← Beyond B2B Marketing
Beyond B2B Marketing
GTM Singularity: Dave Frankland on Reinventing Go-To-Market for an AI World
00:57:51
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- [00:04]
A
Hello and welcome to the Beyond B2B marketing podcast. I'm your host, Lee Odin, CEO of Top Rank Marketing. And today our guest is a leader whose work has helped so many companies think about customer strategy, intelligence and growth. He's a global keynote speaker and published author and contributor to influential research and business thinking. And in his current role, he guides research on customer retention, growth and advocacy, and content strategy and operations. He's also delivering a keynote at Forrester's upcoming B2B summit North America on the go to Market Singularity, which we're going to dig into during our conversation today. Of course, I'm talking about Vice President and Director of Research at Forrester, Dave Franklin. Welcome to the show, Dave.
- [00:53]
B
Thanks, Lee, and thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
- [00:55]
A
So let's kick things off with one of my favorite questions to ask people, and that is your marketing origin story. How did you tell us a little bit about your background? I know you were at Forrester before you were at E Marketer and other roles, but kind of give us a glimpse into how you got into marketing in the first place.
- [01:15]
B
Sure. So I actually started my career in PR in London, was working for one of the WBP global PR agencies, Hill and Knowlton found myself. So I joined what they called a graduate trainee program where we were supposed to rotate between departments every three months over the course of a year. So you got exposed to different aspects of pr, from crisis to corporate to consumer, et cetera. And I started out in the. I was put in the corporate communications group, which I was devastated about because it sounded really dull. And then I was put in the tech group, which I even more upset about because I was like, I don't know the first thing about technology. And they were the two best things that ever could have happened to me because the, the world put. Put tech at the center of everything we do. So that's, that was my sort of, as you call it, the origin story was starting in tech pr. I moved to the States through H and K. My main account was British Telecom and they created a joint venture with AT&T. And so BT asked if I would move over to the States. And I was mid-20s, single, and someone was offering to pay my way to New York. I was like, let me think about this for a nanosecond. And I've been here, I've been in the States ever since. So I joined a tech specialist PR firm and then went in house and ended up leading corporate communications at DoubleClick when they were bought by Hellman and Friedman before the sale to Google. So I was there for about six years at DoubleClick. Like I said, I started in PR, expanded. We naturally did a lot of analyst relations, which is how I got to know Forrester and ended up leading internal comms. And then it was actually a Forrester analyst reached out to me to see if I was interested in applying at Forrester. And it was one of those things I'd never thought of before, but it was sort of a poacher turned gamekeeper opportunity. And I was like, that could be cool. So I ran that gauntlet of the application and interview process at Forrester, joined to cover what they then called marketing services, and did that for a few years. And then myself and another colleague sort of looked at each other and said we were in this sort of direct marketing group. And we're like, we're not really writing about direct marketing. We're not covering direct mail and, you know, some of the traditional things. And we were doing a lot of database marketing and that type of thing. So we did what we do at Forrester. We went out and surveyed a whole bunch of people and, you know, navel gazed for a long time and thought about who we are and what we should be. And we created the customer Intelligence group. So I led that for a few years and then left. I ran strategy at a Martech vendor. I did a few years of management consulting at Winterberry Group, worked for emarketers you mentioned. I wrote a book and did my own consulting. And over the time, I was in the wilderness for about 10 years, and I realized that nothing had been as fulfilling as my time at Forrester. So I started to keep an eye out for opportunities and came back about three and a half years ago.
- [04:15]
A
Fantastic. You know, it's interesting you mentioned Tech PR and BT. If I look back 24 years, I also was at a Tech PR firm and we also were doing some work with BT at the time. It's kind of funny anyway.
- [04:33]
B
Yeah.
- [04:34]
A
Probably not too many other intersections. Yeah, yeah. In very informative moments, actually. Yeah. So as we've fast forwarded to today, in your role, for three and a half years or so, you've been back at Forrester as VP Research director. Like, what are you focused on now?
- [04:50]
B
That's what my boss keeps asking. So there's sort of my day job and then there's everything else. Right. So my day job is I lead two teams, you mentioned. Right. So the customer retention, growth and advocacy. So this is our. Within our B2B family, as we call it. It's all things customer marketing, customer advocacy, customer success, and the B2B component of customer service and support. So that's all on one team. And then the other team you mentioned was the customer, sorry, the content strategy and operations team. And so that's, you think about content in this day and age. It's so central to everything an organization does. So who produces it, what are we doing, how is it consistent? Where does it appear, what do we name it, how do we find it, how does the right thing appear in the right place? All of that type of thing is the content strategy and operations team. And, and you know, I'm not an expert in either of these things. I, you know, I sort of, I think of myself as supporting the team as opposed to leading the team, but my job is basically to help that team survive and thrive and deliver great work to, to our clients. So, you know, those teams are on the phone all day, every day with practitioners, with customer marketers, with customer success folks, with, with content leaders and helping them think through how they do what they do, how they can do it better, adopt our frameworks, models, elevate what they do, rethink every aspect of what they do, whether that's sort of the overall approach, strategy. There's a lot of those conversations going on given all the, the changes in the world. And then it can be in the weeds, down to things like, you know, how should I be thinking about compensation? Or I just took on this department, what should I do my first 90 days? Those types of things. So we really run the gamut across and then our team cuts across all of our B2B services. So I work really collaboratively with my peers. So we have a marketing executive Service working with CMOs, their chiefs of staff, brand leaders, digital leaders, partner ecosystem leaders, all sit on our marketing exec team. Then there's our demand and ABM team doing, you know, demand marketers and ABM teams. There's our portfolio marketing, which is our term for product marketing, because product, you know, most companies have more than one product as a portfolio of products as well as product management. And then our revenue operations team, which includes sort of sales operations, marketing operations, customer success operations, and when you tie those all together, revenue operations. And so like I said, just given the nature of our team, we're focused so much on the post sale with the customer retention, growth, advocacy team and content. It cuts across everything. So big part of my job is sort of figuring out the how are we collaborating, how are we making sure that we're not saying one Thing in one place, one thing in another. And one of the ideas. How do we challenge each other to sort of elevate our ideas? At the end of the day, that's our biggest currency at Forrester.
