B2B Trust System: Ashley Faus on Human Centered Thought Leadership

Hello and welcome to the Beyond B2B Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Lee Odin, CEO of Top Rank Marketing. And today our guest is someone that I've known about for quite a few years. uh In fact, we've got something like 230 connections in common on LinkedIn.

So our universes collide, but we just met for the very first time last month at Marketing Pros B2B Forum. And the person worked... going to be talking with today is literally a Renaissance woman with many, talents. A marketer, a writer, a speaker, a singer, an actor, and as she, a self-proclaimed fitness fiend by night.

Of course, I'm talking about Ashley Foss, head of Lifecycle Marketing Portfolio at Atlassian and author of the new book, Human-Centered Marketing, How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI. Welcome to the show, Ashley. Lee, I think I want to take you around to like be my introduce, like introduce me and then I'll introduce you because yeah, no, it's, I am also surprised that we just met each other so recently. I feel like, again, the Venn diagram of our circles is almost a circle.

Like the overlap is crazy. So yeah, super excited to finally sit down and hang out with you virtually as well as in person. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting because there's a it's a quite a time of change and transformation and even disruption right now.

And so I think I really appreciate and we'll get into it, but I really appreciate the the clarity and source of truth that you're providing um and your book is so timely. So, yeah, I'm excited. I'm also interested, though, because I think there's other folks who haven't don't know you um yet. and in our or they know you and they don't know how you got to where you are, you know, and I'm just kind of, I'm kind of curious about what your, if we could start things off with your origin story as it relates to B2B marketing.

Yeah, so before we get into the B2B marketing origin story, we actually have to go back. I actually started uh college as a musical theater major. the plan was, you know, I'm gonna go be on Broadway and I'm gonna be a star and the whole thing. And it turns out that I am not talented enough to be on Broadway, which is totally fine.

I still get to perform in community theater shows, which is awesome. But I actually had a medical issue with my vocal cords freshman year. And so I missed my juries and that really forced me to have to take a step back and say, like, what am I going to do if I'm not going to sing for a living? And I didn't want to teach.

And so I stumbled into a marketing 101 class and I opened the book, the textbook and the first line said marketing is about people. And I showed the book and I was like, done, this is who I am now. I'm a marketer. um And that for me, that sense that, you know, in terms of my education and my practice, of marketing.

Marketing is about matching problems with solutions for people. And I have always said I never want to sell anything to anyone, which is very counterintuitive given that I am a marketer and I have been for my entire career. ah But that curiosity about the humans, the ability to fall in love with the audience, that is kind of the crossover from that musical theater passion and stepping into a character's shoes. to now being able to step into the audience's shoes and deeply understand and deeply love them to where I am willing and able to solve their problems.

So, ah you know, from a B2B standpoint, that was kind of the happenstance portion of it. But I think the, you know, overlap between my passion for performing and my passion for solving matching problems with solutions for people in marketing, like those things go very well together. That's fantastic. That's awesome.

know, it makes me wonder, you know, the empathy that's required in order to do, you know, provide a great performance, right? You're empathizing at multiple levels, probably, with the character you represent, as well as what the audience is expecting, and the crossover to how we're empathizing with customers and the experiences we're trying to create for them. There's got to be some storytelling alignment there. uh So what about your role at Atlassian?

um Talk about the work you're doing there. And I love this, head of life cycle marketing. um Yeah, kind of drill down into that, about the company, about your work there, and about life cycle marketing. Sure.

So Atlassian is a collaboration software maker on a mission to unleash the potential of every team, right? And I say that because it's actually true. uh For anyone who's in tech, people know us for Jira, Confluence, Trello, Loom. Our products are quite beloved.

We work across both technical and IT folks as well as business and marketing users. So it really runs the gamut. uh And a lot of people ask they're like, what does portfolio mean in your title? And I'm like, it basically means that I work across the entire product line at Atlassian.

I'm not just focused on a single product. uh So I've been at Atlassian for just over eight years at this point, which is crazy to me. I'm like, how did that happen? uh But I've actually worked across multiple teams.

ah I worked kind of on the content and brand side. spent a couple of years in product marketing and then now in this kind of life cycle and demand gen marketing role. ah So again, working across both, you know, content, campaigns, events, and really at that intersection of all of the different points across Atlassian marketing teams for the whole life cycle of. uh the audience.

that includes acquisition, includes adoption, it includes uh all of the retention growth elements in terms of cross-sell, up-sell, expansion, etc. So it's a really cool role. My team has a mix of folks with different skills across content marketing, demand gen, uh social media marketing, of content creation, different things. uh But yeah, we kind of run the gamut of everything.

The common thread there again is uh in terms of both the moves across multiple specialties and then now this role. uh I tend to be a jack of all trades and I tend to want to work at the intersection. I fundamentally believe that marketing is integrated and I cannot work in a silo and it's so funny. I've had some people who have talked to me and they're like, you speak like a product marketer and then other people talk to me and they're like, you.

you're a content marketer and then other folks who are like, man, you really know about DemandGen. And I'm like, this is so funny to me because I have always said I am a marketing generalist. And when I worked in smaller companies, I owned it all. And then I've done the tour of specialist roles at Atlassian.

And so I've kind of ended up in these roles because I stick my nose in somebody else's business. And I'm like, you know, that problem, maybe we could solve it by connecting. And they're like, want to come sit with us for a while? And I'm like, yeah.

You come sit with you for a while. it's a lot of fun to be able to connect the dots across all of those different disciplines. Well, it's certainly a superpower for you, I think. uh And a holistic view of marketing is a strategic view of marketing.

And there's various forces, whether it's quarterly budgeting or status quo about how people do things that force them into those silos, that force them into their lanes and having the opportunity. like you do at your company uh to have a 360 degree view is fantastic. Plus, of course you have the passion for it. Like you're interested.

And it's interesting when we started our company, it was a PR firm and I was a search person and it was like interesting. And so I started uh becoming involved in the industry and I would be the SEO guy talking at PR conferences and at search conferences, I'd be a PR guy and started going to other industry events like way back when direct marketing, remember that? And then, know, search and content and so forth. it's, so I have a great appreciation for your track of all trades sort of, you know, holistic perspective because it's served quite well, uh being able to bring solutions into situations where others are necessarily not privy to that take a step back perspective.

So yeah, I think it's definitely a superpower for you. Um, so, so this podcast beyond B2B has had, you know, an ongoing narrative of this idea of elevating B2B marketing from mechanical transactional to meaningful, right? It's there, you know, expressions like it's not enough to inform, you know, B2B audiences. We've got to make them feel something and things of that nature.

Um, and you're really trying to find the human in the, marketing experience. So I'm really excited about, about the book. You know, and people definitely need to. even on a Kindle, I'm like, oh, it's the analog, I love it.

Yeah, of course, of course. That's what, what do think these are? Yeah, absolutely. your case it's very like beautifully, you know, aligned with all of your colors and everything.

It's nice. by a mutual friend of ours, Hanley. Anne has a rainbow bookshelf and I thought, well, if Anne can do it, then maybe I can too. When I moved into my house and I was like, okay, how am gonna arrange these books?

uh And so, you in yours, especially, you there's a lot to unpack and it's so timely at multiple levels, I think, because as I mentioned before, know, marketing is going through a lot of transformation and even disruption right now. I think too, maybe, I'd love to know what you think about this. think with AI adoption is something that's being pushed by a lot of organizations and people who have opinions about what's next in marketing. And that's fine.

But I think there's also a lot of AI fatigue starting to happen on the audience side of things, right? Whether it's because of AI slop or just because of degradation and mental capacity because of over-reliance on AI. But I'm just kind of curious, Because of this growing hunger for what's real and the timeliness of your book, I'm wondering what is it that motivated you to write the book in the first place? So it actually was born out of frustration with trying to solve problems in a way that just wasn't working anymore.

And so uh I've actually been talking about a lot of the frameworks and concepts in the book for years before I wrote the book. And so it's kind of funny people ask, like, how did you write the book so fast? And I'm like, how to write a book in six months, know, wrestle with the problem for 10 years, talk about how you've been solving it for six years, write the book in six months, right? Like it's, bingo.

that I had been talking about. I think for me, the initial spark was around the funnel and this idea that I'm gonna like somehow map the journey with awareness consideration and decision or the looping decision journey with that retention phase. And for some reason that just drops you back in awareness. Like where I'm gonna treat you like you don't know me even though we've been working together for months or years.

And then like somehow I... As the marketer decide what phase you're in, like you don't tell me I just decide. Like this makes no sense, right? And if funny enough, actually, when I was at Duarte, uh I brought in Marketo and this was, mean, early stages where, you know, marketing automation platforms were basically going through their hype cycle of like, it's going to completely obliterate all marketing and replace all the marketers, right?

And ah So I brought in Marketo and I remember when I first was able to look at basically something, you know, an anonymous IP tracking and then it married up, somebody filled out a form and I had their email and I could go look at all the pages that they had visited on the website and I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. Like I could spy on my audience, right? And then I was like, no, what does that say about me? That I'm like, you know, the voyeuristic, like who are these people, right?

But. One of the big things where I first kind of started to stumble on this whole funnel thing is I was responsible for setting up the scoring model for all of these leads. And at the time, this was not sophisticated. It was basically, I don't know, assign some points.

And when people get to hundred points, like they're a lead now. And so I'm sitting there trying to fiddle with the scoring model. And I didn't know this was like 15 years ago at this point, right? And so I'm like, No, no, this 20 points.

Give this 10 points. Like I'm just randomly assigning points. And then it was like, well, let's let it run for a quarter and then we'll see whether or not those were the right scores. And that just kind of broke my brain where I'm like, you're telling me that just because somebody filled out a form, they get a certain number of points.

And just because they're downloading all of our eBooks, they're a lead net like The language shifted right where I was saying like, all of these are leads. And then obviously sales was like, these are terrible. They're not converting. They don't have budget, right?

Nothing about them was banned qualified, right? No budget authority need timeline. And that for me, I was just like, okay, this is fundamentally not working. And it's not because I don't have a sophisticated enough scoring model.

It's because it doesn't make sense for me as the marketer. to try to like imply what you as the audience want and to try to force you into this path that I want you to go down. And so I started thinking about like, well, how else should it be? Right.

And I started thinking about this playground model and realizing that it's very similar to my nieces and nephews that want to go up the slide instead of down the slide. Right. People need pricing before they can even kick off a buying discussion, even though pricing is traditionally considered, you know, bottom of funnel or purchase level or decision level. conversation, right?

uh Same thing with thought leadership. So again, I started wrestling with that problem when I was at Duarte. uh We had Nancy Duarte, who is a thought leader. I talk about her in my book.

I score her. She is a thought leader. But it's not scalable for it to just be her. And so we were like, OK, we need to build more thought leaders.

And then it was like, OK, well, what does that mean? How do we know if someone's making progress? What activities do we need to do? How do we find the right people?

And again, this was well before the current iteration of influencer marketing or employee advocacy or employee amplification programs, right? And so started that discussion at Duarte. And then obviously when I came to Atlassian, know, much bigger company also was like, how do we think about this? Right?

So basically it wasn't so much inspired to write the book as much as it was inspired to solve my own problems and explain. my own approach in a way that was scalable and repeatable and something that my colleagues could understand, not just something that lived in my head. