Latest / The Prompt / Ep. 552 | When Algorithms Meet Alignment: B2B’s Future, Decoded

Transcript

Ep. 552 | When Algorithms Meet Alignment: B2B’s Future, Decoded · The Prompt

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This is on base your one stop shop for solving your most
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pressing B2B go to market challenges.
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Each week, host Chris Moody and Paul Gibson talk to sales and
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marketing leaders to get you in depth insights and creative
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strategies to set your revenue teams up for success.
0:18
Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the latest in the
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award-winning on based podcast series.
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I was just saying, I can't believe we're closing in on 600
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episodes already in the cans. They're very exciting.
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I'm your host, Paul Gibson and with AI on everyone's lips right
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now, I'm excited that today I'm talking with Rob Gold.
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He's global President at Dentsu B2B.
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And today we're discussing a great topic, which we've named
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AI strategy and the new blueprint for B2B success.
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It sounds an exciting 1. Rob, I'm excited to get you on
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the show and thanks for coming. Thanks for.
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Having me on Paul, it's great to be here.
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Yeah. So this is, of course, it's
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going to be a really interesting and relevant topic for everyone.
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But before we get into it, let's start with a simple question.
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Rob, can you walk us through your journey, where you are
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today and what inspired you to focus on this particular topic?
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Well, yeah. Well, again, thanks, Paul, for
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for having me here. I'm a massive podcast fan.
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I love your content. Congratulations on getting into
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600 long way that continue and demand base, I believe is a
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fantastic platform for driving innovation in the BTP sector.
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So that's a great topic to get into.
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As for me, I live in North London in the UK.
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I'm married to a graphic designer called Joe.
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I have two kids called Charlie and Poppy.
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From a career perspective, I started my journey 22 years ago
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now and I worked for BMW in the marketing team.
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I then moved over to the publicist agency Zenith, where I
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grew my grew my chops as a media planner.
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And then in 2018, I went to run a technology business called
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DWA, where we specialized in driving outcomes for lots of
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different technology clients in the B2B space.
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In 2019, DWA were acquired by Merkel and then we looked to
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combine three businesses together.
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DWA was the media agency, creative agency was called Gyro
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and we acquired a business called B2B International, who
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are a research company and we formed Merkel B2B.
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Merkel B2B we're an integrated B2B business servicing global
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clients in Iran, the European region.
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And then over the past couple of years, we saw the B2B category
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explode, lots of customer demand, changing ecosystem, more
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opportunities to help our customers grow.
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And we evolved our proposition to what it is today, which is
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density B2B. And my responsibility you said
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is to lead this globally. We exist to connect modern
2:44
business and to drive outcomes for our customers.
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We're a network of about 1000 B2B specialists, globally
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connected. And we are very proud to work
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alongside some of the world's most ambitious and innovative
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companies. So that's a little bit around
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how we got to what we got. To awesome great what a story
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and and some great names in there.
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So lots, lots of experience and knowledge to pick your brain on
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today so. As we look back, was there
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anything? Particularly that inspired your
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focus on what what we're talking about now, solving business
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challenges and transforming marketing strategies and things
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like that. Well, good question.
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I think if you look back, I've never been someone who really
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sits still very often. I like trying new things, I'm
3:24
always trying to move forward and I really like achieving
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goals and outcomes. And if you spoke to my mum and
3:30
dad, they'll tell you about when I learned to ride a bike, which
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was like took the stabilizers off.
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I kept riding, I kept falling over and eventually I started to
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ride the thing And that that sort of definitely carried me
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through, I think in the way that I am today.
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I've got a natural curiosity and when you combine that with a
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short attention span, it means there's always new things on the
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horizon. And the B2B category is a
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tremendous enabler, I think of curiosity.
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There is so much change, so much disruption, so much innovation.
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Obviously we'll talk about that today.
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It has not been hard to stay interested.
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And I think it's a, it's a big intellectual challenge too.
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You know, being able to cut through all of that complexity
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to drive an outcome is really satisfying.
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And yeah, that's why our organization exists today.
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And I think that's why our industry is incredibly
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motivating because it's always in self free benefit.
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Yeah, absolutely. And and obviously, as you know,
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we work with you partnering with yourselves and, and there's,
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there's so much knowledge and experience you've got in your,
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in your business and in your teams that it can only be
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beneficial for for the people you work with.
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So you think you've as you described in your opening,
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you've got a pretty varied background.
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How do you think this has shaped your, I suppose your leadership
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approach and your vision for dent 2B to B?
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Question At my heart, I'm a comms planner and I think at the
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heart of comms planning is understanding people and you
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know what they do, why they do it, how the world around them,
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perhaps their decisions, the role the cultural landscape
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plays, and on reflection that transcends to my approach to
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leadership and how our business operates.
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I place a huge emphasis on personal connections and
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integrity. I'm sure if you spoke to my
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colleagues, there are many things that give you
5:11
constructive criticism about me. But I hope that they reflect
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back my focus on them, their motivations, our commitment to
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our clients, our business and importantly our industry.
