On Scrappy ABM, Mason Cosby shares a “so simple and it seems so impactful” playbook with Jeni Bishop from Cordial: literally celebrating your customers by submitting customers and prospects for awards. It started with customers and “innovation awards,” then moved to prospects through an event award program—because “it’s an incredible touch point.” The nomination email creates a joyous moment: “Congratulations, you’ve been nominated,” followed by a chance to reach out, congratulate them, and “send them a gift… a direct mail… a bottle of champagne… or a card.” The results show up as touchpoints, “brand affinity,” “brand advocates,” and “brand exposure”—while the advice remains clear: start small, keep a calendar, and prioritize “quality over quantity.”

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Jeni Bishop is the VP of Marketing and head of brand at Cordial. She shares a simple playbook: “We submitted our prospects for awards,” starting with customers and expanding to prospects through an event award program. She recommends starting with “free, simple event-based” awards and says the nomination email is “an incredible touch point.” Jeni points people to LinkedIn: “It’s just Jeni Bishop… Jeni said, “I like the ice cream.”

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• “Literally celebrating your customers” by submitting customers and prospects for awards
• How it started with customers, “innovation awards,” and “fascinating use cases.”
• Choosing prospects: “What story did we have to tell?” and sales/team relationship input
• The nomination process: a “paragraph or two,” and a “wide range” of commitment levels
• The nomination email is “another touch point,” plus gifts, direct mail, and messages
• Results: “touchpoint is number one,” “brand affinity,” and “brand advocates.”
• Scaling: start with a calendar, but “quality over quantity” and avoid “robotic or scaled.”
• Advice: “Don’t start with paid awards… start with the free ones.”

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• Cordial
• CommerceNext
• CommerceNext Days
• LinkedIn (find Jeni Bishop on LinkedIn)
• [email protected]
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today’s episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don’t forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

“No surprises” is the way teams need to operate—because alignment is tough when teams have different incentives, objectives, and motivations. On Scrappy ABM, Mason Cosby is joined by Rebecca (Bogler) Grimes, the CRO of SheerID, to talk through tips, tricks, and pieces of advice for creating the same experience from inbound to the selling cycle, implementation handoff, and into retention and growth strategies that straddle teams.

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The conversation keeps coming back to being intentional: documenting conversations, preparing well before meetings, doing research, and making conversations forward-looking and specific to an individual account. Rebecca also shares how tools, AI features, and synced systems support a “catalog” of what’s been discussed—so nobody has to say “catch me up.” From OKRs and scorecards to collaboration and compensation, the thread is simple: revenue is owned by everybody.

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Rebecca (Bogler) Grimes is the CRO of SheerID and describes her role as “full cycle,” owning marketing, sales, and customer success. She talks about shared responsibility across the organization, performance management culture, and using tools and documented next steps so teams can show up fully briefed and avoid surprises. When asked where to find her, Rebecca points people to LinkedIn.

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1. Creating a seamless handoff process from inbound lead → selling cycle → implementation handoff → retention and growth strategies
2. Being more intentional about documenting conversations, preparing before meetings, and keeping conversations forward-looking
3. Using Gong and AI features to catch up on what’s been discussed and identify “yellow lights”
4. Setting the expectation that you can visibly see where things are—so there’s no “catch me up on where things are” moment
5. Building a playbook with a clear delineation of ownership, plus warm introductions with onboarding and CSMs
6. Operating with no surprises, using inspection by leadership and exception reports (meeting notes, next steps, timeline shifts)
7. Embracing a performance management culture with objectives and key results, an OKR framework, and an org-wide scorecard
8. Having a hypothesis for ABM success criteria beyond a singular metric—and being agile with check-ins, signals, and pivots

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1. Gong (AI features to help catch you up on conversations; “yellow lights”)
2. Slack (how teams stay connected; call people in to support)
3. Salesforce (“if it didn’t happen in Salesforce, it didn’t happen”)
4. ClickUp, HubSpot, Asana (tools referenced for keeping work and documentation visible)
5. Radical Candor
6. Measuring What Matters
7. ShopTalk (referenced as a big event example)
8. LinkedIn (where Rebecca points people to find her)
9. Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies
10. Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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On Scrappy ABM, host Mason Cosby sits down with Payton Christopher, head of demand generation and growth marketing at Delivery Solutions, to walk through a practical ABM program built around enterprise retailers, events, and paid social.

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Payton starts with a simple problem: if you ask different departments for the ICP, you get different answers. He explains how the team pulled CRM data, account trends, and real conversations from sales, customer service, and product to define the right enterprise accounts, locations, and revenue bands — plus the decision makers and frontline influencers who actually move deals forward.

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From there, Mason and Payton unpack how events shifted into a primary conversion channel, how LinkedIn paid social and case-study content provide consistent product education, and why pipeline velocity and close-won revenue from inbound demo requests sit at the center of their measurement. They close by talking about C-suite pushback, static ads that did not work, self-guided demo GIFs that helped, and why relationships across teams decide whether an ABM program survives.

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👤 Guest Bio

Payton Christopher serves as head of demand generation and growth marketing at Delivery Solutions. He focuses on enterprise accounts, large-scale retailers, and an account-based marketing strategy that combines events, paid social, cold outbound, partner referrals, and a close relationship with the UPS parent company. In this conversation, Payton shares how he works with sales, customer service, and product, builds a content distribution strategy with a director of content, and measures programs through inbound demo requests, inbound pipeline, and pipeline velocity while navigating a long enterprise sales cycle and C-suite expectations.

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📌 What We Cover

• Defining the ICP by combining CRM data with input from sales, customer service, and product to focus on enterprise retailers.
• Identifying decision makers and frontline influencers, then engaging end users who drive real influence inside large accounts.
• Turning events into a primary conversion channel with digital backdrops, demo stations, and live product walkthroughs.
• Running an ABM-focused LinkedIn program that uses always-on paid social and product education for target accounts.
• Using interview-style case studies and a “waterfall” content approach to fuel social, website, and YouTube.
• Coordinating social events, website, cold outbound, partner referrals, and UPS relationships as core revenue drivers.
• Measuring success through direct and organic lift, inbound demo requests, inbound pipeline, and pipeline velocity as the North Star.
• Handling static ads that did not work, C-suite pushback, long enterprise sales cycles, and the need for ongoing relationships and office hours with sales.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Delivery Solutions: Mentioned as the enterprise-focused product that integrates with custom solutions for large-scale retailers and delivers a return on investment, especially when accounts have many storefront locations and complex setups.
• LinkedIn: Used as a primary paid social and organic social channel where account lists and job titles are uploaded, videos are always on, and the team focuses on brand awareness and product education for the target audience.
• Toal (self-guided demo tool): Referenced as a tool for self-guided demos that inspired Delivery Solutions to record product demos, turn short segments into GIFs, and run those 15-second clips on LinkedIn to highlight specific features and benefits.
• HubSpot: The CRM where reps view leads, accounts, and assignments. Payton uses HubSpot in office hours to help sales understand how to move leads along and see the accounts assigned to them.
• UPS: Called out as the parent company and a key channel. Payton and the team maintain strong relationships with UPS sales reps, run webinars to explain the product, and help reps identify opportunities to bring Delivery Solutions into their own accounts.
• Shop Talk, Grocery Shop, and Retail Dive events: Named as important industry conferences and events where Delivery Solutions needs to show up with a strong booth, digital backdrops, and live demos so brands see the product and do not compare them poorly to competitors.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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Account-based marketing teams want every interaction to build trust, not erode it. On Scrappy ABM, host Mason Cosby sits down with Jeni Bishop to focus on brand and design within ABM programs, rather than just talking about awareness. Jeni shares why every interaction is a touchpoint that either builds trust over time or breaks it when you show up differently each time.

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Together, they walk through how to keep ads, content, emails, SDR outreach, and sales outreach consistent so a prospect doesn’t feel like they landed in the wrong place. Jeni explains her “take the logo off” test, why your company has to be the wrapper, and how overusing a target account’s colors, fonts, and logo can confuse people and erode brand trust. They also get into one-to-one versus one-to-few versus one-to-many ABM, how language from ICP research shapes messaging, and why branded solution terms come after problem language in the journey on Scrappy ABM.

