This week, Simon Daniels, now Principal Consultant, B2B Customer Growth at Accenture Song, is in the studio to share 5 f’in’ tips for getting your Revenue Operations rocking, which include:

Making the business case

Aligning with business goals, outcomes, and stakeholders

Customer focus

Building on 4 key foundations

Proving value and scaling what works

Ian then joins Robert Rose in the virtual bar, The Rose & Rockstar, for a classic cocktail and a chat, and Robert unveils his new Audience Trust Index research that he is publsihing on the Content Marketing Institute blog. 

If you have any comments or thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear them!

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Ian Truscott on LinkedIn 

Simon Daniels on LinkedIn 

Robert Rose on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

What's Broken in GTM and How to Fix It (podcast)

B2B Customer Growth | Accenture Song

Measuring Content Marketing in the AI Age, Part 1: The Audience Trust Index

Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com

Rockstar CMO:

The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday

Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn

Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube

Let It Grow - Eric Claptoon

Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, former Forrester Research Director, and now champion of clean technology, Jeff Clark, and our host Ian Truscott discuss a fun research paper from one of Ian’s favourite podcasts, Uncensored CMO and agency network Worldwide Partner titled “Confessions of a CMO”. 

As is the editorial policy of the show, they pick 5 f’in’ things that jumped out of this work:

The CMO needs to be the voice of the customer

Trading authority for influence

When chaos reigns, stabilize the ship

The long and the short of it

The death of the CMO is wildly overstated

Then Ian joins Robert Rose in the virtual bar, The Rose & Rockstar, for a chat about a recent article he published on the Content Marketing Institute blog, part of a series discussing plural brands and earning attention one room at a time.   

If you have any comments or thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear them!

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Ian Truscott on LinkedIn 

Jeff Clark on LinkedIn 

Robert Rose on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

Confessions of a CMO

Uncensored CMO

Winning B2B Brand Trust Part 2: How To Earn Attention One Room at a Time

Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com

Rockstar CMO:

The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday

Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn

Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube

The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go (Official Video)

Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, our host Ian Truscott chats with B2B marketing leader Lisa Bonnano, and then he and Robert tackle the topic of vibe coding killing SaaS software over a cocktail.  

Lisa Bonanno is a revenue and customer-focused marketing executive with 20+ years of experience optimizing and scaling global pipeline engines from inquiry to advocacy for B2B SaaS businesses.

Ian dives into Lisa’s marketing leadership experience, what drew her to marketing as a profession, her views on getting a marketing education, what we can learn from B2C, and:

What is on Lisa’s rider when she’s considering a new gig

Where she starts when starting a new gig

The advice she gives to young marketers looking to follow in her footsteps

What she would chuck into our Rockstar CMO Swimming Pool - our portal to marketing hell

The tune that gets her marketing mojo working

After catching up with Lisa, Ian joins Robert Rose in the virtual bar, The Rose & Rockstar, for a chat about whether business users getting access to AI-generated code, or vide coding, is going to kill SaaS software. 

If you have any comments or thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear them!

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Ian Truscott on LinkedIn 

Lisa P. Bonnano on LinkedIn

Robert Rose on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

Tuesday 2¢ - Is The Vibe Killing SaaS?

Ian’s firm - Velocity B

Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com

Rockstar CMO:

The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday

Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn

Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube

Florence + The Machine - Dog Days Are Over (2010 Version)

Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Cathy McKnight is back in the studio to discuss changes content marketers need to make in 2026, and as Robert Rose couldn’t make it to our virtual bar this week, our host Ian Truscott shares his 3 D’s of product content marketing.   

Ian and Cathy discuss:

Marketing teams are often organized around outdated models

The pandemic accelerated the need for digital transformation

Organizations must focus on outcomes, not just outputs

Silos in organizations are inevitable, but should be permeable

AI should enhance human creativity, not replace it

Organizations waste money on unused technology

Ian shares that B2B tech marketers need to create three types of content to move away from our focus on features and functions, and steps through his 3 D’s of Product Content Marketing: 

Default

Distinct

Direction

If you have any comments or thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear them!

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Ian Truscott on LinkedIn 

Cathy McKnight on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

Cathy’s weekly blog - Bear Essentials

Cathy’s firm - Seventh Bear

Beyond features: the three Ds of product marketing | Startups Magazine

Ian’s firm - Velocity B

Rockstar CMO:

The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday

Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn

Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube

Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, our host Ian Truscott welcomes back former Forerster Research Director Jeff Clark after his holiday. Jeff turns the tables on Ian and quizzes him on the 5 F’in’ fails for the Story, one of our 5 F’in’ Marketing Fundamentals.  

They discuss:

Sales stops trusting marketing when the story is fractured.

A distinctive story helps avoid the B2B beige trap.

Buyers make decisions based on emotional connections, not just features.

Competing solely on price leads to a race to the bottom.

Content should be treated as a strategic asset, not just a tactic, and needs a proper launch plan to be effective.

In the Rose & Rockstar, our virtual bar, Ian asks Robert Rose, Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear, what he would do today if he were starting from scratch with a content program or a content creator today, in the current environment with social media algorithms and search experiences that seem to discourage organic growth versus paid. 

If you have any comments or thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear them. We welcome your feedback. 

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Ian Truscott on LinkedIn 

Jeff Clark on LinkedIn 

Robert Rose on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

The 5 F’in’ Marketing Fundamentals

Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com

Ian’s firm - Velocity B

Rockstar CMO:

The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday

Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn

Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube

Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, our host Ian Truscott welcomes back Dennis Shiao to celebrate 10 years of the Bay Area Content Meetup, before he slips off to our virtual pub for a mix of marketing and mixology with the Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear, Robert Rose. 

In the studio, Dennis shares his experience of growing a content marketing community from a few like-minded bloggers at a local restaurant to an international virtual community with thousands of members and speakers that represent the great and the good of content marketing. 

In the Rose & Rockstar, our virtual bar, Ian and Robert discuss some recent work he’s published on the Content Marketing Institute blog that looks at how we build authority ladders for our AI agents, the work that this takes and some of the risks if we don’t.

If you have any comments or thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear them. We welcome your feedback. 

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Ian Truscott on LinkedIn 

Dennis Shiao on LinkedIn

Robert Rose on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

Bay Area Content Marketing Meetup

From Dennis: Attention Retention and the Content Corner Newsletter

Robert’s article - Agentic AI in Marketing Part 3: How To Build an Authority Ladder

Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com

Ian’s firm - Velocity B

Rockstar CMO:

The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday

Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn

Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube

Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we go back to the old weekly format, with Ian Truscott hosting a guest in the studio before we slip off to our virtual pub for a mix of marketing and mixology with the Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear, Robert Rose. 

In the studio this week, Cathy McKnight makes her monthly visit to chat about all things content, asking the question: Do CMOs still care about a CMS when defining their tech stack? 

They also dive into the challenge of disruptive requests within a marketing team, discussing her article Last Week's Crisis Shouldn't Affect This Week’s Work.

Ian then joins Robert in the Rose & Rockstar, our virtual bar, to explore an analogy Robert has made about the railways in his recent article for Content Marketing Institute on deploying AI.  

If you have any comments or thoughts on any of these topics, please get in touch with the links below.

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Ian Truscott on LinkedIn 

Cathy McKnight on LinkedIn

Robert Rose on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

Cathy’s article - Bear Essentials: Last Week's Crisis Shouldn't Affect This Week’s Work

Robert’s article - Agentic AI in Marketing for 2026

Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com

Ian’s firm - Velocity B

Rockstar CMO:

The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday

Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn

Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube

Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to The Rose and Rockstar - with the Chief Troublemaker at Seventh Bear, Robert Rose, behind the bar serving one of his splendid cocktails, while our Rockstar CMO host Ian Truscott picks his brain on a marketing topic. 

This week, we dive back into the obsession marketing commentators seem to have with declaring things as dead. Recently, it seems PR has been getting the “it’s dead” treatment from the cool kids high on social media Kool-Aid, but in an age when networks, human-to-human marketing, and influence are so important, the chaps discuss why PR should be very much alive.

They discuss:

Modern PR requires building relationships with influencers, not just journalists.

The skills needed for PR have evolved with the rise of social media.

Integrating PR into overall marketing is crucial for success.

If this resonates with you or if you have a suggestion for a topic in the bar, please get in touch with us - [email protected]

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Ian Truscott on LinkedIn

Robert Rose on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week

This Old Marketing Podcast - The Death of Dead Marketing

Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com

Ian’s firm - Velocity B

Rockstar CMO:

The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday

Rockstar CMO on the web, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube

Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon and Spotify.

This podcast is part of the Marketing Podcast Network

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Jeff Clark, our resident B2B marketing strategist and our host Ian Truscott are inspired by an article by Dave Kellogg, which describes a pipeline crisis for B2B, and they pick 5 of the best suggestions of what Kellogg would do from the 13 he lists in that article. 

The five they discuss:

Think holistically

Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Get good at AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)

Leverage the CEO 

Build first-party audiences

As always, we welcome your feedback. If you have a hot topic you'd like us to discuss, please contact us using the links below.

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Ian Truscott on LinkedIn

Jeff Clark on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

How To Navigate the Pipeline Crisis - Kellblog

Rockstar CMO:

The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday

Rockstar CMO on the web, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

Stienski & Mass Media - We'll be right back

Panic in Detroit (2013 Remaster) - David Bowie

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to The Rose and Rockstar - with the Chief Troublemaker at Seventh Bear, Robert Rose, behind the bar serving one of his splendid cocktails, while our Rockstar CMO host Ian Truscott picks his brain on a marketing topic. 

This week, there is a story that has been doing the rounds on LinkedIn for the last three weeks, that keeps appearing in Ian’s feed from the Wall Street Journal called Companies Are Desperately Seeking ‘Storytellers’ that has got a lot of commentary, pointing out its flaws. 

As an expert and author of three books on Content Marketing, Ian asks Robert: if he had written the story, what would he have written? 

The answer? As you’ll hear, if he’d have covered the following:

Storytelling is a crucial skill, but many companies misunderstand what it means

Effective storytelling requires a blend of strategy and mechanics

Tension and resolution are key elements of a good story, which marketing content lacks

Businesses need to recognize existing storytelling skills within their teams.

If this resonates with you or if you have a suggestion for a topic in the bar, please get in touch with us - [email protected]

Enjoy!

—

The Links

The people:

Ian Truscott on LinkedIn

Robert Rose on LinkedIn

Mentioned this week:

Companies Are Desperately Seeking ‘Storytellers’ - WSJ

Yes, You Better be a F**king Storyteller - Rockstar CMO

Ann Handley's take on LinkedIn

Lyla Rae Hightower

Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com

Ian’s firm - Velocity B

Rockstar CMO:

The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday

Rockstar CMO on the web, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM.

Track List:

We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube

Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license

You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon and Spotify.

This podcast is part of the Marketing Podcast Network

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices