Content Amplified

In this episode of Content Amplified (Content to Close special addition), host Ben Ard sits down with Jessika Ward, a sales enablement leader with 13 years of experience building enablement programs from the ground up at SaaS startups ranging from 45 to 1,000+ employees.

Jessika challenges one of the biggest instincts in enablement: the urge to create more. She makes the case that enablement should operate as a performance management function, not a content factory, and that the best enablement content feels like a shortcut, not homework. It should find sellers when they're already stuck and help them move forward immediately.

The conversation digs into how to protect seller attention as a commodity, why engagement metrics are vanity metrics in enablement, and how to earn trust with sales teams by acting as an advisor instead of a professor. Jessika also shares her "air traffic control" approach to filtering the flood of messages sellers receive from every direction.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why enablement professionals should get more comfortable not creating content
• How to organize content around behavior change instead of knowledge transfer
• Why seller attention is a commodity that should be protected at all costs
• How to measure enablement success through observable behavior, not course completion
• The "air traffic control" model for filtering what actually reaches your sales team
• Why enablement earns trust when sellers feel understood, not educated

Connect with Jessika on LinkedIn.

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In this episode of Content Amplified, host Ben Ard sits down with Frank Pasquine, Marketing Director at DoubleVerify and author of the newly released novel The Prince of New York. Frank has spent nearly 20 years in marketing across ad tech, entertainment, and agencies, but publishing his own book forced him to see content strategy from an entirely new angle.

Frank shares the story of how he went from studying economics at Fordham to screenwriting at NYU, nearly beat Gossip Girl to the punch with a pilot at William Morris, and eventually built a full marketing career while holding onto that creative spark. Now he's applying everything he's learned in B2B to promote his debut novel as a one-person team with a personal savings budget.

The conversation gets into the reality of marketing your own product versus marketing someone else's, the surprising fragmentation of platforms when you're the one spending every dollar, and why in-person activations combined with digital amplification have been his most effective strategy on both sides.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• What changes when the product you're marketing is your own
• How a screenwriting background shapes a content marketing career
• Why in-person activation plus digital amplification is the highest-performing content play
• The 100-day playbook Frank recommends before launching any side project
• How to approach TikTok, Instagram, and BookTok as a first-time author
• Why freedom to experiment is the biggest advantage solo creators have over corporate teams

Find The Prince of New York on Amazon or search for Frank Pasquine. Connect with Frank on LinkedIn.

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In this episode of Content Amplified, host Ben Ard talks with Allison Myers, Director of Marketing and Communications at Fives Interlogistics, about how identifying your professional superpower changes everything, from your personal brand to how you hire, how you show up on LinkedIn, and how you cut through the noise in B2B marketing.

Allison shares a simple three-question framework for finding what you're actually great at, and explains why your superpower shows up in patterns, not job titles. She breaks down how she blends personal and professional brand on LinkedIn without crossing lines, why consistency beats cleverness every time, and how she builds teams by hiring for the gaps her own strengths don't cover.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Three questions to identify your professional superpower
• How to blend personal and professional brand on LinkedIn without oversharing
• Why point of view matters more than posting frequency in a noisy content landscape
• How to build teams where everyone is strong in different ways and the collective output beats any individual effort
• Why chasing viral moments is a trap and what to do instead

Connect with Allison on LinkedIn.

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In this episode of Content Amplified, host Ben Ard sits down with Natalie Cunningham, SVP of Marketing at Data Axle, to tackle the tension every marketing team feels: you're producing more content than ever, but pipeline isn't moving.

Natalie breaks down why the constant pressure to produce is actually the problem, not the solution. She introduces the concept of audience intelligence, going beyond personas and firmographics to understand the whole human inside your buying committee, including what generation they are, how they identify professionally, and what they care about on Saturday morning, not just Monday afternoon.

She shares findings from first-party research at Data Axle that challenged her own assumptions, including a surprising insight about which generation actually wants pricing transparency the most (it's not who you think). And she makes a compelling case for why measuring content against pipeline generation is setting your team up to fail.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why production volume without audience research creates a costly cycle
• What audience intelligence actually means and how it goes beyond personas
• How generational differences in buying behavior should shape your content and channel strategy
• Why AI should be your thought partner, not just your production arm
• How to measure content as a growth lever without forcing direct attribution to pipeline

Connect with Natalie on LinkedIn.

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Most companies still treat sales enablement like a training department. Jason Gwilliam thinks that's exactly why their reps take too long to close. With 25 years in healthcare and med-tech, Jason has built enablement programs from the ground up at companies like Abbott, and he's seen firsthand what happens when enablement is treated as a true revenue system. In this episode, he breaks down how to measure enablement's ROI through time-to-competency and sales cycle compression, why marketing alignment is critically undervalued, and how AI coaching tools should help reps improve without being punitive. He also shares why fractional enablement roles are emerging as the next big trend.

Jason Gwilliam is a sales enablement practitioner with over 25 years of experience in the healthcare and medical device industry. He began his career in the cardiac cath lab before moving into territory sales, where he earned President's Club recognition. Since 2008, Jason has built and led enablement programs at companies including Abbott, transforming traditional sales training into cross-functional revenue systems aligned with marketing, sales operations, and executive leadership. He is a vocal advocate for coaching over managing and for positioning enablement as a strategic business function. Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.