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And these are values that holds very tight actually.
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So the other, the other thing that I've always held very close
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is the ability to look up and out a lot.
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And that's certainly been a core part of what makes sense to be
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to be what we are today. We're always evolving our
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offerings to reflect what our customers need now and what we
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think they're going to need tomorrow.
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You'll see that in our solution sets, Paul.
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Whether it's our ABX 360 proposition, which is all about
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using data, technology and AI to surround customers, whether it's
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our new B2B influence capability, which we're
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launching soon, which we think is the first end to end pureplay
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B2B influencer proposition that exists, or our relentless focus
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on buyers. We do this thing called the
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Superpowers Index, the world's largest understanding of why
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buyers buy. So I think people, innovation
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always moving forward, the things that hopefully capture me
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pretty well and I hope are reflected in the business that
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we are today. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
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And I think that putting the buyer first is such a simple
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thing to say, but it's so important and and I've gotten a
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pretty large sales team and my question to them is always have
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your way identified the why? You know, have we turned this
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from a nice to have to a need and that's understanding the
6:34
business, the buyers and what they're really trying to
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accomplish and solve. So I think, yeah, you've hit the
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nail on the head. So as we as we dig a little bit
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deeper into into the main topic, what would you say are the
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essential behaviours and modern B2B markers that might be
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listening today need to adopt if they're going to stay
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competitive in today's evolving landscape?
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That's a big question. It's a question and you know
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it's one I do feel fairly well qualified to answer because I, I
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mentioned our supers index a second ago.
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So if I take a step back, I and we passionately believe that you
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have to have a strong position on buyer behavior in order to
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provide an opinion to you or services in today's ecosystem.
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And for the past four years, it's safe to say that we have
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become a little bit obsessed with understanding buyer
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behavior. So we've created something
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called the Superpowers Index. So the past four years, we have
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spoken to 14,000 B to B buyers, We've deconstructed 25,000 B to
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B buying experiences across 4 categories and all regions
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around the world. That what that means is we
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understand buyers, we believe better than anybody else.
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So the essential behaviours, Paul, are come out of what
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buyers are saying influences their buying situation.
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It's not just my opinion. So the if I was to distill it
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down, the first one is around brand and trust.
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People buy brands because they trust them and the importance of
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a brand, a strong brand, is that they are aware of a brand that
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can differentiate a brand. They know why that brand exists
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and actually personal decision drivers are more important now
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when buyers are buying products and services than products
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drivers. So if you have a strong brand
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that's inherently built on trust, you kind of you're not
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even at the races to start with. The second essential behaviour
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is about focusing on your buying experience.
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So you again you look at the the market, the longer decision
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making, bigger decision making unit and just generally more
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complexity and competition in the market means that sales
8:37
cycles are getting even longer. But we know through our
8:40
superpowers index exactly where customers should focus to bring
8:43
their sales cycle down. So in fact, we can tell you if
8:47
you focus on specific parts of your buying experience, you can
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reduce that sales cycle by up to 16 weeks, 16 weeks times by.
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The economic impacts for delayed sale could be massive in terms
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of economic value to that business.
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And the third essential behavior we believe is all about having
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the ability and the agility to be data-driven.
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So better personalization, better decision making, better
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predictive modeling. You know, we talk a lot about
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the importance of connecting these three areas together
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because it's a complicated ecosystem with lots of different
9:19
stakeholders. The fundamentally pool brand and
9:22
trust experience and data-driven agility are definitely 3
9:25
behaviours that are essential. Today's model needs to be buyer.
9:28
Yeah, absolutely. And and you're, you're preaching
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to the converted here I think of a a line video and all of that.
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And that that brand one is, and the trust is such an important
9:37
one because probably it started with COVID, right?
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When all the face to face meetings and trade shows and all
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that sort of stuff stopped, the only way you could actually
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engage with someone was digitally.
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And a lot of people just sat there, crossed their fingers and
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hoped that people came to their website.
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Well, if they've never heard your brand, they're not going to
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have the trust to come and visit your website.
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You're missing the trick. So, so important.
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Trust. From the trust is an out.
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Well, isn't it? It's an outcome of all those
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things. You can't create trust through
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anything other than the way that you communicate, being aware the
10:09
values that you represent. So I couldn't agree more.
10:11
Yeah. And equally, if you're a
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salesperson and you're reaching out because you saw some magic
10:15
buying signal, but they've never heard of you, they've never
10:19
don't know your brand well enough to trust you, they're not
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going to take your call, let alone engage with this.
10:22
So, yeah, really important subject there.
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So if we think about go to market strategies, again, these
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GTM and all these different analogies are out there, but how
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would you define an accessible, a successful strategy?
10:35
And are there any key? Aspects that you think can make
10:38
or break it. Well, I'm a pretty simple
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person. So my simple articulation of a
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successful go to market strategy, Simply put is one
10:47
that's customer centric. You need to have a deep
10:49
understanding if you buy dynamics, clear articulation of
10:53
the category opportunity, and you need to be able to say why
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your brand has the right to win versus another one because it
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serves your customer more brilliantly than somebody else.