- [07:51]
A
Right.
- [07:51]
B
And our biggest value is the ideas and how to, how to bring those to life. So I get to work with all these brilliant colleagues and have the, have the privilege of literally never being the smartest person in the room, whether that's virtual or real.
- [08:07]
A
Well, it's an interesting thing you said that, you know, you're not leading, you're supporting. And of course the irony is that the best leaders are supporters. So you're, you're, you're clearly in the right spot, you know, in the, in the marketplace. So you're, you're in a front seat to the work that your team and your peers and your, your, your internal stakeholders are doing to the B2B marketing industry. And you know, obviously a lot of marketers in the world and part of our job here at as far with this podcast is to kind of tap into, are dealing with and how they're solving for those things. They're facing a lot of disruption and transformation, especially this year. And I'm just wondering what are some of the big changes in B2B marketing that you're seeing based on some of the research you've been involved with most recently?
- [08:55]
B
Yes, I mean, completely agree with your question and the premise of it when you look at the volatility of the past several years. So we could sort of point to the pandemic as a very obvious thing, but you know, geopolitical tensions and everything, that, that, that sort of how that's manifesting economic uncertainty and changes that are going on. You know, there's these external forces that are, for. That are forcing us all to, to, to rethink everything we do, how we do it. But then there's this sort of a new work models, right? So the opportunity to work from home, work from anywhere, hybrid requirements, etc. But then there's this sort of bring, bring it, bring that circle in a little if you like. And sort of the changes that are going on we see especially with buyers and customers, just buyer behavior is changing. We have the, the, the first and largest business insights survey that we do every year. It's about, it varies year on year, the sample size, but sort of between 16 and 19,000 B2B buyers every year that we dig into. And we can obviously slice and dice that data 100 ways from Sunday. Right. So it's, it's sort of getting into the, the, you know, what's the industry, what's the size of company, what's the type of product? All of those types of questions that we can dig into. But we just see these, these major sort of systemic shifts in how buyers are buying. So buyers are younger, they're making decisions, they're sort of bringing the, the provider or seller into that, that discussion later. In some cases they're making decisions early and in other cases they're, they're taking much longer because of the consensus nature. You know, buying groups, the nature of buying groups and buying networks. It's, it's harder and harder to, to sort of steer everybody in one direction. The, the, the, the use of technology in that buying process. I can't believe we're, how many minutes are we into it and one of us is going to for the first time mention AI, right? So just everything, so just the nature of that, like just everything that's doing both to the buyer and the selling organization. Right. In terms of how we use it, what we do with it. So we just see these major, major, major changes going on and it's sort of a, it's this long building, seismic shift that's about to occur. We believe like we think we're on the brink of a major shift in the market right now. And that's what's both exciting and terrifying. Right? It's going to all of us. But for those of us who do what we do, that makes it really, really exciting too.
- [11:44]
A
Yeah, it seems like there's with those challenges that cause, you know, you know, slowing down of decision making and obviously there's fragmentation of discovery and speaking to, you know, the pain points and the objectives of those different stakeholders within a buying group and that sort of thing that also spells opportunity, doesn't it? For those folks who do find out how do we adjust and navigate that new, that new reality? Right. Most effectively, 100%. You know, one of the places where marketers are finding answers, business people are finding answers to the challenges that they're facing are at events. And of course the B2B summit that Forrester hosts is, is one of those opportunities. And so, you know, you're there as, as host, you're doing a keynote on the, the go to market singularity, which I want to talk about a little bit more about. But I'm just wondering as far as the event, I'm sure you've been to a ton of events. I know I've been to, but what is it that you're looking Forward to most, I guess is kind of what I want to know as with the summit.
