The Exit Five CMO Podcast (Hosted by Dave Gerhardt)

HANG IN THERE! Between Exit Five and some companies that I am involved with I can tell you that right now stress and burnout in marketing is higher than I've ever noticed in my career (so at least the last 10 years). And it makes sense as to why: the economy slumping, leads to fewer companies wanting to spend, marketing gets cut in all different areas, and we're being asked to do more with less and we're stressed / burned out / questioning what we're doing and re-visiting your career path. Hang in there. Almost across the board this is the case right now. With the exception of AI companies, most B2B SaaS companies are have a tough go of it. But maybe there's an opportunity for you to learn something new and acquire new skills during this time. Zoom out and look at your career - will you work at this one company in this one industry for the rest of your life? Probably not. So even if things aren't going great, can you take the longer term view and see what you can be learning right now? Can you think of it as you're being paid (hopefully...) to acquire new skills? Maybe you've never done a rebrand before but now you're being asked to do one one a shoestring budget. Great. Figure out how to get it done. Maybe you're selling to a new ICP and a new customer that you don't have experience writing for. Great. Maybe now you can add other layer to your depths as a writer and content creator. Maybe your boss is an absolute pain in the butt but the CEO is great and the company is in a great market. Can you learn from others around you in the company and in your industry and just ignore the PITA boss for a bit?Take a minute to zoom out, think about your career, and see the next 6-12 months as "skills acquisition" and see where it takes you. Continue to work in your current job, but see it is they are paying you for your development and maybe that can change how you think about your day-to-day job for the time being, especially if company growth has slowed.Send guest pitches and ideas to hello@exitfive.comExit Five on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/exitfive/Exit Five on Twitter: https://twitter.com/exit5marketing***This episode is brought to you by Demandwell. This episode is brought to you by Demandwell. Demandwell is the best SEO solution for B2B SaaS marketers. They’ve helped customers like Lessonly drive 40% of their revenue from organic search. And they helped Terminus’s make organic search their number one source of demos. Get your free keyword feasibility assessment today at demandwell.com/keywords.Thanks to our 2023 presenting sponsors Demandwell, Jasper, and Zapier.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Dave is joined by John Short (Founder & CEO of Compound Growth Marketing) to talk about two of the biggest trends in B2B marketing that aren't going away anytime soon: AI and ABM.Send guest pitches and ideas to hello@exitfive.comExit Five on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/exitfive/Exit Five on Twitter: https://twitter.com/exit5marketing***This episode is brought to you by Demandwell. This episode is brought to you by Demandwell. Demandwell is the best SEO solution for B2B SaaS marketers. They’ve helped customers like Lessonly drive 40% of their revenue from organic search. And they helped Terminus’s make organic search their number one source of demos. Get your free keyword feasibility assessment today at demandwell.com/keywords.Thanks to our 2023 presenting sponsors Demandwell, Jasper, and Zapier.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

This episode is from a live session we did with Zapier's Head of Content Marketing Lane Scott Jones. Lane shared how Zapier has been able to generate a 450% ROI on content and she breaks down how Zapier's marketing team uses content across the entire funnel, from generating top of the funnel content for awareness, middle of the funnel content hat drives signups, and bottom of the funnel content that drives active users and paying customers.Lane will unpacks how Zapier built a strong SEO foundation with over 2,000 articles that generate 2M pageviews per month, and she breaks down the roles and responsibilities of Zapier's four person content team. She also discusses how Zapier thinks about content measurement and pitching the value of content to the CEO, plus she shares her perspective on AI + automation with examples of how Zapier's content team is using AI today to up their game.Send guest pitches and ideas to hello@exitfive.comExit Five on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/exitfive/Exit Five on Twitter: https://twitter.com/exitfiveco***This episode is brought to you by Demandwell. This episode is brought to you by Demandwell. Demandwell is the best SEO solution for B2B SaaS marketers. They’ve helped customers like Lessonly drive 40% of their revenue from organic search. And they helped Terminus’s make organic search their number one source of demosThanks to our 2023 presenting sponsors Demandwell, Jasper, and Zapier.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Jon Miller is CMO at Demandbase and co-founded Marketo and Engagio. Jon is widely regarded as one of the top voices in B2B marketing and does not disappoint with this episode. Dave and Jon talk about:- What an effective B2B CMO does- Questions to ask the founders when taking a new CMO job and how to understand their view of marketing- Why marketing is not a "gumball machine"- The challenge with Marketing sourced revenue vs. Sales sourced revenue (and why Jon believes in team sourced revenue)- Thoughts on what the rise of AI and ChatGPT will mean for B2B marketers- Marketing before and after product market fit- Helpful benchmarks (and where to find them)- Lessons from the early days of Marketo, and moreThanks to our 2023 presenting sponsors Demandwell, Jasper, and Zapier.This episode is brought to you by Jasper. Jasper is the AI Content Generator that helps you and your team break through