Paula Chiocchi: Welcome to the B2B Influence Podcast. I'm your host, Paula Chiocchi And today I'm excited to welcome Brian Carroll. He's the founder of Markempa. M-A-R-K-E-M-P-A, author of Lead Generation for the Complex Cell, and host of the B2B Roundtable Podcast. That's a mouthful. Welcome, Brian.
Brian Carroll: Really glad to be with you today, Paula.
Paula Chiocchi: Gosh, I've I've probably known you at least twenty years, huh Brian? So Yeah.
Brian Carroll: It's been it's been a while for sure. It's so good to be able to talk with you again and reconnect.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah. Yeah, it's I'm so excited to have you. So Brian has spent more than twenty five years working in B2B marketing, same as me and lead generation with a focus on how companies better understand buyer aligned sales and marketing and create more effective growth strategies. And I think everybody's trying trying to accomplish that and it's not the easiest thing to do. So so Brian You've spent more than twenty-five years, as I said, in B2B Lead generation. What has changed the most about how companies create demand from your perspective?
Brian Carroll: Yeah, you know, I I would say the biggest change is how buyers buy has changed most dramatically in 20 years. And the reason that is is, you know, even 20 years ago it was already moving in this direction, which is you know, the internet was influencing the buying process. So people are waiting to talk to a sales rep until much later in the buying process. That change was already underway. And and content marketing was just coming on stream. And and so there's all these things about buyer self-educating. I I think what's changed now is that you know, there's been a shift in buyer behavior and that they want to delay talking to a sales rep as long as possible, if at all. And Gartner research a published study that, you know, the vast majority of sales of customers would rather not speak to a sales rep. Somewhere around 77% would
Paula Chiocchi: I believe it.
Brian Carroll: rather not talk to a salesperson. But that doesn't change that they they have to. It's just that they would prefer not to. So I think it's the buying process has changed. The number of people involved in the buying group has increased. So we are already moving towards consensus-based buying. But now it's gotten more complicated because there's now a need for greater consensus. More people are being involved. So maybe there is five to seven people involved. Now on average, it's eight or more people are in the typical buying group group with a complex sale. And the other thing is is that I would say it's the the things that were stock and trade, trust, trust is harder to build than ever before. So buyers have less trust than now. There's more information now than ever before. there's more channels for customers to to engage with. So those are all changed how we do. Demand generation, because right now I would say it's there there's so much information out there, but there's not enough insight. And so that's something that I think is still hasn't changed. So even though technology has influenced the buying process, even though customers don't want to talk to salespeople, they still really need insight. They still need to find points of agreement to buy. And I would say also the There's a huge opportunity here for companies who see the opportunity today to help customers build the internal trust and confidence they need to buy now. So I would say one last thing is I did a lot of orientation around the lead itself as being like the primary unit that marketers focus on. And if I were to rewrite that book today, 20 years later, I'd focus a lot more. On the buying group. So the people involved in the decision making, because it's not just about creating demand or finding where demand exists. It's really about helping customers inside these businesses make decisions and move further. And so that's where there's a big opportunity today. And so that's probably that's actually where I've been spending more of my time for the past several years.
Paula Chiocchi: Well, and if you have up to ten, each one has a different maybe not all, but many have a different idea of what it is that they're trying to problem they're trying to solve and what they're trying to accomplish and to get them aligned that's that's a big job. Yeah.
Brian Carroll: It really is.
Paula Chiocchi: And I also I think it was about a year ago read that seventy two percent of the buyers are I think is it millennials now? Yeah. And that
Brian Carroll: Yeah, yeah. So even the the people buying and how they're thinking about the the process of buying, so risk has increased for people. So we we think of when people make decisions, you know, we're rational. We we think that we're totally logical And the reality is is we're not. You know, science has shown this, neurobiology has shown this. all the research has shown that we buy emotionally, and so. When we're trying to sell, we need to not just focus on the company value or the department value, but we need to think about the the people involved, like you just said, and what their interests are, because the risk of making a bad decision can not only cost millions of dollars or cost a huge amount of impact on the business, but it can cost people their jobs. And so the one thing I would say that hasn't changed in 20 years is that the status quo of doing nothing. has become the default mode more often than not that more sales don't stop because someone bought from a competitor. It's because the companies actually never made a decision. They they decided to do nothing was safer than make the wrong decision. So that's something else.
Paula Chiocchi: Do you think that's you st you think the status quo just don't rock the boat, so I won't get fired is still prevalent today?
Brian Carroll: Totally. And and in fact, it is something that we all are needing to contend with is that we think it's about helping people, you know, have confidence in us. But what we need to do is help the customer get confidence in themselves and in their business and in their team so that they can actually agree and move forward. And that's a a really hard thing to do.
Paula Chiocchi: Well, I've done a couple of podcasts recently, Brian, on just the CEO being exhibiting the and doing thought leadership to get people more company comfortable with their company in order to be able to buy from and that kind of starts at the top. So you seeing that as well that
Brian Carroll: Yeah, I think the that trust building, we're what we're seeing is is that you know, doing things, especially in this age of AI, and I'm sure we'll talk more about that in our conversation today, but that because of all the changes, one social media, politically, we're more divided than we've ever been as a society. Yet people still need to work together and people still need to Have trust in order to say yes. a lot of people think, after they say yes, they've they're trusting us. No, we need to create the conditions for that. And that means things like, you know, you're a known brand. People know who you are, they feel that you get them and understand them, that they like you and trust you, that you understand their world, that they believe that you care about them being successful. Those are all things that haven't changed. And those are ways that I see, like you talked about the CEO and doing that trust building. That's where a lot of opportunities are, not just the CEO, but also seeing the employees because buyers know that the CEO can make promises, but it's ultimately the team that has to deliver on those promises. And
Paula Chiocchi: That's true Yeah.
Brian Carroll: so that's where people are looking at. Can you actually prove that you've done And will do for me what you say you do for other people. And that's something that I think we need to really focus on and do a better job at. It is
Paula Chiocchi: You said many companies don't really have an activity problem. They have a growth system problem. Where does that usually break down?