11:02
And you need to have a clear understanding of what success of
11:06
that strategy looks like. And then you need to align that
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across the business because without alignment then you're
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pointing a different direction. So customer centricity is really
11:15
important with your go to market strategy.
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You asked about things that would break it.
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Well, I see in this world a lot of thrash.
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You can be too tactical too quickly if you've got no
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methodology for decision making and if you can't answer the why,
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then I think you're going to fail.
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Nothing on reflection, I just mentioned about a lack of focus
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on brands. People will not buy for you.
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We just talked about this pool. People will not buy for you
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unless they know you, unless they trust you.
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And as I just said, trust is driven through the alignment of
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values and values are driven by people being aware of your
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brands. I think that melting pot is
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critical that you can't, you can't forget it, but
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optimistically, I do believe that we have all the sweets in
11:56
the shop right now. If you think about, we have the
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backbone of data and technology, which enables innovation and
12:03
much more targeted communications, but we also deal
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in facts and evidence much more. And we shouldn't have to be
12:09
debating what's right or wrong in our industry anymore.
12:12
The data is there in all of its glory.
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So we should really be innovating in new ways with new
12:17
technology and new strategies because we can monitor
12:20
everything and compare it versus previous tactics.
12:24
So for me, this makes the new sort of go to market thinking
12:29
incredibly exciting for anybody that's involved to be part of
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it. Yeah, absolutely.
12:33
And it, it maters me and you probably see this as well.
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How many B2B companies have a almost B2C approach to their
12:41
awareness and marketing? I mean, if you sell to banks and
12:44
financial institutions, there's absolutely no benefit in
12:47
marketing to say French Connection, a big retailer.
12:51
But companies do that, right? So their brand awareness is
12:53
here, there and everywhere, which on the surface probably
12:56
sounds OK, we want to get our name out there.
12:58
But you're probably creating false positives then because you
13:01
might get French Connection to click on your ad, you might get
13:04
them come to your website and they all look like great
13:06
metrics. But really they're companies you
13:08
can't sell to. And they end up in pipeline and
13:10
sales chase them, but they can't close them.
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And worst case scenario, if they do close one, it's a really poor
13:16
fit and therefore it's impossible to get to value and
13:18
they churn. So I think, you know, go to
13:20
market strategies, if you're AB to B, you've got to think B to
13:23
B, right? Not the old B to C approach,
13:25
spray and pray and hope some of it sticks.
13:27
Do you see that much going on? It's a very topical discussion
13:31
and we do see it. Actually.
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It's very easy to get someone to buy a toothbrush, buy something
13:37
from French Connection or even buy a car.
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It's not a long decision making process.
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You haven't got many people involved.
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Do some advertising, do some search marketing.
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Someone's going to buy that product.
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And there's elements of that that I do think can be applied
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to B2B, particularly when it's around driving brand and trust.
13:53
But the massive difference in the B2B ecosystem is the number
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of people involved in a decision, the long duration of a
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sales cycle, and the nuances of categories and verticals.
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And I think people get tripped up a lot when they don't
14:06
understand that. And I mentioned, you know, our
14:09
purpose is around connecting modern business.
14:11
And that's that word. Connecting is critical because
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unless you can connect initial exposure through to an extra
14:17
stream and then get somebody to actually come into your buying
14:20
world, you're never going to get there.
14:22
So we do see it. And interestingly, we've seen in
14:25
our organization, we're able to help lots of businesses that you
14:28
wouldn't necessarily thought to be been to be companies, whether
14:31
they're retail businesses, telecommunication businesses,
14:34
companies where they're trying to drive huge growth to key
14:37
customers, where massive amounts of their revenues are based on
14:40
wholesale. And arguably, what you might be
14:42
to be, they've never really acted in that way.
14:45
And as soon as you demonstrate how you can connect a brand,
14:48
journey through to a sales, nurture around key accounts and
14:51
then follow that all the way through, light bulbs go off in
14:54
people's minds. So we do see it.
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But again, that's where I'm so passionate about our industry
14:58
that you have to understand it to be able to do it.
15:00
And if you don't understand it, you simply can't do it.
15:03
Yeah, Yeah, Great point. So let's let's think about that
15:07
artificial intelligence, right? It's the word on everyone's lip.
15:09
So how, how in your viewpoint is Gen.
15:12
AI and AI being used to revolutionize GTM strategies
15:17
today and brand strategies particularly in the B2B space?
15:21
It's a. Pretty awesome topic.
15:22
I think something I get quite excited about was that for
15:24
dinner with a very good friend of mine a couple of weeks ago,
15:27
known this guy for, I don't know, 25 years, and all we
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talked about was AI over dinner. Skate was just a bizarre change
15:33
of dialogue. But I think the topic is so
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important to talk about for obvious reasons, but also
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because it's energizing, I think.
