The B2B Roundtable (hosted by Brian Carroll) Podcast Por Brian Carroll arte de portada

The B2B Roundtable (hosted by Brian Carroll)

The B2B Roundtable (hosted by Brian Carroll)

De: Brian Carroll
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The B2B Roundtable gives you practical marketing and sales strategies you can use to fuel growth. Host Brian Carroll sits down with leading GTM experts in B2B marketing and sales to uncover what’s working today — from account-based marketing (ABM) and sales development to content marketing, storytelling, leadership, and research-backed insights.Copyright 2025 markempa Economía Exito Profesional Gestión y Liderazgo Liderazgo Marketing Marketing y Ventas
Episodios
  • Why 75% of Buyers Don’t Want Reps and How Framemaking Can Win Them Back (with Brent Adamson)

    Why 75% of Buyers Don’t Want Reps and How Framemaking Can Win Them Back (with Brent Adamson)
    Oct 8 2025
    In a recent Gartner survey, 75% of B2B buyers said they’d prefer a rep-free buying experience. That’s a wake-up call for sales and marketing leaders everywhere. So, is this the end of sales as we know it… or the start of something better? On this episode of the B2B Roundtable Podcast, I sit down with my friend Brent Adamson, co-author of The Challenger Sale and author of the new book The Framemaking Sale. Brent explains why buyer confidence—not more information—is the real barrier to closing big deals today, and how leaders can help their teams become the sellers customers actually want to talk to. Brent Adamson on Framemaking and the Future of Sales Key Takeaways Buyers want confidence, not more information. The real risk isn’t being ignored—it’s being irrelevant.Framemaking is the answer. Instead of persuading, sellers must help buyers frame decisions and build confidence in themselves.Four forces undermine confidence today: decision complexity, information overload, objective misalignment, and outcome uncertainty.Sales and marketing must unite. The mission is to build buyer confidence in themselves—not just in the supplier.AI won’t replace sellers, but it raises the bar. The sellers who thrive will show up as trusted guides and sense-makers. Pull Quotes “It’s not your customer’s confidence in you that matters. It’s their confidence in themselves.” — Brent Adamson “If you could be the one seller your customer actually wants to talk to, that’s an incredible place to be.” — Brent Adamson Guest Bio Brent Adamson is a researcher, speaker, and author best known for co-authoring The Challenger Sale. His new book, The Framemaking Sale, explores how sales professionals can rebuild buyer confidence and create customer interactions that truly add value. Connect with Brent on LinkedIn Get the Book: The Framemaking Sale Full Transcript Brian Carroll: Welcome to the B2B Roundtable Podcast, where we bring together ideas, people, and strategies shaping the future of sales and marketing. Today, I’m joined by my friend Brent Adamson, one of the most influential voices in sales. You may know Brent from his groundbreaking book The Challenger Sale, which reshaped how we think about commercial conversations. I’m excited because we’re talking about his new book, The Framemaking Sale. And it couldn’t come at a more urgent time. In a recent survey, 75% of B2B buyers said they’d prefer to purchase without ever talking to a sales rep. Is this the end of sales as we know it—or could it be the start of something better? Brian Carroll: We’re going to talk about why buyers have lost confidence in sales, what’s driving this shift, what it really means to be a framemaker, how leaders like CMOs and VPs of Sales can build teams customers actually want to talk to, and what the future of selling looks like in an AI-driven world. Brent, you open your book with that stat—75% of B2B buyers would prefer a rep-free buying experience. That’s wild. Brent Adamson: First of all, it’s great to see you, Brian. Thanks for the invite. That statistic comes from Gartner research, one of the last pieces I worked on before leaving in 2022. We asked thousands of B2B buyers: “If you could buy a large complex solution without ever talking to a sales rep, would you prefer that?” Seventy-five percent said yes. Now, that doesn’t mean they actually buy without sellers—it means they’d prefer not to. The data shows a big and growing gap between customer preference and customer reality. That gap represents risk for sellers. Brian Carroll: So it’s not the end of sales—it’s the end of salespeople not adding value. Brent Adamson: Exactly. The question at the heart of this book is simple: What would it take to be the one seller—or the one team—that customers actually do want to talk to? If you can be that person—showing up less like a seller and more like a human—you can differentiate not only from competitors but also from the overwhelming flood of information customers already face. Buyers Don’t Want More Info, They Want Confidence Brian Carroll: What are the ways sellers unintentionally undermine buyer confidence? Brent Adamson: One of the biggest findings is around decision confidence. When customers feel highly confident in their decisions, they are up to 10x more likely to make a high-quality, low-regret purchase. But most sales and marketing teams focus on building confidence in the supplier— “trust us, our brand, our product.” What actually matters more is the buyer’s confidence in themselves. The real opportunity is helping customers feel confident in the questions they’re asking, the research they’ve done, their alignment as a team, and their ability to execute. That’s what Framemaking is all about. Brian Carroll: Can you define Framemaking? How is it different from Challenger Selling? Brent Adamson: Framemaking is about creating ...
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    43 m
  • Brand Activism Isn’t a Campaign. It’s a Company Decision (Podcast with Philip Kotler)