Brian Carroll: Yeah, you know, when it comes to driving growth or revenue, I see that the biggest problem is revenue gets lost in the seams. You know, what do I mean when I talk about the seams? I'm talking about between teams. So think about from marketing to sales development, from sales development to sales, from sales to customer success. And what happens in the seams are is that you have different teams who often have they have a goal to grow revenue, but What they're being measured on isn't always the same. how they're communicating success and what they define as success isn't always the same. And so even though someone might have a unified vision of here's our ideal customer, when I ask the marketing team and then I ask the sales team, and then I ask sales development, describe to me what are the five to seven must-have things for someone to be an ideal customer, we get wildly different answers. And it's because they don't have agreement on definitions. they don't have agreement on how handoffs take place. and as I talked about before, this this idea of how are we orchestrating between the different teams. So example being one company we worked with, they were they didn't have a lead problem, they were generating thousands of leads per month. But the the ultimate problem was is that these leads, when they handed them off to their channel, were not being acted upon. You know, we were finding they weren't being opened, they weren't being edited. And what we had to do is go and look at all of the problems in where the the gaps were between when someone filled out the form to when they actually were being handed off to a sales rep to follow up on that. And we found, you know, things like they had 10 different routing processes happening place happening. We found that the definition Of the lead was not agreed upon between marketing sales. We found there wasn't a service level agreement between when you get a lead, what are you going to do with it? How are you going to follow up? What are the things you need to know? So that's what I talk about is that that those are the things that when when I look at companies, I first start with before you try generating more activity, really understand what's happening, the activity you already have and That's between interest in lead and ultimately that revenue when a customer buys. And that's where I've spent a lot of my time.
Paula Chiocchi: It seems like n a natural thing but I I agree with you there's a lot of disconnect. And I I mean I
Brian Carroll: There is
Paula Chiocchi: I think I read, Brian, a couple of years ago that like ninety percent of the leads are never followed up on. And you think about all the money being spent to generate those by companies and then nobody follows up on it? I mean
Brian Carroll: Yeah, it is it's surprising and this month is coming up in 20 years since my book came out. And
Paula Chiocchi: Okay.
Brian Carroll: I was hoping this just that the stats would improve, that there would be there wouldn't be a problem with Louis Leeds not being adequately followed up on or that there would be better alignment. And unfortunately there still is that same old thing that You know, marketing hands leads to sales, and sales feels the leads they get from marketing aren't good enough. They don't meet the standard. And it you they might hear things like, These leads suck, we need more leads, you know. So I that still happens today. And not for everybody, but it's yeah, it's just
Paula Chiocchi: A never ending a never ending time. Yeah.
Brian Carroll: in and that's something I feel personally I hoped that we be further along than we are in that area. And so we just aren't.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah. Unf unfortunate, but hopefully you you help with that. buyers now do so much research research before ever speaking with sales. We already talked about that. How should that change the way marketers identify and reach potential buyers? What what are you seeing these days?
Brian Carroll: Well, I think you know, there's a couple of things. One is is just getting really clear on who it is that you're targeting. So almost I will say without fail, every client that I've worked with, or when we look at the process and how they define an ideal customer is not actually their true ideal customer. and what I mean by that is that the targeting Often is around things like enough information to be able to buy a list, to be able to capture signals. and that's more of helping you define total addressable market or getting you to that level of total relevant market, which is can they actually buy from us? And then are these the customers that we really want? That's where I think there's a big gap. So I think the targeting opportunities is big. The second thing I would say from a marketing standpoint is that, and I'm sure we'll we'll talk about this more, is this understanding what if someone can buy, maybe five percent of your total relevant market right now is actually in the mode of consideration. They're in the mode of buying. So, you know, I won't, I really think. you and and everyone listening, we need to think about what are we going to do about the 95% or whatever that percentage is, let's say it's 95% of people who aren't ready to buy yet. So I would say there's an opportunity to be able to understand what signals tell you that someone's likely in market. And so that's an opportunity for marketers to be to be defining that so that you have because we have more data now than we did 20 years ago. We have so much more available to us. But so how do you know that someone is in market so that you can identify those people? And then how do you help nurture and cultivate those that aren't yet, that 95% that aren't? And that's a a really significant opportunity as well, too, because a lot of people think it's about messaging people more often. but no, we it we need to not think about more activity. We need to think about relevant activity and how do we personalize What we're doing and messaging to people that actually helps them progress. That actually helps that buying group move towards finding points of agreement and progression. And what I'm getting at is that 5%, you can influence earlier in the buying process. So you're not column C in the comparison spreadsheet, you're more column A. Most buyers start their buying journey with. someone already in mind. And
Paula Chiocchi: Okay.
Brian Carroll: what where I think marketers have an opportunity is how do we help influence that we are in that preferred category of where others are comparing against us instead of us being used to compare against someone else.
Paula Chiocchi: That's that's a really interesting way to look at it. I like that. So so that's the that's one of the points though. So peop companies think that they just need to keep generating leads and heavy focus on the leads and so so what do you think marketers should be looking for be looking at before simply adding more volume to the funnel and then the then then the salespeople don't call the leads anyway? I mean what do you think they should
Brian Carroll: Yeah.
Paula Chiocchi: yeah.
Brian Carroll: I think that, you know, we often start with this top-down approach. And so for for marketers, especially marketing leaders, I have a lot of empathy for them. That, you know, boards and PE firms have trained executive teams to focus on marketing qualified leads and generating more activity, generating more top of the funnel activity. And where I think the opportunity is, is that marketers and and we need to think about from either the bottom of the funnel up, like the customer, who have we won and why have we won them? And then also, I think there's a huge amount of learning opportunity in the sales that didn't buy. You know, if they stuck with the status quo, can we understand why? What what information didn't we have? And this is where I think this bottom of the funnel and then moving up. Where we can start saying, okay, what's our win-loss analysis? what's our current pipeline conversion rate? I'll give you an example. I talked to a marketing leader. They generated 150% above their pipeline quota. And yet the organization didn't hit their revenue target. They actually had to lower their guidance. You know, so marketing can succeed at hitting the top of the funnel goal of. pipeline. But what we need to understand is it's not about more pipeline, it's about more revenue. So what is it that's causing people who are in her pipeline? Some of the things that this marketer I talked to suspected. And this is where there's a we can talk about alignment opportunities and that is that she's like, we're calling people pipeline that really aren't qualified. They really aren't a fit. They aren't likely going to buy from us and it makes us feel good. You know, she she knew already the quality of the pipeline had problems in it. But the problem for her is that she was the head of demand generation. And the the demand generation team wasn't sitting in those pipeline meetings. They weren't able to help influence and listen and understand. And so this is where I think, you know, when we start focusing on what our goal is, getting alignment around the revenue goal and then working our way backwards on. Marketing thinking beyond demand generation to how do we sell more? And then even further, you know, to our existing customers, there's a huge opportunity to grow revenue with existing customers. And that's an area that I think marketing has a significant opportunity is around generating more customer revenue, increasing net revenue retention, you know, and and increasing overall revenue as a result of that too.
