Shift & Thrive: CEO Insights on Driving Change

S&T_Kerry Cunningham
===

[00:00:00] In today's business world, change is the only constant, and mastering transformation is the ultimate key to success. Welcome to Shift and Thrive. I'm your host, Natalie Nathanson.

Each week we'll bring you conversations with CEOs who delve into how they successfully drove critical change in their organization. This show is sponsored by Magnitude Consulting, bringing you the thinking power of a growth consult. And the getting it done, power of a full service B2B marketing agency.

Natalie Nathanson: Welcome to another special edition episode on Shift and Thrive as part of our Go-to-market spotlight series. If you're a CEO or business leader wondering how your Go-to-market strategy needs to evolve right now to meet today's market realities, this episode is for you. And I can tell you you are in for quite a treat with today's discussion.

Today's

guest is one of the most respected voices in B2B Go-to-market, [00:01:00] including changes in buyer behavior. He spent more than two decades helping B2B leaders understand how companies actually grow, often by challenging, comfortable, but outdated thinking.

Earlier in

his career, he was an analyst first in serious decisions.

And then Forrester Research, which is very near and dear to me from my own time at Forrester. And through these roles, his foresight and expertise helped shape some of the most widely adopted go-to-market frameworks in B2B. Today, his work focuses on how today's B2B buyers actually make decisions. How Go-to-market models need to align to changes in buyer behavior and how AI is impacting both.

He

is the head of research and thought leadership at Sixth Sense. Kerry Cunningham, welcome to the show.

Kerry Cunningham: Thank you Natalie. It's great to be here. Thank you for that wonderful introduction.

Natalie Nathanson: I'm really looking forward to diving in and one of the things I spend a lot of time on with CEOs and their teams is really helping them navigate moments where maybe what used to work in the past no longer does.

And I think often the hardest [00:02:00] part is realizing that moment has arrived with enough runway to course correct. So, with that in mind, I'd love to start with a transformation story. Something that either you've led or had a front row seat to where a company had to, You know, fundamentally rethink how they went to market.

Kerry Cunningham: That's great. Yeah, so, um, virtually all of the ones I have, uh, from the last 12 or 13 years would be the front row seat, uh, where I was, uh, working with the company, but not in the company. 'cause I was an analyst for eight years and really had the same job Now. But I want to think back to one that's actually a pretty simple, uh, transformation that took place with a company in the healthcare software space.

Um, this occurred right after we introduced what we call the Demand Unit waterfall in at Serious Decisions. And the keys to that, which are still the case today, are going from a, a place where you identify, uh, a set of accounts and then you go cold, call the heck out of them. And marketing may [00:03:00] try to, uh, run some air cover, but a very outbound focused, uh, sales force, very sales led organization.

And under this new paradigm, what they wanted to do was, first of all move away from, say, targeting, uh, accounts just because they're a good fit. Um, to, first of all, understanding whether those accounts might actually be in market in the first place. So out of all of those accounts, uh, let's say that there were a thousand of them.

Which of those might actually be in market and what happens if we focus our attention there and make sure that we're getting engagement there and then, uh, prospect, uh, into those accounts. So, uh, this organization went out, and this is honestly, this is pre, uh, sense, uh, pre, uh, a bunch of this stuff. But they went out and they uh, they wired together some intent signals to start identifying which of their ideal customer profile accounts were actually [00:04:00] making some, uh, signals, giving off some signals about being in market.

And then they measured, uh, and this is the really key point they measured at how many of those accounts that are out there kind of making some noise about being in market are on our website, checking us out. So now we're getting really intelligent about where we're going to spend some time, and they measured the distance between, or the difference between which accounts are in market and which are engaging with.

Quarter one of this exercise, about about 2020 or so percent of those accounts were actually engaging with them at the same time they were in market, um, by the, so, and what they did is after measuring this, they, they, uh, put advertising campaigns in place, direct mail campaigns in place to those accounts that were showing signals, and within a couple of quarters, they got that 20% number up to about 80%.

Um, and from that point, what you've done is you've [00:05:00] completely transformed the effectiveness of the sales team because now the sales team is only operating against or is able to operate against a set of accounts that are in market and, and that we know are engaging with us already, or are already aware of us.

Um, And so this is actually a, a process that for them was relatively inexpensive to implement. Um, it required a. A pilot program of course, to get, um, off the ground, but the trust that got built up between the marketing and the sales organization as a result of the sales organization becoming dramatically more effective from working on a set of accounts that were a much better in-market fit, uh, was tremendous.

It just had a tremendous long-term, uh, impact both on their productivity, uh, but I think of the relationship between marketing and sales as well.

Natalie Nathanson: I love that story and really just, you can feel how everyone was newly working, kind of all rowing in the same direction. [00:06:00] I'm curious what you And share about, like, how it came about, what led to it, um, how did that get a decision to, to go in this direction happen?

Kerry Cunningham: I think, You know, at that point, part of it is having, uh, a leader in this case in marketing operations, who was, uh, a well-known leader in this space. But, uh, also somebody who was a bit of a visionary who said, You know, I think we can do something that is much more useful, uh, than what we're doing now. Uh, which was, You know, what they were doing then was really, I think, the standard thing that you would expect their, their crunching data to identify.

They had a pretty sophisticated ideal customer profile, uh, uh, creation process. They had a good relationship with sales in terms of, of, of identifying those accounts and aligning on what those accounts were. So they had a good, uh, a, a good baseline of trust there.

But then it had really been just, You know, sales is

on their own essentially with a little bit of air cover.

Uh, [00:07:00] And so getting the, the agreement to try this smaller pilot,

doing that pilot effectively and quickly, uh, and then rolling it out quickly. This is one of those ones where, You know, once it started to work even for a couple of months, uh, there was a lot of clamor to get people on board. Um, so I think that's, You know, kind of how, how it got going.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah,

I think, You know, for intent data, it's can be so valuable that I think companies need to go in with the right framing, right?

Like, you can get some false positives, you can come in too late, like follow up too late if your program isn't structured to be like quick and agile and enough. Um, I'm curious what you see as some of those, uh, kind of most important areas to getting kind of an intent program, right?

Kerry Cunningham: Yeah. So, uh, You know, beginning with, uh, the understanding that just because, uh, there is a spike in activity, uh, from an account does not mean, uh, that there's any real, uh, interest or a buying [00:08:00] process in place. And so, You know, I talked about this publicly a lot. I, I hate the, the label intent data. Um, it's just, it was asking for trouble and it, and it's found the trouble.

Um, what we're really talking about are, uh, interest signals, uh, from an account. And I think we've all been, so here's the, the big,

Uh, the false positive that I think happens most often. I mean, we've all been part of meetings where, You know, we we're together with a leadership team or, or, You know, just a departmental team or something, and we're talking about a problem we, we might like to solve.

Somebody has an idea. Everybody jumps on their laptop and they go out and they look and they look at vendors and they look at, You know, third party websites. And that all happens and it never goes anywhere. 'cause it was never more than just a, a thought in somebody's head. And maybe it'll percolate over the course of a year or so, but there's a massive spike of intent that comes from that activity happening that day. If you send sales reps chasing after that, they [00:09:00] will hate you. And if you look on LinkedIn at all of the complaints about, uh, if you just look at the conversations about, uh, intent data, what you're going to find, probably mostly salespeople saying how they hate it. And if you look at the root cause of that, it's mostly gonna be people chasing after these spikes that don't mean anything.

And so, You know, what was different about what, uh, this this case study I'm telling you about was, is that it wasn't just here sales go chase after these, it was first of all marketing. There's a sign that we need to get a company to come and engage with us. They're, they seem to be in market. So the first step is not send a sales rep out.

The first step is, let's see if one, this signal lasts. And two, they can, uh, put part of that signal with us, uh, and we can see if they're interested in us. So the rush to get everything seems to be about, You know, how do we hand off something to sales and marketing wants to hand something over to sales.

That's like the, the culmination of everything [00:10:00] good in marketing is I get to hand something to sales, but it takes a lot of work before you can hand something to sales, it's gonna be worth their time. And that's the, the thing that I think has been the big mistake with intent data is not allowing it to be contextualized.

You know, it's great if you see a spike marketing could probably afford at scale to go probe that spike and see if we can get some engagement. Um, if you can't, if you do that and you can't, sales doesn't need to know about it. Right? Just doesn't need to know that that's happening unless it's a very big account and your sales reps are there all the time anyway.

Great. Have them understand that there's something happening. Maybe they should go see if there's somebody they know they can talk to, otherwise. Marketing's job to, uh, either see enough engagement or get enough direct engagement so that what you are handing off is something that has a history and some context.

And we can say with much greater confidence that, yeah, there's something [00:11:00] happening here in this account. This isn't just a bunch of people came out of a meeting and jumped on their computers to check out a topic and they're done. Uh, so I think that's the, the, the big difference that we have to see still.

I think there's still a, a gap there.

Natalie Nathanson: I'm because I have seen some of that type of data go straight to sales.

And I think to your point, like you need to uncover what's behind that signal. And I like your term, uh, the terminology you're using here. Um, what can you learn from kind of right targeting with, with ads or putting out You know, You know, valuable

emails and then look at that data and, and decide what gets surfaced to sales.

I think that's very spot on. Cur.

I'm curious to hear from you how you see these interest signals changing kind of in, in our current environment. Do you feel like, is it easier or harder to work with with them? Are they getting better or worse? Would love to hear a bit more from you.

Kerry Cunningham: Yeah. Um, so technically we're still seeing the number [00:12:00] of signals that are available go up. Uh, And so I, I preface that with technically because we are seeing, I should just say, You know, we are seeing more signals. So, um, buyers are not less likely to scour the internet for information now than they were before, even though yes, they're using, uh, LLMs, 94% of buyers that we ask that they're using LLMs.

Um, so they absolutely are. And vendor website traffic is down. Traffic everywhere isn't down. Um, lots and lots of third party sites, the, uh, analyst sites, consultant sites, the journalists and all of that are still getting, uh, plenty of traffic and there's more of them than ever, not less.

And so

there's still a higher volume of traffic that we're seeing that's trackable and becomes intent data.

Um, the other nuance I think is really important here is that when buyers are in market, when they're actually in a buying process, they do [00:13:00] the same things they've always been doing. They go to vendor websites, they consume vendor content. They also go to LLMs. And what they've said about how they're using LLMs is that they're using them more toward the middle of their buying journey than the beginning.

So about four, I think it's 44% use them in the beginning part of the buying journey, 58% toward the middle. Um, and it virtually nothing toward the end. I think that's actually going to shift further to the end, uh, at some point in the future. But another key kind of data point here that everybody has to understand about your buyers.

If you exist in an established category, something that's been around 10, 12, 20, 30 years, your buyers know you and your competitors well. And if you have 20 vendors in your space, you still have to compete to get onto shortlist. If you've got four or five, there's almost no chance you're not gonna be on the shortlist.

'cause almost everybody's required to evaluate that many vendors, [00:14:00] right? Um, but your buyers have been evaluating you and your competitors for as long as your category's been around. So one of the things that I think everybody needs to understand is your buyers aren't using, uh, Google and chat GPT to find out whether you exist.

