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Demand-Geniuses is the podcast for revenue-focused B2B Marketers. We bring you the latest insights and expert tips, interviewing geniuses of the B2B Marketing world to bring you actionable advice that you can implement to accelerate growth and progress you career. The role of Marketing in B2B go-to-market strategy has changed drastically. It's more important to revenue generation than ever as buyer engagement becomes more digital. We equip you with the information you need to thrive in this new, revenue-critical role.
Tom (00:01)
Okay, hello everybody. It is great to be joined today by Joel Harrison. I'm very excited by this guest. As you know on this podcast, our goal is to take some slightly different looks at the same question. Joel brings a really interesting perspective to what we're trying to talk about. So I'll let Joel introduce himself properly. One thing I have found is him referred to as the godfather of B2B marketing, which I found on social. So I want to hear a little bit about that and I'll let him properly introduce himself to you all.
Joel (00:31)
I I should do like some kind of Italian gangster accent now but that wouldn't be embarrassing so...
Tom (00:35)
Hehehehehe
Joel (00:38)
So Tom, thanks so much for inviting me on the podcast. It's great to chat and you you guys have, we always have a stimulating conversation. yeah, my role is I'm one of the founders of btpmarketing.net and Propolis, which is a community which B2B marketing launched about four or five years ago. And my role is really as an evangelist and ambassador and an influence around the B2B marketing industry.
Tom (01:00)
Yeah, well great to have you. Look, we'll just get straight into it. The way we like to do it here is I always like to ask a couple of questions up front just to get to know you a little bit and then we're gonna dig into the topic which is kind of the role that marketing have in a modern go-to-market organization. But first, guess, quick question. What is it that you love about your job that you're doing at the moment?
Joel (01:20)
Well, I'm a geek, so I really love exploring kind of topics in detail and getting on the skin of things. I've been doing that for 20 years and there's just so much left still to discover in B2B marketing, so much to have to get your head around and it keeps changing, which is frustrating and exciting all at the same time. So I really love that. I love communicating and like whatever format, whether it's video, text, audio, live presentations, it's great. But I also love producing products and content. There's nothing satisfying than kind of having...
Tom (01:29)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (01:48)
starting with nothing and having something and then putting it out there. And when you get, if I ever get, which I do fairly often is get someone say, thank you, Charles, I really appreciate your thoughts and how you've helped, explained something, you've given me more insight into that. And that's a hugely satisfying thing. So all of those things and probably some more.
Tom (02:04)
Yeah, and guess for you it's been what 20 years or so at bdbmarketing.net. I'm sorry to do that to you live on air. But it means it's been a very interesting time for you. You've seen the evolution as B2B marketing shifts towards digital and then now we're just on the precipice of another pretty seismic shift. It must be interesting watching those changes.
Joel (02:23)
Yeah, it's fascinating. I think we're better equipped for it now than we were before. But it was such a cottage industry when we launched and there was really nothing here. It was a few agencies and some clients, some of whom weren't particularly great at marketers, but now the whole industry's just changed, matured, developed. much passion involved in it. And yes, I love being involved, but like you say, maybe you use Edge rather than Precipice. terrifying. Let's go with just exciting threshold maybe of something really great.
Tom (02:48)
You
which starts to make it feel like a cliff that we're about to fall off then, doesn't it? Well, but I mean, that wasn't kind of where I was gonna start, but maybe that is a good question to ask then. Like, how do you look at the shift that we're about to see? And particularly, I know you spend a lot of time interviewing B2B marketers at the moment. Like, what's the general pulse that you would take on how people perceive the change that we're starting to go down?
Joel (02:55)
Yeah
Well, I feel like we've gone, there was a period where was all just terror, abject terror. And I think we've gone past that point now people are understanding the opportunities and the necessity to do something about it. And most people are embracing it to some degree or other, but there's a lot of reticence. There's a lot of concern and quite rightly, there are a lot of larger organizations, particularly members of our propolis community, which is a, I should explain, that's a closed community for B2B marketers.
marketing teams and corporate teams can become a part of that and learn from all kinds of resources and great experts. Often those organizations, global organizations, they have rules in place around how they can embrace stuff. They have guidelines and guardrails, which is good for some reasons, but also it can be difficult. So mixture of trepidation and opportunity. We're starting to see, particularly look at the BTB Marketing Awards, we're starting to see those use cases really come through in terms of how people are demonstrating it's use and how it's making a real impact on their businesses. So it's exciting times, but...
We just can't, I don't know what you think about this Tom, but we can't, I don't think we can even get our heads around where it's gonna go. know, it's so, the potential's so enormous and so all pervasive that we can only see our little kind of role at the moment. you know, who knows what we'd, we've had this conversation in years time, who knows where it all got to.
Tom (04:31)
Yeah, mean, I'm quite bullish on it or quite optimistic on it. I think it makes it a really fantastic time to start a business because we are going to see a lot of disruption and the ability of smaller teams to compete with large organizations in a way that they just couldn't before. So I think we went for a walk about six months ago, didn't we? And I was kind of saying, you were asking why I had started this in the first place. And that was one of the huge reasons why is I think it presents an amazing opportunity for small groups of people to do a lot.
Joel (05:01)
And I think that's great, isn't it? Anything that reduces the barriers to entry of something is, well, most of the time it's a really good thing. And as well as that aspect of it, the bit I think is that I didn't really keep my head around until the middle of last year was around. One of the barriers in B2B marketing, as well as from a technology point of view, which you guys obviously doing great stuff in, was in terms of creative terms. And obviously you can go into a GenAI platform and create images really easily. That's fine, we don't understand that. But the problem has been,
in terms of big broad brush creative campaigns, there wasn't the budget to do really exciting dynamic things. Now people are only limited by their imagination and that's incredibly exciting. know, that the challenge would be, it couldn't be as creative as B2C because there wasn't the budget. But it's not a problem anymore. And that's so, this just taking the shackles off what's creatively possible. And we're starting to see that coming through.
