Pipeline Visionaries

This episode features an interview with Rebecca Stone, SVP of Revenue Marketing at Cisco, the worldwide technology leader that is revolutionizing the way organizations connect and protect in the AI era.Rebecca shares how she stays agile inside a Fortune 500 giant and why she approaches AI with thoughtful skepticism. She also reveals her evolving take on content strategy – arguing that soon how you present your content could matter more than the content itself.Key Takeaways:You can prioritize agility to drastically reduce time to market, even at a large Fortune 500. Always think critically about answers from AI, and ask the models where they pulled their data from. Otherwise, risk sharing misinformation. The way your content is distributed and presented is just as important as the content itself. Quote:  I think it's a matter of meeting the market and meeting the moment, as well as just the sheer breadth of things that we have to do from an internal perspective. As with most organizations, there's not an unlimited amount of headcount and budget to go around. And so when you start to think about how do I approach things in a way that allows us to make progress. In a way that we were super slow, to your point, historically, that agile methodology is really helping us. And I think as an example of that, if you look over the course of the last six months, as we've moved more and more into the team operating fully agilely, we've cut down time to market for some of our most successful tactics from months, even potentially a quarter or more, to weeks.Episode Timestamps: *(03:42) The Trust Tree: Serving mom-and-pops up to the world’s largest governments *(10:22) The Playbook: Agile operations in very large marketing team *(37:50) The Dust Up: Marketing and sales, and marketing and product *(40:27) Quick Hits: Rebecca’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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Rebecca on LinkedInLearn more about CiscoLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Suzanne Behrens, CMO at Granicus, a software company that helps better engage governments and the people they serve.Suzanne discusses how Granicus is transforming engagement through AI-driven marketing, investing in digital channels over booths, and ensuring tight sales alignment. Key Takeaways:While procurement processes differ, public sector buyers still seek personalized, digital-first experiences. Meeting them with the right message at the right time is just as critical as in traditional B2B marketing.New tools allow a new level of precision, and marketers needs to stop with mass marketing effort and focus on higher prospects.While events are crucial for many CMOs we speak to, they can also be high cost and it may make more sense to overinvest in digital channels to meet customers where they are.Quote: “  We've got a tech stack with some tools that are AI-enabled, that we've adopted and hosted, that have really helped us more effectively understand buyer's behavior and intent to help us target opportunities more effectively, versus in the past, it used to be mass marketing. You'd sort of throw it out there and hope someone will, you know, call you. It's really now about looking at their behavior and intent to help us target more effectively and personalize the experience and customize from a super ABM perspective of reaching prospects and customers. So, leveraging different tools to help us do that. We're reaching them when they're ready. They're much higher prospect than just sort of casting a wide net.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:36) The Trust Tree: Selling globally to many personas *(05:04) The Playbook: Overinvesting in digital and web*(21:37) The Dust Up: Meeting in the middle*(22:47) Quick Hits: Suzanne’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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Suzanne on LinkedInLearn more about GranicusLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Putney Cloos, CMO at Bombora, a B2B data pioneer that connects the B2B ecosystem in a one-of-a-kind Data Co-op of leading publishers, brand websites, and premium data providers.Putney dives into the criticality of intent data in building your go-to-market motions, the importance of measuring ROI across a long sales cycles and playing the long game in PR.  Key Takeaways:While we all need to be rethinking search and paying attention to how the world is changing, we shouldn’t abandon traditional search entirely, or too quickly. It still has a significant role.While some see PR as an old-school tactic, it’s a very high return tactic. Marketers should leverage the fact that journalists are under pressure to find stories and should be reaching out before there is a deadline to they are top of mind.An AI thought-partner doesn’t care when you throw out the entire brainstorm or trash an hour of work, making AI a great thought partner.Quote:“One thing that we're all struggling with, or thinking about at least, is traditional search. I think we all need to learn and think about, how does the world change? But the reality is in aggregate, traditional search still plays a pretty significant role. We're not going to throw the baby out with the bath water. We have to think about how we position ourselves as the world changes, but continue to do sort of old school investment and test and learn in the traditional search channels.”Episode Timestamps: *(04:16) The Trust Tree: Selling to publishers *(19:43) The Playbook: Invest in high quality intent data *(41:36) The Dust Up: Conflict during the interview process*(45:06) Quick Hits: Putney’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.Links: Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Putney on LinkedInLearn more about BomboraLearn more about Caspian Studios

In this special episode of Pipeline Visionaries, Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios, breaks down the future of B2B content creation for 2025. He dives into frameworks and strategies, outlining the five methods of consumption and aiming for high quality that makes virality possible. He also dives into the difference between feeds, shows, and networks, giving case studies and examples and highlights the shift towards platform-specific content and the role of marketers as 'gardeners' in navigating walled gardens like YouTube and LinkedIn.Key Takeaways:There are five methods of consumption that marketers need to be thinking about: shorts, shows, medium form video, live entertainment and fiction.  The format matches consumption. Shorts for scrollers, shows for subscribers, limited series for binges, live events for live learners, fiction for edutainment. A feed and a show and a network are three different things. Creating a network allows audiences to self-select into the content that they like.  The optimal strategy for creating content to deliver it to your audiences, is for creators to create it and put it on the platform. Individuals, not brands.Quote: “ That's what we have to figure out - how do we maximize coverage for our target audience? And if you ignore methods of consumption or you ignore format, or you ignore hosts, you're inherently ignoring a subset of your population."  Episode Timestamps: *(00:06) The future of B2B content in 2025*(01:42) Five methods of consumption*(07:52) Framework: feeds, shows, and networks*(16:38) We’re all gardeners: accessing walled gardens*(17:38) The shift to creator-first content*(24:41) The importance of distribution and creativitySponsor: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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Chris Bontempo, CMO, Johnson Controls, a 140 year old company that is a global leader in smart, healthy and sustainable buildings.Chris spent nearly 19 years at IBM, eventually serving as CMO of IBM Americas before moving to Johnson Controls. He shares his perspective on website content being scraped by LLMs, how they’re using AI to reduce ad spend, and which types of content are resonating most with prospects.Key Takeaways:Websites need to be designed to be scraped by LLMs. All CMOs are trying to figure this out right now.CMOs need to consider AI part of their teams “to supplement the labor that [they] have and give people superpowers to do their jobs better”.CMOs need to be hands-on-keys, using, learning and leveraging new tools themselves, in order to be able to lead well.Quote: "As a CMO, you need to consider AI as part of your team, right? So the tools that we're using that all have AI baked into them, the how AI is going to streamline your process. AI is part of your team to supplement the labor that you have and give people superpowers to do their jobs better and at huge scale without taking on a huge amount of expense."Episode Timestamps: *(06:02) The Trust Tree: No daylight between sales and marketing *(15:04) The Playbook: Designing the website to be scraped by AI*(42:12) The Dust Up : There’s always a kernel of truth to both sides*(46:08) Quick Hits: Chris’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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Chris on LinkedInLearn more about Johnson ControlsLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Ashley Faus, Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Portfolio, Atlassian and author of the book Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI. Ashley dives into the pitfalls of both active spamming and the bait-and-switch tactics that are commonplace today. She also explains why marketers should ditch the funnel framework and embrace playgrounds as the model for the customer journey, and shares her insights into what it means to make marketing truly human-centric. Key Takeaways:Misleading CTAs and bait-and-switch tactics erode trust. Marketers should not be trying to trick prospects into buying. It is expensive to acquire a customer that is a bad fit, and they should be prioritizing the relationship.The funnel is outdated; marketers should adopt “the playground” where they allow customers to move through a self-directed customer journey however they want to.The language that we use to talk about our audience, “is so adversarial. It's like I'm gonna hunt for a prospect and I'm gonna capture a lead, and I'm gonna lock down a deal.” Remember there is a person behind the screen.Quote: “ My job as a marketer, I always say, I never want to sell anything to anybody. My job is to match problems with solutions. And if I harass you or convince you to buy something that doesn't actually solve your problem, that's going to  be very expensive for me to fix, either from a reputation standpoint, from a support or implementation cost standpoint. Like, it's not free for me to acquire a customer that's a bad fit. It's not just not serving them. It does not serve the business either. And I think that's the other piece that like sometimes people think when I talk about this, that I'm trying to be altruistic or that like it's a nice thing to do for the audience. I mean, yes, we should be decent humans, but it's bad for business to behave this way and to do the bait and switch or to force somebody into a bad fit. It's gonna be very expensive for you to force fit that, or to try to, you know, win and re-win that customer or to serve that customer If they go nuclear and they start posting on social media, or they file a lawsuit, right? It's very expensive to get out of a bad deal or to turn a bad deal into a good deal.”Segment Timestamps:*(02:55) Human-centered marketing frameworks*(08:56) The pitfalls of bait-and-switch tactics*(27:13) The playground over the funnel*(35:33) The Playbook: Uncuttable budget itemsSponsor: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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Ashley on LinkedInLearn more about AtlassianHuman-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AILearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Avi Bhagtani, CMO at Digitate, a company that leverages machine learning and AI to intelligently manage IT and business operations.Avi discusses their success with regional, curated events and how they are investing in AI experiments. He also shares insights into how they are leveraging AI to optimize the website. Key Takeaways:Many successful events are curated, smaller and regional. Marketers who can meet their customer expectations and create networking opportunities with peers will pull ahead. The world of the traditional funnel is gone. The buyer journey is much more user dependent. Buyers have more agency and the journey has become very fast. The speed that generative AI can move when it comes to updating the website and launching ABM campaigns is already astonishing, and will only get better. Marketers should be leveraging these tools to move faster. Quote: “In the last one year, we have experimented with at least 12 to 15 new tools, either for finding our prospects or distilling our signals or increasing productivity with AI, right? Some of them have worked. Some of them have failed miserably, just the nature of the business today. But fortunately, we are doing this going in all eyes wide open, right? We know that some of these things are just gonna work. Some of these things have, you know, they have a little bit of a longer runway that they need to give you the results you want. Some of these just don't work, right? So that's where the majority of the investments are focused on today.