Paula Chiocchi: And I would think if if i y you generate a hundred and fifty percent more and sales probably comes back and says, But the leads aren't any good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Carroll: Yeah, I mean that was that exactly what's happening. We need more. We need to increase more pipeline. And it's like, you know, maybe that's true, but before you make that decision, we need more activity. This is why I need to understand, you know, and the things that I get excited about are the things that don't show up on the dashboard. You know, the number, the top line numbers we're talking about all show up in the dashboard. the dashboard can show green check marks and you still don't hit your revenue target. And so this is where I think the opportunity is to look at the stuff that the dashboard doesn't show you. the handoffs, the alignment, the targets, the even the sales team, how they do their pipeline review meetings. What are the questions they're asking to be able to validate that someone is really truly at this stage of the process? And Salespeople often don't have clarity in that. Yeah.
Paula Chiocchi: It's it sounds simple. And it sounds simple. You know, but but but I I hear the problem. And it and it it I've seen it myself, so yeah. So
Brian Carroll: Exactly.
Paula Chiocchi: you talked about signals earlier. What signals actually tell you that a company or individual may be moving into the buying cycle?
Brian Carroll: Yeah. well in my book originally I called them trigger events. Today we call them signals or buying signals, you know, but
Paula Chiocchi: Yes.
Brian Carroll: they really are the same thing. And when when we talk about signals, these are things that ultimately are gonna cause change and and it's like influence the status quo, influence change happening. it's a lot like Newton's first law, which is you know, object at rest stays at rest. Well, you need an opposing force to help movement happen. That is
Paula Chiocchi: Mm-hmm.
Brian Carroll: a signal. Signals can be things like a leader changes. So it could be, I'll give you example, a new VP of marketing, a new CMO. They inherit a system that they didn't build. That can cause them to look at things differently and evaluate things differently. And if I were an agency, that might be something I would pay attention to. Another signal could be an acquisition, a merger. New product introduction. it could be and I'll give you an example. One of the clients that I worked with, they looked for where the CEO publicly declared either in an investor call or doing a guidance call where they talked about either in an annual report or spoken, we're focusing on innovation. and why? Why did that matter to them? They found that where the companies focused in innovation. That was a trigger event that increased the likelihood someone would buy their product, which was helping companies manage. It was software that managed product ideas. That when innovation was spoken about, that often triggered new products. And that increased the likelihood someone would buy by 400%. And so these
Paula Chiocchi: Wow. Huge.
Brian Carroll: a huge difference. And so that's one of the things they did is they just created signals looking specifically and scanning. AI gives us the ability to harvest signals. And there is it and something we can share with your listeners, Paula is if for those you use AI or AI agents, I created a a tool that got published earlier this week that you can use your AI agent to help you discover what those signals are for your ideal customer and and pull that in. And it's completely open source and free. But that that's one of those things that People need to think about is it's not about getting more signals. It's figuring out what matters for your specific customer and your target audience. And then the way I think of signals, it's like a meteorologist is predicting the weather. You know, you're trying to look
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah.
Brian Carroll: at a group of different things all together to help you predict what's likely going to happen. The signal doesn't not mean in I can't tell you how many countless. Emails I get from someone that used surface level signals, and this is a whole nother topic, but they're using something they saw in terms of the messaging for cold email outreach. And that actually isn't very successful. And in fact, it it this is where AI allowed us to scale activity. We can send out from 10 emails, now we can send out 10,000 emails, all referencing a signal. It increased activity, but it increased relevance. So you got to understand what are these signals telling me? What does this mean? And then you got to go to that next level, that that second level of thinking to understand what likely the implications are of these signals and how does this connect to what that customer's problem or what the opportunity is. And that's that's where I think a lot of marketers are. are missing it today is they're just doing this first order of signal intelligence not going to that deeper level.
Paula Chiocchi: And that's one of the things you help them with, right?
Brian Carroll: Yeah, yeah. And and I think there's a lot of people out there who can, but it's right now a lot of people are that I find are implementing software that promises, hey, you can create more relevant messages and it's just pulling in top level signals like, I saw you're hiring people or I saw you're scaling SDRs and then using that as the as the the message. That really isn't likely the message. that is just a signal that you need to go to that next level figure out.
Paula Chiocchi: bit deeper. I'm hearing you on that one. So with access to pharmaphics, contact data, behavioral signals, intent data, all this stuff out there in the mix, where do you see marketers using data well and where are they overcomplicating it?
Brian Carroll: Hmm. I think that I've seen marketers using data well when it comes to the top level targeting of being able to do segmentation. That's something where I see people have done a really decent job at being able to organize and do basic segmentation. the part we just talked about already was this idea of signals, which is you know. The the demographic information can help you focus on the who better. And it can also help you focus on within the organization, the businesses you're selling to, the contacts within those organizations, too. We have better contact intelligence, better contact data than than we have. That's gotten more accurate and way more accessible. But the intent data, you know, that shows someone's interest and consideration and things that are showing us likely buying intent. That's where I think marketers have in some ways overcomplicated things where they've tried to create multi-step workflows doing messaging based on signals. But then on the other hand they haven't gotten complicated enough with that next level of thinking as I talked about earlier about the messaging. You know, how do we actually message in a way that and where right now you a signal is like smoke. It tells you something is happening, but it doesn't actually tell you about that fire. And you actually need to understand is there is that really an opportunity you want to pursue or isn't it? And then how do you want to engage that customer? And today, I hear in you can go to LinkedIn and see numerous complaints about people who are getting terrible messaging because people aren't using data well.
Paula Chiocchi: Okay.
Brian Carroll: when they do their tailored or customized messages through their marketing automation or their sales automation, whatever they use for either cold outreach or even for nurturing, that they're they're missing that opportunity to.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah, I see that daily as well. I think, really? How'd you see that? Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Carroll: Yeah. I I think almost everyone listening here can identify. you know, when you get those bad messages and
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah.
Brian Carroll: you it's like they did not try. it was using a system that allowed them to scale, but they didn't go to that next level of trying to really understand. And that's I know we'll probably get into this, but what's missing is the human in the loop and to really ask. What does this data mean? And interpreting it so that you're able to add this taste layer to decide is this the right message? Is this feeling right? Is this gonna resonate or not? Will this connect? And
Paula Chiocchi: I've got emails that so did not and I thought, God, is this really working for you? Yeah, you know, I mean, 'cause we we're email marketers, you know, and I'm saying it's that's working, I'm I'm shocked. I mean, I sometimes just get an email that just has one line in it. It's like I don't even never even heard of you. Don't know who you are, you know, just one little line. Do you wanna talk about what?
Brian Carroll: And they may or may not reply to the message they sent you. That was one line with another message, you know, and then or it appears that they did. So that is something I know that everyone can relate to is that's that's where we're missing it, is doing more, but not necessarily doing better with how we use that data.
Paula Chiocchi: Doing better. Yeah. Yeah. So we you mentioned early on AI, we get to AI, so AI is making it possible to create more campaigns. We all know that content, outreach, everything more than ever. But I'm getting a lot of complaints lately from people saying it's just not working working well for them. So in your opinion, is there a risk companies use AI to scale activities without fixing the underlying strategy ahead of time?
Brian Carroll: Yeah, and and it's happening right now that it is it is actually scaling activity. So as we said, you can take what used to take time to do 10 emails and could send easily send out 10,000. But the the miss is that these emails aren't really using the the information well. So I had Craig Rosenberg on my podcast and he said something about You know, AI scaled activity, it didn't scale relevance. And so we spent time just unpacking,
Paula Chiocchi: I agree.
Brian Carroll: you know, unpacking why that is and what's happening. And you know, we spent a lot of time talking about sales development because people thought AI would replace sales development people. And it it actually has done the opposite.
Paula Chiocchi: Mm.
Brian Carroll: what people realized is especially with enterprise and complex sales, people have to talk to people. Humans, when it's a big deal, when the stakes are high, need to talk to other people. And so the role of the SDI rep has expanded in terms of the importance of being unmistakably human. And where I think the biggest opportunity is using an AI in a way that actually helps us do those things better. So rather than AI scaling the number of messages you send out to people in that aren't relevant, using AI to actually help do the research ahead of time so that you're selecting the right accounts. And then what you're doing is you're bringing together all those signals. And then what you're doing is you're pulling together these signals in a way that helps provide talk track opportunities, opportunities for discovery. So that that sales development rep is. Now spending less time trying to gather everything together, and they're actually spending more time being strategic, thinking about how can I what's going on in this company? Here's the information I have, how can I connect it with them in a more relevant way? And who else are they working with inside that organization? And then the other thing where AI can help us would be like messaging, for example, helping us. Talk to people more effectively, you know, rehearsing what we're gonna say. And so one of the things I'm excited about is using AI to do role playing where you can take all the transcripts, all the information, all the persona data, and actually role play. If you're selling to CAOs, you could have someone role play and talk literally to an AI agent who has been developed as a CIO, practice, practice, practice,
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Carroll: practice, just like you do in sports, and
Paula Chiocchi: Yes.
Brian Carroll: then. When you talk to a live person, do that better. And I think that's I'm just using that as a sales development rep, but we can do the same thing with how we're doing our email messaging and the same thing with how we're doing our content development, et cetera.
Paula Chiocchi: I talking with a a company last week that works with companies to help them Sales development for more like a VAR situation, you know, the value added real est resellers. And they said that they w that AI was b was pulling the contact data, creating the messaging, and the contact data was the worst. It wasn't going to it didn't even get get the correct market right to pull the data to even send the message to, and then the messaging wasn't that good either. So I mean I think over time it'll probably evolve better, but it seems to me like right now it's it's not there. Just trying to com
Brian Carroll: Yeah.
Paula Chiocchi: Completely automate that.
Brian Carroll: I agree. And and when you have someone who's inspecting and checking and looking at that, that they can discover, it's pulling in information that's incorrect, you know, and I it is so easy, even when we give AI guardrails and you know, we talk about hallucinations, it is not perfect. You know, it's we're we're asking something AI is probably. Probabilistic, meaning it predicts. But
Paula Chiocchi: Yes. Yes.
Brian Carroll: a lot of activities we're trying to do are deterministic, which is if this, then this. And when you mix those two things together, that's where problems happen. So this is why you know we need to think about how do we elevate and use our people differently. And I think a big mistake companies have made, and this actually doesn't come from me, it came from Lisa Adams, whom I interviewed, is we spend a lot of time using AI to automate what we've done. Instead of asking, what should we use AI? You know, are are we doing the right things with AI? It are we instead of automating what you've done in the past, to be able to use in a way that enables you to do things you couldn't adequately do before that weren't realistic to do before because they took too much time. And that could be things like being able to do a competitive analysis of your entire market. Maybe that's something you could only do quarterly. Now it's something you could do weekly because AI can pull that data for you. Yeah. Yeah. So those are
Paula Chiocchi: Yep. It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
Brian Carroll: those are big opportunities. But that's where I think leaders need to be thinking about AI as a as a a tool that it isn't just a productivity unlock. for activity. It it needs to be used in a more strategic way.
Paula Chiocchi: I you keep using the w one of my favorite words, strategic. So if you could get B2B marketers to stop doing one thing and start doing one thing differently tomorrow, what would that be?
Brian Carroll: Mm-hmm. I think that I would start I would have marketers begin pushing back on the demand for more leads right now. And the reason that is, is because for most organizations, yeah, they may have a lead problem, but I find that more often than not, it's not a lead problem. what it is, it's an orchestration problem and it's things that are falling through the cracks, those seams I talked about before that You know, I looked at Forrester data from 2024, things haven't improved. Less than two percent of marketing generated leads turn into revenue. So let's just think about it this way. If this were a manufacturing business of manufacturing revenue or customers, and you know, you put 100% of raw materials in the beginning, and at the end of the line, only two percent comes off at the end of the line. And you know, the answer now is. Let's just put more stuff in the beginning of the line. You
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah.
Brian Carroll: know. And no, no. What we need to do is actually figure out what the heck is happening that we only have two percent of those leads converting. and if this were manufacturing, you know, that wouldn't stand. They'd be tearing it apart, but it's not. And so that's
Paula Chiocchi: Yep. Yep.
Brian Carroll: where I think there's a huge opportunity for teams today.
Paula Chiocchi: Well, I think that's where you bring a long history of value and so I'd like to h how can people get a hold of you? What's the best way to get a hold of you if they want to have a conversation, Brian?
Brian Carroll: Yeah, well people can obviously find me on LinkedIn, you know, but also markkempa.com and you can put the link there. I mentioned that free resource on signals, we can give you access to that. So if the people are into using AI agents, that's open source, it's a tool you can use. Yes, you can as well, Paula.