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And when you think about the opportunity that we all have, I
15:45
don't believe that we need to change the fundamental rules of
15:48
marketing. What we do need to do is ensure
15:50
that our go to market strategies are built to lead in this AI
15:54
first world. So it it all, it all starts, I
15:57
think with rethinking the role that AI can play.
16:01
And to to my point, I don't think the rule book needs to be
16:04
rewritten. So I'll again put it simply, AI
16:07
is everything in everywhere, but you've got to be part of the
16:10
playground gang here. That is a quote that we've all
16:12
heard which says AI won't take your job, but someone using it
16:16
will. But more importantly, I think we
16:17
should be healthily paranoid that other businesses that
16:22
leverage AI will take your customer, they will capture
16:25
market share, they will drive customer loyalty faster.
16:29
So it all goes back to the go to market strategy.
16:31
You know, AI is not the strategy, it is the accelerator
16:35
of your strategy. And in B2B it has massive
16:37
potential because we can move, you know, think about decision
16:41
making, being much more proactive and being much more
16:44
real time. The, the ability to affect that
16:46
long purchase cycle I talked about earlier on is quite
16:49
marked. And we, we work with, it's
16:51
important to say we work with many companies that are already
16:53
leveraging this technology. I can think of one in
16:56
particular. They leverage predictive AI
16:59
across their platforms that surface in 10 competitive
17:03
signals, opportunity scoring all in real time.
17:06
The impact that really has is that teams move faster and
17:09
decisions can pivot much more dynamically.
17:12
And they've told us that as a direct result, their cycles have
17:15
reduced by up to 30%, which is seismic when you think about the
17:19
kind of enterprise technology sales that happen.
17:22
But it does require totally different changing minds.
17:25
I think pretty much every single part of the B2 bar journey is
17:28
being accelerated by AI technology.
17:31
And of course, you can look at this in one of two ways.
17:33
But as an optimist, I think it is tremendously exciting to be
17:35
part of this revolution by now. Yeah, absolutely.
17:38
And I, I think you've opened the account of worms that we're not
17:40
going to cover off in in detail in this in this time today, but
17:43
maybe in a future one. But I turn that AI without the
17:46
why, because we're hearing a lot of sales leaders saying they use
17:50
predictive AI and it's like a black box environment and it
17:53
says go after that account because we say so and there's no
17:56
insight as to why or not. And at least 50% of the time
18:00
they're being sent off on wild goose chases.
18:02
And So what happens is the sales leaders and the sales team start
18:05
losing trust. And as a real.
18:07
Detrimental effect on sales and marketing alignment.
18:09
But if you're being told go after that account because
18:13
they're in market, because they're showing these buying
18:15
signals, they came to your website and they saw this,
18:18
they're at this stage in your buyer journey.
18:20
Fantastically useful if it's just saying go after that
18:23
because we told you so. It's starting to affect the
18:25
confidence. So my, my and and a little plug
18:28
for for demand base. We call our product AI with the
18:32
Y because that gives you all the insight on it.
18:34
But I think we AI no doubt is the future.
18:37
We just have to make sure that it's it's AI that's driving the
18:40
right decisions, not 50% of the time the wrong decisions.
18:44
Couldn't agree more without the Yi like that.
18:46
Yeah. So if you think about your, your
18:48
day-to-day and, and how you're, you're working at the moment,
18:51
can you share an experience with or an example with the, the team
18:55
where densely B to B has helped a client achieve maybe what you
18:59
call it transformational change through integrating AI
19:02
technology? OK, let me have a think.
19:04
So I guess I'd start by saying, you know, clearly we're we're
19:08
proud to partner with many of the world's most prestigious,
19:11
innovative and leading companies.
19:12
And it's important to note that we've been using AI for a long
19:16
time already. So in a lot of our media
19:19
engagements, for example, at Densee, we are the largest
19:22
leverages of embedded AI via the digital platforms like Google,
19:26
Meta, LinkedIn already. So what that means our teams
19:29
have already been applying audience insight, content
19:33
optimization, investment allocations via AI for a long
19:36
time. So, and that's across our
19:38
customer base, that flagship program that I can talk about
19:42
that we love telling people is from our teams in Northern
19:45
Europe for a brand and a business called Satire.
19:49
So Satire are a leading supplier of parts to the aviation
19:53
industry. They put planes in the sky.
19:57
But every year Satire got over 6,000,000 customer support
20:01
emails and a large volume of those are people looking for
20:04
quotes. So you can imagine the challenge
20:07
to deal with this volume in order to make sure you protect
20:09
revenue and protect customer satisfaction.
20:13
So our teams created an amazing AI powered transformation
20:18
alongside the teams of satire. Now there's lots of things that
20:22
happened, but at the heart of this we built an AI quote engine
20:26
and it was affectionately called Lily.
20:28
Now Lily is currently generating over 450,000 AI based quotes
20:33
every single year. It's quite magnificent.
20:36
The results are unbelievable. So firstly, customer
20:38
satisfaction is through the roof, but commercially the
20:41
results are outstanding. So Satera publicly reported over
20:45
80% increase in conversion rates, over 150% increases in
20:50
order value and over 60% increases in revenue.