    Brand Activism Isn’t a Campaign. It’s a Company Decision (Podcast with Philip Kotler)
    May 24 2021
    https://media.blubrry.com/b2bleadblog/www.markempa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Philip-Kotler-interview.mp3 Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Email Updates I interviewed Dr. Philip Kotler — often called the father of modern marketing — about what brand activism actually means, why most companies get it wrong, and what it means for B2B. Kotler co-authored Brand Activism: From Purpose to Action with Christian Sarkar. The conversation covered how branding evolved from product labels to value commitments, why B2B is not exempt, and why activism that starts in the marketing department almost always fails. What follows is the full conversation, edited for clarity and readability. What is brand activism? Brian: I’m excited to have you on the show today to talk about brand activism. So, what is brand activism? Dr. Kotler: Brand activism, Brian, is a movement toward making a brand do more than just tout the virtues of a product or a service, its usual function, and to go and even identify some value or values that the company has and cares about. For example, I would say a company that is active with this brand would be, probably, The Body Shop, especially when it started out under Anita Roddick. Because she made it her point that she’s not only selling skincare products as a retailer, but she really was also fighting for animal rights, civil rights, fair trade, environmental protection. So her brand was active. I don’t mean that all other brands are passive, because they do a lot of work, but the implication is that companies carry reputations, and they want to have a good reputation. More and more consumers would like to know, about a company they deal with on either a frequent basis or on a fundamental single-use basis, they would like to know what kind of company is this, what does it care about. Because our society is saddled with a lot of problems, and does the company care about any of these problems, or does it just think it’s supposed to make money? Well an increasing number of companies would like an identity that goes beyond just making the product or service. And that is what we are calling brand activism, the brand that actually connects with some cause, or maybe several reasons. Why Kotler wrote the book — and why now Brian: You recently wrote a book on this topic. I’d love to know the story behind why you wrote the book Brand Activism, and why now? Dr. Kotler: I think that, if you look at some barometers, like the Edelman Trust Barometer, about the level of trust in society today, it’s undoubtedly been falling. Brian: Yes. Dr. Kotler: And as a result, many companies are not going to be trusted either, as part of maybe government not being believed, and other institutions. And companies ought to be the first to fight against bad companies, rather than stand near them or be part of bad companies. So the idea is that, at this time, companies want to be profiled in a certain way. In other words, the reputation a company has could be just whatever happens in its course of behavior. Or it could also be something that only could be designed better. Consciously better. The evolution of branding: from products to values Dr. Kotler: And you see, the whole idea of a brand itself has gone through several stages, and that’s very important. I think brand activism is probably the highest stage, but let me tell you what the steps are in my mind. Brian: That would be great. Dr. Kotler: Yes. The first stage is when the company simply does its best to feature the right side of its product and services. Now that’s normal. That was an identifier. Then brands moved into trying to define the company’s positioning, but not social positioning. Just their positioning like, Walmart is lowest price, and Disney is family entertainment, DuPont is highest quality, and Toyota, long-lasting reliable performance. So in that second stage the brand became, not just one mentioning a product, but it was positioning the product. Then the brand moved further, to define perhaps a set of qualities about the company. Let me take, as an example, John Deere, which makes all kinds of equipment for farmers and for forestry workers and for construction workers. You would say that at this stage, John Deere would describe itself for its quality, its integrity, and its innovation. It’s really positioning, but it’s multi-positioning. Namely saying that it stands high on many traits that are valued by most people. But this could move into a fourth stage where the brand actually adopts a particular cause. You know about corporate social responsibility, and a lot of companies are into that. So, a company may say that it really cares about the climate problem and wants to help move solutions toward keeping a safe climate in the world. Or it could be some other cause. Then brand activism is alive with that development of going from corporate social responsibility to the company actually saying, here’s one of the ...
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    27 m
  • Mean people suck in marketing and what to do about it with Michael Brenner