In most cases, they already know that. And that's why LLM uses more toward the middle than the beginning. 'cause what they're doing in the middle is they're saying, alright, so. We know that these are the four or five vendors we're gonna evaluate. Um, I know which one I like, but I also have five other people I've gotta convince and four other people I'm, I'm going to inform, uh, And so chat, GBT or Claude or whatever, can you put together a table that compares these vendors across these five things?

And by the way, here's what I want that table to say. This is a, a part of the way everybody uses, uh, LLMs that I think we need to understand a little better. We don't ask them a question in a topic that we're interested in and then just say, okay, well, there's the answer. That's, that's all I need to know.[00:15:00]

Um, we engineer what we get from those things, uh, particularly when we're interested in the outcome. So

that's what

people are doing with a now, now, over time, uh, could as, as LLM answers become more complete and trustworthy? Could more of the in-market buying traffic get stopped there? I think it probably could.

Um. But I think we're a ways away from buyers who are actually in market relying heavily on, uh, LLMs for information. They rely heavily on them to do things like summarize the information, um, sort the information the way that I want. Um, sift through the feedback, uh, that I got from the internal team and summarize that.

Um, sift through the reviews that I got from G two and gimme a summary of that, right? Um, those kinds of things, but not, Hey, can you find me vendors that [00:16:00] make accounting software? Uh, 'cause if you're running accounting software, if you're running accounting in an organization and you have to use chat GPT to find out which vendors, uh, to evaluate, uh, that would be very interesting.

Natalie Nathanson: no,

I think it's great. And you're getting, you're getting me thinking on, You know, that,

that definitely, uh, like holds true with a lot of what I've seen, especially when you look at like, the bigger, uh, tech companies. But then I also think about kind of some of the exceptions, like startups or if you're in a niche space.

So take like the accounting example. Um, is it, You know, accounting for, uh, doctor's offices, right. Or something like that, where then you, You know, Google might not surface kind of the, the most leading edge because that company hasn't risen to the top of Google compared to all the kind of more general accounting firms.

So it's interesting to think about given your business, like you already established, this is for an established category. When, when might that look different? And that kind of informs what kind of investment you make in marketing and

Kerry Cunningham: Yeah.

Yeah, [00:17:00] that's a really good insight. So we, um, I work with some friends of mine, um, on another project where we're looking at, um, how familiar are your buyers with your category, and then how likely are they to be familiar with you as a brand? So if you put those two things in a make a quadrant from them, uh, it's really, really helpful in understanding what you as a brand need to do.

So if your category's been around for a long time and you've been around for a long time, you do not have to worry about being on the shortlist. Probably you're gonna be on the shortlist. And the question is whether the way that you potential buyers think about you as good or bad based on the long history that they've had.

And that's a thing that you, as a marketing organization, that's gotta be your primary concern is. The, the brand, uh, reputation that you carry around, um, if you are a new organization or a new vendor in that established space. I mean, that's really hard. And we all know it's really hard, uh, because now [00:18:00] you're fighting against, uh, competitors who are already, where your, your buyers already have personal experience with all of your competitors, but not with you.

Now, again, if they hate your, your competitors, that could be good for you, right? If you're in a space where nobody likes the, uh, vendors and there's plenty of spaces like that, You know, that can be great. You show up and you've got a smiley new face and a bunch of new technology, and there's some reason that you're existing that's unique, that can be great.

Um, but your Go-to-market has to be consistent with that. It's gonna be more a gorilla marketing approach than a brand, uh, approach. You know, you've gotta get attention that way. If you're a new category, new brand in that category, um. That may in some ways not be as hard as the existing category, new brand, but now what we're talking about is more of a pr, analyst relations, uh, journalist play than it is, or, and your founders and funders, uh, than it is you doing the marketing and selling as an organization, right?

So if it's brand [00:19:00] new category, you as a company are very unlikely to create that category, uh, and, and scale it by yourself. Um, You know, we like to think about the exceptions like chat GPT or something like that when it, when it did that, but that's not common. Um, what's more, more common is if there's a new category it's going to come into being, because there are lots of people who've decided this is a good idea and trusted voices in a, in a marketplace think, yeah, this is a good idea.

You should look at these, uh, vendors. Plus, You know, founders or, or, or their funders, uh, are often really important players. Getting those messages out, but you're not operating at high scale there, for the most part in B2B anyway, in B2C it could be different, but in B2B, you're not operating at high scale.

There, you're, you're operating at a very low scale for a while. And then when that category matures a little bit and you mature a little bit as a brand, now you've gotta have tactics that look more like standard marketing and sales. So it, it definitely [00:20:00] differs, uh, depending upon that category maturity and then the, the brand size that you have, uh, marketplace in the marketplace.

Um, but when you look at most of the, uh, what, what most of the, where most of the money is spent think, uh, in our research, about 77% of purchases were, uh, in categories where the buyer already had something in that category and they want something new they're replacing, et cetera. But. They've got one, they've got an accounting system now yours has gen AI built into it, and that's great.

It's still an accounting system and I bought those in the past. Um, and that's where buyers find themselves.

Natalie Nathanson: Uh, thank

you for explaining that. I think that was very, uh, very insightful. Wanna ask you now about misconceptions in Go-to-market? And I know one theme that comes up for me in other conversations is,

um,

You know, have some Go-to-market practices, uh, continue.

Not necessarily because they're right or because they're [00:21:00] the best, but they've just kind of been out there for so long. And we know change management and change takes time. Um, And so from your work and your research, is there a commonly held belief, um, about the, the buying journey that might sound right, but that you're finding is, is doing companies a disservice?

Kerry Cunningham: Oh yeah, there's a bunch of those. I love these. Uh, so the first one is, and I call it the blank slate fallacy. And it's what I was just talking about a minute ago. Your buyers are really experienced in your category. Um, unless your category is brand new, but like for as long as the category you're in has been around, people have been evaluating that.

Now, if you've had a really hard time getting adoption of anybody in that category, maybe they're, a lot of your buyers are still pretty naive, but for the most part, your buyers already know you and they're already experienced in your category. And, and one of the things that I've been fond of saying lately, just 'cause it's fun, uh, is that, You know, your, your website is losing traffic.

But it's not because of chat [00:22:00] GPT, it's because what's on your website is boring and it's not suited for the kind of people who are the decision makers for buying your stuff. Uh, it's maybe suited for who they were 10 years ago. Uh, but your content is probably all about how great you are and how you're number one and your buyers have evaluated you 6, 7, 8 times already and they know whether they think you're number one.

They're not gonna take your word for it. Um, so that's one that we, we have content and this idea in our head of our buyers as blank slates, as people who are starting fresh with no biases or preferences every time they go out to buy something that is so far from the truth. It's ridiculous. So that, that's one.

Um, another one, and this may be even as more fundamentals, I'm just writing something on this. Virtually all of our goals in marketing. Are based on our potential buyers doing things that we would never do [00:23:00] ourselves. So the most obvious thing is filling in a form on a website to get a white paper or a piece of content.

Like, You know, your audience, Natalie, when was the last time anybody in this audience has filled in a form to get a white paper? Like, You know, you would only do that if you enjoy, uh, ducking phone calls and emails, uh, obsessively.

Natalie Nathanson: and

I think to your point though, the content has to be really good. And the bar for what that content needs to look like has to be better than it was years back.

Kerry Cunningham: Right.

But most of our marketing plans are built around the idea that we can produce something, anything and get people to do that, You know? And I was like, who are these people that we expect to behave in this way? Uh, and then not only will they fill in the form, but if I chase them down with a super clever 22-year-old, uh, they'll.

Take the call, uh, and we can start a nice sales relationship with them. Uh, I [00:24:00] mean,

We've,

I, I think we've got a whole industry of people in B2B marketing who would never do that themselves, but who build plans for people who do and who are those people, You know? That's, I think, a very, very simple question.

I think we need to, I think if we just take that on board, we start behaving a little differently.

Natalie Nathanson: Well, and I think the point that you surface is, um, right, like buyers are people, right? Different people come with their own experiences, their own preferences, um, which is part of why you can't move kind of all buyers through the same, the same funnel. Um, and also I think increasingly, and I was just actually just talking to a couple of colleagues about this, uh, earlier today, uh, I think a lot of marketers get removed from the buyer, let alone removed from sales.

That's a different story. Um, but forget kind of that important element of really understanding who your buyers are, what do they care about? How do they operate? What are their [00:25:00] fears and then how does that impact their behaviors? So I think there's a really important area, uh, there, and that drives right.

What do you create for them? How do you engage with them from a marketing standpoint?

Kerry Cunningham: I, I think that that's at the heart, uh, of it all is you just have to, you have to be much closer to your buyers. You should be, I mean, if you're in marketing, you should be talking to them all the time. Uh, You know, it should be a very regular schedule of talking to the kinds of people that you want to be buying from you.

And don't talk at them, but actually, You know, talk with them. Get to know them. Um, 'cause it, You know, I think that that's one thing that's just a, it's kind of strange. We have this idea of a buyer in mind that's a completely different sort of human being than we are. And, uh, You know, it's not always the case that you want to.

Uh, that you want to think of your buyer as being just like you. Uh, You know, if you sell engineering tools and you're a marketer, they're probably not just like you, uh, but you should know what they're like. You should also know that an engineering probably not gonna want to take the [00:26:00] call from BDR, You know?

Uh, so anyway, that, I think that's a, that's a big one, and it's, it, it should be easy to fix, right? Um, it's like, oh, this should be a little more thoughtful. Let's get to know our buyers a little better. Uh, we'll make different choices about how we engage them,

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah, I think it does put people sometimes outside of their comfort zones.

Um, but, You know, I think back to some of my early days at Forrester Research, uh, the voice of the customer was kind of a big, a big initiative. Um, and just seeing the value that came out of that and all the energy like, You know, across multiple disciplines. So I don't know if any of that work was happening, uh, in your time there.

Um, but I know Jeff Ernst was, was a, as a big player there, and that to me was such a shaping moment of like how I viewed myself as a marketer and what was important, like information to have anytime I approached kind of a new marketing environment.

Kerry Cunningham: Yeah, I think, You know, today it's so easy 'cause you can, uh, listen to, uh, calls [00:27:00] recorded in gong or in whatever, uh, system is being used. And then I think you should do ride-alongs, uh, whenever you can. And, You know, if you're fully remote, then, then ask to be included on some first sales calls and second, and third and fourth and just sit in and listen.

And, You know, there's no, no weirdness, no nothing happening. Just sit in and observe and listen to what's happening and understand how your brand is being, uh, perceived. What you probably hear is that your buyers are experienced and, uh, already know a lot of the stuff that you're trying to tell them. In your first call decks.

That's one of the things I think is, uh, is true. You know, uh, pm teams make these first call decks and, uh, they almost all introduce the company story or whatever. And your buyers have been around for a long time, they don't need to hear it. Uh, let's get to something, let's get to my problems and not your story kind of thing.

Natalie Nathanson: I'm curious to hear from you, You know, what are some of [00:28:00] any generational shifts that you've seen in, in buyers and how that shift behaviors, we talked about it from kind of the category you buying something established.

you're buying something that nobody knew existed. Uh, but what kind of changes are you seeing based on just kind of evolving demographics,

Kerry Cunningham: Um, here, uh, a lot less than what I think everybody thinks is happening. Um, And so there, there are a couple of things at play. So one, we, in our last, uh, buyer experience study, we did ask the age of the respondent, um. There are very small correlations with some buying behaviors, but very, very small meaningless, uh, correlations.

Um, people use LLMs at the same rate regardless of the age. Uh, people trust them. The same rate regardless of age. People are using vendor content the same regardless of age. Um, so one of the things that, that comes out of that is that the way people behi, uh, [00:29:00] behave when they're B2B buyers has more to do with a company and its processes and being part of a group that is doing something that, that where there's, they're kind of group level, company level expectations about how things are gonna be done.

There's processes and people work within those. Um, you, I don't think you see too many people say, even my age, you say, can you bring me a printout of that website or something? You know, that, You know, we're all. If you're, if you weren't a digital native, then you have to act like one anyway. Um, so my answer to that question is always, I think, a little bit disappointing for folks that we really don't see much, uh, different behavior from, You know, the, the, the youngest buyers who are really decision makers are, You know, now typically mid thirties or so.

Um, and then the average is in the forties. Uh, there's just not that much difference between somebody who's there and [00:30:00] somebody who's say in their fifties, uh, who's involved in a buying process today. Um, I know that lots of, You know, we'd love to ascribe big differences to people based on this, but it just doesn't look that way in the data.

Natalie Nathanson: That's, that is really interesting. Um, my mind goes to kind of the more extreme cases, and maybe we'll see this, uh, over time. But I'm thinking of, let's say my, uh, my daughter who is nine, so she's not a, a business buyer by any means, um, but has grown up in a world where right, you can kind of do long form queries for a product that you want and You know, and almost like to a, to a fault.

Like, I want this, uh, green fidget with a yellow this and Right. And expecting to get exactly what she wants back. Um, and then I look, jump ahead to generations to kind of my, my parents and in-laws and right seventies, um, and just a very different relationship with like expectations around what you can get and in what format, uh, when you are kind of making a purchase.

So I wonder if it's the, [00:31:00] the data showing little differences is kind of that middle of folks in the workforce making purchase decisions?

Kerry Cunningham: so. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. Yeah. I think, I think all the people who are kind of in that middle are, are really gonna behave more or less the same way because of the expectations of the process of the company. Um, I will say I've got an an in-law who's in his eighties and spends all day on his phone.

You would think he was a 12-year-old.

Natalie Nathanson: I had a grandmother like that. It was very impressive.

Kerry Cunningham: Um, I think, You know, the, the other thing, You know, people have asked for years about, um, what channels do, do buyers, like, You know, what's the latest there? And, uh, we've done a lot of surveying about that and the answer always comes back, it's incredibly boring. It always just comes back and says, You know, buyers use every channel that is made available to them and they think they're all okay.

That's. What the answer seems to be, if you put content out in a channel, [00:32:00] your buyers will find it and use it, and they're gonna tell you it's okay. Uh, You know, do, does everybody love video? No. Uh, a lot of people want to be able to skim from the top to the bottom in 30 seconds, and you can't do that with a video.

Right. So people love videos. Yes. Some people love videos for some kind of content at some length. So I think when we also, when we get down into the, the real details of things, we'll probably see some more differences. But at a top level kind of all looks the same. Yeah.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah,

that's uh.

it's a question I sometimes get asked, uh, in a sales process, like at my marketing consultancy. So what are the best tactics to, to use these days? Kind of what's the, what's the silver bullet? Um, and Right, the answer is there isn't one. And the, the best programs are multi-channel because different people like to consume Information differently. Back to the point that we're all humans with our own preferences. Uh, you wanna be on multiple sources, You know, multiple places so that you're catching people kind of where they are. And then understanding, [00:33:00] back to understanding the buyer, like the role differences, right? A field service technician is gonna behave differently than an analy, a security analyst that sits in kind of a, You know, operation system all day, which is different than, You know, go on.

But, um, thinking again about the buyers and what does their day to day look like and where, what are they doing when they, when they go to do this kind of research?

Kerry Cunningham: To me, that's, that's the absolute key. The channel might matter if you, if you were able to control for the quality of content. So if, if we were to run an experiment and we were able to say, and, and we were able to code content in advance and say, this is good, this is not as good content, and then you put them in this in channels, you could run an experiment and say, You know what?

Your buyers on average prefer this channel. But it's going to be in real life, the quality of the content that you put in it and how relevant and useful it is for your, uh, potential buyers. Much, much more important than what [00:34:00] channel is it in. Uh, I think that that's the, that's the reason we can't get good reads on the channels is because it's really about what you're putting in it.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah. Well, and I think the, the risk now is bigger than it's ever been with so much content that is not quality. Right. And so figuring out what to even pay attention to, to get to that quality content is harder than it's ever been.

Hey, this is Natalie, your Shift and Thrive host. After chatting with lots of CEOs, one thing is crystal clear. Leveling up your company means having a killer Go-to-market strategy. That's what my crew at Magnitude Consulting does every day. If you're trying to step up your marketing game, whether it's strategizing, accelerating your pipeline, expanding into new markets, or getting into AI and automation, let's talk.

No pitch, no pressure. Just good conversation. Visit shift and thrive podcast.com/natalie to schedule a time. Can't wait to [00:35:00] connect.

Natalie Nathanson: I wanna talk a bit more about ai, and I know we've kind of dabbled on the topic, uh, but it's, You know, obviously dominating a lot of conversations these days for good reasons.

Um, I wanna ask, are there places where you're seeing, uh, companies kind of get things wrong about how, uh, kind of AI is being used or how it's kind of shifting, uh, expectations on the, the buyer side?

Kerry Cunningham: Yeah. So I think the, the one thing is that I think everybody thinks that buyers are using AI to discover who they're gonna evaluate. Um, And so like I've been saying, um, already, if you're in an established category, that's not the case. Um, and it wasn't the case with Google either, You know, that that's just not how they're discovering you.

They're discovering you by looking in their history, their experience, um, and talking with their friends. That's still how that happens. And so AI is, is not right now the major factor in, in how you get discovered and put on a short list [00:36:00] unless you're a brand new category. And then, yep, probably that is more the case.

Um,

The other thing, You know, well this is, this is a little bit, not so much about how, uh, people are using AI or should be using ai, but one of the interesting things I think that comes out of, uh, companies figuring out how to, uh, format and produce content that the AI will like best is, You know, a lot of what's coming out of that, You know, the ais like, uh, structured content.

They like FAQ kind of style comments and like, well, don't human beings like structured content and, uh, You know, content that answers the questions that they have. Um, it strikes me that a lot of the things that we're being advised about how to, um, how to play well with LLMs are things that are probably just good ideas anyway.

Um,

and You know, when I, uh, so right now as a result of that, I'm [00:37:00] doing an analysis of, uh. B2B vendor websites. And one of the things I'm looking at is literally rating how much of the content is purely self-promotion versus thought leadership. Here's how we solve your problem. And, uh, north America, B2B companies, unregulated industries, it's like 75% self-promotion.

So the chat GBT does not buy into your self-promotion, and it's not going to, You know, show up, uh, in what it says about you. Um, And so if you, if your website is mostly self-promotion, it's not gonna have much to work with. The other thing is if your website is primarily, uh, a landing page and a bunch of content behind forms, the LMS only gonna know what's on the landing page.

Uh, And so I think we have to think about how the AI thinks a little bit, what it's, what it's going to care about. Of [00:38:00] course. And make sure that we're engineering our content that way, but then also think, You know, probably your human being buyers would be very interested in that content. That way also your buyer, you're human buyers don't really care about your self-promotion either.

Natalie Nathanson: You know, you, you talked about how self-promotion, uh, doesn't work, and I think that ungating content can feel scary. Uh, but I think what we've seen when we've done it for ourselves, for clients, it doesn't negatively impact the results, right?

If someone likes your content is in market or wants to further engage with your, with your company, they will do that, right? They can fill out the contact form, they can, You know, whatever, whatever other ways to, uh, to reach out, they'll find a way to do that. So I know it can, uh, feel scary, but it actually, um, to me is almost kind of back to the, the original intent of inbound marketing, right?

It wasn't put out content and kind of grab, have forms everywhere. It was, if you put the right [00:39:00] information and it reaches the right buyers, You know, people will self-select in and kind of come into your fold at the right time.

Kerry Cunningham: Yeah. I think, You know, we have to get away from the industrialized production of contact names, which is what.

Inbound marketing became, um, and shift back toward what, as you're saying, it really started off being, which is how do we help buyers develop a preference for our brand and our solutions? That's what it's there for.

Um, but we got lost and it, and it really became a, a machine for producing contact names that we could pass on to BDRs and sales reps. Um, And so I think that that's, uh, You know, the mission, the mission scope or mission creep or whatever that's called, it just, uh, it got way outta hand. Uh, and I think we have to shift away from that fast.

Uh, because it, your buyers don't care about your [00:40:00] self-promotion. They don't wanna fill out forms chat. GPT can't fill out the forms, so You know, you need to do something else.

Natalie Nathanson: I wanna ask you about something you said a few minutes ago, just, you were talking about, uh, looking at B2B vendor sites as part of a new, uh, research. I'm curious, is there anything that you're seeing that's kinda interesting, new, different besides what we've already talked about that would be interesting for, for folks to hear?

Kerry Cunningham: Yeah, I mean, so it's primarily that, uh, your website probably, unless you're in a regulated industry, your website's probably primarily self-promotion. And I think this is one of those, uh, tragedy of the commons, uh, things where, You know, you look at your competitors and they're saying they're number one.

So, oh, geez, I better say that I'm number one. And then, You know, I think, I think we get that, that gets ratcheted up because marketers are competing to find superlatives to say about themselves. Um, and that's again, where I think we get lost. Like [00:41:00] our, uh, our buyers don't think that way and they don't care.

You're not selling used cars, uh, You know, And so your buyer wants to know how you're going to solve their problems, and that content is hardly ever above the fold on your website. Um, and You know, if you're in a regulated industry, it's more likely to be, if you're in Europe, it's more likely to be, um, if you're in a regulated industry in Europe, it's much more likely to be.

Um, so those are the, the kind of factors that seem to influence that a lot. But I think we need to, uh, I think we need to get ahold of ourselves and I think it is a little scary. 'cause what if I, if I stop saying that we're number one and the best, are people gonna say, oh geez, maybe they don't think they're number one, but that's not really how, I mean, we don't, again, think, think of, think how a normal person thinks about the world.

Think about how you receive that, that kind of content from the vendors you look at. And I think you'll quickly understand that you skim right [00:42:00] past that stuff too, uh, and

Natalie Nathanson: Right. And it can, it can actually backfire, right? Because you're losing trust and credibility, uh, right away. Like you walk on, walk by on Main Street world's best number one pizza, right? Of course. right. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I sometimes I find converting kind of the, the bigger kind of B2B complex sales cycles into a consumer example sometimes makes things really obvious.

Kerry Cunningham: It doesn't. I think that that one, there was a great, uh, comic script from a million years ago when I was a kid. Uh, but it was like, You know, three pizza places on, on one block. One of 'em said, best pizza place in the city. One said, best pizza place in the country. And the third one said, best on the block.