Tom (05:36)
Yeah.
Yeah, and you mentioned that you had the awards and it was a good chance to look at some of the use cases people are doing. My sense with AI still at the moment is that it lives in the world of experimentation. It is something that people direct some budget towards so that they can get up on stage at a conference and talk about the cool thing they did that's very innovative. But it isn't yet bedded into many processes, particularly in larger businesses. I guess, would you agree with that? And where are you starting to see more examples?
of it genuinely replacing or altering significantly existing workflows.
Joel (06:27)
Yeah, we're starting to see a few. mean, I'm not going to say to you that we have got a kind of comprehensive viewpoint of all the AI deployments and organizations because there many varied and often quite tactical. I think that's exactly to your point, but there are examples. And there's a guy who works with Bidwell's called, gosh, I think his name is Ben Lee and he's a fantastic guy. He run actually one of the...
the category for the best use of AI at the B2B Awards in 2023. And he's just somebody who's, actually was a background in communications and PR. He just took it on and said, look, I can think of a use case around case studies. This is really critical to our business. Bidwell's is a professional services firm operating in property era world. This is critical aspect of our business. It's time intensive, laborious. Surely we can improve productivity in terms of you just using AI. Relatively simple, but they did it and they demonstrated
significant savings in terms of labour and time spent. And then he went on a journey and then he became the AI guru for the whole business. And then to the point where he actually had to kind of turn himself into a bot to answer all these questions that are coming in from across the organization. So on a personal journey, that's example of someone who's benefited from it, but also that the organization has benefited and marketing has been at the driving seat of that, which is a great thing, right? Because you want marketing to be an agent of change in the organization. You don't want it to be reactive to stuff that's being done to it from elsewhere, particularly the tech.
function within the business. So I think it's a great example.
Tom (07:54)
Yeah, no, that is cool. And it's cool seeing people kind of build that personal brand or build a career off the back of it. Right. Yeah, I think that I think that's really awesome. Okay, I'm going to change the subject a little bit because we've got sucked down the world of AI, which I find it impossible not to direct every conversation towards at the moment. I guess so overall goal of what we're trying to look into here is the role of marketing, the role that marketing plays in today's go to market. I think that's changed a little bit, but there is an implied value.
in that, right? I think the way that organizations buy is very different to five or 10 years ago. And we're starting to see a shift therefore in the way that we organize ourselves and the goals that marketers work towards. I guess first question, would you agree that there's any different role for marketing these days? And if so, like, what's your take on that? And is it something that started to change?
Joel (08:44)
I mean, think marketing's role in that, I you asked about a go-to-market strategy. mean, marketing is kind of shifting in that to a certain extent. And I think it plays to what the business needs marketing to be. So it can be envisioned in different ways, which I think is good. I think marketing needs to be pragmatic and aligned around commerciality. But at the same time, I think would be dangerous for it to do is to become...
If you consider the kind of wider growth revenue function, the marketing just becomes a self support function, which historically was and digging itself out of that has been one of the reasons why it's been actually achieved many of the things it's done in the last 15 years. So, you know, there is this opportunity to, there's also kind of potential pitfalls as well.
Tom (09:21)
Mm.
Yeah, okay, but I think that always has been, in SaaS at least, the role that marketing has played, right? Is they're there as a top of funnel mechanism and down the funnel just to support sales. But are you starting to see, are you seeing greater focus on commerciality and actual revenue as a goal?
Joel (09:47)
Well, so one of our messages at B2B Marketing is the need to be a commercial marketer, right? And we've really, really developed that through lots of different resources and commentary and activities because ultimately marketing needs to be, for marketing taken seriously at board level, this is, yes, and I completely agree with you, at SaaS businesses, you're closer to the sharp end, you're closer to kind of, you've got to be commercially orientated. Often marketing gets brought in at a certain point in its trajectory, doesn't it?
Whereas often what happens in corporate entities is marketing gets disconnected from that commercial focus in some way or other and marketers can start thinking that they are responsible for other things or, and there's been this big push towards Brown recently, which is great because it's a sign of marketing growing up, but you can't just be building kind of grand edifices that may deliver something in the future. You've got to deliver something which is tangible and a tangible business timeframe, business recognises and understands.
They don't tend to work in five year time cycles. They tend to work in 18 months or less than that, particularly where we are right now. And then you also have the marketing person's tenure. The average CMO is somewhat in 18 months and three years, depending on where they are. unless you can demonstrate impact, and that means money or opportunities, within a defined timeline, then you're going have a problem.
Tom (11:08)
Yeah, but it's interesting that you mentioned the resurgence of brands there, right? Because that seems, at first glance, to be a little bit of a step away from demonstrating a tangible revenue impact. Brand activities are typically what we find very hard to prove ROI on. So it's interesting that that's having a resurgence.
Joel (11:23)
Well, yeah, it is. And this is kind of, and it's being propagated by the Zarenberg Backers Institute in, I think, based out of Australia and LinkedIn B2B Institute have funded lot of that research. And it's really good stuff, right? Don't get me wrong. They're pushing the envelope. They're focusing on, they're helping bring another voice into the conversation. But, you know, where I sit and the conversations I have with marketing leaders, they've got to show commercial returns, right? And you've got to show it in a way that is relevant and appropriate.
to what the CEO and the C-suite and the CFO think is meaningful to them. You can't be saying, I'm gonna spend my six, seven figure marketing budget on something which will not tangibly impact on the business's financial and commercial targets. You can't do that, right? That's writing your kind of suicide note. So that's where you have this kind of notion of like brand gen, where actually you're building the brand in order to deliver kind of...
opportunities of some description or other. Whether the right opportunities or not, that's another conversation, but at least you're tangibly seeking to play that game.
