership Next to talk about investing in women's sports, why he and his all-star wife, Serena Williams don't work together, and why the next wave of technology will focus on human community.

In this episode I explore why you might be hesitating to show up on LinkedIn and the small actions you can take to decide if LinkedIn is worth the effort.ResourcesThe LinkedIn home feed clean up I mention in this episode: https://thinkbespoke.com.au/the-linkedin-clean-up-you-didnt-know-you-needed/Sign up to my newsletter (sent via Hubspot) and get your free LinkedIn Profile Checklist Your StrategyFollow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenhollenbach/Think Bespoke's Knowledge Basehttps://thinkbespoke.com.au/insights-blog-2/Elevate with KPH (Substack) https://thelinkedinmarketer.substack.com/LinkedIn profile writing course with Karen Hollenbachhttps://thinkbespoke.com.au/linkedin-profile-writing-course/

¿Te imaginas que levantar la mano y gritar “¡taxi!” pueda ser ilegal? Pues en algunas ciudades de Estados Unidos, el Reino Unido y Canadá, hacerlo podría meterte en problemas.Cuando yo vivía en Latinoamérica, siempre levantaba la mano para llamar un taxi, pero en muchas partes uno tiene que usar una aplicación, llamar o ir a un sitio indicado para conseguir los taxis estacionados. Sin embargo, muchas personas ignoran la ley y siguen llamando un taxi de manera tradicional.¿Estás trabajando como conductor de Uber o taxi en un país angloparlante? ¿O quizás transportas muchos turistas extranjeros? Incluso si no, quizás sueles usar Uber o un taxi de vez en cuando. Este episodio te brindará frases y vocabulario muy útiles para comunicarte con pasajeros o un taxista que solo hablan inglés.Sube al volante, ajusta los retrovisores, ¡y arranquemos! Let's drive!Recuerda que todos los recursos para este episodio, incluyendo la transcripción, la tabla de vocabulario y ejercicios para repasar el aprendizaje, están disponibles en nuestro sitio web. Haz clic en este enlace para ver todos los recursos para este episodio:  https://www.inglesdesdecero.ca/237-----Dale “me gusta” a nuestra página en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inglesdesde0/-----Síguenos en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ingles.desde.cero/-----Subscribete en YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@inglesdesdecero145-----Aprende inglés con nativos que se formaron en su enseñanza. ¡Visita nuestro sitio web, https://www.inglesdesdecero.ca/ para inscribirte y seguir todas nuestras lecciones! __No dejes pasar esta oportunidad con Shopify y regístrate para un período de prueba por solo un dólar al mes en shopify.mx/desdecero__________________________________________________________________________________________________________Regístrate para el Maratón de Webinars de Hubspot del 2,3 y 4 de diciembre en: http://offers.hubspot.es/planea-tu-2026?utm_campaign=genuinam Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Combining five creator brands into one unified platform creates customer confusion and fragmented marketing spend. Danielle Pederson, CMO of Amaze, led the consolidation of five distinct creator commerce solutions under one corporate umbrella without losing individual brand equity. She implemented a phased taxonomy approach using "by Amaze" modifiers, unified three separate CRMs into HubSpot, and created a scalable framework that allows new acquisitions to integrate immediately into the brand architecture.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Taylor and Melanie joined The Modern People Leader to unpack how HR teams can get out from under compliance chaos and admin overload to focus on business impact.---- Downloadable PDF with top takeaways: https://modernpeopleleader.kit.com/episode270Sponsor Links:

Why you should listenGemma shares how she turned a £7 million stack of paper inquiries into a thriving HubSpot consultancy—proof that seeing inefficiency others ignore can become your biggest opportunity.Understand why narrowing your focus during uncertainty can accelerate growth faster than diversifying.Discover how building a culture focused on psychological safety helped HubGem become one of the world's happiest workplaces—and why that's their competitive advantage against bigger agencies.How do you compete with bigger agencies when you can't match their salaries? In this episode, I sit down with Gemma Price, founder of HubGem, who built a 20-person HubSpot consultancy focused exclusively on the education sector. Gemma shares the moment she discovered millions of pounds worth of leads sitting in a colleague's bottom drawer on paper, and how that frustration sparked her entrepreneurial journey. We dive into why she resisted the urge to diversify during COVID, the change management principles that make tech adoption actually stick, and how prioritizing human connection over perks created a culture that retains talent. Plus, Gemma's take on where AI meets CRM and why the future belongs to those who don't sacrifice humanity for efficiency.About Gemma PriceGemma Price is an entrepreneur and award-winning CEO recognised for building one of the world's happiest workplaces. She scaled HubGem to become a Top 3% global HubSpot partner by vertically specialising in education and leading with a culture-first approach. Gemma helps founders harness AI, experience the power of intuitive psychology coaching, and embrace human-centred leadership to build scalable businesses without the burnout.Resources and LinksHubgem.co.uk Gemma's LinkedIn profile642 - Stop Being a Platform Expert - Why Business Growth Advisors Win in the AI Era with Sarah McDevittWhy Culture Is the Real Competitive Advantage in the AI EraPrevious episode: 651 - Platform-Agnostic Consulting: Why SaaS Partners Are Making the Switch to AI with Leandra NisbetCheck out more episodes of the Paul Higgins PodcastSubscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoringJoin our newsletterSuggested resourcesGemma offers transformational 1:1 and group Intuitive Psychology Coaching and also consults with leaders on building happier workplaces. Learn more about the different ways you can work with Gemma at Intuitive.co

In this episode of Front Cover: A Rough Notes Podcast on the Agency Intelligence Podcast Network, Jason Cass sits down with Mark Rodgers, Founder of Trailstone Insurance, the agency featured on the December 2025 front cover of Rough Notes Magazine.  Key Topics: Mark's reaction to being selected for the Rough Notes Magazine front cover  Trailstone's growth from a small agency to a large operation after shifting strategy in 2017–2018 Building automation in 2019 and writing more than 50 million in new personal lines premium Moving from purchased leads to strong inbound through social media, YouTube, and referral partners A sales process centered on homeowner targeting, education, and retention systems Operating fully inside HubSpot for AMS, CRM, communication, and workflow management Leveraging offshore teams, automation, and Traction accountability charts to support scale and culture Reach out to: Mark Rodgers Jason Cass Visit Website: Trailstone Insurance Rough Notes Magazine Produced by PodSquad.fm

Combining five creator brands into one unified platform creates customer confusion and fragmented marketing spend. Danielle Pederson, CMO of Amaze, led the consolidation of five distinct creator commerce solutions under one corporate umbrella without losing individual brand equity. She implemented a phased taxonomy approach using "by Amaze" modifiers, unified three separate CRMs into HubSpot, and created a scalable framework that allows new acquisitions to integrate immediately into the brand architecture.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Regístrate para el Maratón de Webinars de Hubspot del 2,3 y 4 de diciembre en: http://offers.hubspot.es/planea-tu-2026?utm_campaign=genuinam AMLO regresó de su retiro de la vida pública desde La Chingada… su rancho en Palenque, Chiapas, desde donde publicó un video este fin de semana ¿qué dijo?Según documentos oficiales, todo apunta a que Joaquín Guzmán López, aka “El Gûero”, se declarará culpable de narcotráfico ante un tribunal de Illinois este mismo lunes.Además…Omar García Harfuch y los líderes transportistas llegaron a acuerdos de seguridad en carreteras; las y los hondureños salieron a las urnas para elegir al sucesor de Xiomara Castro; Donald Trump advirtió que el espacio aéreo cercano a Venezuela estaba cerrado; Benjamin Netanyahu le pidió un indulto al presidente Isaac Herzog por soborno, fraude y abuso de confianza; Debido a las inundaciones y deslaves por las fuertes lluvias en Indonesia, Tailandia, Sri Lanka y Filipinas, se han registrado más de 900 muertos; Max Verstappen está en segundo lugar por el título el título de F1, que se definirá en la última carreraY para #ElVasoMedioLleno… científicos del MIT trabajan en un dispositivo ultrasónico que puede extraer agua potable del airePara enterarte de más noticias como estas, síguenos en redes sociales. Estamos en todas las plataformas como @telokwento. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MIA es la inteligencia artificial de Time to Hire que no reemplaza al recruiter, sino lo potencia. Pruébala gratis por 15 días sin compromiso en https://lp.timetohire.ai/saas-demasiados-cvs?utm_source=podcasts&utm_medium=audio&utm_campaign=genuine-media&utm_content=host-lead ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Regístrate para el Maratón de Webinars de Hubspot del 2,3 y 4 de diciembre en: http://offers.hubspot.es/planea-tu-2026?utm_campaign=genuinam  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM  AI is transforming identity security and giving cybercriminals superpowers. This episode explores the rise of deepfakes, social engineering, and why traditional MFA and recovery flows fail. Learn how businesses can protect digital trust and secure remote work in an AI-driven world. 

Bienvenidos a FailAgain, una newsletter / podcast sobre crear contenido y estrategia.Mientras todo el mundo entra en modo supervivencia hasta enero, tú puedes robarle 4 semanas al año. Vamos a ver cómo.Te recomiendo que escuches la versión extendida en formato pódcast de este contenido.Mira a tu alrededor. O mejor, mira tu feed de Instagram.¿Qué ves?Ya empieza a oler a “modo supervivencia”. La mayoría de la gente ya ha bajado la persiana mentalmente. Están sufriendo resaca de Black Friday, pensando en las cenas de empresa, los regalos y en sobrevivir hasta las uvas.El año ya está “vendido”. No merece la pena empezar nada nuevo hasta que el calendario marque el 1 de enero (o el 6 si eres de Reyes).Tengo una mala noticia: Tu cerebro no se reiniciará mágicamente porque cambie un número en el calendario.Esperar a enero es de amateurs.Los profesionales saben que las carreras se ganan en la pretemporada. Y tu pretemporada empieza hoy.No te escribo esto para venderte la moto de que vas a transformar tu vida en 4 semanas. Eso es humo. Te escribo para proponerte que robes un mes al calendario.Si empiezas a instalar tu sistema operativo ahora, cuando llegue enero y los demás estén con la resaca de los propósitos imposibles, tú llevarás ya un mes de rodaje. Esa es la ventaja que buscamos.Esta edición te la trae HubSpot¿Estás ya pensando en 2026 o sigues en modo “a ver qué pasa”?HubSpot ha montado una maratón de 3 webinars gratuitos (2, 3 y 4 de diciembre) para que llegues al año nuevo con un plan de verdad. Nada de teoría abstracta: marketing, ventas y servicio alineados de una vez.1 hora al día. Gratis. Y si no puedes en directo, hay grabación.Lo que me gusta:* No es otro webinar de “inspírate y ya veremos”. Hay frameworks aplicables desde el minuto uno* Está pensado para que las áreas dejen de ir cada una a su bola* Te registras una vez y tienes acceso a las 3 sesionesSi te dedicas a crear contenido para marcas o tienes tu propio proyecto donde vendes algo, esto te puede venir muy bien para estructurar el próximo año.

In a world drowning in data, is the 'big creative idea' for a holiday campaign an endangered species, or is it more critical than ever? Agility requires not just moving fast, but moving with confidence. It's the ability to validate creative instincts with real-world data, ensuring that your biggest bets are also your smartest ones. Today, we're going to talk about the high-stakes world of holiday advertising and the delicate balance between creative magic and data-driven methodology. We're going to talk about one such campaign for John Lewis, a popular British Department store whose holiday ads are a cultural event in the UK, where the stakes can be high. And they aren't alone. The holiday season is the equivalent of the Super Bowl for many brands, where a single campaign can define the entire year. Yet, for every heartwarming success story, there are countless others that miss the mark. So how do brands de-risk their biggest creative investments and ensure their message will actually resonate with consumers? About Nataly Kelly Nataly Kelly is Chief Marketing Officer at Zappi, based in Boston, MA. Previously she served at HubSpot as Vice President of Marketing, Vice President of International Operations and Strategy, and Vice President of Localization. Nataly Kelly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalykelly/ Resources Zappi: https://www.zappi.io/ The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow Catch the future of e-commerce at eTail Palm Springs, Feb 23-26 in Palm Springs, CA. Go here for more details: https://etailwest.wbresearch.com/ Watch the John Lewis "Where Love Lives" Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1bRlnyQeDk Zappi Report: Lessons in Advertising: Christmas 2025: https://email.zappistore.com/hubfs/Zappi%20Christmas%20Advertising%202025.pdf Zappi Report: The Connected Insights Imperative: https://www.zappi.io/web/connected-insights-imperative-report/ Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.show Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company

It can pay off to borrow sales strategies from outside your usual lane. My guest, Kam Dasani, entrepreneur and investor, brings B2C secrets into the B2B sales world and uses what he has stolen from consumer marketing to make smarter moves. In this episode, he breaks down the tactics that helped him grow faster and shows how you can use them to triple your pipeline.Meet Kam DasaniKam Dasani is a former Silicon Valley tech sales rep who went from earning 120K a year in B2B sales to building a seven-million-dollar business. He applied key B2C secrets he had stolen from consumer marketing, using directness, pre-qualification, and transparency to transform his B2B approach and accelerate growth.Today, he helps others build passive income through trading and investing while encouraging sales professionals to take smart risks, stay authentic, and focus on what truly drives results.Why B2C Secrets Belong in B2B Sales (00:01:19 – 00:03:59)Right off the bat, Kam goes into showing how stolen B2C secrets can transform B2B sales, especially with their marketing tactics.From Tech Sales to Entrepreneurship (00:04:07 – 00:06:12)Kam explains how he went from earning 120K a year in tech sales to building a seven-million-dollar business. His contrarian mindset and willingness to take calculated risks shaped the B2B sales approach he uses today.Identifying B2B Sales Gaps (00:08:10 – 00:16:54)Kam highlights common gaps in B2B sales, including weak training, fear of asking tough questions, and reliance on conventional tactics. He shows how embracing risk and applying stolen B2C secrets can overcome these challenges.B2C-Inspired Sales Process & Qualifying Leads (00:17:01 – 00:26:47)Kam shares how he leverages Instagram ads, direct messaging, and pre-qualification processes to improve lead quality. Using these B2C secrets in B2B sales allows him to build a stronger, more efficient pipeline.Results & Key Takeaways (00:29:15 – 00:34:12)Kam reveals the ROI from transparent, pre-framed sales calls and targeted campaigns. He emphasizes that allowing reps to be authentic, rather than forcing a strict “culture fit,” drives real results in B2B sales."Imagine if we could take some B2C secrets and apply them to B2B sales to fill your funnel and create far more opportunities than you have right now, increasing sales and generating more commission." - Kam Dasani.ResourcesFollow Kam Dasani on Instagram at @profitwithkam and connect with him on LinkedIn to stay inspired by his journey and strategies. Head to bluemangostudios.com to see exactly how my podcasting agency can help you create and grow a podcast that entertains, educates, and brings in quality leads.https://www.instagram.com/profitwithkamSubscribe on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7396352571981889536Sponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by HubSpot. With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation. Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course....

Google's release of Gemini 3 may be the biggest shift in search and content discovery since Google launched. In this episode, Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose break down what Gemini means for marketers, creators, and anyone relying on organic reach. Will Gemini end organic discovery as we know it? Will synthetic creators become the majority of all content online? And is there still a path forward for human creators? Joe and Robert go deep into: Google's move from traditional search to a full AI-model Why this shift could make Google even more dominant What happens to creators when platforms auto-generate the content The new ad model emerging behind AI search The long-term implications for independent writers, podcasters, and entrepreneurs Winners & Losers: Joe spotlights Allegiant Stadium as a branding masterclass Robert unveils a conspiracy theory surrounding Jeffrey Katzenberg's new AI marketing startup Rants & Raves: Joe reacts to a Washington Post survey about people reading ChatGPT-created posts — and why he's concerned it could impact birth rates Robert shares the creative friction behind building an AI-generated country music artist If you're a marketer, creator, or business owner trying to understand what's coming next, this is a must-listen episode. News we didn't get to: Meta 'buried' more evidence Creator Economy ad spend up again Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing. This week's sponsor: Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot. Their customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better. ------- Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/ Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/ Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/. Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/  Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/ ------- This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

At Qdrant Conference, builders, researchers, and industry practitioners shared how vector search, retrieval infrastructure, and LLM-driven workflows are evolving across developer tooling, AI platforms, analytics teams, and modern search research.Andrey Vasnetsov (Qdrant) explained how Qdrant was born from the need to combine database-style querying with vector similarity search—something he first built during the COVID lockdowns. He highlighted how vector search has shifted from an ML specialty to a standard developer tool and why hosting an in-person conference matters for gathering honest, real-time feedback from the growing community.Slava Dubrov (HubSpot) described how his team uses Qdrant to power AI Signals, a platform for embeddings, similarity search, and contextual recommendations that support HubSpot's AI agents. He shared practical use cases like look-alike company search, reflected on evaluating agentic frameworks, and offered career advice for engineers moving toward technical leadership.Marina Ariamnova (SumUp) presented her internally built LLM analytics assistant that turns natural-language questions into SQL, executes queries, and returns clean summaries—cutting request times from days to minutes. She discussed balancing analytics and engineering work, learning through real projects, and how LLM tools help analysts scale routine workflows without replacing human expertise.Evgeniya (Jenny) Sukhodolskaya (Qdrant) discussed the multi-disciplinary nature of DevRel and her focus on retrieval research. She shared her work on sparse neural retrieval, relevance feedback, and hybrid search models that blend lexical precision with semantic understanding—contributing methods like Mini-COIL and shaping Qdrant's search quality roadmap through end-to-end experimentation and community education.SpeakersAndrey VasnetsovCo-founder & CTO of Qdrant, leading the engineering and platform vision behind a developer-focused vector database and vector-native infrastructure.Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrey-vasnetsov-75268897/Slava DubrovTechnical Lead at HubSpot working on AI Signals—embedding models, similarity search, and context systems for AI agents.Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/slavadubrov/Marina AriamnovaData Lead at SumUp, managing analytics and financial data workflows while prototyping LLM tools that automate routine analysis.Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marina-ariamnova/Evgeniya (Jenny) SukhodolskayaDeveloper Relations Engineer at Qdrant specializing in retrieval research, sparse neural methods, and educational ML content.Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evgeniya-sukhodolskaya/

Regístrate para el Maratón de Webinars de Hubspot del 2,3 y 4 de diciembre en: http://offers.hubspot.es/planea-tu-2026?utm_campaign=genuinam Gertz Manero renunció como fiscal general de México, por ahora el titular de la Fiscalía Especializada de Control Regional deberá ser nombrado como sustituto interino… o sea, Germán Adolfo Castillo Banuet.Además… Pedro Castillo fue condenado a poco más de 11 años de prisión por conspiración; el autor intelectual del asesinato de Carlos Manzo fue vinculado a proceso por homicidio calificado y lesiones calificadas; tenemos más detalles sobre el presunto autor del tiroteo en Washington; Vládimir Putin dijo que el documento original de 28 puntos enviado por la Casa Blanca “no era un plan de paz”, sino apenas una lista de temas para discutir; El papa León XIV inició ayer su primer viaje internacional, visitará Turquía y Líbano; Una tripulación de Estados Unidos y Rusia comenzó este jueves una misión hacia la Estación Espacial Internacional a bordo de una nave espacial rusa; Kevin Spacey enfrenta nuevas acusaciones de agresión sexual.Y para #ElVasoMedioLleno… Un robot está ayudando a sembrar corales en Australia.Para enterarte de más noticias como estas, síguenos en redes sociales. Estamos en todas las plataformas como @telokwento. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

En este episodio de Historia para Tontos exploramos la Batalla de Austerlitz (1805), el momento en que Napoleón demostró por qué se volvió el terror de Europa. Aquí te cuento cómo el “pequeño corso” engañó a rusos y austriacos fingiendo debilidad, los jaló a una trampa perfecta entre colinas y niebla, y terminó destrozando a dos imperios en un solo día. La victoria cambió por completo el mapa europeo, rompió la Tercera Coalición y marcó el nacimiento del mito de un Napoleón invencible. Dale laik, suscribete y picale a la campanita para poder ver todos nuestros episodios, andaleeeeee. ✨️