20:53
And then if you think about Lily, Lily is also doing the
20:57
work of over 50 people, which allows those organizations to be
21:01
much more effective and put people in places to drive more
21:04
customer value. So I think that's a brilliant
21:06
story of AI powered B2B transformation and it's one that
21:10
we are very proud of here at Density.
21:12
Yeah, it's a superb example. And I think we're we have agent
21:16
base, which it's all about automating those manual
21:21
processes that take forever and stop marketing doing what they
21:24
really want to do, which is marketing, right.
21:26
So I think that's a great example of where it's the time
21:29
it saves, it's the resources it saves, and therefore the ability
21:33
to do what you really should be doing in a business.
21:36
I think is is an excellent 1. So that's a great example.
21:39
If you think about technology and how it's used, how do you
21:42
balance technologies like an AI while retaining that human
21:47
creativity, authenticity, which really makes marketing?
21:50
Successful. Well, that, that's a great
21:52
question and it's a very topical question.
21:54
I'd I'd lay my stake out by saying we firmly believe in the
21:58
power of human beings and the role of creativity and impactful
22:02
marketing point #1 My colleague is up with Alex Hamilton, who
22:07
runs our Innovation Center here at Density Identity Lab.
22:09
Proposition set of phrase recently I loved, he said that
22:12
our roles as marketers ultimately take a customer from
22:16
being inspired to transacting. That's kind of like, Simply put,
22:20
that's what you have to do. I'm sorry to tell you that very
22:24
few of our customers are coming to our websites for inspiration,
22:28
right? It's more likely functional and
22:30
dive into a transaction. And we believe that is a massive
22:33
miss. And the role of creativity and
22:36
experience, I mentioned before about the importance of
22:38
experience is so much more critical in an AI driven world.
22:42
Unlike your point around Satya, then it's a truism to say that
22:45
all of our jobs have become more complicated and the to do lists
22:50
are certainly not getting any shorter.
22:52
And I believe that's impacted our ability to focus on things
22:55
that matter the most. And the beauty of the AI
22:57
technology is it's freeing up time for the mundane to be
23:01
redirected to the impactful and the beautiful.
23:03
And that's where creativity is, is so important.
23:08
So we're doing a few things here to, to, to sort of balance AI
23:12
with human creativity. First of all, we're innovating
23:14
our product set. Again, I mentioned that earlier
23:16
on take these to be influenced. That's a great example as trust
23:20
and validation from peers becomes ever more important and
23:23
technology allows you to aggregate that kind of tactic,
23:27
the role of, you know, influencers on purchase decision
23:29
is getting ever more important. And that is creativity at its
23:33
core. But underneath that, you know,
23:35
we're rolling out AI tools to allow utilization of those kind
23:39
of platforms and to democratize how people work.
23:42
We're giving them the tools and the training to empower them, I
23:46
guess to to reap the benefit. And then very tactically, we're
23:49
doing lots of stuff to encourage sharing.
23:51
So our teams run daily droppings at the moment for prompting
23:55
sharing of different use cases and then making sure that this
24:00
is much more distributed as a data set across our
24:03
organization. And if you think about all of
24:05
that, you've got creativity, you've got technology.
24:08
And then I have a big thing about human beings here that we
24:10
have to empower people to be more creative thinkers, to be
24:14
more critical thinkers, to be more empathetic leaders, to make
24:17
there's more decisions under pressure.
24:18
All of these things get more heightened in an AI driven
24:21
landscape. So it's all about, I think
24:23
coming back to customer centricity, we've talked about
24:26
that before. And as long as you are customer
24:28
centric and you know how to use the technology in service of
24:31
your vision and then importantly put the infrastructure in place
24:35
to allow your people to to do that, I think you're on to a
24:38
winning formula. Yeah, absolutely.
24:40
I think same with marketing in in sales.
24:42
There's I saw a really interesting post I think
24:45
yesterday someone talking around when I really gets going,
24:49
there'll be no need for sales people other than to build
24:52
relationships. And I was brought up on things
24:54
like Challenger sale where the relationship builders were the
24:57
ones that are least likely to be successful in sales.
25:00
So it's interesting that you hear AI the and the way things
25:03
are transforming. Maybe that's all we'll do or
25:05
maybe sales people will have to learn another trade.
25:07
Like you're never going to get AI doing plumbing or or
25:10
gardening. So if we think about businesses
25:17
that might be well people may be listening today and they want to
25:19
revisit their go to market strategies.
25:22
Can you give some? Examples of those very first
25:24
concrete steps they should take to to make sure that they're
25:28
initiating meaningful improvements.
25:30
Yeah, absolutely. This is something that we we
25:33
bring all of this down to ultimately for our customers
25:36
because there's a lot of swirl going on.
25:37
So I've got some very specific actions for you and I can tell
25:41
you this because it's what we talk to our clients about.
25:44
I think you've got to start with your baseline, know your
25:46
baseline, so map your current performance so you know where
25:50
you're at and where you need to focus.