Tom (12:30)
Yeah, okay. So has there been a step change in people's ability to quantify the value of brand then that you've seen or?
Joel (12:37)
I'd like to say that what there has been, but too often, I don't really want people to say, I'm kind of saying that you shouldn't build your own apps. Of course you should. But one of the things we often see in the awards, BTB Marketing Awards is they will say, for example, this campaign was designed to build our brand and to within the client audience. And they say, results, what did you achieve? Well, we got an MQL rate of, and you're like, well, so you
Say one thing, you've done something else. And sometimes the brand metrics tend to be woolier. Typically they're woolier. I'm not saying they're without value, but they don't pertain to ultimately opportunities of revenue, which is kind of where I come back to. That's really what marketers have got to be able to align with and provide quantifiable contribution towards.
Tom (13:34)
Yeah, and to me it all comes back to the way that their own kind of incentives and the way that their own goals are being set. And I think one thing you have started to see is a lot more CMOs entering that CRO role and a lot more focus on aligning the whole of the go-to-market organization around the same objectives. Now, I guess when you do that, does, as well as creating more, so it's kind of a focus towards revenue, but it...
It repositions goals a little bit where you don't necessarily have to demonstrate each campaign's direct revenue impact. You can look at things in the aggregate and understand that there are going to be some things that you do which drive that goal, but you don't necessarily need to tie every individual's KPI to something, if that makes sense.
Joel (14:23)
Yeah, I guess that sounds like a reasonable way doing it. mean, I'm not going to come to be an expert on the role of the CRO, but it is popular. Again, I just come back to, have few alarm bells around. Whilst I do want marketers to be commercial and think in terms of developing opportunities and demonstrating against that, I worry that the CRO role tends to get filled by a sales leader and what that...
The result of that is that marketing is subservient to sales again and there and we go back around the full cycle all over again. So I appreciate I'm not necessarily offering any solutions here, it is challenging. Marketing's got to carve out its own space and have the latitude to be bold, but also be able to show the business what it's done to contribute to its revenue orientated objective.
Tom (15:13)
Yeah, no, it makes sense. I think, again, getting away from that kind of your best sales rep becomes your sales leader, becomes your CRO, I think helps because one of the, one thing that comes back, this all comes back to is having a slightly longer term perspective on revenue generation, right? And I think that is one thing that potentially we're starting to see a little bit as a bit less focus on this quarter, next quarter, how do we hit our number? And actually thinking about, thinking more strategically about how we create demand that can support us on the journey that we want to go in over a three, five year time horizon.
Joel (15:41)
Yeah.
And that's a lot easier to have when the economy is in better shape than it currently is, right? know, that conversation can be challenging right now, but we live in hope that there'll be a time when we can be a bit more progressive and horizon to go back.
Tom (15:55)
Yeah, no, that makes sense. You mentioned, so one of the big things for you seems to be getting marketing out of that situation where they are a support function for sales. Are there some kind tangible things that you've seen marketers take control of that help to improve that relationship? Because I think it's easy to always sit there and kind of look for someone else to solve it, look for people higher up to put new structures in place that solve it. But are there things that marketers can do without waiting for that?
Joel (16:22)
So again, this notion of the commercial marketer kind of follows through all of this. And there is ways of behaving that pertain to all aspects of what marketing does in terms of its relationships, other functions, in terms of its orientation, how it's positioned within the organization. I mean, the crux of it comes down to...
to the marketing leader, whether that's a CMO or whatever, and their relationship with the board and their ability to speak the language of the board and to talk about the things which the board wants to know about and wants, and not to go to them with marketing challenges, because they just don't understand. They think they can do marketing, they can't, and they think it's easy, and they think marketing is about pretty pictures. To earn credibility that's the fundamental step, and that is, it's still a really, really big problem.
Tom (16:46)
Hmm.
Joel (17:08)
And there is no real easy answer. And it's an ongoing work in progress. It's about forging alliances with those people. It's about demonstrating credibility across the board and not being hoisted by your own batard in terms of like, you know, some of the kind of more frivolous aspects of marketing. And then to then communicate those behaviors and to entrench and instill those behaviors and that mindset within the rest of the organization.
And there was a really, know, stuff like a guy called, how was it? It's actually a night at the realm. He's a former CEO brother, and I forget his name. He's a great public speaker. He was saying, you've got to make every single one of your team be able to have an elevator pitch around what value they're offering to the business. But they've got to imagine that what happens is they'll get stuck in the left with the CEO. And his example was, I think his name's Phil Jones. He's stuck in the left with the CEOs over from Japan. they, yeah, he's a really, he's a great guy.
Tom (17:53)
Mm-hmm.
Not the man unite, and tobacco.
Joel (18:08)
and they want to know in 30 seconds what you do and what value you add. And if you say well I launched a couple of great campaigns last week, well that's not really going to cut it, or I just can go creative, they don't really care about that. It's not saying it's not important, but you've got to be able to whittle it down to something which is pithy and relevant and impactful.
Tom (18:26)
And there's a part of that which is adopting the mindset that sales reps have often taken. I mean, that's my background and they used to talk a lot about an entrepreneur mindset. So if you have a territory or you have a book of business or an area that's yours, you are the founder in that area. That's your job and that's the mindset that you have to take. And you have to look at how am gonna make sure that if it's me and SDR and a solutions consultant going after this territory, I need to make sure that there's an ROI on that territory otherwise I'm not.
long for this world, right? It's a bad place to be in. And I think we are seeing more focus on everyone in the organization starting to adopt a similar mindset.
Joel (19:02)
Yeah, I agree. And I think it's one of reasons why account-based marketing had impact, because you really know tangibly who you're after. It doesn't work for every organization, but when you kind of go, well, our customers are these people, everyone can be very focused around that. It's one version of what can work for B2B organizations.
Tom (19:18)
Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. You mentioned a second ago as well, credibility, which is kind of the core job of a marketer. I was looking through your LinkedIn just before this. noticed you'd doing a lot of, you'd written a really good article recently about a bit of a trust crisis that we're in in SaaS. So I was quite interested to pick your brain on that as well. I mean, to me, that's the absolute core of every, of the challenges we have from a go to market efficiency standpoint, right? There's a stat I saw from G2.
which is 94 % of buyers don't trust sellers, which is pretty shocking, like 94%. But it's easy to see why, right? What have we done over the last 10 years? We built an industry off the back of dodgy data acquisition, cold calling, and what, 16 touch point sequences and things like that. Like that, are not the actions. And I've always had this attitude a little bit towards aggressive cold calling, right? What are the industries that rely on aggressive cold calling?
If you list the ones outside of SaaS, it's not something you probably want your brand to be associated with.
Joel (20:22)
No, absolutely
not. I don't, the whole cold calling, new generation space, I know some really lovely people who work in that space. I just don't understand why it still attracts the kind of sums that it does. I think it's had a bit of a torrid time in the last few, couple of years or so, but yeah, I don't get it at all. mean, trust, the question, the stat from TrustPilot is a really interesting one. mean, but are they saying they don't trust the salesman?
or they don't trust the brand of the organization. I was reading that as the seller, so that was written as the salesperson. Is that right?
Tom (20:57)
Yeah, I think I'll check this off. So apologies G2 if I've misquoted you here. But I think it was don't trust claims that the sales rep makes.
Joel (21:08)
Right, right, okay. So, and that actually plays back to, so I'm, you asked me about this before we started recording Tom, but I'm writing a book on thought leadership because I'm, in this capacity as founder of BT Marketing, I now have some latitude, a lot of latitude to go and just pursue the things that interest me. And this is something that just seemed really fascinating already now. And if you look at the results of top level, you look at Edelman's trust barometer, which just shows there's a fundamental lack of trust in society, which is a bit worrying really. But then, but actually ironically,
You talk about the four areas they cover, they cover the media, government, NGOs, and then they cover business. Actually, people are less distrusting of business than they are of the other three, which is bizarre, but it is alarming itself. But removing the alarm from that for us for a moment, and you bear in mind it's a global study and there's obviously peaks and troughs of that in different territories. There was some great, interesting research by
Tom (21:51)
alarming in itself, isn't it?
Joel (22:08)
agency called Man Bites Dog, who are a thought leadership agency, I know very well, and they were talking about actually, businesses really, they want people's sellings and they want the brands that they trust, they want to have trustworthy relationships and content exchanges with leading brands in their field, right? And they want you to tell them what the challenges are and they want to be informed by you and they're looking for good content from the brands that matter in those.
those areas of concern that they have, or maybe if they don't even know their concerns yet. So there is an opportunity and there's a necessity for brands to focus on thought leadership and to raise their game now, because it's because to your point about AI, one of the impacts we can see in AI is it's removing cost to entry for content creation. And so any man or dog can create what looks on the outset from being a reasonably good bit of content, but actually you can pretty quickly spot what's not very good or not. So actually the cream rises to the surface.
Tom (23:01)
Yeah.
Joel (23:04)
And what it also then does is actually provides the credibility to the salespeople as well, because you've got, if you do thoughtlessly right, you've got a really, really credible, robustly argued, well expressed, broad, deep set of argument and positioning based on genuine research, which then can be deployed by the salesperson. so therefore it's not about, that gives them ammunition and means of talking to the prospects, which goes a long way to addressing that.
that trust concern if not addresses or removes it completely.
Tom (23:36)
Yeah, mean, that's what we're trying to help with at Demand Genius, right? It's how do we use content more intelligently during the sales process to move deals along faster? People don't want to engage with a sales rep every step of the way, but they do want access to good, credible thought leadership, and they want guidance through a complex buying journey. The problem that go-to-market organisations face at the moment with the way we've organised ourselves is we are built around
sales reps getting on calls and talking from authority to guide them. But if people aren't joining you every step of the way, then that's where it becomes a really revenue critical role for marketers and content marketers to do a better job of supporting sales rep and doing that without always having to be on a call. There's a very interesting Gartner study I read talking about two types of sales reps, information connectors and information authorities.
Joel (24:23)
Yeah.
Tom (24:32)
One shift that has taken place is that information connectors actually do a much better job of persuading buyers, right? So people who don't necessarily get on, their chest out and enlighten everyone with their knowledge, but actually they sell the content and the content sells the idea, that kind of idea.
Joel (24:51)
I mean, makes sense that, you there's leveraging and relying on the great stuff that your brand's created, using is the right way to go. And that sales relationship's evolving. think sales is probably more challenged than marketing is in the current environment. But marketing needs to support sales and be doing the right things. And that alignment, the alignment is absolutely fundamental to why B2B is different to B2C. It's the nature of that complex proposition and that.
Tom (25:02)
and
Joel (25:21)
complex buying cycle and often complex decision making. Marketing can't sit in an ivory tower. It's got to have a collaborative relationship from the word go, from the very, very start with sales, however you're kind set up, it's whatever sales model you're using.
Tom (25:37)
Yeah, so marketers out there, need to support sales, but you shouldn't be a support function.
Joel (25:42)
Yeah, okay. see your
challenge there. Supportive without being subordinate to, I think that's what I'd say.
Tom (25:49)
I think that's right because it's how can you like there's being a support function where I always think I think in terms of content marketers a lot and how you build a roadmap right you can build a roadmap which is super reactive and basically you're getting content requests from lots of different people and you kind of weigh them based on some combination of what we have and haven't covered what I like writing about and political capital of the requester. That's not a very effective way that's a support function. Supportive is
starting to think a lot more like an actual product manager would and have a framework that takes all of those different inputs, all of those requests and builds a roadmap out of that that is going to maximize the revenue impact of what you're doing. that your job ultimately, if the point of transaction is not on site, you're not a PLG company, your job is to support sales, but you can do that in a proactive kind of firm way.
Joel (26:46)
Absolutely, it's about an ongoing relationship. It's about being in, having them in the room at the beginning of the conversation, regular aligned metrics. Having said I thought that was, I had a question about that earlier on, but think that alignment of metrics is great, just alignment of processes, regular feedback. But marketing should be taking feedback and using data from elsewhere as well. It's not just sales, but sales has a great voice. And smart marketers get this, but.
it's not universal and we've got to keep working at
Tom (27:17)
Yeah, no, makes sense. The other thing you said that I thought was really interesting, again, it comes back to the trust point a little bit, but I think it's... So we talk a lot about thought leadership and the impact it can have on credibility and trust. Yeah, but also a bit of a tipping point where there's a lot of focus on efficiency, and I'm going to come back to AI again. How do you think, as a marketer, how do you balance that slightly, those slightly contradictory things of how do we get the benefits of AI when it comes to efficiency and output?
but not further of our trust.
Joel (27:52)
I if I had the answer to that one, I'd be a very rich man. I don't think there's a simple answer to it. It's a very valid, very, very spot on question. think authenticity is what plays into that. one of those things is, why, and I appreciate thought leadership is harder to do for SaaS businesses because of the nature of the marketing function and the nature of the setup. And also a nature of the transaction that's being had.
Tom (27:54)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Joel (28:21)
But where you're talking about kind of higher ticket B2B items where you've got where you can really double down the authenticity and you can base your content around research and you can also deploy, can utilize internal thought leaders to have that humanization of the content so it's not just autonomous. Get it written well and produced well and designed well. Utilize third party influence, so utilize media brands and also use, well I know that we said that.
There's a trust issue around media, there's a broad church in there. And also then use third party influence as well. So there's lots of ways that you can address that authenticity trust piece. And I think you've got to look at then at the same time how you can unlock the potential. mean, AI for me, for example, what it's allowed me to do in the last year, which we couldn't have done as a business, is to, we get hundreds of entries to the B2B Marketing Awards. And so to be able to...
input that data into a platform and slice and dice it multiple different ways and then be able to then extract value from that is extraordinary. But then I can then use that as a... So we have the of the warden of ourself and then me as a kind of a communicator of that is tremendously powerful. So yeah, think it's just a constant iterative process of looking at how we can improve things.
Tom (29:46)
Yeah, but I think one thing that I take away, which is very interesting is like the distribution channel, I think is incredibly important for content these days. And that's an opportunity to view your content with a lot more credibility, right? You have paid advertising. I think it's probably not going to be a whole lot of trust around that. But if you're leveraging internal and external thought leaders as partners in distribution, that's going to have a big impact.
Joel (30:11)
Absolutely, yeah. And then the two things aren't mutually exclusive, right? You can still include your thought leaders in, you know, in earned, in paid media as well. So it's a complex mix, but we've got to consider all the possibilities available to us.
Tom (30:28)
So at a tactical level, tell me a bit more about what you mean by that so you can include your thought leaders in paid media.
Joel (30:35)
Well, you can be advertising stuff that your thought leaders are doing. You can be paying for content opportunities, speaking slots and stuff like that. You could be paying to speak, to have presence at trade shows. So there isn't, mean, if it's advertising, it's a bit different, but then, for example, LinkedIn, the reason LinkedIn have got behind thought leadership as a discipline is because they've productized it. So you can pay to have thought leader adverts.
there are lots of grey areas in and around this. YouTube is looking at some day to day, the third most popular influencer channel, so you can use YouTube and advertise on YouTube, et cetera.
Tom (31:19)
Yeah, okay, makes sense. So I just need to pay enough money and then I'll officially be a thought leader. I can be an expert too.
Joel (31:25)
I did not say that. I
will send my lawyers to find you you... I know what mean. know what mean. There aren't enough lawyers though.
Tom (31:31)
There's not enough money in the world for that one, don't worry. Yeah,
okay, nice, maybe I'll go that route. Good stuff. Okay, cool, I guess I'll change the topic again a little bit. So one thing that I know, so first of all, actually, you're writing a book at the moment. Do want to tell us a little bit more about that? Because I'm very interested to understand the process you've been through to write that, because I know you're spending an awful lot of time talking to marketers, so I'd like to understand their brains a bit better as well.
Joel (31:59)
Yeah, well, so thank you. It's great to talk about it. So I guess I have the opportunity now that I'm not operation involved in B2B marketing. And my skill set kind of sits outside the mainstream of what B2B marketing is and propolis is. So I have the fraction to do this. I was looking around for what could I write about and a lot of activities, particularly some work with Cognaclic during the course of the last year or so who are...
moving more and more into that area. And it just seems like a really fascinating topic. And so many of the things we talked about now, I appreciate I primed the pump a little bit in terms of my conversation, but we're trying to work out how we can deliver really coherent, compelling messages in an atmosphere where trust is challenged, but also then have the ability of those messages to impact all the way through the funnel, certainly into demand generation and also, and it should go right through to the bottom of the funnel as well. Thought leadership is absolutely the number one tool to deploy, I would suggest.