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👤 Guest Bio

Jeni Bishop is VP of marketing and head of brand at Cordial. She works at a MarTech company focused on orchestrations and customer journeys, and she brings a brand and design perspective to account-based marketing programs. Jeni thinks about every interaction as a touch point that builds trust over time, from one-to-many campaigns to one-to-one content deeper in the funnel. This is her first podcast ever, and she is excited to be here. You can find her on LinkedIn and at cordial.com.

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📌 What We Cover

• Why every interaction in an ABM program is a touch point that builds trust over time
• How showing up differently every time erodes trust with prospects and accounts
• The role of buttoned-up brand guidelines in keeping touch points consistent across ads, content, emails, SDR outreach, sales outreach, and marketing content
• The “take your logo off the asset” test to see if people can still tell it’s your brand
• How over-customizing with a target account’s color palette, fonts, lifestyle imagery, language, and logo can work against your brand
• Logo hierarchy in one-to-one programs: making sure your logo is more prominent so people know where the ad or content came from
• Why your brand should be the wrapper through brand colors, fonts, and imagery so the ad and the website feel like the same experience
• Brand is others’ perception of your company, and how messaging shapes that perception
• Using ICP research, keyword research, and surveys to understand the language prospects use for their problems and challenges
• Examples like “orchestrations” versus “journey” and “account progression model” versus “funnel” or “customer journey map”
• Balancing problem language prospects use with branded terms that position your solution as unique, distinguished, and differentiated
• Budget challenges, doing more with less, and why one-to-few ABM can be more cost-effective than one-to-one while still feeling personal
• Grouping accounts that share very similar characteristics and challenges so campaigns can address their problems and still feel specific
• Moving from one-to-many to one-to-few at the top of the journey and focusing on one-to-one personalization on active pipeline and deal cycles
• Using one-to-one content lower in the funnel when you know their needs and challenges, and there is less guesswork
• How inconsistent experiences between the ad and the website put a question mark in a prospect’s head
• Aligning every touch point to create a seamless journey that builds trust, brand affinity, and recognition over time

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Cordial – The company where Jeni is VP of marketing and head of brand, referenced throughout the conversation.
• Jeni Bishop on LinkedIn – Jeni invites listeners to check her out on LinkedIn.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Targeting is the number one factor killing your ad program. Mason Cosby walks through what most LinkedIn ad experts miss —and why audience expansion and third-party network expansion are just setting money on fire—two ways people are specifically setting cash on fire on LinkedIn: industry-based Targeting and title-based Targeting LinkedIn industry targeting is super confusing, it isn’t nearly specific enough, and can put extraordinarily similar companies in different industries—so you end up hitting tons of companies that are not even remotely the people you want to be going after.

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Title-based targeting lumps together multiple titles that are kinda close, so you spend a ton of money on people who will never buy from you.

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The alternative is list-based advertising: identify the specific companies and individuals you want to target, and upload the list. Match rates come from personal email addresses, LinkedIn URLs, or LinkedIn-provided data from a LinkedIn event registration form—plus a quarterly list refresh to account for job changes.

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• Targeting is the number one thing that is killing your ad program
• For the love of all things good and holy: do not use audience expansion or the LinkedIn third-party network expansion
• Two ways people are setting money on fire: industry-based targeting and title-based targeting
• LinkedIn industry targeting is super confusing and isn’t nearly specific enough
• Title-based targeting on LinkedIn is lumping together multiple titles that are kinda close
• List-based advertising: identify the exact companies and people you want to market to, then upload that list to LinkedIn
• Match rates with personal email addresses, LinkedIn URLs, or LinkedIn event registration form exports
• Quarterly list refresh, job changes, and the trade-off for exponentially greater efficiency of spend

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• LinkedIn (audience expansion, third-party network expansion, LinkedIn ads platform, LinkedIn event, registration form, LinkedIn URL)
• Google
• ChatGPT
• Sales Intel
• ZoomInfo
• Amplemarket: AI Sales Copilot for sales teams
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to have a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Scrappy ABM brings together host Mason Cosby and Yann Sarfati, CEO and Co-founder of Userled, to talk about ABM, AI, field marketing, and events that actually bring the bank. The conversation starts with the problem statement: ABM is a strong buzzword, but finding the accounts you really want to go after is actually the hardest thing. Many teams say they have a narrow ICP and still end up with a list of 10,000 accounts.