Most agencies try to fix pipeline by working harder, but not by working smarter.This conversation digs into why outbound has gotten tougher, what's changed in the last decade, and how agencies can build a healthier, more defensible acquisition motion. We cover the shift from brute-force outreach to signal-driven, trust-based systems, why TAM size changes everything, and how sales and marketing need to operate as a single unit for mid-market deals. It's a clear look at the mechanics behind winning in a crowded outreach landscape. Michael Maximoff is the co-founder of Belkins and the team behind Folderly. He's spent more than a decade solving the same problems agencies face today: building predictable pipeline in a crowded, trust-heavy market, balancing marketing and sales investment, and adapting outbound to a world that no longer responds to direct pitches.Why cold outreach used to work with simple tools and high volume, and why that era is overHow inbox competition jumped from ~100 cold pitches/month per decision-maker to 800+ todayWhy small TAMs require a different playbook and more precision, not more activityThe importance of costly signals, warm intros, and touch-point-driven credibility instead of direct pitchesHow sales and marketing must operate in tandem to create “surround sound” and increase conversion likelihoodWhy mid-market agencies should hire full-cycle AEs who can build their own book of businessThe danger of giving SDRs outdated brute-force mandates in a world where the role is now a technical, marketing-adjacent functionHow deeper integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce, Clay) are reshaping outreach, personalization, and data orchestrationWhy agencies must choose the channel they have a true “genetic advantage” for.Links & ResourcesBelkins — https://belkins.ioFolderly — https://folderly.comMichael on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximoff 

Leslie Forde is the CEO and founder of Mom's Hierarchy of Needs, a long-time B2B marketer, a strategic advisor to HubSpot, and the author of Repair with Self Care. She also runs the longest running national parent study on pandemic and post pandemic mental health. In this episode of Women in B2B Marketing, we talk about the emotional, mental, and logistical load carried by working women and why burnout has quietly become a default state for so many of us.Leslie shares why women struggle to ask for what we need, how the past five years have reshaped the caregiving landscape, and what leaders and companies can do to support caregivers instead of unintentionally burning them out. We also unpack the rise of the Hype Women movement, the importance of making space for asks, and how community can fuel both confidence and belonging.Here is what we cover:Why self care scores have dropped below pre pandemic levels in her national studyWarning signs of burnout that appear long before we notice themWhy high achieving women struggle to ask for help or supportThe unseen load mothers carry and how it affects work, relationships, and healthWhat employers misunderstand about caregivers and the simple changes that matterWhy ERGs often run on unpaid labor from women and how leaders can fix thatThe link between psychological safety, vulnerability, and the ability to ask for what you needHow the Hype Women movement creates space for community, courage, and honest requestingWhy many mothers feel like they are failing in every role and what actually drives that feelingHow women can start reclaiming time, rest, and care in realistic attainable waysKey Links:Guest: Leslie Forde: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesliefordeHer book, Repair with Self Care: https://a.co/d/fu3UGesMom's Hierarchy of Needshttps://momshierarchyofneeds.comHost: Jane Serra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janeserra––Like WIB2BM? A quick rating or review helps new listeners find the show.

Ep 136 is personal.I'm back behind the mic after six life-changing months. I became a girl dad. I traveled to Africa for the first time and delivered my first TEDx talk in Uganda. That trip, that stage, and this new chapter forced me to slow down, rethink my identity, and step into a new season of life with more clarity about success, purpose, and what really matters.In this episode, I share the truth about stepping away, stepping into fatherhood, and stepping onto a TEDx stage 7,800 miles from home. I talk about killing hustle culture, choosing intention over pressure, and building a life that feels aligned, not forced. I also break down the Shadow Line Principle and how one tiny shift can unlock real growth in your life and your business.If you are rebuilding, recalibrating, or trying to grow with more intention and less noise, this one is for you.Let's talk life.Let's talk growth.Let's talk about the tiny shift that changes everything.And let's celebrate your friendly neighborhood Strategy Hacker® giving you perspective once again.Tune in. Let's digress. Support The Podcast & Connect With Troy: Rate & Review iDigress: iDigress.fm/ReviewsFollow Troy on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube: @FindTroy.Buy My Book, "Strategize Up": StrategizeUpBook.comDiscover All Podcasts On The HubSpot Podcast NetworkNeed Strategy, Keynote Speaker, Or Want To Sponsor The Podcast? Go To FindTroy.com

In this episode, we delve into the world of cold outreach with Fernando Pires from Snov.io. Discover groundbreaking insights derived from their analysis of 44 million cold outreach campaigns and learn how to enhance your LinkedIn and email strategies to maximize responses and build connections. Tune in to uncover the secrets that could significantly boost your outreach success.LinkedIn Outreach Tactics● Data shows that sending connection requests without a message can yield a 3% increase in acceptance rates compared to those with messages.● The human tendency to judge based on profiles quickly favors simple connection requests over potentially off-putting sales pitches.● For optimal outcomes, engage with prospects before sending connection requests to establish a common ground.Effective Email Strategies● Tracking emails can be crucial for marketing but detrimental in sales; focus on replies instead of opens to enhance engagement.● Plain text emails outperform those with images or attachments, ensuring better deliverability and higher reply rates.● Use personalization in your emails to connect deeply with leads; mention specific, relevant details that resonate with them.Multi-Channel Campaign Insights● Engaging prospects through multiple channels increases visibility and response rates, with LinkedIn DMs achieving up to a 10% reply rate compared to email's 2-5%.● Combining outreach methods (email, LinkedIn, etc.) helps build trust and familiarity with potential clients, driving higher engagement.● Prioritize server matching in outreach campaigns to improve deliverability rates and overall effectiveness.Homework Challenge or Action Steps● Test your next batch of LinkedIn connection requests without messages for improved acceptance.● Create a plain text email outreach campaign focusing solely on obtaining replies rather than opens."Even if that were the reply you negative, you know, I'm not interested but you're interested enough to take your time and reply to that person." ● Fernando Pires.Timestamps● 00:00 ● Introduction● 01:18 ● LinkedIn Outreach Tactics● 09:51 ● Effective Email Strategies● 17:52 ● Multi-Channel Campaign Insights● 29:02 ● Closing thoughtsResources● Snov.io ● Learn More About Our Services-https://snov.io● Connect with Fernando Pires on LinkedIn-https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernandopiresMy LinkedIn Prospecting Course will show you exactly how to start attracting more prospects right away. And don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn! www.thesalesevangelist.com/linkedinSponsorship Offers1. This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.2. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.3. This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Training.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.CreditsAs one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and produced by Brightseed and Hill.

¿Sabías que en muchos países, cargar combustible tú mismo es lo más normal, mientras que en otros te atiende un empleado? Esta pequeña diferencia puede sorprender a cualquier viajero y convertirse en una oportunidad para practicar inglés en situaciones reales.En esta lección aprenderás los términos más importantes que se usan en una gasolinera, así como frases prácticas que te permitirán desenvolverte en inglés sin dificultades. Además, conocerás cómo funcionan las estaciones de servicio en países de habla inglesa y cómo interactuar de manera sencilla y efectiva.¿Listo? ¡Vamos!Recuerda que todos los recursos para este episodio, incluyendo la transcripción, la tabla de vocabulario y ejercicios para repasar el aprendizaje, están disponibles en nuestro sitio web. Haz clic en este enlace para ver todos los recursos para este episodio:  https://www.inglesdesdecero.ca/236-----Dale “me gusta” a nuestra página en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inglesdesde0/-----Síguenos en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ingles.desde.cero/-----Subscribete en YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@inglesdesdecero145-----Aprende inglés con nativos que se formaron en su enseñanza. ¡Visita nuestro sitio web, https://www.inglesdesdecero.ca/ para inscribirte y seguir todas nuestras lecciones! __No dejes pasar esta oportunidad con Shopify y regístrate para un período de prueba por solo un dólar al mes en shopify.mx/desdecero__________________________________________________________________________________________________________Regístrate para el Maratón de Webinars de Hubspot del 2,3 y 4 de diciembre en: http://offers.hubspot.es/planea-tu-2026?utm_campaign=genuinam Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Rachel Lockett is a sought-after executive coach and former HR leader at Stripe and Pinterest who now works with CEOs, founders, and tech leaders on emotional intelligence, resilience, and leadership skills. In this episode, Rachel shares powerful frameworks for coaching reports, having difficult conversations, avoiding burnout, and strengthening co-founder relationships. She also demonstrates these techniques through a live coaching session with me.We discuss:* When to coach and when to just tell people what to do [09:00]* The GROW technique for helping people figure out a solution for themselves [18:37]* Techniques for making difficult conversations less difficult [01:20:28]* Avoiding burnout and designing a more energizing career [41:55]* Building and sustaining a healthy co-founder relationship [01:06:50]* Creating a one-page plan that aligns your entire company [01:31:47]* Practical ways AI is transforming executive coaching and leadership development [01:36:50]* Why you should ask, “Would I enthusiastically rehire this person?” to clarify talent decisions [23:55]Also on Spotify and Apple PodcastsBrought to you by:Stripe—Helping companies of all sizes grow revenueVanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security.Persona—A global leader in digital identity verificationWhere to find Rachel Lockett:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhlockett/• Website: https://www.lockettcoaching.comReferenced:• One-page plan template: https://www.lockettcoaching.com/#resources• Lockett Coaching Leadership Toolkit: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/s74a9cn1ka1ebz6pglypf/Leadership-Toolkit_-Coaching-Rachel-Lockett.pdf?rlkey=yg2m9df2ziwy0fa6p0dt4gcfu&st=dgzvnf76&dl=0• Renew Your Co-Founder Vows—and Other Tactics for Strengthening the Most Important Relationship in Your Startup: https://review.firstround.com/five-practices-to-strengthen-your-co-founder-relationship/• First Round Guide to Co-Founder Check-Ins: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yUosmfMuE-8-sAwPrEPDcGqkJLVLWg5dC2_8lcXm7U4/edit?tab=t.0• Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com• Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey?: https://hbr.org/1999/11/management-time-whos-got-the-monkey• Chuck Palahniuk's quote from Fight Club: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1338270-people-don-t-listen-they-just-wait-for-their-turn-to• Patrick Collison on X: https://x.com/patrickc• Stripe: https://stripe.com• Remind: https://www.remind.com• Zach Abrams on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharyabrams• Brex: https://www.brex.com• Bridge: https://www.bridge.xyz• Superhuman's secret to success: Ignoring most customer feedback, manually onboarding every new user, obsessing over every detail, and positioning around a single attribute: speed | Rahul Vohra (CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/superhumans-secret-to-success-rahul-vohra• Zigging vs. zagging: How HubSpot built a $30B company | Dharmesh Shah (co-founder/CTO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-30-years-of-building• The Enneagram Institute: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com• How to build deeper, more robust relationships | Carole Robin (Stanford GSB professor, “Touchy Feely”): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/build-robust-relationships-carole-robin• How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want? | Jerry Colonna (CEO of Reboot, executive coach, former VC): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/jerry-colonna• How Netflix builds a culture of excellence | Elizabeth Stone (CTO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-netflix-builds-a-culture-of-excellence• What Is PeopleFirst?: https://alpineinvestors.com/story/what-is-peoplefirst• How to break out of autopilot and create the life you want | Graham Weaver (Stanford GSB professor, founder of Alpine Investors): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-break-out-of-autopilot-graham-weaver• Granola: https://www.granola.ai• KPop Demon Hunters on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81498621• Loom: https://www.loom.com• Joseph Campbell's quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/21396-if-you-can-see-your-path-laid-out-in-front• Wes Anderson's short films (Roald Dahl) on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/wes-anderson-netflix-short-filmsRecommended books:• Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships: https://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-Life-Changing-Relationships/dp/189200528X• The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success: https://www.amazon.com/15-Commitments-Conscious-Leadership-Sustainable/dp/0990976904• Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life: https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Your-Life-Well-Lived-Joyful/dp/1101875321• Roald Dahl books: https://www.amazon.com/Roald-Dahl-Collection-Books-Box/dp/0241377293Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.My biggest takeaways from this conversation: To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com