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You can create the greatest content in the world, but if it shows up on the wrong channel at the wrong time, it still falls flat. In this episode, lifecycle marketing expert Leslie Bartley makes the case for treating content as guidance rather than just marketing. She walks through how to match message urgency to the right channel, how to keep the human touch while scaling through automation, and her "core four" metrics framework for knowing whether your content is actually landing. If you're blasting and hoping for the best, Leslie's approach will sharpen everything about your distribution strategy.

Leslie Bartley is a lifecycle and customer marketing expert with over 15 years of experience spanning e-commerce, advertising, luxury hospitality, healthcare, and SaaS. She has held roles at Amazon, GoodRx, and early-stage startups, working across demand generation, marketing automation, product marketing, and product management. Now at Squire, Leslie focuses on behavior-based content delivery across owned channels, building systems that guide customers rather than just market to them. Connect with Leslie on LinkedIn.

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What if you treated every digital event like a live television broadcast instead of just another webinar? Roisin Hunt spent a decade in Irish television and radio before bringing that production-first mindset into B2B marketing, and the results speak for themselves. In this episode, Roisin explains why dead air is a crime, why production quality doesn't require a massive budget, and how to turn your customer stories into compelling content that practically writes itself. She also shares how her conference stage has become a year-round content pipeline. If your virtual events feel flat, this conversation will change how you think about them.

Roisin Hunt is the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Great Place to Work, where she leads digital event strategy. Her career began with a decade in Irish television and radio production, including work on national PBS-style programming and an internship at NPR. After moving to the U.S., Roisin worked in immigration nonprofit communications, boutique leadership consulting for early-stage tech founders, and global events at Zendesk. She brings a broadcast producer's eye for pacing, storytelling, and audience engagement to everything she builds in B2B marketing. Connect with Roisin on LinkedIn.

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In a world where AI can produce polished content at scale, audiences are craving something different: realness. In this episode, content marketer Marisa Lather breaks down why the "anti-AI aesthetic" is gaining momentum and how brands can close the trust gap by putting real humans front and center. From leveraging creators and employee voices to rethinking how you measure personality-driven campaigns, Marisa shares practical ways to humanize your brand starting today. If your content feels too corporate or too perfect, this episode is your wake-up call.

Marisa Lather is a content marketer whose work sits at the intersection of marketing, communications, data, and business strategy. She specializes in building awareness, credibility, and trust by creating content informed by audience insight and shaped to resonate across constituencies and algorithms alike. A passionate advocate for media literacy and authentic brand storytelling, Marisa helps organizations humanize their content through creator partnerships, employee advocacy, and customer-centric messaging. You can find her across platforms as Marketer Marisa or at MarketerMarisa.net.

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In this episode of Content to Close, host Ben Ard is joined by Claire Scull, founder of ORDO Consultants, to explore the powerful connection between seller curiosity and winning business. Claire breaks down how the best salespeople use natural curiosity to deeply understand prospects — and how that directly increases close rates. She walks through two key sales frameworks — BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) and SciPAB (Situation, Complication, Implication, Position, Action, Benefit) — and explains how each serves different stages of the sales cycle. Claire emphasizes the critical importance of continuous discovery and revalidation throughout the opportunity lifecycle, sharing a real-world cautionary tale of a committed forecast opportunity lost because a seller stopped asking questions. She also discusses how content plays a vital role across the sales process, from onboarding and enablement to customer references and thought leadership.

Guest Bio:
Claire Scull is the founder of ORDO Consultants (from the Latin "Ordo Ab Chao" meaning "order out of chaos"), a business transformation consultancy based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. With a career rooted in sales, commercial operations, and delivery, Claire brings deep expertise in sales enablement, revenue operations, and programme leadership. She specializes in helping organizations implement change and transformation — from planning through execution — and is passionate about the intersection of curiosity, discovery frameworks, and content in driving sales performance.

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In this episode of Content Amplified, host Ben Ard is joined by Justin Steinman, CMO of ModMed, for a masterclass on marketing organizational design and how it fuels a powerful content engine. Justin breaks down his philosophy of structuring marketing teams like a free market economy — aligning product marketers with product managers, specialty marketers with general managers, and demand gen managers with sales segments (even tying their bonuses to sales quota achievement). He explains the critical role of corporate marketing as the unifying brand voice and introduces his "steak and sizzle" framework: product marketing delivers the substance while the content team in corporate marketing adds the voice and consistency. Justin also dives into how AI is reshaping content demands, why press releases are back in vogue thanks to LLMs, and how he positions AI as an "intern" — an accelerant for his content team rather than a replacement.

Guest Bio:
Justin Steinman is the Chief Marketing Officer at ModMed, the leading provider of electronic medical records, practice management, and revenue cycle software for specialty physicians. A seasoned B2B marketing executive with over 20 years of experience in healthcare IT, Justin previously served as CMO of Insora Health and Definitive Healthcare (where he helped take the company public on NASDAQ). His earlier career includes roles at Aetna, GE Healthcare IT, and Novell. Justin holds an English degree and is passionate about organizational design, content strategy, and building marketing teams that make everyone around them better.

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