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Yann shares how Userled spent almost six months building a list of 1,000 accounts with clear commonality, strong conviction, and ethical belief that life will be better for those accounts. Mason highlights the mental headache and wasted 10 to 20 hours per bad deal when the ICP is wrong. Together they walk through NRR in MarTech, repeatable GTM motion, small events where the persona actually shows up, personalized event invites, and doing things that do not scale to win enterprise deals and keep customers for the long term.

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Yann Sarfati is the CEO and Co-founder of Userled. He started from the ABM problem statement and built a product that generates content with AI for every stage of the funnel, per industry, and per account. Yann is in the trenches with a team of salespeople, cares very little about the growth element compared to NRR in MarTech, and focuses on a strong list of accounts that share similar pain. He spends time at small events where the right persona is present, rolls out the red carpet for key accounts, and does things that do not scale to break into and grow enterprise deals.

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• Starting from the ABM problem statement and why finding the accounts you really want to go after is actually the hardest thing.
• How Userled built a list of 1,000 accounts over almost six months with clear commonality like complementary tech, existing ABM team, enterprise focus, ACV above 500K, CMO sponsorship, and sales already involved.
• Mason’s framing of ethical conviction: looking at each individual account and asking if life will be better because of the work together.
• The time tradeoff between spending 10 to 20 hours per deal in the sales cycle versus 20 minutes per account to make sure the list is right and avoid wasting time on completely irrelevant opportunities.
• The mental headache and frustration of sales when 50% of the pipeline is shit deals, how repeated rejection kills confidence, and why slipping for the right reasons feels different from losing deals you never could have won.
• Why Yann cares very little about the growth element and focuses on NRR in MarTech, renewals, upsell, and building a company that is a no-brainer for clients for the next five years.
• How Userled uses AI-generated content by industry and funnel stage plus small events where the persona from key accounts is present to get the highest conversion of pipeline.
• The event playbook: complementary tech events like Six Sense and Demandbase, max 400 attendees, 15 to 17 hyper relevant conferences, personalized event invite for every single attendee, dynamic calendars, short product tests at the booth, and a quota of at least 10 booked calls per day with ICP.
• Why they do not collect emails, do not rely on badge scans, and instead book calls on the day or lose them, then follow up with recaps and event invites that drive six out of seven attended calls.
• Using per-industry value props, education around AI in ABM, and case studies, plus tracking who reads and shares content inside target accounts.
• Looking at engagement spikes from key accounts, web visits, and contact-level interest as signals for sales outreach instead of waiting for a Cisco-style stakeholder to knock on the door and ask for a demo.
• Lessons learned from doing events like everyone else with vanity metrics, the discrepancy between event spend and pipeline, and the shift to events that help deals get over the line by meeting CMOs and stakeholders in person.
• The power of flying to a place like Naples to meet an executive stakeholder, doing things that do not scale, and why the playing field has leveled up now that everybody has the same data and intent signals.
• Final advice on building an ABM program: not just sorting previous big enterprise wins by deal value, but working with CS to understand what exactly is a perfect account, why referrals and advocates matter, and how profit and NPS change the real definition of best customer.

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• Userled – Product for ABM plus AI that generates content for bottom of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and end of the funnel per industry and account, and distributes it through sales and ads platforms.
• Six Sense – Complementary tech that organizes events where key ABM personas from target accounts are present.
• Demandbase – Another complementary tech with events that attract the same people again and again from the right ICP.
• Clay – Place to find emails so you do not spend 10 to 60K on an event just to collect addresses at the booth.
• ZoomInfo – Example of a platform where teams can get emails instead of relying on badge scans and generic follow-up.
• Apollo – Another way to find contacts without turning events into email collection exercises.
• HubSpot event – Example of a big conference Yann does not prioritize when he can double down on smaller, hyper relevant events.
• Dreamforce – Another large event that looks attractive on paper but does not match the focused ABM and small-event playbook described in this conversation.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason Cosby on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Scrappy ABM brings together host Mason Cosby and Erika White Crutchlow from Resolver to walk through an event-focused ABM program that runs on tight alignment with customer success and sales, bold booth visuals, and simple giveaways like branded socks. Mason and Erika revisit a conversation that started at B2BMX in October and trace how a heavy event season turned into a structured approach to account selection, pre-event outreach, and on-site execution.

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Erika explains how Resolver builds event-based target account lists, crawls LinkedIn, and uses historical lists to reach high-value customers and prospects before anyone steps on the trade show floor. She shares how tailored email, LinkedIn, and phone outreach, SDR calls two weeks before the show, and “after-hours” breakfasts, activities, and dinners with customers and prospects create real relationships, qualified accounts, and long-term brand awareness that show up in Salesforce long after the event ends.

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👤 Guest Bio

Erika White Crutchlow from Resolver builds and runs event-focused ABM programs across multiple divisions. She works very closely with customer success and sales to identify high-value customer accounts and prospect accounts, map them to the right events, and align on pre-event outreach, booth strategy, meetings, and after-hours activities. Erika tracks results through Salesforce, leans on historical event lists, and partners with local vendors for “cheap and cheerful” giveaways like popcorn, branded cookies, and socks that keep people coming back to the booth and to Resolver’s team year after year.

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📌 What We Cover

• Building an event-focused ABM program that starts with high-value customer accounts and prospect accounts from customer success and sales.
• Deciding whether to go to events for specific accounts or use events to reach an existing target account list, and leaving room for “moments of serendipity.”
• Using LinkedIn crawling, hashtags, session topics, and historical lists to see which accounts will be attending and to fuel pre-event outreach.
• Running tailored, personalized outreach through email, LinkedIn, and phone calls that invite people to on-site meetings and custom demos tied to new features or products.
• Offering simple incentives like branded socks instead of expensive headphones, and using cost per opportunity and meetings per opportunity to guide budget and meeting targets.
• Training the booth team to ask qualifying questions, filter out swag-only visitors, and focus on people who are ready for a real conversation and demo.
• Comparing sponsored speaking sessions and thought leadership abstracts with booth investments, and why Resolver often prefers the booth over expensive sponsored slots.
• Designing after-hours breakfasts, activities, and dinners that pair target accounts with customers so they can talk about shared problems, risk, and tools without pressure.
• Tracking meetings, follow-up meetings, new leads, qualified accounts, and pipeline in Salesforce, while recognizing that many event touches pay off one or two years later.
• Testing two-week pre-event SDR calls to confirm meetings, ask pre-qualifying questions, and improve show rates with a simple “are we still good” follow-up.
• Partnering with local vendors for popcorn, branded cookies, and city-specific giveaways that reduce shipping costs and create a local connection.
• The ongoing importance of alignment between sales and marketing, rowing in the same direction, and not underestimating the ROI of those off-site, after-hours events.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Resolver
• B2BMX
• Salesforce
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason Cosby on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today’s episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don’t forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

B2B marketing that makes you want to ram your head through a wall usually has the same pattern: the wrong people in the funnel, a light calendar, and an empty pipeline. On Scrappy ABM, host Mason Cosby calls out six specific reasons most B2B marketing programs are failing and walks through exactly how to fix them.

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Instead of chasing hundreds of thousands of leads and celebrating opt-ins, Mason pushes marketers to focus on targeting a very specific list of best fit customers—people who are super happy, highly profitable, send more friends, and stay for a long time. He shows how to speak the language of leadership by tying every program to named company objectives and real pipeline, and how to get sales to buy in by actually delivering the companies everyone agreed to go after.

