Episode 217: Rewriting the B2B marketing rules with Nick Mason, CEO & Founder, Turtl

Speaker A: Welcome to the second episode of our B2B marketing, uh, podcast specials, uh, ahead of B2B Ignite on the first of July. And I am very pleased to be joined by Nick, uh, Mason from Turtle, CEO of Turtle. Great to have you here, Nick. Thank you for joining us. Um, the last time I saw you talk, uh, we had Schrodinger's cat this year, uh, for your opening, uh, slide, it is a group of professors, physicians no less, from 1927. Just talk us through how that relates to the challenges of B2B marketing in 2026.

Speaker B: Of course. Well, in case it isn't, uh, perfectly obvious already, Richard, um, the link is that at that time. So that's a photo of the 5th Solvay Conference, I believe, in Brussels. And at that time, the world was going through huge upheaval. We had the end of World War I, the rise of fascism. Everything was kind of in flux. And at that time, that group of, I think it's, um, nearly 30 physicists all came together, uh, and what they were really looking at is the, the end of Newtonian mechanics, which is sort of the old way of physics. So in that photo, you've got people like Niels Bohr, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, all the names that all the nerds get very excited about. And what they basically did is rewrote the rules of, um, how we think about the universe and how it all works. And so I see a parallel between that time and what those people did at that conference and what B2B marketing is going through at the moment. Huge amount of change, uncertainty, all kinds of crazy things going on. And now is the time, in my view, to totally reconsider the paradigms that have done us so well up to this point and think about what's actually going to drive us forward into the future rather than looking backwards.

Speaker A: So that was the link to Schrodinger, huh? Okay, that makes perfect sense. So he was in the room.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, exactly. Yeah. A key, A key, uh, contributor to that conference. Yeah.

Speaker A: And talking about paradigm shifts, when we were doing the prep for this, you talked about the paradigms of B2B marketing, the conventional wisdom, the rules, uh, falling away before our eyes. Just expand on that. Tell us a bit more about that. It's a big statement.

Speaker B: Yeah, it is, but I think it's right. And I think it's this growing sense that I certainly see from the people that I speak to about the, um, uh, dwindling relevance of the lead centric model of the universe.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: This idea that There are people just out there waiting to be sold to. We just need to identify who they are, tap them on the shoulder, get them to turn around and they're going to buy. And I think really, um, that has been pushed quite a lot for the last sort of five or ten years and people are starting to see that this isn't uh, quite so effective anymore and it needs to be replaced with something different.

Speaker A: Oh, this is rich ground. Do you think there's ever been a funnel?

Speaker B: Um, yeah. I mean funnel is like a theoretical sort of model for how to think about things is right. But it has its limitations like any theoretical model. Like the world is a complex, messy place and any kind of framework is just an attempt to try and describe it so we can rationalize it. So I think the funnel is perfectly valid, but it's incomplete. So again, linking back to Newtonian mechanics for a minute because uh, why not? Um, that's actually really useful and it still governs so much of um, engineering and how we think about the world from a physical perspective. But it's incomplete. And so you need quantum mechanics and you know, I can't believe we're talking about this, you need quantum mechanics and you need uh, you know, relativity and all the rest of it in order to actually explain reality adequately. And so I think that's where we are with marketing.

Speaker A: That's interesting. I've always felt that the funnel is just a convenient way to report internally, but is pretty detached from the way buyers behave. And I understand that they start at uh, one end being not a customer and they potentially become a customer at the other end. So there is some kind of start and finish, but it doesn't feel like it's ever and certainly not now been a linear journey.

Speaker B: No. And that's probably the bit that the funnel gets most wrong is the linearity bit. I mean I think we can all agree that as I think you said, people move through from awareness, through different stages, ultimately to purchase and hopefully to advocacy. So the idea that people go on a journey is right. But I think perhaps the one dimensional nature of it is the thing that you're getting at there. And I agree, I think it's um, the real world is far messier.

Speaker A: Let's just touch on the mql because the ultimate currency that marketers are using and have used since the waterfall was brought in and it is the absolute um, demonstration of the funnel that we start with. Prospects at the top of a funnel and they go through a whole journey of MQLs, SQLs, ah, but MQL has become the sort of the end of the sausage machine, the factory, the output, uh, from the machine. I mean, just talk to us about the mql because I come from a sales background and the MQL has been a political football that's been kicked around for 15 years between sales and marketing. Sales don't trust MQLs. They prefer their own self sourced leads. Marketing get frustrated because they put all this effort in and um, sales don't follow up the mql. It just doesn't feel like a very helpful metric that anyone's happy with.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it's a tale as old as time. Right. The sales and marketing misalignment over the mql. I think, um, you know, it's how we use them and how we think about them. I mean I think the idea that marketing uh, plays a role in getting people aware and moving through certain stages of the funnel to the point where perhaps they're ready for a sales conversation is right. I think that where a lot of the challenge comes in is where the handoff is really a hard handoff. And it's like, you know, sales don't get involved until that moment, uh, because sales then aren't sort of contributing, uh, pre that MQL stage and marketing also like their journey ends there. And so it's a really hard handoff. I think that just doesn't work for a variety of reasons but also in terms of how teams are uh, incentivized and targeted and obviously if you've got a marketing team where their target is MQLs, guess what, they're going to generate a ton of MQLs. We can all do that. And then that's the point at which sales say well actually these are useless and they're probably right. And so I think there's that alignment point which is really key. And that's why I'm really excited to see all of the conversations more recently and also not so recently around buying groups, which is not a new concept but people have really latched onto it. I think what that represents is an opportunity to um, get sales and marketing working much closer together on something that's real rather than just working towards metrics um, that don't really align properly.

Speaker A: So buying groups, let's talk a little bit more about that. Um, definitely an accurate representation of what we're seeing in B2B. Buying more and more people involved, more fragmented than ever. What do you see as the way to cut through that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think the first thing is asking people to think about how they buy in their business. And I think that's, uh, often a penny drop moment because the way that we're trying to sell and engage prospects is very different from the way that we know that we buy. So asking people, you know, the last piece of software or the last solution that you bought, who was involved, what were their different concerns, and then you can start a really good conversation around who needs what, why and how. And that helps, uh, open people's eyes to, you know, how buying groups actually work because they've felt it and they've experienced it for themselves. And from there it's really around. Do you know who's in the buying group? Do you know who has power, who has veto power, who needs to see what? And then you can start to work towards actually providing the right materials, the right information for each member of the buying group and making sure that you're not actually missing anyone. And this is where, if you've got a really great champion, if you're able to engage at that level, um, it can help you understand and make sure you're not missing anyone and that you're not going to get to the 11th hour in the conversation and suddenly there's a critical piece of information or critical member of the buying group who hasn't been engaged.

Speaker A: Sure. And one of the challenges that we see is that often marketing treat the buying group or the buyer as an abstract concept. We talk about ICPs and Personas and they're not that they're rooted in research, but they're not rooted in real buyers. It's interesting what you say about looking at your own experience because that probably roots it in reality in real people.

Speaker B: Well, I think that's when people really get it because, you know, uh, everyone knows and everyone's been part of a buying process and everyone understands that they didn't start. Back to your question at the start. They didn't start at the top of the funnel, work their way through linearly, and then sign a contract. It's messy and it's complicated and large parts of the process are actually just that group who are involved aligning. Ah, on is this a problem worth solving? What category of product or solution do we, we think is going to be the best fit? And is it important enough for us to act on right now? And until you've got those pieces, uh, of alignment between the buying group, if you're trying to sell to them like directly, you are wasting your time because they haven't even decided that they want to move forward and that's where I love the research that's come out recently that's made that really clear that, you know, that takes up to, I think it's about 61% of the end to end journey. And so we focus so much effort on that remaining 39%. But we, I think, um, we don't neglect the first 61, but we could be doing more there.

Speaker A: Sure. So what are we missing as marketers, as go to market teams? What's the sort of missing link here that enables us to influence buyers across the whole purchase journey, albeit a very messy, um, squiggly line from A to B?

Speaker B: Well, I think there needs to be a recognition that the whole process starts way earlier than we appreciate. I think that when people start to think about solving a problem and they start to look for thought leadership, they start to understand, am I the only one experiencing this pain? And if you're not showing up there and you don't have a brand and a perspective, uh, on a problem, particularly with everything else that's going on in the world, um, you're going to get overlooked. And so I think that if there's one thing to answer a complicated question in a simple way, um, it would be to recognize that you really want to be top of that shortlist, um, at the end of that first phase of the buying process. Because if you're not, it's very difficult to change that. And so getting in early positioning, well, making sure you've got a clear and credible perspective that differentiates you and that your brand is standout, um, and I guess from there making sure that you've got the right messaging for all different members of the buying group and all their different sort of concerns and perspectives. It's a big ask, but I think that more effort needs to be placed there.

Speaker A: Well, it is a big ask, but in a overused phrase, but a sea of sameness and a high volume of content, um, uh, ubiquity of content really. And how far does it go if AI is churning out content? I mean, it's just endless. How do you stand out in that? Because actually, because there's an argument that more content is part of the problem.

Speaker B: Agreed. And I think it's part of the problem. But to me it's a wonderful thing because it means that if you do have a really clear perspective that you really believe, um, you are going to stand out because there's going to be so much averageness and so much, uh, just sort of general content like you say out there, that the people who've got a genuine perspective, uh, which is not just, you know, uh, written for the purposes or communicated for the purposes of trying to get a sale or whatever, but is actually a deeply held conviction of the company and their real strategic direction. I think that that's really going to be the standout factor. And if you communicate that consistently and in a differentiated way, as I say, depending on, you know, the precise member of the buying group who needs to hear that message at that moment, I think that's going to be, you know, an even bigger advantage in this sea of content. I think it's going to shine all that more brightly than, uh, it would have done, uh, previously. So I think it's quite exciting.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it's interesting because we talk about the importance of brand, um, and brand, one could argue, is probably the most detached from revenue growth. But actually it's become vitally, vitally important for the reasons that you're talking about. How do you cut through? How do you, um, make sure that your message is standing out ahead of the rest?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And the phrase that we have is falling in love with the problem. And so if you're not really clear on the problem that you're going to solve for your market and you haven't fall in love with that problem, you're going to struggle. What that means is really not just sort of having a passing relationship with it, but being deeply embedded with it in all its different eccentricities and weirdnesses and understanding it from 100 different directions. I think only then can you really talk about it credibly and in a way that, you know, the people on the other side in the members of the buying group are going to say they really understand me. And it's at that point that you can start to have your thought, leadership consumed and your brand thought of more highly. And I believe that's how you end up high on the shortlist.

Speaker A: And that type of activity leads signals, if you like, and intent. And I think. Let's talk about intent for a second because my experience with intent is, and we've worked with various partners over the years, it promises much, delivers slightly less. What's your experience with intent? Is it getting better? Is it better with AI? How do you actually pick through? There are so many signals now. How do you pick through the ones that really matter?

Speaker B: I think the biggest problem with intent is that, um, it's like a tool that in my view has been put to slightly the wrong use and has been slightly misunderstood. And so what I mean by that is, I See a lot of um, stories where people have bought, say a third party intent system. They've had some signals come through and they're like, great, we'll go pass this to sales. And lo and behold, sales say, what was that? They don't even know who we are. What I think those intent signals should be used for is clues as to how do we need to start talking and warming up this buying group. Are they starting to um, sort of gravitate around solving this problem? If so, where, why and what can we do to accelerate that and help them? So rather than trying to sell, I think that, you know, what intent signals tell us is that there is the start of a conversation internally at this business and there is a gap, as we know from that 61% figure, between the start of that and actually being ready to talk to someone about a purchase. And I think our job is to use those signals through that process to help, um, as I said before, the buying group come to a consensus. I think if we look at signals through that lens, I think they suddenly take on a totally different purpose.

Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. So give us some examples of clients that you've worked with where intent has been used to actually drive commercial results and actually drive commercial gains. I know you've got some really good case studies.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So really basic level, um, working with customers to um, produce personalized content. So understanding, taking um, third party intent signals, what topics is this particular account engaging with? What are they research? Then very simply just providing personalized pieces of content based on um, those areas of interest and going a little further and also doing it based on Persona. What you're able to do then is to look at engagement with that content and not just sort of like clicks and downloads, but actually how long are they spending on each topic? Um, which members of the buying group are engaging, where are they sharing it, are they coming back multiple times? And you can kind of see from all of that data whether a center of gravity is starting to build around the problem. And sometimes it does, which is wonderful, sometimes it doesn't. Great. You don't need to pass that to sales or anyone else because there's nothing to do there. But when you start to see that spark of a buying group starting to form, um, you can then start to put more resource into that and you can start to develop that. And so that's where we've seen people be successful, is taking that approach.

Speaker A: Interesting. And you've touched on personalization there. Ah, one of the things we hear a lot, particularly around abm one of the barriers to ABM has been the heavy lift, the human lift that's involved in doing the research. The ICP definition, the personalization. One of the phrases I hear a lot, which just terrifies me, is personalization at scale. Um, is that a, uh, contradiction in terms?

Speaker B: Yes and no. I mean, uh, is the diplomat's answer, I guess, uh, yes, because, like, done badly, um, it's like anything done at scale, done poorly, it's just more junk, and it adds to that sea of content. But I believe that there is a way to do personalization, and we've seen the results, uh, speak for themselves, where you can create that real relevance. That means that people do stop and they do engage and they do find value where they wouldn't have done previously. And so we've got examples of customers personalizing thousands of documents, and they don't all land, because nothing works like that in life. But where they do land, people engaging really deeply and finding value in them. And I think that it's a mistake to think that everything that you personalize or everything you produce will have the, uh, desired impact. But operating at scale allows you to cover wider surface area and find more of those sparks that can potentially turn into buying groups.

Speaker A: We've done really well because we've spent about 25 minutes talking and not talked about AI. But it would be remiss of us not to talk about the role that AI is having being in the buying group in go to market. What's your view of the role of AI in this space?

Speaker B: It's really hard to predict exactly where it's going to end up. The model that I find really useful is to separate, just a sort of foundational level, separate tasks into intelligence tasks and judgment tasks. So intelligence tasks are the ones that you could teach a really, uh, smart graduate to do. So personalizing content to some degree is an intelligence task. There's judgment across the top as well. Uh, interpreting data, producing reports is an intelligence task. But then the judgment tasks come in, which is, once you've got that data processed and you understand, what are you going to do next and what's the signal that's worth listening to, and what actually is most relevant for that buying group and taking it from there. And so I think that AI will progressively eat the intelligence tasks and leave human beings to work on the judgment tasks, which actually is the most exciting and rewarding bit, in my view.

Speaker A: Wow, that is quite big thinking. Um, and I think a topic that we may talk about on a future podcast, but are we moving into an era where there's a judgment economy that supersedes the knowledge economy very possibly.

Speaker B: I mean, we're going to find out one way or the other. But I think it's that framing between judgment and intelligence that makes the most sense to me. I think that what it really comes down to, framed a different way, is that judgment is sort of all of the learnings and all of the things that you've experienced through your career, which mean that you are able to make a discernment that perhaps someone coming in on the ground floor isn't able to make. And so logically, if AI is able to consume all of the information, information and process it in an intelligent way, it will eat those intelligence bits first. And so maybe that's, you know, we're already seeing, you know, there's a lot of intelligence tasks in the legal space, for example, and we're already starting to see a number of, um, AI businesses really eat into that, um, leaving the judgment layer across the top. So I think it's very possible that we'll end up in that kind of judgment economy place.

Speaker A: So, I mean, with AI, the data infrastructure is really important. There seems to be more data around than ever. But somehow there is still a disconnect between marketing signals and salespeople. Salespeople are still calling the wrong people at the wrong time. Um, tell us a bit more about your view on that.

Speaker B: Well, I think it's a problem for both sales and marketing to fix. I think that there's, uh, often a lack of a shared language. So marketing, uh, are interested in MQLs and funnels and leads and all of this. And sales, um, work in a different world. And often when presented with the marketing side of the picture, they kind of go on instinct. And really I see it as a system design problem that, that boundary, that relationship needs, um, to be much better, sort of mediated and worked through. And so I think for that really to work well, there needs to be the right signals, the right information surfaced, um, in the workflows that sales already use in a way that they find credible and a way that makes it really clear what the next best action needs to be. I think obviously trust in that and credibility needs to be built up over time. But I think that, um, you know, solving that problem is a, is a must.

Speaker A: Okay, so it's not the content itself, it's the action you take after it that makes the difference, I think so,

Speaker B: as it relates to the data. Because, you know, if people aren't agreeing on what the data is saying or what the next best thing to do is then all the data in the world isn't going to help.

Speaker A: So you're going to be sharing examples from Amazon to Verizon in your talk. What's the common thread that you're seeing in relation to go to market teams?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's really um, sort of reinterpreting what a signal is, what the buying process actually looks like and kind of meshing the two together. So, you know, taking um, early stage signals around people who might be in market, working out what do they need to hear, what do they need to understand and then using the data that comes back in terms of engagement to turn sort of a virtuous circle. So if you think about every engagement, every turn of the handle that you make with a buying group or with an individual member of the buying group should give you information that allows the next touch to be more impactful. Until you get to the point where you say, actually I think that we should do some sort of direct sales outreach or whatever, um, to that buying group. So it's really, I would say that learning loop and not treating things back to your point at the start as a linear journey.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. Uh, one of the things that we've experienced is uh, at B2B marketing is somebody comes in, downloads a piece of content and they come back and they download five other pieces of content and we score them and we go, right, that makes up to 50 brilliant MQL. But actually the truth is that, that each of those pieces of content, when you actually look at it, are all just one, they're not compounding. Um, so I think what you're saying is that how do you draw the link between bits of content, the meaningful link, rather than sort of independent downloads that aren't connected?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. But it's also about prescribing that next best action. So for example, with those five pieces that got downloaded, um, that could indicate that someone is like really, really sort of um, ready to go into a property, a buying process, second hard of the buying process. Or it could be very early stage, it could be just thought leadership and obviously you'd handle the two of those differently. But the more clarity you can get on someone's sort of digital body language as they go through those different touch points. I think that's what I'm getting at, which is the better that you can understand that beyond just a superficial or someone downloaded, the better equipped you are to take the next best step and to really see your job as helping the buying group. As I say, to align around this is a problem that's worth solving this category of product. And actually these guys have been really helpful while we've been educating ourselves. So those are top choice digital body language.

Speaker A: Just going to write that down, um, for later.

Speaker B: That's a classic.

Speaker A: Love that one. Digital body language. Brilliant. So Nick Einstein said that the mark of a real, ah, seeker after truth is philosophical independence. If you could challenge marketers on one thing that they take for granted, what, uh, would it be?

Speaker B: So when Einstein said that, I think it was in a letter after the Solvay conference and what he was referring to or what he was responding to was the question around how did those people, so few of them actually in number, how did they manage to make such a big impact and see further than others had? And his point was, is that they were perfectly prepared to give up the old worldview that had fostered their careers. And you know, everything that they'd been educated on had been based on these principles, but they were totally prepared to give up that worldview in pursuit of something that was actually going to explain what they were seeing in front of their very eyes. And I see that marketing is in a similar place where we've had the lead centric view of the universe and the realization that that isn't playing out as we expected and the need to go and find something else, um, is absolutely paramount. We have to be prepar to um, exit that worldview and pick up one that's going to be much more productive. And that's why leaving behind the MQL centric view of the universe doesn't so much feel like a strategic pivot, um, as it does an existential crisis. I think that's why it's so difficult, but also why it's so important.

Speaker A: So wisdom from 100 years ago, ah, still relevant today.

Speaker B: There you go. The wheel turns right quite.

Speaker A: Nick, thank you so much. Um, really looking forward to seeing you uh, speak at Ignite and expanding on these topics. Thank, uh, you very much for joining the B2B marketing PODC.