- [12:55]
B
Yeah. So I think if I, if I think of that at the broadest level, what I think is first and foremost it's just human interaction. Right. It's, it's, it's the energy and sharing of ideas. And we very much approach this from you. We have our ideas, we're bringing them to the table, we're going to put them up on stage and we will deliver what we hope and believe will be great forester content. But we don't have all the answers and people don't just want to hear from us. And so we've, we've shifted significantly over the last couple of years to, to sort of making this also about learning from peers and rolling up the sleeves and so leveraging Forrester frameworks, models, thinking. We'll do workshops that are analyst led and it's sort of like, hey, take out your laptop or a pen and paper and we're actually going to do real work here. And I mean some of the creative things that people were doing last year was there was a monopoly with analysts faces on the money and you know, it was all about campaign, you know, campaign spending. Someone else brought in an evidence board. It looked like something out of a crime scene of trying to, you know, dig into processes. And so it just, you know, brings the research to life that it's not, we're not in the PDF world anymore. Right. We're not writing for somebody to download a report and read it. But, but those ideas, that process of developing, that writing the ideas are phenomenal. So we look for new ways to bring them to life. One of the things we're doing in North America this, this year for the first time, but we, we did it in our, at our EMEA summit in the fall is immersive experiences. And so we're sort of describing this as sort of an escape room meets B2B thinking sort of thing. And so it's, it's, we won't lock anyone in a room, but we'll take people to, in small groups, like eight to 12 people kind of thing through a process and so that one of them will be GTM focused. Right. So you start out this journey as the buyer and then you flip, you know, we will literally and figuratively turn the corner and you become the selling organization. And so what do you do differently? Having gone through and walked on that side of the room, what do you do on this side of the room? And so, so things like that just to Bring things to life roundtables, which is much more our job. And these is to facilitate the conversation, right to, to ask a probing question and then let the, let the folks in the room, let peers speak to and hear from each other. And yeah, they might work in different organizations, different industries, they may have different roles in the organization, ET etc, but they can learn. Again, we're not the only ones showing up with the answer. We're participating in the conversation, but we're sort of, we're training our analysts to ask those questions in the room and bring this out so that there's value there. And then we have a series of sort of special programs that again are very much about bringing people together. So we have what we call our executive Leadership Exchange. So this is an invite only for CMOs, you know, heads of type, type roles where they get to attend the main conference, but we also have sort of pull out content that's exclusively for them and sessions for them. Similarly, Forester Women is an event we do that's really, really popular and that's not only for women, it's for allies too. Right. But, but sort of how do we empower what are challenges? One of the sessions they did last year was on reverse mentoring and they had a relatively young tenured person in their career and how they're helping more senior people with things like AI. And so we're taking that a further level and we've introduced a new special program this year called Future Leaders which is for people who are relatively young in their career, so sort of six to eight years in, who have a lot to learn and to contribute. And so we're going to do some again, pull out content that would be very specifically for them, how to speak to executives. We'll do again a lot of sharing. So it's not just us speaking those types of things. And the last thing I'll mention real quick is sort of we do certifications that are, we have certifications that are, that people can sort of go through it, self paced learning on our, on our website and you can earn certifications. We do somewhat specific ones. So this year we're doing one on activating the modern gtm. And so if you attend a certain number of sessions, write a little work up, write up on it and that sort of thing, you would get this, this summit certification that's you know, something to justify to, to your boss. Like here's something I, I got like physically I can put it on LinkedIn, I can do all those sorts of things to show that you know, that I'm furthering and I'm, I'm, I'm developing in my career as well. So that's, I mean that's the big thing for me. There's so much, we put so much time and effort into thinking through the theme and the content and, and none of the rest of it would work if we didn't do that. But when you get on the show floor and you just feel that crackle of energy, it's because of the bringing people together. It's what it's all about.
- [18:10]
A
That's great. It sounds very robust and I'm looking forward to it. And I think there is a lot of hunger amongst business professionals for that human to human connection. And you've got a wide variety of opportunities for that. It sounds like, you know, it's funny, I was talking to Laura Ramos about this event a little bit and she mentioned the escape room thing. I thought that was very, very clever. Very interesting way to get people to work together in a gamified way, so to speak. So yeah, that's pretty awesome. So you know, you mentioned go to market and obviously go to market is a big, A big part of the conversation as it relates to, you know, B2B marketing right now, engaging with brands and customers. And you know, it's something that's been on the forefront of, you know, what's advocated in terms of how revenue and marketing come together and especially since COVID But you've said recently that B2B companies, B2B marketers are facing a GTM crisis, so to speak, right now. And can you kind of elaborate on that, what you meant by that?
- [19:20]
B
Sure, yeah. So it goes back a little bit to what I said around the volatility and that volatility and all of those market forces, external, internal, should have compelled B2B firms to change how we engage with customers, with buyers. Right. But what we see a lot of the time is that most firms are stuck. They can't get off those sort of ineffective and let's be honest, sometimes abusive practices, you know, spamming customers, you know, not worrying about the relevance of messages stuck in an MQL world rather than moving towards opportunities and buying groups gating information still right with, with and then internally still like we're, we're siloed and, and our incentives are not allied, aligned as a result and our data and technology is completely fragmented. And so the crisis component of it. We've been papering over this, in my opinion for several years. Right. This isn't like I say, this is this is a sort of long building seismic event, we think. Right. So it's sort of that question that people got asked, how did it happen? And it was slowly, then, all at once type of feeling is where we think we are. We'll talk about singularity in a second, I guess. But, but sort of, it's sort of, if you think of it from, from a astrological point of view, we're sort of at that event horizon. Like we can see where this is going. And, and again, with AI in the mix, that. That whole broken approach just won't work anymore. You know, it's, it's accelerating all of those market forces. It's upending buyer journeys. Right. It's. It's expanding buying networks. We see, we see agents potentially as part of buying networks. It's giving buyers greater control. So it's just all of these things are happening. It feels like we're in this swirling moment where we have to change. We can't keep doing what we've been doing and expect the same result.
- [21:27]
A
Yeah, you said agents, and it reminded me, I think, of some recent Forrester research about not B2B, not B2C, but B2A. Right. B2 agent, which I encourage people to check out if you can. So drill down into go to market singularity. I mean, you're touching on it, right? This collapsing of things kind of help give us like a minute version of your keynote, maybe.