Paula Chiocchi: so that's great that you did that. So well B Brian, always it's it's nice to talk to you and your wealth of information. and I appreciate your time to be on the podcast today.
Brian Carroll: Thank you. I'm really glad I was able to be with you today.
Brian Carroll: Really glad to be with you today, Paula.
Paula Chiocchi: Gosh, I've I've probably known you at least twenty years, huh Brian? So Yeah.
Brian Carroll: It's been it's been a while for sure. It's so good to be able to talk with you again and reconnect.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah. Yeah, it's I'm so excited to have you. So Brian has spent more than twenty five years working in B2B marketing, same as me and lead generation with a focus on how companies better understand buyer aligned sales and marketing and create more effective growth strategies. And I think everybody's trying trying to accomplish that and it's not the easiest thing to do. So so Brian You've spent more than twenty-five years, as I said, in B2B Lead generation. What has changed the most about how companies create demand from your perspective?
Brian Carroll: Yeah, you know, I I would say the biggest change is how buyers buy has changed most dramatically in 20 years. And the reason that is is, you know, even 20 years ago it was already moving in this direction, which is you know, the internet was influencing the buying process. So people are waiting to talk to a sales rep until much later in the buying process. That change was already underway. And and content marketing was just coming on stream. And and so there's all these things about buyer self-educating. I I think what's changed now is that you know, there's been a shift in buyer behavior and that they want to delay talking to a sales rep as long as possible, if at all. And Gartner research a published study that, you know, the vast majority of sales of customers would rather not speak to a sales rep. Somewhere around 77% would
Paula Chiocchi: I believe it.
Brian Carroll: rather not talk to a salesperson. But that doesn't change that they they have to. It's just that they would prefer not to. So I think it's the buying process has changed. The number of people involved in the buying group has increased. So we are already moving towards consensus-based buying. But now it's gotten more complicated because there's now a need for greater consensus. More people are being involved. So maybe there is five to seven people involved. Now on average, it's eight or more people are in the typical buying group group with a complex sale. And the other thing is is that I would say it's the the things that were stock and trade, trust, trust is harder to build than ever before. So buyers have less trust than now. There's more information now than ever before. there's more channels for customers to to engage with. So those are all changed how we do. Demand generation, because right now I would say it's there there's so much information out there, but there's not enough insight. And so that's something that I think is still hasn't changed. So even though technology has influenced the buying process, even though customers don't want to talk to salespeople, they still really need insight. They still need to find points of agreement to buy. And I would say also the There's a huge opportunity here for companies who see the opportunity today to help customers build the internal trust and confidence they need to buy now. So I would say one last thing is I did a lot of orientation around the lead itself as being like the primary unit that marketers focus on. And if I were to rewrite that book today, 20 years later, I'd focus a lot more. On the buying group. So the people involved in the decision making, because it's not just about creating demand or finding where demand exists. It's really about helping customers inside these businesses make decisions and move further. And so that's where there's a big opportunity today. And so that's probably that's actually where I've been spending more of my time for the past several years.
Paula Chiocchi: Well, and if you have up to ten, each one has a different maybe not all, but many have a different idea of what it is that they're trying to problem they're trying to solve and what they're trying to accomplish and to get them aligned that's that's a big job. Yeah.
Brian Carroll: It really is.
Paula Chiocchi: And I also I think it was about a year ago read that seventy two percent of the buyers are I think is it millennials now? Yeah. And that
Brian Carroll: Yeah, yeah. So even the the people buying and how they're thinking about the the process of buying, so risk has increased for people. So we we think of when people make decisions, you know, we're rational. We we think that we're totally logical And the reality is is we're not. You know, science has shown this, neurobiology has shown this. all the research has shown that we buy emotionally, and so. When we're trying to sell, we need to not just focus on the company value or the department value, but we need to think about the the people involved, like you just said, and what their interests are, because the risk of making a bad decision can not only cost millions of dollars or cost a huge amount of impact on the business, but it can cost people their jobs. And so the one thing I would say that hasn't changed in 20 years is that the status quo of doing nothing. has become the default mode more often than not that more sales don't stop because someone bought from a competitor. It's because the companies actually never made a decision. They they decided to do nothing was safer than make the wrong decision. So that's something else.
Paula Chiocchi: Do you think that's you st you think the status quo just don't rock the boat, so I won't get fired is still prevalent today?
Brian Carroll: Totally. And and in fact, it is something that we all are needing to contend with is that we think it's about helping people, you know, have confidence in us. But what we need to do is help the customer get confidence in themselves and in their business and in their team so that they can actually agree and move forward. And that's a a really hard thing to do.
Paula Chiocchi: Well, I've done a couple of podcasts recently, Brian, on just the CEO being exhibiting the and doing thought leadership to get people more company comfortable with their company in order to be able to buy from and that kind of starts at the top. So you seeing that as well that
Brian Carroll: Yeah, I think the that trust building, we're what we're seeing is is that you know, doing things, especially in this age of AI, and I'm sure we'll talk more about that in our conversation today, but that because of all the changes, one social media, politically, we're more divided than we've ever been as a society. Yet people still need to work together and people still need to Have trust in order to say yes. a lot of people think, after they say yes, they've they're trusting us. No, we need to create the conditions for that. And that means things like, you know, you're a known brand. People know who you are, they feel that you get them and understand them, that they like you and trust you, that you understand their world, that they believe that you care about them being successful. Those are all things that haven't changed. And those are ways that I see, like you talked about the CEO and doing that trust building. That's where a lot of opportunities are, not just the CEO, but also seeing the employees because buyers know that the CEO can make promises, but it's ultimately the team that has to deliver on those promises. And
Paula Chiocchi: That's true Yeah.
Brian Carroll: so that's where people are looking at. Can you actually prove that you've done And will do for me what you say you do for other people. And that's something that I think we need to really focus on and do a better job at. It is
Paula Chiocchi: You said many companies don't really have an activity problem. They have a growth system problem. Where does that usually break down?
Brian Carroll: Yeah, you know, when it comes to driving growth or revenue, I see that the biggest problem is revenue gets lost in the seams. You know, what do I mean when I talk about the seams? I'm talking about between teams. So think about from marketing to sales development, from sales development to sales, from sales to customer success. And what happens in the seams are is that you have different teams who often have they have a goal to grow revenue, but What they're being measured on isn't always the same. how they're communicating success and what they define as success isn't always the same. And so even though someone might have a unified vision of here's our ideal customer, when I ask the marketing team and then I ask the sales team, and then I ask sales development, describe to me what are the five to seven must-have things for someone to be an ideal customer, we get wildly different answers. And it's because they don't have agreement on definitions. they don't have agreement on how handoffs take place. and as I talked about before, this this idea of how are we orchestrating between the different teams. So example being one company we worked with, they were they didn't have a lead problem, they were generating thousands of leads per month. But the the ultimate problem was is that these leads, when they handed them off to their channel, were not being acted upon. You know, we were finding they weren't being opened, they weren't being edited. And what we had to do is go and look at all of the problems in where the the gaps were between when someone filled out the form to when they actually were being handed off to a sales rep to follow up on that. And we found, you know, things like they had 10 different routing processes happening place happening. We found that the definition Of the lead was not agreed upon between marketing sales. We found there wasn't a service level agreement between when you get a lead, what are you going to do with it? How are you going to follow up? What are the things you need to know? So that's what I talk about is that that those are the things that when when I look at companies, I first start with before you try generating more activity, really understand what's happening, the activity you already have and That's between interest in lead and ultimately that revenue when a customer buys. And that's where I've spent a lot of my time.
Paula Chiocchi: It seems like n a natural thing but I I agree with you there's a lot of disconnect. And I I mean I
Brian Carroll: There is
Paula Chiocchi: I think I read, Brian, a couple of years ago that like ninety percent of the leads are never followed up on. And you think about all the money being spent to generate those by companies and then nobody follows up on it? I mean
Brian Carroll: Yeah, it is it's surprising and this month is coming up in 20 years since my book came out. And
Paula Chiocchi: Okay.
Brian Carroll: I was hoping this just that the stats would improve, that there would be there wouldn't be a problem with Louis Leeds not being adequately followed up on or that there would be better alignment. And unfortunately there still is that same old thing that You know, marketing hands leads to sales, and sales feels the leads they get from marketing aren't good enough. They don't meet the standard. And it you they might hear things like, These leads suck, we need more leads, you know. So I that still happens today. And not for everybody, but it's yeah, it's just
Paula Chiocchi: A never ending a never ending time. Yeah.
Brian Carroll: in and that's something I feel personally I hoped that we be further along than we are in that area. And so we just aren't.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah. Unf unfortunate, but hopefully you you help with that. buyers now do so much research research before ever speaking with sales. We already talked about that. How should that change the way marketers identify and reach potential buyers? What what are you seeing these days?
Brian Carroll: Well, I think you know, there's a couple of things. One is is just getting really clear on who it is that you're targeting. So almost I will say without fail, every client that I've worked with, or when we look at the process and how they define an ideal customer is not actually their true ideal customer. and what I mean by that is that the targeting Often is around things like enough information to be able to buy a list, to be able to capture signals. and that's more of helping you define total addressable market or getting you to that level of total relevant market, which is can they actually buy from us? And then are these the customers that we really want? That's where I think there's a big gap. So I think the targeting opportunities is big. The second thing I would say from a marketing standpoint is that, and I'm sure we'll we'll talk about this more, is this understanding what if someone can buy, maybe five percent of your total relevant market right now is actually in the mode of consideration. They're in the mode of buying. So, you know, I won't, I really think. you and and everyone listening, we need to think about what are we going to do about the 95% or whatever that percentage is, let's say it's 95% of people who aren't ready to buy yet. So I would say there's an opportunity to be able to understand what signals tell you that someone's likely in market. And so that's an opportunity for marketers to be to be defining that so that you have because we have more data now than we did 20 years ago. We have so much more available to us. But so how do you know that someone is in market so that you can identify those people? And then how do you help nurture and cultivate those that aren't yet, that 95% that aren't? And that's a a really significant opportunity as well, too, because a lot of people think it's about messaging people more often. but no, we it we need to not think about more activity. We need to think about relevant activity and how do we personalize What we're doing and messaging to people that actually helps them progress. That actually helps that buying group move towards finding points of agreement and progression. And what I'm getting at is that 5%, you can influence earlier in the buying process. So you're not column C in the comparison spreadsheet, you're more column A. Most buyers start their buying journey with. someone already in mind. And
Paula Chiocchi: Okay.
Brian Carroll: what where I think marketers have an opportunity is how do we help influence that we are in that preferred category of where others are comparing against us instead of us being used to compare against someone else.
Paula Chiocchi: That's that's a really interesting way to look at it. I like that. So so that's the that's one of the points though. So peop companies think that they just need to keep generating leads and heavy focus on the leads and so so what do you think marketers should be looking for be looking at before simply adding more volume to the funnel and then the then then the salespeople don't call the leads anyway? I mean what do you think they should
Brian Carroll: Yeah.
Paula Chiocchi: yeah.
Brian Carroll: I think that, you know, we often start with this top-down approach. And so for for marketers, especially marketing leaders, I have a lot of empathy for them. That, you know, boards and PE firms have trained executive teams to focus on marketing qualified leads and generating more activity, generating more top of the funnel activity. And where I think the opportunity is, is that marketers and and we need to think about from either the bottom of the funnel up, like the customer, who have we won and why have we won them? And then also, I think there's a huge amount of learning opportunity in the sales that didn't buy. You know, if they stuck with the status quo, can we understand why? What what information didn't we have? And this is where I think this bottom of the funnel and then moving up. Where we can start saying, okay, what's our win-loss analysis? what's our current pipeline conversion rate? I'll give you an example. I talked to a marketing leader. They generated 150% above their pipeline quota. And yet the organization didn't hit their revenue target. They actually had to lower their guidance. You know, so marketing can succeed at hitting the top of the funnel goal of. pipeline. But what we need to understand is it's not about more pipeline, it's about more revenue. So what is it that's causing people who are in her pipeline? Some of the things that this marketer I talked to suspected. And this is where there's a we can talk about alignment opportunities and that is that she's like, we're calling people pipeline that really aren't qualified. They really aren't a fit. They aren't likely going to buy from us and it makes us feel good. You know, she she knew already the quality of the pipeline had problems in it. But the problem for her is that she was the head of demand generation. And the the demand generation team wasn't sitting in those pipeline meetings. They weren't able to help influence and listen and understand. And so this is where I think, you know, when we start focusing on what our goal is, getting alignment around the revenue goal and then working our way backwards on. Marketing thinking beyond demand generation to how do we sell more? And then even further, you know, to our existing customers, there's a huge opportunity to grow revenue with existing customers. And that's an area that I think marketing has a significant opportunity is around generating more customer revenue, increasing net revenue retention, you know, and and increasing overall revenue as a result of that too.
Paula Chiocchi: And I would think if if i y you generate a hundred and fifty percent more and sales probably comes back and says, But the leads aren't any good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Carroll: Yeah, I mean that was that exactly what's happening. We need more. We need to increase more pipeline. And it's like, you know, maybe that's true, but before you make that decision, we need more activity. This is why I need to understand, you know, and the things that I get excited about are the things that don't show up on the dashboard. You know, the number, the top line numbers we're talking about all show up in the dashboard. the dashboard can show green check marks and you still don't hit your revenue target. And so this is where I think the opportunity is to look at the stuff that the dashboard doesn't show you. the handoffs, the alignment, the targets, the even the sales team, how they do their pipeline review meetings. What are the questions they're asking to be able to validate that someone is really truly at this stage of the process? And Salespeople often don't have clarity in that. Yeah.
Paula Chiocchi: It's it sounds simple. And it sounds simple. You know, but but but I I hear the problem. And it and it it I've seen it myself, so yeah. So
Brian Carroll: Exactly.
Paula Chiocchi: you talked about signals earlier. What signals actually tell you that a company or individual may be moving into the buying cycle?
Brian Carroll: Yeah. well in my book originally I called them trigger events. Today we call them signals or buying signals, you know, but
Paula Chiocchi: Yes.
Brian Carroll: they really are the same thing. And when when we talk about signals, these are things that ultimately are gonna cause change and and it's like influence the status quo, influence change happening. it's a lot like Newton's first law, which is you know, object at rest stays at rest. Well, you need an opposing force to help movement happen. That is
Paula Chiocchi: Mm-hmm.
Brian Carroll: a signal. Signals can be things like a leader changes. So it could be, I'll give you example, a new VP of marketing, a new CMO. They inherit a system that they didn't build. That can cause them to look at things differently and evaluate things differently. And if I were an agency, that might be something I would pay attention to. Another signal could be an acquisition, a merger. New product introduction. it could be and I'll give you an example. One of the clients that I worked with, they looked for where the CEO publicly declared either in an investor call or doing a guidance call where they talked about either in an annual report or spoken, we're focusing on innovation. and why? Why did that matter to them? They found that where the companies focused in innovation. That was a trigger event that increased the likelihood someone would buy their product, which was helping companies manage. It was software that managed product ideas. That when innovation was spoken about, that often triggered new products. And that increased the likelihood someone would buy by 400%. And so these
Paula Chiocchi: Wow. Huge.
Brian Carroll: a huge difference. And so that's one of the things they did is they just created signals looking specifically and scanning. AI gives us the ability to harvest signals. And there is it and something we can share with your listeners, Paula is if for those you use AI or AI agents, I created a a tool that got published earlier this week that you can use your AI agent to help you discover what those signals are for your ideal customer and and pull that in. And it's completely open source and free. But that that's one of those things that People need to think about is it's not about getting more signals. It's figuring out what matters for your specific customer and your target audience. And then the way I think of signals, it's like a meteorologist is predicting the weather. You know, you're trying to look
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah.
Brian Carroll: at a group of different things all together to help you predict what's likely going to happen. The signal doesn't not mean in I can't tell you how many countless. Emails I get from someone that used surface level signals, and this is a whole nother topic, but they're using something they saw in terms of the messaging for cold email outreach. And that actually isn't very successful. And in fact, it it this is where AI allowed us to scale activity. We can send out from 10 emails, now we can send out 10,000 emails, all referencing a signal. It increased activity, but it increased relevance. So you got to understand what are these signals telling me? What does this mean? And then you got to go to that next level, that that second level of thinking to understand what likely the implications are of these signals and how does this connect to what that customer's problem or what the opportunity is. And that's that's where I think a lot of marketers are. are missing it today is they're just doing this first order of signal intelligence not going to that deeper level.
Paula Chiocchi: And that's one of the things you help them with, right?
Brian Carroll: Yeah, yeah. And and I think there's a lot of people out there who can, but it's right now a lot of people are that I find are implementing software that promises, hey, you can create more relevant messages and it's just pulling in top level signals like, I saw you're hiring people or I saw you're scaling SDRs and then using that as the as the the message. That really isn't likely the message. that is just a signal that you need to go to that next level figure out.
Paula Chiocchi: bit deeper. I'm hearing you on that one. So with access to pharmaphics, contact data, behavioral signals, intent data, all this stuff out there in the mix, where do you see marketers using data well and where are they overcomplicating it?
Brian Carroll: Hmm. I think that I've seen marketers using data well when it comes to the top level targeting of being able to do segmentation. That's something where I see people have done a really decent job at being able to organize and do basic segmentation. the part we just talked about already was this idea of signals, which is you know. The the demographic information can help you focus on the who better. And it can also help you focus on within the organization, the businesses you're selling to, the contacts within those organizations, too. We have better contact intelligence, better contact data than than we have. That's gotten more accurate and way more accessible. But the intent data, you know, that shows someone's interest and consideration and things that are showing us likely buying intent. That's where I think marketers have in some ways overcomplicated things where they've tried to create multi-step workflows doing messaging based on signals. But then on the other hand they haven't gotten complicated enough with that next level of thinking as I talked about earlier about the messaging. You know, how do we actually message in a way that and where right now you a signal is like smoke. It tells you something is happening, but it doesn't actually tell you about that fire. And you actually need to understand is there is that really an opportunity you want to pursue or isn't it? And then how do you want to engage that customer? And today, I hear in you can go to LinkedIn and see numerous complaints about people who are getting terrible messaging because people aren't using data well.
Paula Chiocchi: Okay.
Brian Carroll: when they do their tailored or customized messages through their marketing automation or their sales automation, whatever they use for either cold outreach or even for nurturing, that they're they're missing that opportunity to.
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah, I see that daily as well. I think, really? How'd you see that? Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Carroll: Yeah. I I think almost everyone listening here can identify. you know, when you get those bad messages and
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah.
Brian Carroll: you it's like they did not try. it was using a system that allowed them to scale, but they didn't go to that next level of trying to really understand. And that's I know we'll probably get into this, but what's missing is the human in the loop and to really ask. What does this data mean? And interpreting it so that you're able to add this taste layer to decide is this the right message? Is this feeling right? Is this gonna resonate or not? Will this connect? And
Paula Chiocchi: I've got emails that so did not and I thought, God, is this really working for you? Yeah, you know, I mean, 'cause we we're email marketers, you know, and I'm saying it's that's working, I'm I'm shocked. I mean, I sometimes just get an email that just has one line in it. It's like I don't even never even heard of you. Don't know who you are, you know, just one little line. Do you wanna talk about what?
Brian Carroll: And they may or may not reply to the message they sent you. That was one line with another message, you know, and then or it appears that they did. So that is something I know that everyone can relate to is that's that's where we're missing it, is doing more, but not necessarily doing better with how we use that data.
Paula Chiocchi: Doing better. Yeah. Yeah. So we you mentioned early on AI, we get to AI, so AI is making it possible to create more campaigns. We all know that content, outreach, everything more than ever. But I'm getting a lot of complaints lately from people saying it's just not working working well for them. So in your opinion, is there a risk companies use AI to scale activities without fixing the underlying strategy ahead of time?
Brian Carroll: Yeah, and and it's happening right now that it is it is actually scaling activity. So as we said, you can take what used to take time to do 10 emails and could send easily send out 10,000. But the the miss is that these emails aren't really using the the information well. So I had Craig Rosenberg on my podcast and he said something about You know, AI scaled activity, it didn't scale relevance. And so we spent time just unpacking,
Paula Chiocchi: I agree.
Brian Carroll: you know, unpacking why that is and what's happening. And you know, we spent a lot of time talking about sales development because people thought AI would replace sales development people. And it it actually has done the opposite.
Paula Chiocchi: Mm.
Brian Carroll: what people realized is especially with enterprise and complex sales, people have to talk to people. Humans, when it's a big deal, when the stakes are high, need to talk to other people. And so the role of the SDI rep has expanded in terms of the importance of being unmistakably human. And where I think the biggest opportunity is using an AI in a way that actually helps us do those things better. So rather than AI scaling the number of messages you send out to people in that aren't relevant, using AI to actually help do the research ahead of time so that you're selecting the right accounts. And then what you're doing is you're bringing together all those signals. And then what you're doing is you're pulling together these signals in a way that helps provide talk track opportunities, opportunities for discovery. So that that sales development rep is. Now spending less time trying to gather everything together, and they're actually spending more time being strategic, thinking about how can I what's going on in this company? Here's the information I have, how can I connect it with them in a more relevant way? And who else are they working with inside that organization? And then the other thing where AI can help us would be like messaging, for example, helping us. Talk to people more effectively, you know, rehearsing what we're gonna say. And so one of the things I'm excited about is using AI to do role playing where you can take all the transcripts, all the information, all the persona data, and actually role play. If you're selling to CAOs, you could have someone role play and talk literally to an AI agent who has been developed as a CIO, practice, practice, practice,
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Carroll: practice, just like you do in sports, and
Paula Chiocchi: Yes.
Brian Carroll: then. When you talk to a live person, do that better. And I think that's I'm just using that as a sales development rep, but we can do the same thing with how we're doing our email messaging and the same thing with how we're doing our content development, et cetera.
Paula Chiocchi: I talking with a a company last week that works with companies to help them Sales development for more like a VAR situation, you know, the value added real est resellers. And they said that they w that AI was b was pulling the contact data, creating the messaging, and the contact data was the worst. It wasn't going to it didn't even get get the correct market right to pull the data to even send the message to, and then the messaging wasn't that good either. So I mean I think over time it'll probably evolve better, but it seems to me like right now it's it's not there. Just trying to com
Brian Carroll: Yeah.
Paula Chiocchi: Completely automate that.
Brian Carroll: I agree. And and when you have someone who's inspecting and checking and looking at that, that they can discover, it's pulling in information that's incorrect, you know, and I it is so easy, even when we give AI guardrails and you know, we talk about hallucinations, it is not perfect. You know, it's we're we're asking something AI is probably. Probabilistic, meaning it predicts. But
Paula Chiocchi: Yes. Yes.
Brian Carroll: a lot of activities we're trying to do are deterministic, which is if this, then this. And when you mix those two things together, that's where problems happen. So this is why you know we need to think about how do we elevate and use our people differently. And I think a big mistake companies have made, and this actually doesn't come from me, it came from Lisa Adams, whom I interviewed, is we spend a lot of time using AI to automate what we've done. Instead of asking, what should we use AI? You know, are are we doing the right things with AI? It are we instead of automating what you've done in the past, to be able to use in a way that enables you to do things you couldn't adequately do before that weren't realistic to do before because they took too much time. And that could be things like being able to do a competitive analysis of your entire market. Maybe that's something you could only do quarterly. Now it's something you could do weekly because AI can pull that data for you. Yeah. Yeah. So those are
Paula Chiocchi: Yep. It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
Brian Carroll: those are big opportunities. But that's where I think leaders need to be thinking about AI as a as a a tool that it isn't just a productivity unlock. for activity. It it needs to be used in a more strategic way.
Paula Chiocchi: I you keep using the w one of my favorite words, strategic. So if you could get B2B marketers to stop doing one thing and start doing one thing differently tomorrow, what would that be?
Brian Carroll: Mm-hmm. I think that I would start I would have marketers begin pushing back on the demand for more leads right now. And the reason that is, is because for most organizations, yeah, they may have a lead problem, but I find that more often than not, it's not a lead problem. what it is, it's an orchestration problem and it's things that are falling through the cracks, those seams I talked about before that You know, I looked at Forrester data from 2024, things haven't improved. Less than two percent of marketing generated leads turn into revenue. So let's just think about it this way. If this were a manufacturing business of manufacturing revenue or customers, and you know, you put 100% of raw materials in the beginning, and at the end of the line, only two percent comes off at the end of the line. And you know, the answer now is. Let's just put more stuff in the beginning of the line. You
Paula Chiocchi: Yeah.
Brian Carroll: know. And no, no. What we need to do is actually figure out what the heck is happening that we only have two percent of those leads converting. and if this were manufacturing, you know, that wouldn't stand. They'd be tearing it apart, but it's not. And so that's
Paula Chiocchi: Yep. Yep.
Brian Carroll: where I think there's a huge opportunity for teams today.
Paula Chiocchi: Well, I think that's where you bring a long history of value and so I'd like to h how can people get a hold of you? What's the best way to get a hold of you if they want to have a conversation, Brian?
Brian Carroll: Yeah, well people can obviously find me on LinkedIn, you know, but also markkempa.com and you can put the link there. I mentioned that free resource on signals, we can give you access to that. So if the people are into using AI agents, that's open source, it's a tool you can use. Yes, you can as well, Paula.
Paula Chiocchi: so that's great that you did that. So well B Brian, always it's it's nice to talk to you and your wealth of information. and I appreciate your time to be on the podcast today.
Brian Carroll: Thank you. I'm really glad I was able to be with you today.