So, and it's something which has, know, it's heartlanders in professional services for kind of reasons because they're actually kind of selling their knowledge. So it kind of plays out best in that. And technology having always been the kind of forefront of V2B marketing is a little bit behind the curve on this, but they are catching up now. So, and I think there is a misconception about a lot of stuff gets called thought leadership. Is it actually technically thought leadership? If you were a full-time.
thought leadership practitioner, and I know a few of those, they're quite picky about what they would say is thought leadership and what's just good content marketing, what's just bad content marketing. So I think it's a really compelling tool. And so I just thought it was something worth focusing on. You also have the impact of AI is challenging that dramatically. You've got the impact of influencer marketing and the right. So it feels like a really strategic discipline.
in B2B that hasn't been given enough attention it deserves but also has huge potential to be done better and more effectively across the whole sector.
Tom (34:01)
Yeah, okay, so where would you draw the line then between good content marketing and thought leadership?
Joel (34:06)
Well, I think it's about having something, if not unique, then certainly differentiated for you to say and genuinely moving the conversation on. And it's a good storytelling. think content marketing can take lots of different forms and some of it can be quite tactical and quite technical and that's good. It plays a job. It does a job. I'm not saying it's not relevant, but I think if particularly when you're in a place where you're trying to sell very, very high ticket items, you know multi-million pound, six figure or six figure sums.
you've got to, there's a high burden of proof on you to get someone to invest in it or even to understand there's actually a problem because sometimes your thought leadership is about convincing somebody that actually there is an issue and they didn't realize it. So it's very, it's much more cerebral and it, whereas thought leadership can be more tactical, easy to approach and it doesn't tend to be that as joined up holistically with a lot of other things.
as proper thought leadership can.
Tom (35:09)
Yeah, okay. I mean, I know it's a big problem that a lot of marketers face today. Everyone's trying to activate more thought leaderships within the business, right? Whether it's particularly on social, right? Getting sales reps, getting everyone around the business to be doing as much public facing content and engagement as they possibly can. So where, guess, what have you seen have the most success in...
doing that and are there particular strategies that have worked when it comes to helping to cultivate more internal thought leaders?
Joel (35:42)
Well, I would, there is a subtle distinction between thought leaders and thought leadership and they are definitely two, they're definitely connected and joined together or operate the same kind of sphere. I what I think represents the best practice in B2B marketing is when there is a, certainly at least one, potentially a number of, or a handful of thought leadership themes that are very, very well built out.
backed by research, they're properly quantifiable. It's not just me and my important thoughts. It's actually, you've really, really, you can stand this out by itself. And they can then be delivered or communicated by different individuals within the organisation and is then supported by an integrated marketing campaign. Whereas, so you could have individual thought leaders who are doing their own, who are kind of acting, you could have random acts of thought leadership.
So, you know, I'm writing a blog about this. I guess probably that's kind of what I've been doing, right? I've just been randomly like, today I've had a meeting with such and such and I'm going to do a bit of content on that. I haven't had a coherent thing to talk about. So to be incredibly meta about the whole thing, you know, I'm now going to write a thought leadership and become a thought leader by writing a book about thought leadership. So, and that's going to confuse the hell out of everybody. I hope it really does.
Tom (37:02)
Nice, well, let's find out. But no, I think I like that phrase, random acts of thought leadership. I'm definitely guilty of that because it's, but I think it's something. So the alternative is this kind of strict content schedule and my vaguely interesting thoughts, unfortunately, don't come to me twice a week at 8.30. Right? Like it's not, they don't come to me according to a calendar. And that's what I find really difficult.
Joel (37:26)
I know, and I'm saying that you're, I don't think you should stop, I'm not, isn't a clinic by the way, just in case you're listening wondering what's. I don't think you should stop doing that. I think, but I think that's, and I think you have the ability to be a thought leader, but I think for a properly integrated, holistic, game-changing thought leadership programme, it needs to be more considered. It doesn't have to be necessarily, it doesn't have to be completely structured.
Tom (37:32)
What did I do wrong Joe?
Joel (37:55)
I suspect that you can still have room for somebody within an organization with an agreed theme and an agreed kind of set of landmark activities where somebody can just be kind of iterating, know, just doing stuff on the fly to a certain extent as long as it's contributing to the bigger thing. if all you've got is somebody doing, you know, less structured stuff, I'm not sure that I would call that a thought leadership strategy.
Tom (38:22)
It
will inevitably be a little bit more ad hoc because you are waiting on people having thoughts or having ideas and that's not going to be consistent enough.
Joel (38:28)
Yeah, yeah. And I
suspect Tom, like me, you'll do a great post, you'll be thinking, I've really got that, and then you'll go, okay, and you'll move on to something else. And you won't, you won't probably, you might not think about that, follow that train of thought again, ever, or even indeed next week or tomorrow, because you're an entrepreneurial mindset and loads of things are going, are firing off in your brain and you just want to get them down and turn them into something useful.
Tom (38:54)
Yeah, yeah, well, it relies on you going down a particular rabbit hole, right? But some weeks you don't end up down a rabbit hole or you end up down one that is completely professionally useless to me. That's joys of my mind. But yes, I think, but I guess what's interesting then, it sounds like the difference between a thought leadership program and random acts of thought leadership is building a structure which manages to extract consistent insights.
Joel (39:00)
Yeah.
Yeah, I've done that.
Tom (39:23)
Right. And finding a way to almost productize that. what are the pillars? Have I understood that right in terms of what you're saying? And what are the pillars of that structure?