- [21:50]
B
And let me step back first of all, and sort of, because singularity is one of those words that's kind of interesting, but a lot of people have a different interpretation. And I think a lot of people's exposure to singularity is actually the AI. It's in the AI world, the way it's being used today, which is when artificial intelligence overtakes human intelligence and we're sort of at the, at the will of the machines kind of thing, that's not how we're using it. We're sort of going back to the math and physics and science of all of this. And in that world, singularity is used to describe a, a point where, where new and mounting pressures cause existing rules and models to collapse and entirely new ones to emerge. So when you think about sort of what I've been saying in terms of the this is a long building but about to occur phenomenon, you know, we just sort of see this unavoidable GTM singularity. Right. So we're sort of thinking of it as a moment of urgent, inevitable, profound change in the norms and practices that sales, marketing, customer success, product Teams have longer light on. Right. So we sort of, we think we're at or very close to this point of no return for most companies. And it's when do you want to lean into it? You said what we believe earlier when you said this is both a threat, but it's also an opportunity. Right. So those rules that we've used may, you know, for governing the sort of buyer and provider behavior, they may no longer apply, but they're going to force the adoption of new ones. And that's the thing. If you, you know, this is an opportunity for, if not first mover advantage, early mover advantage, and to lean into new ways of doing things. And that's what Summit is going to be all about, is we'll set up. And part of my role at Summit as host is sort of setting this up as this is the why. And then I'm going to pass over to the real experts who are going to tell us what to do about it and I'll get off the stage kind of thing.
- [23:51]
A
Well, I mean, it's, it is, it is inevitable. I believe I agree with you. And even from what we're seeing on the more, more of a practitioner level. Yeah. Pretty, pretty big changes happening and, you know, the, I don't know, this sounds dramatic, but the walls are closing in. You know, maybe we look at that escape room as a metaphor. You know, it's like they're closing in, they're moving slow, but it's happening. And so there's things we need to do in order to mitigate that and to, you know, again, take tap, like you say, you know, there's maybe there's a first mover advantage or opportunity here and it's, it's exciting in that context. Right. The changes that we could make in order to, you know, evolve to, to adapt, you know, because this is something that, the notion of adaptation is something that has become central part of the marketer identity, I think, over the last five or six years. Right. Because there's just been so much change that we've dealt with. So let's talk about this idea of AI powered autonomy and what that means in a B2B marketing context. Can you drill down a little bit more into, okay, so what are the challenges? What are the opportunities there?
- [25:07]
B
Yes, I think from a challenge point of view, I think GTM teams, we've been obsessing over kind of the minutiae of a journey map or a nurture stream or whatever that might be. But buyers funnel. Yeah, but buyers haven't followed along they're not playing the game with us kind of thing. Right. So they, you know, buying has become one of, one of Ian Bruce, one of my colleagues phrases is that, you know, buying has become an act of confirmation, not selection. You know, more than 50% of buyers who make a decision based on our buying insights buyer journey data, they come into a buying process with a, with a preferred vendor in mind. And more than 50% of the time they are selecting that vendor. So, so that's what we mean by it's an act of confirmation, not selection. Right? So yes, there's an opportunity, but there's a very, very clear preference for, for a specific vendor at the start. And so your buyers are now richly informed that they are increasingly self directed, they're increasingly decisive and they sort of are making those decisions long before the provider even knows they're quote unquote in market. And so that's what we mean by that sort of autonomy. They're turning to AI search. Whether you call it a OG or whatever your acronym of choice is, we're seeing that off the charts.
- [26:35]
A
Right.
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B
We talked about AI agents. I've mentioned expanding buying networks. For us, the buying network is sort of buying group is inside your organization. And our research shows that there's about nine members of a buying group on average. Now again, we drill into that and slice and dice that because it varies, right, Depending on size, scale. Expansion is very different to a first sale, all those types of things. But then there's 13 people outside the organization affecting that sale. Right? So that can be everything from partners to influencers to agents, the providers. And not just we tend to think we're helping, but so are our competitors, right. If they're part of that conversation. So all of those different features, those different elements make up the buying network as we call it, and they're affecting that. And again giving me greater insight and greater autonomy to sort of inform my journey and make my decision. And I'll bring you in when I need you. I'll ask you the question. And I already know part of, you know, I'm only asking the question that I need answered. I have an answer to a whole bunch of the rest of the questions that you think you, that you want to tell me. It's not, it's not on your terms anymore. It's on my terms as the buyer. Right.
- [27:55]
A
Well, I'm happy to say what you just described really lines up well with something that we do and I won't talk much about it, but just like we have an architecture called Best Answer marketing. The idea is that, you know, how can help a company become the best answer where buyers are looking and help them be that first choice during that out market phase. When the time comes that the brand is in market and does reaches out, reach out to select a vendor that, you know, you've invested in experiences and you've invested in signals of trust and credibility that make that mental availability for the vendors and you make that list, you know, as it were. Anyway, so you've talked about a connected go to market approach as one that, so it's guiding this idea of trust and discovery. It calibrates brand and demand, which is kind of funny as people try to still debate whether you should do one or the other when it's both. And also aligns this idea of the human experience and the role that AI is playing. And I want to break that down a little bit with you if we can. So what is your advice or what is, you know, your insights from research or the work that you're doing or that your teams are doing as it relates to what brands can do to improve more trusted discovery?