25:52
So as an example, this is where our Superpowers index comes in.
25:56
We, we work with our customers to identify those key decision
25:59
drivers in the buyer journey where you're performing well,
26:02
where you're not performing well and baselining your performance
26:05
against those. So knowing your start point, the
26:09
second thing clearly is identifying the gaps and focus
26:12
on those areas where you can make the biggest wins.
26:14
It's not necessarily about doing everything.
26:16
Again, I talked about the most important things earlier on.
26:19
I mean, driving your brand and your brand trust, focusing on
26:23
the experience that your buyers are having and then
26:27
personalization and agility. These are all critical drivers
26:31
of why buyers are buying. So I'd recommend starting there
26:35
in terms of identifying the gaps and then work on alignment would
26:38
be my next point. If your key stakeholders aren't
26:41
aligned around shared outcomes, I said before, you're just not
26:45
going to be at the races. You won't gain credibility, you
26:47
won't prove consensus. So alignment is critical.
26:52
And then clearly, I think you're missing a trick if you don't
26:54
look to embed AI in as many parts of your go to market
26:57
strategy as is feasible for you. So we know the impact this
27:01
technology brings to your business.
27:03
We know the benefit that it can have on our people.
27:06
And ultimately, if you're not benefiting, then someone else
27:09
will. So don't let them take your
27:11
customer because they're using this technology more than you
27:13
are. Yeah, no, all great points.
27:17
And I'm sure the people listening will will appreciate
27:19
the insight on that. And I think that that that is a
27:22
really good summary of of where you should potentially start.
27:25
And I think that alignment piece comes up time and time again.
27:29
It's as old, as old as me, but it's it's something that's
27:31
constantly discussed and we have lots of conversation about
27:35
people. You know, if you're as a sales
27:36
team, you spend all your time and effort on companies you know
27:40
you can sell to, the alignment means that marketing should be
27:43
focusing only on those as well. And I think so alignment is one
27:46
that comes up. Maybe we'll do on an alignment
27:48
as a separate topic one day. So we, you and I both, I think,
27:53
are pretty enthused about AI and what it can do.
27:55
But what advice would you give to anyone listening whose
27:58
companies may be a little bit hesitant about integrating AI
28:01
into their own marketing strategies?
28:03
But firstly, remember you're not the only ones.
28:06
Today it feels that everyone is investing in some way, shape or
28:10
form in the technology, but the facts and evidence suggest
28:15
there's quite a disparate picture.
28:16
So 90% of businesses say that they're going to be increasing
28:20
investment in AI technology over the next three years, but today
28:23
only 1% are at AI maturity. So I think the real opportunity,
28:28
as I mentioned before, is to ensure our go to market
28:30
strategies are built to lead in an AI first world.
28:33
Don't see it as something separate, see it as an enabler
28:36
of your existing strategy. I'd start small.
28:39
Pilot in one particular part of your go to market area, whether
28:43
it's researching your audience in key accounts, whether it's
28:47
the way your leads are scored, whether it's the way that you
28:50
personalize content. I'd focus on the outcomes and
28:54
not the hype. Yeah, we just talked about the
28:56
swirl and all the things that you can do, but what are you
28:59
trying to achieve? How can the technology help you
29:01
achieve that better? And be single minded about that
29:04
being your rationalization point.
29:06
But critically and most importantly, you have to invest
29:09
in enablement and reducing the friction for our people.
29:13
They're always going to be the differentiator in in your
29:17
organization. And just don't miss the
29:19
opportunity to help upskill teams and foster a culture of
29:22
experimentation. And speaking from our example
29:24
here, it makes a huge difference.
29:27
So that would be a place that you really can't skip.
29:30
Absolutely, that enablement piece is often overlooked and
29:33
and people try and even if they're buying a technology,
29:36
they try and do it without having to spend the time on
29:39
implementation costs and all that.
29:41
But it's, you wouldn't buy the best, you know, buy yourself a
29:43
Porsche and never learn how to drive it.
29:45
It just doesn't make sense. So I think I think that's,
29:47
that's a great point. So thinking further on that
29:50
then, if you're listening in today and you love the idea of
29:54
of doing this stuff with AI, but you've got limited resources,
29:58
how can you leverage AI effectively stay agile and
30:03
competitive well. Remember my point about embedded
30:05
AI? There is so much out there
30:07
already in existing platforms, so ask your partners.
30:11
Take demand base for example. I know you guys are heavily
30:15
invested with agents, so anybody who's lucky enough to be a
30:18
partner of demand base can already be leveraging AI in
30:22
their organization. You don't have to own it and
30:24
build it yourself. So definitely use your partner
30:27
ecosystem. I'd also not bore the ocean.
30:30
So take a look at your end to end journey, all the things that
30:33
your your capability set in your organization and just say
30:36
where's the slowest or the most inefficient components.
30:39
And to start, just target on that because I bet you that
30:42
would make more transformative difference again, across a
30:45
broader Church of people and trying to be too upstream with
30:49
it. And I just think we shouldn't be
30:51
here to chase trends broken record time, Paul.
30:54
We've got to create, go to market strategies that are built
30:56
on customer centricity, be clear on the vision and the strategy,
30:59
and then and then make decisions about which AI to use and how we
31:04
use it. And if we do all of that right,
31:06
companies can be really agile, really competitive, because
31:09
they're choosing to focus this technology in places that's
31:12
going to make the most meaningful difference to them in
31:15
the most impactful and quick way.
31:17
Yeah, all great points again. So are there any common
31:20
challenges you see businesses facing when they try and adopt
31:23
AI and any ideas around overcoming those barriers?
31:27
I feel like we've sort of covered a few Kiara.
31:29
So to bang the drama, I think it's it's about enablement and
31:32
about people. It's very easy to get snow
31:35
blinded by this situation. So again, speaking from our
31:39
experience, look at the enablement technologies and, and
31:43
trainings that we can give to people, create use cases which
31:47
are universally applicable and beneficial to lots of people and
31:52
advertise your advertising. Just keep talking about it,
31:54
sharing, demonstrate what's going on.
31:56
So I think that that that is definitely a common challenge.
31:59
People enablement is a, is a big barrier to adoption and anything
32:03
you read will will say the same thing.
32:05
So I, I think there's probably many, but tough to focus in on
32:09
one, I'd say people enablement and reducing friction of use.
32:13
Right, as we look to the future, we know AI is a big topic, but
32:17
any other trends or innovations you're excited about in the
32:19
evolving world that is B2B? How long you got?
32:24
I love our industry and I I mentioned at the start the
32:27
innovation and the trends they're coming down the line.
32:29
So in fact last year we took a look to the future of B2B and we
32:34
published the report called the B2B Futures Report 2030 and we
32:38
made load of predictions about what's coming.
32:41
That report which we can share has got four key trends which I
32:45
believe will totally transform the way we think about B2B
32:48
marketing and the industry itself.
32:50
So I can tell you about those four if you like.
32:52
The first one was around machine to machine commerce.
32:55
We think this is going to be massive.
32:57
So by 20-30, we believe that a third of all B2B commerce will
33:02
be autonomous because the Internet of Things will grow and
33:06
the ability for actual commerce to become automatic will just be
33:11
ubiquitous. So that means that you're not
33:13
only going to have to have the technology ready, but you're
33:15
going to have to have the supply chain ready to deal with
33:19
autonomous machine to machine commerce.
33:21
So point number one in B2B, that's massive.
33:24
The second trend we came to was what we called marketplace
33:28
dominance. So today, marketplaces are
33:32
responsible for 15% of digital transactions in the B2B space.
33:37
By 20-30, we believe it will be over 50%.
33:41
Now that's already happening with the booms of platforms like
33:44
Amazon Business, but increasingly, the retail media
33:48
bullet train is going to bleed into the B2B space and we
33:50
predict a massive rise in the ecosystem here.
33:53
We think it's going to democratize commerce for the
33:55
long tail of companies and give everybody a seat at the table.
33:58
So marketplace dominance is going to be huge.
34:01
The third trend we looked at was traceability and ethics.
34:06
Quite rightly, organizations have never been more under the
34:08
spotlight given the impact that businesses have on the world,
34:12
the economic impact, the supply chains we own, our DNI policies,
34:16
how we invest our profits and we know the buyers are going to
34:19
demand transparency across their supply chains as alignment with
34:24
personal values and trusting a brand only increases.
34:26
And also we wouldn't be surprised that governments start
34:28
to regulate it. So traceability and ethics is 3
34:32
And the last one, if those three weren't big enough, this is all
34:35
about speed. Everything is going to be
34:37
faster, dramatically faster. In fact, if you think about AI,
34:42
new manufacturing methods, sympathetic engineering,
34:46
predictive production, we believe that go to markets will
34:49
be speed up by 300%. So if you think about 3D
34:53
printing, for example, as one small part of that component.
34:58
So we've got lots of things moving, things are going to move
35:00
quicker. So try chasing that if you're
35:02
not ready for it. And this is what I mean.
35:05
Our industry's at the bleeding edge of innovation and I think
35:08
we should all be very proud and privileged to be part of it.
35:12
But we've also got responsibility and an
35:15
opportunity to be in front of this like we've never have been
35:17
before. So it's a pretty exciting
35:19
Whirlpool. Yeah, absolutely.
35:21
And I think for whatever reason, B to C we've always seen as the
35:24
cool one and B to B than than more boring one.
35:27
I think that's flipping now. I think anyone can do B to C,
35:30
right? B to B, you've got to be a
35:31
little bit smarter. So that's not to diss anyone in
35:34
the B to C space. But yeah, I think I think the
35:37
future is very exciting. So just changing tacks slightly,
35:40
you sound like someone who would get into lots of content
35:44
consuming books and podcast blogs, etcetera.
35:47
Are there any particular ones that you'd recommend to any
35:50
listeners on the call today? So I do, I, I listen to far too
35:53
many podcasts. I'd say I tell you what, rather
35:56
than a specific one, I tell you how I use podcasts.
