Predictable B2B Success

Ashley McManus is the Senior Director of Global Marketing for Smart Eye, the global leader in eye-tracking software solutions. With over 10 years of B2B tech marketing experience, Ashley was part of the branding team that led to the successful exit of startup Affectiva for $76.5 million in 2021.

As a speaker at multiple events, conferences, and conventions Ashley has positioned herself as a thought leader in the marketing space. She also hosts her own podcast, “Affectiva Asks”.

A marketing leader with deep expertise in inbound marketing. She is really good at breaking down challenges, coming up with creative solutions, and driving results quickly, within budget. 

In this episode, she shares her experiences to tell us how we can build a thought leadership strategy that compounds growth over time. Insights she shares include:

• Does creating a new category and thought leadership work together? If so why
• How Ashley defines thought leadership
• Foundational elements of a thought leadership strategy
• Examples of a thought leadership strategy
• The place that original research has in thought leadership
• How to best determine the big ideas and your unique point of view
• How to add customer stories and their voice to the process of building your thought leadership
• How to get your team involved with thought leadership
• The correlation between thought leadership and partnership marketing
• What does successful partnership marketing look like
• and much much more ...

Wouter Delbaere is the CEO of Mangtas a Singapore-based B2B global outsourcing platform for teams and agencies. 

Wouter took lessons and experiences working for financial firms to the start-up world only to experience failure before finally finding traction with Mangtas.

In this episode, Wouter shares his insights as to how we can solve the challenges of outsourcing services to scale business growth.

Insights he shares include:

• Wouter's journey in finding product-market fit
• The challenges of outsourcing services and how to overcome them
• How Wouter overcame the challenges of outsourcing services
• How to test a hypothesis quickly to decide whether to invest in it or not
• Principles behind Wouter's growth journey to date
• How Wouter created a solution to overcome the challenges of outsourcing services by addressing problems with existing solutions
• How Wouter makes tech decisions
• Growth factors in developing both sides of the marketplace
• and much much more ...

Christina Del Villar, the author of a new marketing book Sway. Christina provides actionable strategies to listeners around B2B and SaaS marketing - peppered with relatable stories from her years in the trenches.

She is a twenty-five-year Silicon Valley go-to-market and marketing strategy expert. Using the GRIT marketing method, Christina helps B2B companies boost revenue growth by accelerating pipeline.

In this episode, Christina shares her thoughts and experiences on the 4 key elements for a b2b go to market strategy that drives growth. Insights she shares include:

• Why businesses do not have a proper b2b go to market strategy
• Why knowing your customers and their specific needs is a big part of your strategy
• If a b2b go to market strategy is the foundation then how do build out repeatable/recyclable processes and systems
• Why marketing should own the go to market strategy
• What is GRIT marketing and why use it
• Why use maps of influence
• Why Christina named the book SWAY
• Critical elements that companies need to tick off in order to have a viable b2b go to market strategy
• Should marketing own revenue
• and much much more ...

Sophie Wadsworth is an executive coach, writer, and nonprofit consultant. She has a passion for helping mission-focused leaders tell their personal and organizational stories. Previously Sophie worked as an adjunct professor of English and, for over fifteen years, served as a nonprofit executive and public speaker.

Drawing on her leadership and storytelling expertise, she coaches leaders to develop their stories and craft inspiring communications for keynote audiences, community stakeholders, and prospective funders.

Sophie is the author of a collection of poems, Letters from Siberia, and was recently chosen as a storyteller for WGBH’s Stories from the Stage, an award-winning WORLD channel series.

In this episode, she shares how we can find and embrace our leadership voice to spur business growth. Insights she shares include:

• Why do some people believe that they don't have any stories worth telling
• Why do leaders need to find and develop their leadership voice
• Is storytelling part art and part science
• What distinguishes a leadership voice from others
• How to listen and be conscious of the stories around us
• The best way to record stories without it being obvious
• How to overcome hangups with being vulnerable and yet developing the culture we want to see
• How to go about developing your leadership voice with examples
• How to develop a leadership voice that speaks to different personalities
• Key elements we need to develop in our leadership voice
• How to steal from those we admire to develop and grow our own voice
• and much much more ...

JP Clement is the CEO of Boomtime. He has over 30 years of experience in marketing, digital strategy and product management for companies ranging from startups to global brands such as Madison Square Garden, General Mills, DFS Group Ltd., Johnson & Johnson and National Geographic. JP has worked for or helped companies in both the B2C and the B2B sectors and founded three digital strategy and marketing agencies after working for many years on the corporate side of marketing.

He shares his experience and insights to show us how we can go about educating customers through content to scale business growth fast.

Insights he shares include:

• Do businesses still struggle to measure their marketing efforts? if so why
• Why do you spend the time to educate customers - what does that look like
• How educating customers through content can help you build your authority
• How does educating customers drive word of mouth results
• The best ways to educate your customers through content
• What educating customers through a content strategy looks like
• Tips on how to educate customers in the acquisition stage
• The various KPIs — key performance indicators — to consider when designing your marketing strategy
• How to decide when future customers have received enough education
• and much much more ...

Angel Ribo is known as The CEO Confidant, is an Influencer, LinkedIn strategist, International TV Host, Public Speaker, CEO Consultant, Board Member, Philanthropist, frequent Podcast Guest.

Angel also sits on the board of the Evolutionary Business Council, an organization with more than 350 global transformational leaders with a combined reach of well over 600 Million people.