creative blocks to create amazing, original content 10X faster. Learn more + start using AI to create content for free at jasper.aiThanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Devin Reed is Head of Content & Thought Leadership at Clari and previously Head of Content Strategy at Gong. Dave and Devin talk about:- His role at Clari and what the content team does- Inside Gong's early content strategy- How to make longform content work- What type of content works on LinkedIn today- Myth busting "build your personal brand" and moreThanks to our 2023 presenting sponsors Demandwell, Jasper, and Zapier.This episode is brought to you by Jasper. Jasper is the AI Content Generator that helps you and your team break through creative blocks to create amazing, original content 10X faster. Learn more + start using AI to create content for free at jasper.aiThanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Dave takes you behind the scenes of Exit Five to talk about how the community got started, why we moved off of Facebook, why we went with Circle, lessons learned scaling Exit Five to 3,500+ paying members and more. This is a conversation with Jordan Godbey who runs Growth Community and helps experts, coaches and creators build communities on Circle and we thought this would make for a fun little "behind the scenes" episode since many listeners are involved in marketing and community building and might be interested in this topic.***Thanks to our 2023 presenting sponsors Demandwell, Jasper, and Zapier.This episode is brought to you by Jasper. Jasper is the AI Content Generator that helps you and your team break through creative blocks to create amazing, original content 10X faster. Learn more + start using AI to create content for free at jasper.aiThanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Dave is joined by Austin Distel, Head of Marketing Innovation at Jasper and former CMO at Proof. Austin was one of the earliest Jasper employees and we discussed the evolution of the company, lessons from building Proof, how the product at Jasper got initial traction, use cases and examples for AI in marketing today, why every B2B marketing team should be taking AI seriously, how to get beyond generic AI results, and handling some of the objections as to why marketers don't use AI today.***Thanks to our 2023 presenting sponsors Demandwell, Jasper, and Zapier.This episode is brought to you by Jasper. Jasper is the AI Content Generator that helps you and your team break through creative blocks to create amazing, original content 10X faster. Learn more + start using AI to create content for free at jasper.aiThanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Dave is joined by Jeff Hardison, Head of Product Marketing at Calendly to discuss the role product marketing plays in a B2B organization.  They cover how to structure a product marketing department, the differences between sales-led and product-led motions, tips on hiring product marketers, what product marketing looks like at Calendly, setting goals for product marketing, and more.***Thanks to our 2023 presenting sponsors Demandwell, Jasper, and Zapier.This episode is brought to you by Jasper. Jasper is the AI Content Generator that helps you and your team break through creative blocks to create amazing, original content 10X faster. Learn more + start using AI to create content for free at jasper.aiThanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Dave is joined by Margaret Kelsey (Founder of TatCo, Marketing Advisor), Jason Widup (VP Marketing, Metadata), and Shauntle Barley (Director of Marketing, Demandwell) to talk about the state of B2B marketing in Q2 2023 and helpful ideas for driving growth in a down economy.Layoffs, budget cuts, slower sales cycles, and a lack of urgency to buy your product right now. That's become normal in B2B SaaS over the last two quarters. But what does it mean for marketer? Do nothing? Just play defense? Yeah right. Marketers are being asked to do more with less, and if you're one of those marketers this is a session you don't want to miss. We'll talk to three marketers in the thick of things right now to talk about what they are doing to drive sustainable growth for their companies and under less favorable conditions. We’ll discuss what’s changed for them in the past year, and how they’ve adapted their strategies and tactics to adjust to the existing market climate. We’re being asked to do more (than ever) with less (than ever), and this session will cover how these marketers have adapted and risen to the challenge.***Thanks to our 2023 presenting sponsors Demandwell, Jasper, and Zapier.This episode is brought to you by Zapier. Zapier empowers anyone to automate their work across 5,000+ apps, so that every person and business can move forward at growth speed. We power over 2.2 million businesses, from startups to Fortune 100, and we’ve been doing it for over a decade. Learn more + get started for free at zapier.comThanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Dave is joined by Kyle Lacy (CMO at Jellyfish) and Shauntle Barley (Director of Marketing at Demandwell) to chat about what business is like right now Q2 2023 for B2B SaaS, Kyle's new role as CMO at Jellyfish, what the CMO does in the first 90 days of a new job, talking through marketing budget and spending on brand vs demand, and more.Send guest pitches and ideas to hello@exitfive.comExit Five on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/exitfive/Exit Five on Twitter: https://twitter.com/exitfiveco***Thanks to our 2023 presenting sponsors Demandwell, Jasper, and Zapier.This episode is brought to you by Zapier. Zapier empowers anyone to automate their work across 5,000+ apps, so that every person and business can move forward at growth speed. We power over 2.2 million businesses, from startups to Fortune 100, and we’ve been doing it for over a decade. Learn more + get started for free at zapier.comThanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!