Curious Business: Insights for B2B Growth

Buyers, markets, influence and the Hankins Hexagon with James Hankins

Nov 25, 2025

In this engaging discussion, marketing strategist James Hankins, former Global VP of Marketing Strategy at Sage, shares valuable insights on influencing consumer behavior. He challenges common marketing myths, advocating that understanding market dynamics is crucial for strategy success. Hankins introduces his innovative Hankins Hexagon model, offering a clearer view of the chaotic buyer journey compared to traditional funnels. He dives into the implications of slowing SaaS growth and explores how AI can reshape marketing influence, all while keeping the conversation entertaining and thought-provoking.

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INSIGHT

Marketing Science Is Simple And Recurrent

Marketing effectiveness rests on simple, repeatable laws like mental and physical availability.
The industry relearned common-sense rules after over-focusing on digital performance versus brand.

ANECDOTE

Share Of Search Origin Story

While working on Coca-Cola James found Google search volumes correlated strongly with brand love and market share.
That led him to create Share of Search as a near-real-time proxy for market share in many markets.

INSIGHT

Replace Funnels With Probabilistic Paths

Funnels are metaphors and rarely represent linear buyer movement in B2B or B2C.
The Hankins Hexagon models probabilistic pathways and embraces the chaos of real buyer behaviour.

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How much can we influence people with advertising? What’s the best way to understand and model buyer behaviour? How should we set about growing market share?

James Hankins has worked in agency, consultant and client roles, tackling these very questions. In this episode, he challenges marketing myths and woolly thinking, and explains why understanding your market matters more than chasing funnels. The conversation blends practical strategy with behavioural insight to help marketers - and leaders - make better decisions.

I worked at the same media agency as James in the 2000s (Walker Media). Since then, his insights have regularly appeared in the marketing press, at the IPA, and in my LinkedIn feed. He’s a veteran of the UK's major media and advertising groups and, more recently, Global VP Marketing Strategy and Planning for Sage. He’s also the creator of the Share of Search and Hankins Hexagon models.

Listen to this episode to learn:

Why market dynamics are the gravity upon which strategy and execution must be built
How Share of Search works and how it gives the rest of us valuable market share data
Why funnels are misleading and how the Hankins Hexagon is better for marketers looking to influence buyers
The impact of slowing SaaS growth on businesses like Sage
How brands, influence and ‘share of model’ will likely play out in the world of ChatGPT

All that, and this episode features the podcast’s first mention of devil worship.

The Hankins Hexagon:
https://www.marketingweek.com/forget-funnels-new-model-path-to-purchase/

If you’re a WARC subscriber, the full paper is here:
https://www.warc.com/content/paywall/article/warc-exclusive/the-hankins-hexagon-a-new-practical-model-for-the-path-to-purchase/en-gb/137888?

More about Share of Search and how to calculate yours:
https://www.myshareofsearch.com

Connect with James on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-cp-hankins/

Read James' blog:
https://theeqplanner.wordpress.com

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Thanks for listening to Curious Business, the business podcast that brings you fresh insights, experiences and ideas to help you think differently about your business and marketing.

My name is Stephen Morris. I help start-ups and scale-ups gain clarity, take action and ignite real momentum in their marketing and pipeline generation. If you'd like to know more, book a discovery call or sign-up for my monthly newsletter - The Prompt.