    Mean people suck in marketing and what to do about it with Michael Brenner
    Nov 7 2019
    Why does most marketing stink? According to Michael Brenner, “Most of the marketing that we do that stinks and doesn’t work is that some executive with a big ego asked us to do it.” On top of that, marketers are not in a happy place. According to MarketingProfs 2019 Marketer Happiness Report, “Only 10% of marketers say they were very fulfilled in their work.” The report looked at the dimensions of feeling fulfilled, valued, and energized by the work, that our work is impactful, and engaged. That’s why I interviewed Michael Brenner (@BrennerMichael), the CEO of Marketing Insider Group to talk about his new book Mean People Suck. We need more empathy inside our companies to empathize more with our customers. Michael Brenner states, “The most counter-intuitive secret to success in business and life is empathy.” I’m excited to share his thoughts on empathy with you. In this interview, you’ll learn about asking what’s in it for the customer, rethinking your organizational chart, and making the changes you need to make to be more successful today. Why did you write Mean People Suck? Michael: Again, I must give you credit. You were out in front of this empathy topic in marketing. I think long before me. Kudos to you. It just took me a little longer, but mainly as a content marketer and as a former internal corporate marketer, I reached out to folks that I know that are still living and breathing corporate marketing struggles every day. I found a couple of things, the number one being that marketers were miserable. It’s like that scene from, I think it’s Poltergeist where the obsessed woman has help written on her. Was it Poltergeist? Anyway, there was a woman possessed, and the words help showed up on her stomach because I feel like a lot of internal corporate marketers feel that way. They’re miserable. Why are marketers so miserable? Michael: When you get down to it, I’ve found that it’s mainly because they hate their boss. They don’t love the corporate culture. They’re not happy with what they’re being asked to do. They feel they don’t have an impact. When I looked at why content marketing programs aren’t successful, the answer superficially was content ROI. What’s the ROI of content? And if you don’t mind me, I’m not being promotional, but I wrote a book called The Content Formula, All About Content Marketing ROI. And when I went back to folks I sent the book to, but I found that it wasn’t enough. The math isn’t enough to get people over the challenges that we’re facing and how to do marketing that doesn’t suck. Most marketing stinks for this reason Michael: The answer is that I wrote the book is that most of the marketing that we do that stinks and doesn’t work, because some executive with a big ego asked us to do it. Executives love seeing logos on stadiums, and they love seeing Super Bowl ads, and all the things that we make fun of marketing about primarily come from a request from sales or marketing or product people. And the companies where content marketing is successful or marketers are happy are making an impact because there’s a culture of empathy. Their cultures don’t suck. The companies don’t suck. The leaders don’t suck. That’s why I wrote the book. Maybe a long-winded explanation, but that’s why. Why empathy is more important now Brian: It’s hard for marketers to care about the customer when they don’t feel cared about too. They don’t feel safe. They’re anxious, or they’re frustrated, or they’re overwhelmed. You also talked about empathy. Why does empathy matter, especially to marketers and does it lead to better results? Michael: Yeah, One of the stories that I tell in the book, the very first corporate book that I read, and I have to give credit to the former CEO at Nielsen, my first company who made most of us in the company read the book. And I was like, “Oh, here we go. And I read the book. I was like,” Wow, this is actually really pretty cool.” It’s called the Service Profit Chain. I write a lot about it. The book isn’t talked about much, but the premise is simple. Three or four Harvard business review professors got together, and they said, wait for a second, we’ve seen this correlation between engaged employees are happy employees, happy customers, and higher stock prices more satisfied stock investors. They did some actual research and found that where there’s employee engagement, there is customer loyalty. Where there’s customer loyalty, there’s higher spend rates and retention and higher stock prices. The counter-intuitive secret to success Michael: The key to those environments, those cultures, those companies where there were happy employees, was empathy. The company’s purpose was to make their employees happy because they knew happy employees created delighted customers. It’s totally intuitive, and yet it’s counterintuitive. That’s one of the reasons we reconnected. ...
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    19 m
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