- [29:22]
B
Yeah, so those topics, by the way, that you just mentioned are sort of the. When I said I'm going to get off the stage and let the real experts talk, those are, those are our keynote topics. Right. So, so starting with that first one you mentioned and I'll do my best to represent what they'll be speaking about that first thing, we're sort of talking about bridging what we're calling a visibility vacuum. And so John Buton is going to be going to be looking at sort of the, that visibility vacuum that leads to, if you can overcome that leads to trusted discovery. Right. So again, 94% our research shows, are using AI to inform their decisions. But we can't always see that. Right. It used to be that they went to a search engine, clicked to our website and suddenly, you know, we could see who it was, right? We could, we could leverage tech to see what company they were coming from, where they were, who it might be, all of that. Now they're so far down the road they're doing that, that decision making before we know they're in market. And so how do we close that? And this we think is going to require sort of a rethink of the buyer decision journey. Right. So starting with a clearer view of buyer interactions outside the company and sort of the information they rely on to decide faster and with confidence. So that's part of that trusted discovery. But you know, things like continuing to Gatekeep information sitting out there is just a total fool's errand. Right. And so companies are going to have to design and think about this for, for humans, bioengines and answer engines in order to do all of this and, and sort of meet the, that rising demand for more granular, personalized information delivered at scale through sort of sharper segmentation and dynamic thinking and more nuanced Personas. And again, thinking almost of machines. I don't want to say machines as Personas, but thinking about machines as an audience for the information, the content we're creating. But it can't be the same. Right. So all of that has to be done, but it has to be consistent and it has to be authoritative and it has to be all of these other things that's really hard to do, but that's what's going to be required to sort of gain the trust and be found in that. So to connect the two words you're using the trusted discovery, that's a lot of what John's going to be focusing on on the main stage. And then we'll have drill downs from that in our breakout sessions then. So we've sort of cascaded this all down from the idea of singularity to what's going to need to be done on the main stage. And then. Okay, how do I do this? That's in the track sessions and workshops.
- [32:14]
A
Great, great, great. So, you know, let's keep pulling on the thread of, you know, human and AI, especially as it relates to alignment. Like, like this is something that's very top of mind for, for everybody. Right. And, and, and I'm just wondering what are you seeing? Because it happens on so many different levels. It's 3D, 4D chess. Right. It's not just as simple as AI discovery and AI generated content. There's a lot of other aspects to it. But I'm just wondering what, what are you seeing in terms of what's working can create more better alignment between humans and AI?
- [32:48]
B
Yep. So what I'd say is we're sort of past the experimentation phase right now. We're in a very practical, let's plan for the long term. This is not going away and let's do it planfully, meaningfully, all those things. So there's a big focus on the sort of hybrid human AI, who does what, why, where, when, where are the guardrails, all that type of thing. So the sort of thinking about the distribution of responsibility, the sequencing of work, the data that's available to those various sides, decision ownership, thinking that through. So it's one thing to have work done in one place, but is there a decision? Where's the decision being made? You know we hear about in the loop, on the loop, all these sorts of things. Right. But, but sort of laying that out in advance. The what's okay to have autonomous execution? Where do we need cross functional orchestration of these elements? Right. So, so what we don't want is marketing creating a whole set of agents and workflows and whatever else and sales doing the same and customer success doing this. And none of those, you know, just exacerbating our silos and making them better. Right, Making our silos even more extreme.
- [34:11]
A
Better at being silos.
- [34:13]
B
Better. Yeah. Right. Deeper, wider, like not what we're looking for. Right. So, so it's that collaboration among humans and AI. Among humans and humans AI and AI and thinking about all of that. And so human, human team members, we're big believers, are going to remain the greatest asset within GTM functions. You know, even as roles and responsibilities change as a result of AI and you know, the augmentation, the, the co creation, the simulation, like all of that. But we don't think humans are being replaced anytime soon. It's to us it's all about the calibration. Yeah, calibration to sort of to bring that human, to maximize the human capacity. Right. To impact business results. So it's, it's, it's, it's not about an. And again, as you said with brand and brand and demand, it's not about an either or. Right. It's how do these things maximize, accentuate each other. And there's a lot obviously like I just chucked out a whole ton of stuff that companies have to think through. Right. So are we, do we think of agents as colleagues? If so, how are we onboarding them? When do we fire them? You know, we were joking the other day, we're going to put our agents on a PIP kind of thing. Right. You know, but is it that or are they tools and workflows and how, how. Let's have a shared agreement on that. How do we keep on top of emergent AI behaviors? Right. So it's so hard to get, keep up with the day to day of all of this and then it goes back to that element of trust. Right. So where's the responsible AI practice emphasis and the change management for humans, all of the enablement and training and the AIQ as we referred to it, within an organization that has to be. Somebody has to be responsible for this. It's not going to happen. If you just say we now have an enterprise license for X technology, go. Right. It's just going to fall flat on its face.
- [36:10]
A
You know, I've heard from, like, I talk with Michael Brenner, who's VP of thought leadership and Customer advocacy at Workday, and he talked about this idea of their research has shown, you know, the investment in people first before the technology. Right. And even Brian solis, who's at ServiceNow, he wrote a whole book about this called Mind Shift and the idea of setting the stage from a human perspective first before we can maximize our potential with the technology. I think there's translation to the AI aspect of that.