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From lack of resources and unclear measurement to broken execution after the company all hands and strategy meeting, Mason lays out a simple way forward: eliminate what is not working, stick to a plan for three to six months, and use account-based marketing to go get the customers you really want.

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📌 What We Cover

• Why a lead generation approach that celebrates opt-ins instead of pipeline keeps you from going after the right people.
• How to define best fit customers (super happy, highly profitable, send more friends, stay for a long time) and use your marketing dollars to get more of them.
• How to stop leadership eyes from glazing over by dropping secret acronym language and tying programs to company initiatives, pipeline, and customers that close and stay.
• Why sales won’t buy in when the calendar is light and the pipeline is empty, and how agreeing on a list of companies and actually delivering those accounts changes everything.
• The lack of resources problem: being bombarded with ideas (email newsletter, event program, podcast, webinar program) and doing all of it poorly instead of a few things well.
• The three options for fixing the resource gap: automate, delegate (or hire), and especially eliminate the things that are not doing anything for the business.
• How to handle programs that are super hard to measure by deciding what success looks like, showcasing impact, and tying everything downstream to pipeline and revenue.
• Why execution falls apart right after the onsite or company all hands, and how eliminating old work, measuring success, and sticking to a new plan for three to six months changes your B2B marketing program.
• The simple fix that pulls everything together: stop trying to get everyone, build a very specific list of companies, and use account-based marketing to get those accounts to engage, enter the pipeline, show up on your website, engage in your email, and book meetings.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Account-based marketing (ABM) – Focusing on a very specific list of companies and best customers instead of general people.
• Channel dedicated to how to build out your ABM program – Content that shows how to build an ABM program that goes after the right people and gets them into your pipeline.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today’s episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don’t forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Subject matter experts are often scientists, coders, founders, or salespeople who never planned to live on camera or spend their days writing, yet the revenue team still needs their stories. On Scrappy ABM, host Mason Cosby and Phil Pilalas, content strategist at Scrappy ABM, get practical about how to create content with people who don’t think of themselves as “content people.”

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Phil walks through how to get buy-in by generating passion and giving confidence, starting from an environment that already feels natural to the founder or SME. They talk about simple ways to record real conversations, give SMEs a strong hand in review, and place each piece of content at the right point in the progression model. From faces associated with brands to “something is better than nothing,” this conversation shows how 30 minutes a week or an hour a month can turn SME time into subject matter expert content that actually moves accounts forward.

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👤 Guest Bio

• Phil Pilalas is a content strategist at Scrappy ABM who helps subject matter experts document why they do the thing, why they want to do the thing, and why it matters. He produces podcasts, creates micro content, and supports social media so ideas are presented in an efficient, confident way. Phil focuses on giving founders and SMEs a natural venue to talk, helping them feel comfortable on camera, and building a regular cadence of subject matter expert content. He is pretty regular on LinkedIn and points people there to find him.

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📌 What We Cover

• Why getting buy-in from subject matter experts is “a big deal,” and why it starts with generating passion and giving confidence around a specific problem, product, or solution.
• How to find the natural setting where a founder or SME already opens up—one-on-one, a small room, or a simple back-and-forth—and then figure out how to record it without throwing them onstage before they’re ready.
• The role of clear expectations: what the content will look like, how it will sound, the purpose of it, and how a strong approval process keeps SMEs from being surprised when someone says, “Hey, I saw you on LinkedIn.”
• Expectation versus reality in content quality, and why “a couple of people sitting in an office having a conversation” is often good enough compared to heavily produced, studio-style content.
• How SME content fits in an account progression model: founder energy at the top of the funnel, technical depth and numbers at the lower, more meaningful engagement parts of the progression.
• Why it matters to have faces associated with brands—because there is no building sitting on a Zoom call, only human beings with eyes, words, and passion about the problem they want to solve.
• Practical time expectations: 30 minutes a week or an hour a month of recording can fuel a full month of micro content when paired with production, outlines, and a focused theme.
• Messy but real ways to communicate success: podcast growth, opportunities where people say they heard the show, DMs from peers, and correlations between regular SME content, engagement, and pipeline.