You know, which,

Natalie Nathanson: Who wins.

Yep.

Kerry Cunningham: know,

Natalie Nathanson: Oh, I love that.

Kerry Cunningham: Yeah,

Natalie Nathanson: Um, I wanna ask about a related topic. And when we spoke, uh, previously you had talked about, You know, from the, a different AI angle around kind of AI in kind of how it's discussed in products and services and kind of what does that [00:43:00] look like, uh, for buyers? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Kerry Cunningham: Yeah, so we, we, uh, You know, we, we had some hypotheses about why. So this year we found buyers are engaging earlier in their journeys than they were in the past. And, uh, we, we measured the extent to which they were using LLMs and statistically they're unrelated. So using NLLM didn't have anything to do with it.

So we went out and asked, uh, another audience, um, are you one, do you, are you looking forward? Do you expect to have AI inside the thing that you are buying? And then we asked questions about, if yes, then did that change the way that you interacted with sellers or when you interacted, and how long your buying cycle was.

And You know, the hypothesis was even buyers who've been, if I've bought, I've been involved in buying processes for accounting systems for 20 years, but did. If [00:44:00] any of those systems have Gen AI built into it Last time I bought it, no. So I'm buying something I'm familiar with, but it's got this thing inside it, uh, that I haven't evaluated before.

And because I haven't evaluated it before, um, I've got questions that I haven't had to answer. I.

Our InfoSec team is concerned about how you're training the data. Where's the our data going? Where's it coming from? All of those questions that are pretty important questions, um, they all have to be answered and buyers haven't been through that part of a buying process before.

So what we found is that, um, 89% of the things that buyers bought had an AI component to it. So like everything, uh, has AI inside it. And buyers, we asked them. So did the timing of your interaction with sellers change because you had to evaluate AI inside stuff? Um, and I think a net of 44% said yes, they engaged [00:45:00] earlier, uh, because they needed to evaluate the ai and they're concerned that that's gonna take longer.

The other thing that's happening right now is everybody's operating under economic insecurity. And that tends to cause us to want to accelerate, uh, buying processes. When we have budget, we wanna get it spent. Um, we also wanna make sure that if there's, You know, if I, if I'm buying a new accounting process, I'm getting pressure, uh, from the level above me saying, alright, and I want you to find a way to either cut your staff because this new system's gonna have AI in it that's gonna do stuff.

Or as we grow, we don't want your staff to grow. We want AI to give us productivity benefits. And so you want get that in-house as soon as you can. Uh, And so you're, you're in a hurry to get the budget spent because of economic insecurity. You've got goals and some of those goals are based around having AI do stuff for you.

So you're in a hurry to get that done, but you don't know how to [00:46:00] do it. You haven't done it before. There's new things you have to evaluate. So that's having a significant impact. Uh, it's causing buyers to engage on average a month and a half to two months earlier than they would have because they think that's gonna take a lot longer to evaluate.

Um, and as it turns out, it's not actually slowing, uh, the processes down and they're not changing their minds, uh, anymore than they ever did before.

Natalie Nathanson: So longer buying, uh, cycle, but it's starting earlier so that the finish line is still at the same point.

Kerry Cunningham: So longer sales cycle, same buying cycle. So if the buying cycle is, uh, so let's say that

the

Natalie Nathanson: Yes. Longer sales cycle

Yes.

Kerry Cunningham: Yeah. So they're now four months of the 10 months or sales cycle, whereas before it was three out of the 10 months where sales cycle. Um, but what's fascinating is, You know, we ask buyers, did you put your shortlist in order of preference before talking to sellers? That number is the same now as it was [00:47:00] before. So engaging earlier. They're still getting to that point before, and they're not any less likely to buy from that original favorite. So they don't change their minds anymore now than they did before, even though they spend more time with sellers. So I'm, I'm doing a bunch of, uh, Kos and SCOs during this kind of season for that, and a bunch of the sellers, the sales leaders are saying, yes, sales cycles are getting longer, and they are, uh, but the buying cycle isn't, uh, and that's something that I think is really important to understand about your buyers is, You know, you're, you're getting more face time with them.

It's not really changing the dynamic.

Natalie Nathanson: That is a really, uh, important insight and not one that I think is commonly discussed or understood. And certainly, uh, newer for me to wrap my head around as well. I wanna talk about, uh, sales and marketing alignment, an age old topic. Um, and I know from when we

spoke previously,

you have a different view, uh, than what's kind of [00:48:00] commonly out there.

So can you talk a little bit about, about that and where you think kind of the, the traditional outlook on sales and marketing alignment is missed the mark?

Kerry Cunningham: Yeah. So, um, You know, going back to my serious decision stage where the whole reason for serious decisions to exist, uh, the reason it was born, uh, was to drive marketing and sales alignment. Um, certainly was a big theme at Forrester. Um, at Gartner, You know, everywhere. Um, yes, you want to have marketing and sales aligned, but I think what's happened over the last really 15 years or so, is that marketing and sales turned inward and aligned to each other, um, but not to the buyer.

And so you've got internal alignments that are really nicely calibrated, but they're not calibrated with how the buyer buys. And so they still don't work very well. And you still end up with these processes of cycle improvement and all of that, that, that just process improvement that really don't make a difference.

So for me, [00:49:00] the most important thing is we marketing, sales, the customer success organization all have to align to how the buyer buys. How does your buyer actually buy, how do they use your product? What makes them successful first? Align to that. And then there's gonna be leftover things that you have to align on, um, that, that doesn't entirely do it, but that has to be the priority.