Joel (39:29)
I think it,
well, I think it's about having, if you look at, so we have about 30 entries in the thought leadership category, the B2B Marketing Awards. So they're best in class thought leadership, right? And 90 % of them rely on data, right? So data is pretty fundamental to that. So it's a big theme that's been worked out in advance, that's properly quantified and explored and expressed. And then the implications can then come by opinion-based, what does this mean?
So I think it has to be something which is structured around something long-term. You're seeking to do, it's not something you're do once and then move on to something else. You're seeking to develop this theme over a period of time. You're probably gonna try and explore different dimensions of it. There's probably an element of, there should be pre-planned, pre-structured, using different sporting mechanisms, using influencers, using PR, backed up with advertising, with email campaigns, with events.
but there's room in there for some iteration, there's room in there for some responsive stuff as well. So I think that for me what good thought leadership looks like, and I'm not saying that carrying on blogging in the way that I've been doing for the last 20 years and that you, it sounds like you're doing now, is bad, I'm certainly not saying that at all. I just think it's playing a different role. It's not at the strategic level which these...
better resourced, better planned programs can deliver. They require you to be structured and to commit and to stick to it, which doesn't suit everybody, certainly hasn't suited me in the past.
Tom (41:12)
Yeah, and I suppose it requires some organisational resource behind you as well. I guess there's a couple of questions I'm really interested in that, is there, when you look at those, was it 40, you said, the contender, about 30, was there a trend between the type of organisation that were able to produce that in terms of the size or the resources that went behind it?
Joel (41:24)
no, about 30.
I mean, I actually haven't done the analysis on the size, they tend to be, by definition, they tend to be a bit larger, right, mid to large companies, and I appreciate it. that, again, it is a marketing tactic that lends itself to that type of organization. terms of the, appreciate, may not be quite so much where your interest is, but I think it's a very legitimate part of B2B marketing. It's the mainstay, probably, of it.
But also in terms of the type of categories, mean, again, professional services is very, very strong in this area because it just suits their style of business they have. Where they have, they're basically full of subject matter experts. They're full of thought leaders. it's about deploying that in the right way. And if you look at the three winners, we're consulting firms or firms with consulting arms, and they all have large data pools as well. So that, again, helps them.
They're starting from an advantageous position.
Tom (42:33)
Yeah, okay, and I guess the other thing, so I guess I'm thinking of our listeners who potentially some of them are sat there thinking, okay, I need to do data-driven thought leadership, but I'm not lucky enough to be at one of these companies that's sitting on a treasure trove of benchmark data. I always think, there's a gong I've always admired for their thought leadership and some of the content that they put out. I just think it's amazing and it's so genuinely insightful, but you are also your.
a conversational intelligence platform with access to recordings of millions of sales conversations happening all over the world, it's not fair, it's not a fair fight. What are some of the roots for someone who's maybe sitting there thinking, I want to do this, I want us to build a great thought leadership program, but we don't naturally have that treasure trove? Are there ways that you can punch above your weight?
Joel (43:09)
Yeah.
I think that a key thing is is minorly right for everybody. I know it's not right for everybody. don't think it's necessarily right for SaaS companies with exceptions because of the nature of the organization, the nature of the transaction, the nature of the audience, the nature of the marketing function. So I'm not saying it's a panacea. Everyone's got to do it. Rip up the rule book. Start again. But what I do think is that, to your point, I think there has to be.
structure and content. You have to understand the themes of the things you're talking about and try and plan around some activity that has resonance and is repeatable and territory you can own and start thinking about where you can own data and you can have that extra layer of authenticity and validity which that will provide you with. It might be that you can partner with someone, it might be you can do...
a partnership with a media organization in your space. They might have data that you can use. every is going to differ for different people. so I mean, I would, if you can't, if you're not, I'm not saying, so thought it might not be right for everybody, but I do think that I'm a content person. I love content. I think great content is fantastic and it builds your brand when it can and it should be delivering you leads and opportunities at the same time. I think the more...
the more we can be strategic about the content to whatever degree is reasonable, the more value we'll get from it.
Tom (44:53)
Yeah, I mean, it's what everyone is trying to do, right, is how do we produce better content? And the great thing about content is it feeds every other channel and everything else that you do. So there's such a long tail. If it's one of the things we're trying to work on here at Demand Genius is actually quantifying the long tail benefit that content has, because it's not just the white paper you publish, it's the 10 blog posts that came off the back of it. It's the event that was all pivoted, or the keynote speech that was all pivoted around that piece of content. It's such an impactful thing across an organization.
Joel (45:23)
Yeah, exactly. And it applies right in advertising as well. I remember the kind of, do remember a few years back, this was the kind of game changing advert in B2B was the Volvo one with Jean-Claude Van Damme where he did the splits against those two trucks. Do you remember that one? Oh, you've got to see that one. It's phenomenal. You know, Jean-Fourclon Van Damme, the action hero, and he's on these two Volvo trucks, they're driving backwards and into the sunset and he's sat with two legs on the side and he does the splits. it's like, it's all about promoting Volvo trucks, precision steering.
Tom (45:35)
don't, was it?
Yeah.
Joel (45:52)
And the point was that that ad was groundbreaking. It got mimicked and copied for years. But they didn't just arrive with that advert. They actually had loads that they kind of built up to that over a number of couple of years and with other kind of iterations. So often you only see the glory at end of it. It's worth going on the journey because every time you do it, you'll get better and you'll hone your view and your perspective.
Tom (46:06)
and
Yeah, I mean, it's a bit of an interesting, I've seen a lot of chatter that we're at a bit of a landmark moment as well for kind of public TV ads for B2B companies. We're recording this for listeners just after the Super Bowl, Tuesday morning after the Super Bowl. And I've just seen three AI adverts from B2B, essentially B2B software companies at the halftime show at the Super Bowl. That's quite crazy. And with like big celebrity endorsements and things like that, that's not something that I think we were seeing 10 years ago.