35:58
So there is so much great content, so many interesting
36:03
people and take this last half an hour or so, there's so much
36:06
going on in the world that it's difficult to stay on top of
36:09
things I find. So I use podcasts effectively as
36:12
a search engine. So I'll go onto my podcast app,
36:14
I'll type in a topic and then you get this massive range of
36:17
content that's more often than not nowadays, beautifully
36:20
curated, has really interesting subject matter experts isn't too
36:24
long. I've pointed out my attention
36:25
span. And so I I find that I can
36:27
instantly have a formed perspective on a topic that I
36:31
need to get ahead of really, really quickly.
36:33
So my my podcast recommendations would be massive because I'm
36:36
fairly promiscuous with my choices, because I almost use it
36:40
as a generic search term and then find something that I'm
36:42
interested in. So that's the way that I use the
36:44
podcast sort of connections that we have nowadays and I'd
36:48
recommend that to anybody. Yeah, absolutely.
36:50
I think there's so much content out there.
36:52
I think it's reported. I, I, I spoke to a guy last week
36:54
who said he reads three books a day and I said no, you don't.
36:57
He said, well, I don't really. So I use like AIDPT, whatever it
37:01
is to summarise 3 books a day and you know, you're not really
37:05
feeding the books then well, there's, you're not seeing there
37:09
that are the fun bits in a book. So yeah, interesting,
37:11
interesting stuff. But yeah, you're right, there's
37:13
so much out there. So here's a cheeky ask.
37:15
You've been a great, great guest, Robin, and and I think
37:18
everyone would have enjoyed that.
37:20
So I'm going to ask you now, can you share the names of anyone
37:23
that you think are inspirational in the B2B space that you
37:25
recommend we should also bring on the show?
37:28
Could offend a few people here if I'm not careful.
37:32
Who would I instantly go to? OK person #1 Bob Ray.
37:37
Bob Ray is a global beat marketing leader.
37:40
He's a good friend and a former boss based on the West Coast.
37:43
He's my all American hero. If you want to get into deep
37:47
subject matter experts and a really interesting perspective,
37:50
I'd ask. I'd chat to Bob.
37:52
If that's what I recommend, I'd recommend Tejal Patel.
37:56
Tejal Patel is a former client of mine, good friend.
37:59
Now Tejal has a very, very broad perspective and a lot of
38:04
experience in different sectors. What I love when I meet with
38:07
Tejal is she has a fantastic perspective.
38:10
She's always got a point of view and she's always a bit
38:12
provocative, always pushes my buttons a bit.
38:14
So Tejal would be good. Who else?
38:17
I'll tell you what, the other person I'd recommend a guy
38:18
called Richard Shotton. Richard Shotton was one of my
38:21
first bosses, great friend of mine.
38:22
Now he's a behavioural economist.
38:24
Economist, sorry, one of the cleverest people that I know.
38:28
He's written a few books and has an amazing way of making a
38:32
complicated topic very applicable to pretty much
38:36
anything you're doing. So Bob, Tejal and Richard, you
38:39
get those three on, I think you'll have you'll easily get to
38:41
1000 people, 1000 episodes. Paul No problem.
38:44
Awesome. Well, they're great
38:45
recommendations and I know we'll be following up and trying to
38:48
get them on the show. So I appreciate that.
38:50
Listen, you've been a really informative personal do have on
38:53
and it's been a great chat and I'm sure our listeners will have
38:56
plenty of follow up questions. So if so, is there a best way
39:00
for them to get in touch with you?
39:01
Find on Strava, I think LinkedIn come to me on LinkedIn and I'd
39:06
love to I'd love to get get in touch.
39:08
What do you do on Strava? Is that cycling, running, a bit
39:10
of everything? A bit of everything.
39:12
It's my my motivation tool. I'd say it's, you know, exercise
39:17
when you're in a busy world with busy families.
39:19
It's very important, I think. And motivation sometimes is
39:21
tricky. All it takes is flicking it open
39:24
and seeing who's doing what, and then it gets me out the door.
39:27
So that's a secret in my life too.
39:29
Excellent. I've started competing with my
39:30
daughter now, she's at university in Newcastle and she
39:33
keeps giving me her time for 5K and I'm right.
39:35
OK, challenge set. So yeah, great thing to do.
39:39
Listen Rob, this has been a really great session.
39:41
I think if I'm honest, we're only scratching the surface and
39:44
could definitely arrange a follow up podcast, dig a bit
39:47
deeper into some of those topics we just opened.
39:49
So maybe we'll do that. But for now, I'd like to thank
39:51
you for your time and thanks everyone who's listened to this
39:54
podcast. I hope you've enjoyed the
39:55
episode. And don't forget, as I said at
39:57
the beginning. We're.
39:58
Approaching 600 other episodes, so feel free to check them out.
40:02
And in the meantime, thanks for listening.
40:03
And until the next time, Cheerio.
40:05
Cheers, Paul. Thank you.
40:07
Thanks for joining us for On Base.
40:09
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