And, uh, I know that the folks at Forrester now are saying the same thing. Uh, it's not just me, uh, saying that. I think that's, that's really been the big mistake is just to internally focused.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah,

it's uh, It, it almost needs a rebranding, right? Like a buyer journey alignment or something else that like, does unify on the buyer. I think that's, I

think that's spectacular. Uh, so I know we don't have too much time left.

Uh, I wanna ask you, um, uh, really a a little bit more from the CEO uh, perspective. Uh, what do you see as [00:50:00] a common mistake that CEOs make when they're trying to scale, uh, or kinda revamp their Go-to-market?

Kerry Cunningham: There's,

I would say there's a couple of things I can think off. The top One is that, um. The things that got you to where you are will not get you to where you want to go. Um, and I know CEO CEOs hear that and know that, but that applies to marketing as much as to anything. Um, so the, the kinds of things that work effectively at lower scale when you're, uh, growing, um, even if you're growing quickly, just stop working later on.

Or you get to a, so let's say that you are in a new, you're in a new category and you're a new vendor. You've gotta do all kinds of things to get attention. And it's much more kind of gorilla marketing and, and, and outbound sales and, and founder-led stuff and all of that. I see that all the time and that's great.

At some point, that stops being the right way to approach, uh, getting new customers. And, and one of the things I see most often, and I'm, I'm actually [00:51:00] talking about this a lot these days, is when you're a smaller company, it takes heroic efforts to get important things done. You cannot scale on heroic efforts.

You want as many heroic efforts as you can get, but you're not going to scale on heroic efforts. You're gonna scale on being smart process, um, using, uh, data, well, um, using, uh, all of the benefits of, of the, the scale that you've gotten through your heroic efforts earlier. But you've gotta pivot away from those.

And I think that's something a lot of companies, You know, it's difficult to see in real time. Uh, and like the better we can notice that, uh, the better we'll be. And so that's part one, but I forgot part two.

Natalie Nathanson: Um, well, I know we've talked a little bit in the past about, uh, kind of storytelling and kind of continuing with your point about the founders is, uh, kinda the story that they're telling and how that needs to evolve.[00:52:00]

Kerry Cunningham: So, yeah, so the, I I'm calling this, um, folklore debt, uh, if you will. So, um, we all know what technical debt is. You go out, you, you buy technology, um, and that locks you into a certain way of working in certain kinds of processes in your organization. And we call that technical debt. Um, as we grow as a company, uh, we acquire folklore debt, uh, we acquire debt from the stories that we tell ourselves about how we become successful.

Uh, and the stories about how we won in the past often are not the stories that will be about how we win in the future. And so I think there's actually, uh, we're writing about this now, but there's a really kind of simple process. If you get company leadership together and you say, okay, well, You know. We, we had a, our, our our, uh, launch era, we had our scale up era name.

These kind of periods of time that are clearly different. And what are the stories that are associated with each one [00:53:00] of those? Um, I think it's important also in companies to, to celebrate those stories. You don't want to dismiss them or, or just get rid of them, but, You know, you gotta have a trophy case where you take, You know, the, that great founder story or the heroic, uh, campaign that got us our first 10 million a R quarter or something like that.

Um, and you put it in the trophy case and then you move on and find the stories about how you become the. $250 million company, or the $500 million company or whatever. It's, so I think it's really important that we do that because those stories that we tell about how we're successful really limit the options that marketers and sellers have.

Um, when the stories from the founders especially are this, how we, how we succeed is, uh, we we're gorilla marketers. I see this from this company that I'm, I'm kind of watching these days and they're just, You know, they're hiring somebody and they want this person to be a gorilla marketer and they're hiring salespeople and they've gotta be the most [00:54:00] aggressive this or that.

So that's great. At their stage, that's what you gotta do. But if they're doing that five years from now, they're gonna crash and burn. Um, and it's that story that's being developed about who they are. Then I think we have to keep an eye on.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah, I think that's so important. Um, and I think that's a, a great place to wrap up the discussion.

So, uh, thank you so much for everything that, that you shared with us. Uh, as we do wrap up, if listeners wanna get in touch, what's the best way for them to do that?

Kerry Cunningham: LinkedIn, uh, by Kerry Cunningham. I'm on LinkedIn. There aren't that many, and I, I usually pop up, so that's an easy place to do and, uh, I respond to most messages.

Natalie Nathanson: Wonderful. Well, thank you and I loved hearing so much of what you shared and definitely the, the ongoing thread around buyer behaviors and, uh, some of those misconceptions and what's actually happening. Um, and the concept of folklore debt that we were just talking about, I think is a really, uh, important one and one that I do see companies holding onto [00:55:00] those stories for too long, kind of at the expense of, uh, of new stories and talking about impact and proof points and all the things that, that we know are important for today.

So, I mean, really so many valuable takeaways. So thank you for everything that you shared.

Kerry Cunningham: Thanks. More of that coming up soon.

Natalie Nathanson: Wonderful, wonderful. And thank you too, to everyone that's listening, if today's conversation sparked something for you and I'm sure that it did, please pass this along to another leader.

We know these are the kinds of conversations that help all of us, uh, scale smarter, build stronger, create more resilient, Go-to-market engines as the world around us changes. So thanks again, Carrie, and this has been a truly amazing and insightful conversation on Shift and Thrive. I'll see you all next time.

That's a wrap for this week's episode. For show notes and more visit Shift and thrive podcast.com. A special thank you to our sponsor, magnitude Consulting, bringing you the thinking power of a growth consultancy and the getting it done Power of a full [00:56:00] service marketing agency to help B2B companies fuel their growth.

For more information on magnitude and to get your complimentary transformation readiness assessment, visit magnitude consulting.com/. Get ready. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.