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:07) The Trust Tree: Finding every avenue to intercept prospects*(09:06) The Playbook: Consistency of messaging over time*(31:31) The Dust Up: Answer what marketing will do for other functions*(33:48) Quick Hits: Avi quick hitsSponsor: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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Avi Bhagtani on LinkedInLearn more about DigitateLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Bruce Cleveland, author of the best-seller “Traversing the Traction Gap" and CEO of Traction Gap Partners, a Market Engineering advisory firm.Bruce outlines why most startups fail and explains market engineering, a term he coined  to represent the ideas around category design. He shares insights into creating a category and what goes into startup success. Key Takeaways:Market engineering involves the ideas around category design or redefinition thought leadership to create a category.There are distinct advantages to being a category leader; the category leader generates about 76% of  all the profits from a category. While there is a first-mover advantage, there are also some associated challenges.Thought leadership is an essential component of creating a category. People want to be around peers they admire, so gathering the right people together leads to an eventual tipping point that makes it easier for a company to sell.Quote:  One of the reasons that you need to actively be involved in the thought leadership part of category creation is people wanna hang out with other people who they think are smart, who have some cool ideas. And that I think happens with companies as well. So eventually some companies kind of climb out of the morass, the cacophony of, fighting the marketing battle and begin to emerge as the thought leaders in those. And then they collectively gather more people and more people. And finally there's a tipping point where that company is perceived as the category leader. And so it becomes really easy for those companies to then sell more.Episode Timestamps: *(02:26) The Trust Tree: Traversing the Traction Gap *(07:31) The importance of category design*(26:05) Thought Leadership in category creation*(35:39) How to evaluate startupsSponsor: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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Bruce on LinkedInLearn more about Traction Gap Partners or Traversing the Traction GapLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Armen Najarian, CMO at Sift, an AI-powered fraud platform delivering identity trust for leading global businesses.Armen has 10 years of experience as a CMO across a variety of fraud prevention, digital identity, and cybersecurity organizations. He discusses how word of mouth and a strong brand has allowed them to become a leader in their space and also gives insight into Sift’s top source for demand generation.Key Takeaways:It is riskier not to take risks. Marketers need to be willing to try something unconventional. If it fails, the world goes on. Giving your customers access to your data, if it answers important questions for them, can be a key driver of demand. Understand what your customers are curious about and what questions they are asking. If you can find a way to provide answers, the ROI will be significant. Quote:  ”Those that aren't taking risks are the ones taking risks, is the way I would look at this. Like we have to take risks -you know, it's gotten so noisy and some of the tried and true tactics like organic search, right, which is completely flipped on its head right now. Every CMO has a responsibility, anyone in marketing really, has a responsibility to really rethink the logic for what they're doing and take some risks.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:29) The Trust Tree: 10 years of CMO experience*(09:19) The Playbook: Answering your customers biggest questions*(38:24) The Dust Up: To create a category or not *(42:32) Quick Hits: Armen’s quick hitsSponsor: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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Armen on LinkedInLearn more about SiftLearn more about FibrLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Alison Lange Engel, CEO of Ceros, a company that provides tools and services that empower companies to create interactive content with unparalleled ease and efficiency, driving customer engagement.In this episode, Alison discusses the power of interactive content and how to differentiate your brand amidst increasing noise. She and Ian dive into the importance of being unique and how creativity is a competitive advantage. Key Takeaways:Creativity is a competitive advantage, even more so as copying assets gets easier with AI. CMOs need to get their teams off the treadmill and make space for creativity, inspiration and ideation. The sea of sameness is real, especially in B2B, and the world continues to get noisier. You have to disrupt and have conviction behind your big bets; check box marketing won’t cut it anymore. Originality is as important as ever, but teams have to find ways to do more with less and won’t succeed if they are only trying to differentiate themselves through words, tone, or processes.Quote:  You're going to miss the opportunity to differentiate and tell a unique story, right, if you have your team on a treadmill constantly. And that's how most people feel. But, as a leader, you've got to create space for it and find inspiration. Encourage your team to bring ideas. We would bring magazine clips in. People would bring in their pets. People brought in old, you know, pictures, family mementos, what matters to them. You've gotta get to the heart and soul of what you're trying to do to kind of unlock your team and have your company, you know, feel fresh, feel modern, and have people take risks, right? Great companies take risks and you have to kind of create that environment to do that. The brands that don't, are in trouble and the brands that do are the ones that win.Episode Timestamps: *(05:50) The Trust Tree: Experiences over static content*(25:36) The ROI of creativity*(36:29) Advice for CMOs on creativity and boldnessSponsor: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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Alison on LinkedInLearn more about CerosLearn more about Caspian Studios