In the last 21 years, Angel has helped more than 1,500 CEOs in 33 different countries to Accelerate the growth of their businesses. He was born near Barcelona, has lived in 8 countries, and speaks 5 languages.

Accomplished entrepreneurs and corporate CEOs hire Angel to bridge the gap globally for expansion and exposure to grow their businesses.

In 2017, he launched his international foundation, Wisdom for Kids, which has helped more than 1000 underprivileged kids in Latin America become entrepreneurs using their local resources.

In this episode, he shares his perspective on how we can beat the odds and successfully accelerate the growth of our businesses to expand internationally.

Insights he shares include:

• Why Angel helps businesses with growth and international expansion
• How to align your personal purpose with that of your business purpose
• What Angel means by influencer marketing in practical terms
• How to scale a business successfully with this one prerequisite
• Why put compassion at the forefront of strategy
• The best approach to recruiting and hiring the right talent
• How to scale a business successfully and beat the odds
• What does that kind of scale look like on a personal level
• and much much more ...

Over the past three decades, as a Senior Executive, Paul Rutter has managed and guided some of the largest and most luxurious cruise ships in the world. According to a Cruzely study, cruise lines can make up to $8.2 million in profit per day before the pandemic.

These experiences have taken Paul to speak on stages all over the globe where living with his customers, clients, and co-workers was a way of life.

His time on the high seas has taught him that through approaching customer service with the intent to exceed his customer’s expectations, rather than just meet them, higher levels of customer satisfaction, retention, loyalty, and repeat business can be experienced.

Paul is the author of “Repeat Business Inc: The Business of Staying in Business” and You Can’t Make This Ship Up”, a hilarious look at the lessons leaders use that apply at sea and land-based businesses.  

In this episode, Paul shares his lessons learned from his experiences with cruise lines to show us how customer service and loyalty can drive growth quickly. Insights he shares include:

• Is the customer always right?
• How to create win-win outcomes despite encountering difficult customers
• How to use customer service and loyalty to drive growth
• The more than perfect service model to help drive customer service and loyalty
• Why having good customer service is not good enough
• How do you create remarkable experiences
• The role of culture and empathy in forming remarkable customer service and loyalty experiences
• Customer service metrics to watch
• How to reimagine service to drive lifelong loyalty
• Why a guarantee of wonderful experiences drives profits
• and much much more ....

BJ Stromme is an Alaskan-based independent entrepreneur for over 40 years. She has earned top recognition rewards, worldwide incentive trips, and presented training to national and international groups of leaders.

BJ is also an author, business trainer, personal coach, and speaker who has built two successful businesses and knows the ups and downs of working for yourself.  This is also why she is of the opinion that having a coach is invaluable!  

In this episode, BJ shares how using unique personality profiling in the workplace can drive growth fast. Insights she shares include:

• Why BJ advocates for using personality profiling in the workplace as a key lever for business growth
• Why use another personality profiling tool when there are so many available
• The dark side of personality profiling
• How does "Are you my flock?" work
• How to use personality profiles in the workplace to build culture drives growth predictably
• How to better understand an individual's motivations based on their personality
• The four quadrants to personaility profiling in the workplace
• How to dertemine the based fit for certain roles with persoanility profiles in the workplace
• How to bring out the best in people given the constant change we experience in the workplace
• How best to gauge engagement in the workplace
• and much much more ....

Rajiv Lamba is the CEO of Singapore-based Neurosensum a CX research startup that services 75 clients globally (including Nestle Danone and DBS).

Using his tried and tested B2B Enterprise SAAS model he grew Neurosensum from $0 to $4.4m ARR in just 3 years. 

Rajiv is a CX pioneer, Southeast Asian Entrepreneur, and B2B SaaS leader who successfully grew his first research startup from $0 to $14m in sales in 6 years before a successful trade exit. Rajiv won the "Entrepreneur of the Year Award" in 2019.

In this episode, he shares how we can develop customer empathy through customer experience actionable data and insights to drive great customer service and business growth. Insights he shares include:

• The origins of Surveysensum and Neurosensum
• Why use surveys to better understand customers as opposed to other methods
• Why customer empathy is the answer to understanding your customers better
• How to embed the voice of the customer into the organization
• How to get data scientist type actionable insights that further customer empathy and business growth
• How Southeast Asia fares with customer experience and customer empathy
• Is customer experience still a viable basis for differentiating a business brand
• How do we ensure we are gaining insights in real-time or close to it in order to act in an agile manner
• How to avoid survey fatigue
• How you should think about loyalty and implementing programs that add to the customer experience
• and much much more ...

Farzad Rashidi Co-founder of Respona, the all-in-one digital PR and link-building software that combines personalization with productivity.

Farzad Rashidi is also the Director of Marketing at Visme. At Visme his marketing efforts have helped the company gain over 4.5 million users and pass 1.5M monthly organic traffic they currently get around 3 M monthly visits. Farzad's goal is to help other companies achieve the same success via Respona.

In this episode, he shares how we can create and bootstrap a B2B SEO strategy to gain over 4 million users. Insights he shares include:

• How good does your content need to be for effective content marketing
• What makes acquiring links a tedious part of any B2B SEO strategy
• How to incentivize people into collaborating with you
• How Farzad recommends we select whom we reach out to
• How best to balance paid advertising vs SEO
• A critical piece of any B2B SEO strategy
• Respona's north star metric
• Should the media or traditional journalists still have a place in your marketing plan
• How AI, VR and AR impact a B2B SEO strategy
• and much much more ....