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Resources:

• Phil Pilalas on LinkedIn: Phil is pretty regular on LinkedIn; he tells listeners to look for “Phil plus Scrappy ABM” to find him and connect around subject matter expert content and podcasts.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Scrappy ABM brings together host Mason Cosby and Yadin Porter de León, Director of Customer Stories and thought leadership over at Heroku, which is a part of Salesforce, to talk about going straight to the top of your target accounts without getting blacklisted.

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Instead of getting stuck in email blasts and third-party events that promise “rubbing elbows” with executives, Yadin shares a high-level framework that starts small with relationships your own C-suite already has, then builds proof points through web stories, webinars, podcasts, and thought leadership videos. The conversation walks through going top down from your CEO and bottoms up from directors and senior managers, doing the hard “eat your vegetables” work of segmentation, and mapping LinkedIn so you make it easy for leaders to say yes.

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Through stories from Angel Med Flight, JetBlue, GE Healthcare, NASA Jet Propulsion Labs, Wells Fargo, Michael Dell, and a seven-figure deal, Mason and Yadin show how time and trust, podcasts, and truly helping individuals with their own goals can turn a focused ABM program into a powerful path to the C-suite.

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👤 Guest Bio

• Yadin Porter de León is the Director of Customer Stories and thought leadership over at Heroku, which is a part of Salesforce. He has built ABM programs in multiple organizations, including smaller companies and large brands, and has engaged C-suite leaders such as the CIO of GE Healthcare, the CIO of NASA Jet Propulsion Labs, the CIO of Angel Med Flight, the new CIO at JetBlue, and senior leaders at Wells Fargo, along with conversations that include Michael Dell. Through podcasts, virtual events, and thought leadership videos, he focuses on making executives look good, delivering value to them as individuals, and creating proof points that help highly focused teams reach their most important accounts.

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📌 What We Cover

• Why so many smaller companies feel frustrated when email blasts and third-party events fail to spark any response from the C-suite—and why “don’t be discouraged” matters.
• How to “start small” by finding C-suite peers who are already “bosom buddies” with your CEO or CTO, and turn a simple web story or webinar into a powerful proof point.
• Using your own C-suite’s LinkedIn connections plus account reps’ insights to identify specific executives, line up warm intros, and make it easy for leaders to say yes.
• Combining top-down and bottoms-up ABM: working with your company’s executives while also delivering value to directors and senior managers inside target accounts.
• Treating segmentation and ABM list building as the “eat your vegetables” work that makes it possible to attack a CIO, CEO, or CMO from both sides with focus.
• Real stories of value: a 45-minute podcast with the CIO of Angel Med Flight that led to a virtual event, a news story, an influential innovators list, and a thought leadership video with a Wells Fargo SVP that helped close a seven-figure deal even though it never went live.
• Why helping individuals switch industries, elevate their brand, or grow an audience often matters more than a gift card—and how that mindset builds long-term trust.
• Mason’s example of following CROs as they switch jobs, helping them land their next gig, and then being brought in to develop their new sales teams.
• Yadin’s Seth Godin-inspired lens: instead of using your audience to solve a marketing problem, use marketing to solve their problem, working with the two most precious resources—time and trust.
• How podcasts as a platform give smaller ABM programs a scrappy, accessible way to reach CIOs, CTOs, CEOs, and CMOs, including the JetBlue CIO story where simply offering a podcast sparked the first meeting.
• Common mistakes that create a terrible experience for executives, from treating them like another task on a to-do list to poor communication and rushed preparation.
• The risk of getting blacklisted inside a focused account list, and why it is better to keep a neutral brand perception than create a negative one with a bad interaction.
• Why you should not “boil the ocean” with events, webinars, YouTube, and podcasts all at once—do one thing, do it well, then move on to the next channel.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Yadin Porter de León on LinkedIn — for staying connected with Yadin and his work on customer stories and thought leadership.
• Heroku — The Salesforce platform where Yadin leads Customer Stories and thought leadership.
• LinkedIn — The place Mason and Yadin reference for finding connections, mapping relationships, and reaching the C-suite.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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