- [36:43]
B
Yep. 100%.
- [36:45]
A
You know, with people, you know, at the moment, you know, there's still not an AI solution to the idea of human taste and, and, you know, imagination and curiosity, empathy. There's also this. Yeah, yeah. And the human ability to understand what great looks like, what is great storytelling. And so the transition from subject matter expert to orchestration expert, you know, brings in that capacity and competency and experience of the human to then be able to effectively work with technologies and other humans in a different way than, you know, the way we've done in the past, is kind of what I'm sensing.
- [37:24]
B
Yeah. Lisa Gately, an analyst on my team who covers content and has been heavily focused on the AI area.
- [37:30]
A
Lisa, she's awesome.
- [37:31]
B
Yep, she's fantastic. And one of the things she wrote last year was sort of the. When everyone in the organization is a creator, how do you manage content to your point? Right. It's kind of like, so everybody can do these things now, but how do we manage that? And should they be doing that? And, and again, it's sort of, you don't want to have rigid rules around everything, but there has to be guidelines and guardrails and thinking that goes into how we manage that as an organization or it's just going to be utter chaos.
- [38:00]
A
Yeah, yeah. Well, there's certainly going to be a lot more investment and time and energy and resources into cracking that nut, I think. And I think folks are going to get some of their answers at Summit. So Lisa has about five sessions at
- [38:13]
B
Summit to go into some of this stuff, by the way.
- [38:17]
A
So, so I wanted to kind of circle back to, to the idea of this notion that, you know, a lot of what we, you said it's not about decision or I, I, I'm going to misquote this, but the idea that decisions are made, it's about confirmation, not about decision. I think is what you said. And, and so I wanted to talk a little bit more again about, you know, this fact that a lot of decisions are, or, or confirmations or whatever are made long before sales contact is made. Made. I'm wondering what, through your work, through research, what has surfaced as the directional changes. B2B leaders need to start thinking about, you know, what changes in investments that they're making and resources they're allocating to start creating meaningful change so they can take advantage of being, and I'll use my own expression, be the best answer for those buyers before the time comes for the sales conversation to happen.
- [39:16]
B
So I'd probably say one of, one of the major things, another major area we're drilling into and we'll have a GTM transformation track at Summit. And Katie Fabisak is sort of kicking that track off with a session on, I don't remember the exact terminology, but it's basically fusing strategy and execution. And it sounds basic and obvious and yet we don't see it that often. Right. So if you buy this premise of GTM singularity and all of the change we're seeing that you just set up in the question, right, You've got to connect that strategy first. You need a strategy. You have to agree on what that strategy is and document it and not just assume we have one and make sure we all agree on what it is and then connect it to execution. So that means we have a shared agreement on what GTM is. We've, like I said, we've documented it. It's sort of an outside in audience focused perspective. Right. So it's not just our, we're going to sit in a room and decide what this is, but it's really looking at what is, what is going on in the world, in our world, you know, in the world that affects us, I should say sorry, not our world. And then it's, that's going to require things like, you know, thinking about prioritizing segments and aligning revenue plans and, and calibrating execution that is focused on those buyer segments which again, it all sounds like, well, sure, why wouldn't we do that? And my answer to that will be, would be, well, if, sure, why wouldn't we, why aren't you. We don't find many companies doing it sort of thing. And so that's, that's one of the really kind of, of cool things that we're drilling into at the minute. Katie's kind of, we, we typically launch a lot of research at, at Summit. It's sort of you know, it becomes a, a. Yeah, some, to some extent a forcing function for us.
- [41:16]
A
Right.
- [41:16]
B
As it generates all these ideas and let's get them down and get them live at Summit sort of thing. So that's one of the things that Katie is leading the charge on with a, with a, with a cross functional team looking, looking at that. So I think that's probably what I would point to more than anything. I mean there's, there's so much I could point to. Right. But that's what jumps out as, as you ask that question.
- [41:37]
A
Okay, well let's, let's kind of pull back a little bit and crack open Dave's crystal ball and I'm wondering what some of your predictions for B2B marketing and sales are in 2026. I guess without giving away any, you know, secrets that you might share during Summit. You know, when you look at the year coming up in front of us here, what are some of the predictions you think are most important trends or if you will, that are most important for broadly B2B companies to be paying attention to?
- [42:11]
B
Yeah, sure. So we actually publish our predictions every sort of winter time frame for the following year. So I'll pull on some of those if that helps. First one I'd say is, and I'll go to folks on my team's prediction sort of thing and we try to ground these by the way, in very, we want to be able to grade ourselves at the end of the year and we are not looking for an A. I'll make that just that disclosure up front. Like if we get everything right, we're not pushing the envelope. Anyone could have said that sort of thing. So it's one of these things that we do to ourselves is we sort of say okay, you have to be able to ground it in data. Makes sense, we're forester. But you also have to push the envelope. Like don't just say what. Anybody could say that and so what what the team came up with on, on the content side is that employees outside centralized content teams will create 2/3 of content. Wow. So, so pretty, pretty, pretty significant. And I'm, I'm going to look at, wait for me for a second just to say currently we say share of B2B organizations in which centralized content teams lead content creation and production for GTM functions will fall from 45% to 30%. So it's already slightly more than half that is produced outside of that team. In many organizations there's a centralized team that sort of do guidance and it's sort of A center of excellence type role. So, so it's not like there's only think most organizations you work with, there's people creating content all over, right? But because of the emergence of AI more than anything else, we just believe that it's put so much power in the hands. Some of it is great, right? We can do more localization and translation than we ever could then we could ever afford to do because we had to work with localization providers and TMSs and you know, unless you're a significant scale business, that was really expensive. So now I can translate. But if I'm in a regulated industry or you know, if I, if I can destroy as much good, even just goodwill, like by, by doing this wrong, by not paying attention to the nuances of et cetera. But even if you pull it back from that just to general content, AEOs humans, we, AES, sorry answer engines humans, we want to see consistent, we want to see different, we want to see authoritative. And so what somebody in XYZ silo in the organization creates as content that isn't consistent with what's being created elsewhere is going to make it less likely that you show up in an answer engine, right? So this notion of it being created could be great. We can accelerate, we can expand, we can augment what we've been doing as long as we're doing that in an intelligent and an informed way to make sure that it's consistent, additive and not distracting from what our, our core messages and sort of brand promise is and all those types of things. So that's, that's one another one that's, that's sort of somewhat of the moment, let's say, is we predict that 50% more B2B Fortune 500 companies will prioritize patriotism in promotions. Now again, we make these predictions in the fall winter. Given where things are going geopolitically, will we see a pullback on that? Remains to be seen. And again, we don't look to get everything right. We make a prediction that we think could happen based on our best thinking. But the world is volatile and that could well change, right? And I think it could be one of those things that people just pull back from anything that could be remotely seen as political to others. That in itself is a political decision to do that. Right. And so in the B2B world, I think in the consumer world we saw a lot of this in the sort of late pandemic years, let's call it right, where there was a lot of emphasis on, on leaning into social topics B2B less so. But we've seen folks leaning into the patriotism side of things. And, and our call was that there would be more of it and 50% of companies would, would prioritize it so that we want to watch and see whether we got right or wrong. And then I'll give you one more from, from our predictions list and that was that 75% of B2B enterprises will increase budgets for influencer relations. So that's good news for podcasters. But you know, whether that's sort of literal influencers. I saw in one of your recent episodes when you introduced somebody as the corporate Natalie of. Right, so, so the, the, the, the sort of, you know, there are folks that are starting to emerge. You mentioned Brian Solis. Right. There's, there's these, there's these folks that, that are, that are influencers in the market. The, the likes of a forester or you know, that are influencers. But then the reason behind all of this, again going back to that buying network conversation, is we actually have influencers as one of the five or six groups that companies should be thinking about. And so that can be in different ways too. Right? So that can be review sites so customers can be. It's not just the big eye influencers, it's thinking about influencer relations. It goes back to early stage careers for you and I. Right. So when we started in pr, I still remember the definition was managing the relationships between a company and its publics. And influencers was one of those publics. And so it's sort of come full circle to some extent but was never as big in B2B as we think it is now. And so we're seeing increasing emphasis on, on influencers. So we think 75% of companies will increase budgets for influencer like influencer relations.
- [48:26]
A
Well that's, that's amazing. I'm just going to tell you that my company has been involved with B2B influencer marketing since 2012 for a lot of brands we've, we've heard of and we're seeing more demand now than ever and the sophistication is, is pretty interesting and it's growing. We've actually published original research on influencer marketing. Well, in fact, I'm just, first we're going to start doing data collection for our fifth report on B2B influence specifically. And I'm going to, I'm really, I'm going to be interested to see, I'll make sure, while asking questions that help us reconcile against some of the findings that you're putting out because I really, I see some, some interesting synchronicity, if you will, between the confidence, the growing confidence and this as a source of truth, a source of confidence building around decision making. You know, people want to talk. I know it's a cliche, but people want to hear from peers. They don't want to hear from brands per se, you know, and so there's some. How can a brand architect, you know, those sigils of trust? How can they architect relationships with people who are the most trusted voices in a market?
- [49:35]
B
Yeah.
- [49:36]
A
And in an authentic way.
- [49:37]
B
Yes, yes.
- [49:39]
A
So, yeah, lots to uncover there.
- [49:41]
B
So I would say. So our blogs are, are not gated content. Right. So if people wanted to follow Karen Tran on our marketing executive team, she writes a lot about info relations. Daryl over over in apac, Amy Bills then on the, on the customer advocacy, you just mentioned the, you know, the customer stories. Right. So from a customer advocacy point of view, Amy Bills, follow them on LinkedIn, catch their blogs on farstar. Com. Some, some great insights there too.
- [50:11]
A
Yeah, I'll absolutely link to them. I had a great conversation with Karen. Karen interviewed me and one of my team on our influence team for a Forester report, actually. So, yeah, very, very, very good info she's putting out there. I'm going to be visiting or attending B2B summit for the first time, remarkably this year. And I'm wondering what advice do you have for me as a first timer or anyone else who's a first timer to get the best experience from this event?