Joel (46:47)
No, it's starting to get more of those ads in there, but it's definitely, yeah, it's quite nice seeing B2B in that absolute most lucrative, most expensive slot. Although perhaps not, if not so if they're making mass redundancies in the marketing team, but that's separate.
Tom (47:02)
Yeah, and at the same time spending all that money on a celeb endorsement. I mean, also I do pity people who aren't in the world of B2B, SASS, and must just look at that and think it's the most boring advert they've ever seen. It's nice for us who are in it. Look, Joel, this has been great. It's such an interesting, so interesting to have a conversation with you about this. think often in SASS, we get very, very myopic and we're so in our own little bubble.
that it's really interesting to just take a little bit of an outside perspective on how we operate and how trends that we're seeing are reflected actually across the broader B2B marketing landscape, of which we're a core part, but not the only part. If it's okay with you, what I normally like to do at the end of these podcasts is just hit you with a couple of quickfire questions. So let's get into those now. First one.
What skill or trait has been the biggest needle mover for you in your own personal career?
Joel (48:01)
Public speaking, no doubt about it. Someone who classed herself as an introvert, who is more comfortable writing, the ability to stand up on stage and be coherent is so powerful in so many ways.
Tom (48:14)
Nice, love that, I completely get that. I'm introverted myself and actually at the end of last year I was doing improv classes to try and get myself out of that habit and basically be able to stand on a stage without shitting myself.
Joel (48:28)
Good for you. That sounds like a really great creative way to get beyond, get over that bit. So yeah, good for you.
Tom (48:35)
It was, it was fun. It was good fun as well. Have you seen the office? The US office?
Joel (48:41)
I found the UK one so cringe-worthy I couldn't watch it was so awful but but awfully brilliant if you know what mean.
Tom (48:47)
Okay, yeah, I'm the same. Watching the UK one is a bit painful. The US one's a bit more of a sitcom, but there's the kind of Ricky Gervais character, Michael Scott. He does improv classes and that. So when I told my friends that that's what I was doing, they were all laughing at me because I'm basically just Michael Scott now, or Ricky Gervais. David Brent.
Cool, so second question, if I approved your, maybe this is a difficult one for you to answer, so I'll tweak it slightly. If you were a B2B marketer in a SaaS company right now, and you were given carte blanche to kind of follow a particular strategy, to kind of go after your dream big bet, what would you do?
Joel (49:26)
Well, so I had written, you've given me previewed these questions and I had written it from a thought leadership perspective, but I don't think that's the right answer for this audience, so give me a sass. So I'm going to say influencer marketing, I go after influencer marketing. I don't think you need to, also I don't think it needs to be, it should be a big bet, it should be a tactical experimentation bet at this point. I think it's got, I think it's a technique, a discipline's time has come, I think you've got it's been productized now and it's great way of building trust and authenticity with people without having to.
necessarily invest in some of those much, much richer things. So definitely have a look at influencer marketing, understand who influencers are, and if you don't know who are, then go and find some.
Tom (50:02)
Yeah, love that. think it's something we've not utilized in B2B nearly as much as in B2C. I am gonna keep calling it a big bet though, rather than a tactical experimentation bet, because it just sounds so much better for socials, but I think it's a good answer. Yeah, okay, good, like it. And then last one. So one recommendation from you, it be a book, a podcast, a thought leader that you recommend our listeners go and check out.
Joel (50:13)
Great, understood, it's a big bet. Spend all your money on influencers,
Well, I think there's a guy you should follow. There's loads of people I know that follow, but one still occurs to me that I'm always impressed by. A guy called Scott Stockwell who worked for IBM for a while, let's put it that way. He's about my age, but he left there last year and he's one of the smartest guys I met. As well as being a tremendously nice man, he is tremendously nice. He's always got a fascinating perspective on things. He's the best...
meeting facilitator, works with whoever I've ever met. Like he likes to bring Lego to meetings and get you to build Lego models and stuff like that. But, some of the things, some of his, his kind of anecdotes and his ways of looking at things make your mind bend, but they are always fascinating. You don't understand they are fascinating. He's a lovely man, full of interesting thoughts and ideas. So, you know, follow Scott Stockwell, great guy.
Tom (51:21)
Okay, I've not come across him before so I'm going to reach out to Scott straight after this and follow him and tell him that he owes Joel Harrison a pint for the free publicity. Cool. Joel, before we finish, anything else that you want to say, give you a quick moment to plug, anything that you want to plug.
Joel (51:31)
Sounds good to me.
Well, two things, if you're interested in what commercial marketing looks like, we've got some great resources there at B2B Marketing and perhaps I'll give you a link after as you can share that with the episode if that's possible. And also, if you are interested in thought leadership, I appreciate if you're in SaaS, it may not be the right thing for you, but I'm launching a podcast, I'm launching a book, but to turn the research process into a product, I'm doing that as a podcast, which is going to launch in a couple of weeks, probably very soon when this comes out, so please check that out and follow.
Tom (51:49)
Yeah, of course.
Joel (52:09)
Lots of great conversations I'll be having on the other end of the interview or rather the interviewee.
Tom (52:14)
Love that. No, I've said one of my goals for this podcast is to help SaaS marketers see slightly outside of the SaaS myopia. So I think definitely worth a follow.
Joel (52:27)
Fantastic, thank you.
Tom (52:28)
Awesome. There we go everyone. That was the Godfather of B2B marketing. Joel, thank you very much.
Joel (52:34)
I made you a podcast you couldn't refuse. Is that what you're supposed to say at this point?
Tom (52:37)
Exactly, you.
Bye bye.
Joel (52:40)
Thanks so much having me on. it.