Bringing Brand Mantras to B2B

Sep 9, 2025

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This episode features an interview with Jill Wiltfong, Chief Marketing Officer at global consulting firm Korn Ferry.

Jill shares her unique path from TV news anchor to marketing, emphasizing the crucial skills of storytelling, communication, and adaptability. She discusses why their thought leadership team is all journalists and discusses their transformative sponsorship of the PGA Korn Ferry Tour.

Key Takeaways:

Empower employees to promote your brand by giving them clear guardrails instead of slowing them down with heavy approval processes.
Wait for the big brand opportunities that authentically tell your company story, like Korn Ferry’s PGA development tour sponsorship, rather than chasing generic opportunities.
If you’re not the biggest player in your market, the only way to get a seat at the table is to do something different, at scale.

Quote:

"The other thing that was really transformative for us was deciding we were not going to be a boring B2B company. We needed to act and think and behave like a B2C firm. So we came up with this brand mantra: Be more than. Nike had just do it. Apple had think different. We are all about Be More Than. And this is our rallying cry. It tells people exactly who we are. It tells you what we're gonna do for you, for employees. It gives you a sense that Korn Ferry is rough, man, it's pretty relentless because we are always gonna push you to be more than you were yesterday."

Episode Timestamps:

*(19:09) The Trust Tree: Marketing is best suited to lead and drive innovation

*(22:23) The Playbook: Get the right people, the rest falls into place

*(44:40) Quick Hits: Jill’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

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