- [50:40]
B
First thing I'd say is bring an open mind, maybe as a suggestion. Right. So we try to walk this line between looking as far down the road as we can while being practical in our advice. And it's a constant sort of there's a tension between those two things. Right. If you look too far down the road and even if you're getting it right, people don't know what. We can't act on that. So we try to straddle those two things. So bring an open mind. It may not be what's affecting your company today, but maybe it is down the road or maybe it's something you need to be thinking about down the road. If I give an example of this type of thinking, one of our other keynoters is Ross Graeber, who is going to be talking about a new accountability framework that's required for marketing. And Ross sort of was asked a question about measurement and AEO because Ross is one of our experts on measurement and he sort of like, it's not really where I'm focused. And he started to think about it and he thought of it more and he thought of it more and he's like, if I think of this as the canary in the coal mine. So much of what we've been measuring has been engagement based and now you're telling me this person isn't going to engage with me until they're 80% of the way through their process. All of those measures have gone away. How do I justify my existence to my CEO, to my board, etc. Etc. And so it was that I use it as an example of that open mind of like this is in my world. But if I extrapolate it, if I think about it like, so it's a great opportunity, just lift a head up from our day to day. I mean that's one of the best things about going to events I find is there's that orthogonal thinking, there's the tangential stuff that goes on which I would then say a second and connected. Part of that is think outside your role. So we'll have, we lay out our content, we make it available on our website so that people can sort of drill into. I'm, I'm responsible for revenue operations or I'm responsible for, for brand or I'm responsible for content or whatever, whatever my role is. And I can see a curated agenda for my role. Great. Attend as many of those sessions as you can. But think we think this is that we're unique to some extent. We don't know of another conference that's looking across the entire GTM function and sort of thinking about how the interrelationship of these things. You're not coming to a marketing event. And us saying marketing should be at the front of the room and every. And then you go to a sales event and it's sales should be at the front of the room and then you go to the customer success events. Customer success is everything. It's thinking about the inter, interdependency and the interconnectedness of those things. And so I bumped into somebody last year when I was going between rooms at one point and I was, you know, I, I can't help myself. I introduced myself, I'm like, how's it going? What, you know, what's the best thing you've done so far? It just so happened two of the people I spoke to in a row were heads of sales at their organizations. And both of them said, I went to this marketing thing and it completely changed how I need to do what I'm doing this and the other. My, my marketing colleagues have been telling me this. I didn't get it till now. So that opportunity to just think outside of your role a little bit is, is a great opportunity. And we're not, like I say, it's one message that, that, that it's, it's tailored but it's connected.
- [53:51]
A
I think that. David, that is fantastic advice. Look outside your role. You know, I look back at my own career and how many times I've had exposure to other disciplines within the overall PR marketing mix and how informative that has been. To have an event like this that'll offer those opportunities is pretty cool. Pretty, pretty exciting. So let's wrap up with what I like to call a dream. I know this is silly, I suppose, but it's also fun, right? A dream career question. So if you weren't doing what you're doing now, right, if you could do anything else in the world world for your career, for a job, for your business, what would it be? If you weren't doing what you're doing now, you had to do something else.
- [54:36]
B
This used to be one of my dinner party questions, actually, although I added a tiny bit to it, which was if every job paid the same because my answer would not have been my answer if I had to earn what it earned. And I've worked in bars. I've worked in nine or 10 different bars in four or five different countries and always loved it. I think think the psychology of. And it was never in that kind of, you know, make the fancy cocktails. I couldn't make you an espresso martini to save my life. It was pulling pints and that sort of thing. But it was the conversation side of it, the human psychology. You know, we had the time to stop and talk to. Worked in plenty of busy bars where you couldn't even do much. But I absolutely loved it. So that used to be my answer. I think today though, I would probably, as I get older and I start to look ahead to at some point, not being at a desk or meeting clients and all that, what would I do? I think it would be scuba diving instructor. It's one of those things I love to do. My son and daughter are both certified, but my daughter just got certified and watching them go through it and just the first time you're in the ocean and just seeing their eyes in the mask, just sort of the excitement and the. That wonder kind of thing, you don't see that too often in any age. Adult. She's a young adult. So you know, just that opportunity to. At the end of the day, you know, at. For. There's an element to which we're teachers. Right. It's sort of, you know, we're looking ahead and then we're trying to bring the world along and convince and there's a teaching element. And so I think that's always been a little part of what I enjoy to do. And so if I wasn't doing this, that would probably be. Plus, you know, I'd want to do it somewhere. Somewhere warm and enjoy the. Enjoy the top, topside time, too kind of thing.
- [56:26]
A
Yeah, exactly. Not. Not where I am in Minnesota, where it's just a little chilly and there's only three months of warmth or so of life. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, somewhere warm and beautiful. Okay, well, great. Well, Dave, where's the. I appreciate all this. On all that you've shared. Where's the best place for people to connect with you?
- [56:45]
B
LinkedIn.
- [56:46]
A
LinkedIn.
- [56:47]
B
Yeah. Easy to find on LinkedIn. As Dave Frankland, I've abandoned all other social media, actually, believe it or not, I decided about six or nine months ago, I was like, this isn't helping my mental health. I'm out. So LinkedIn. And LinkedIn is doing its best to convince me to live to park there, too, but for now, that's where you can find me.
- [57:09]
A
Okay, fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Dave. I really appreciate all the insights you've shared. I'm excited to attend B2B summit. I'm excited to meet you in person. I hope we have that opportunity.
- [57:18]
B
Yeah, likewise.
- [57:20]
A
And this has been great. Thank you so much.
- [57:23]
B
For me, too. Really enjoyed it. Thank you. The time has flown by.
- [57:26]
A
I want to thank you for tuning into the Beyond B2B marketing podcast and make sure that you subscribe so you can stay tuned to our next interesting, exciting guest. And remember, there's no better time than now to become a best answer brand.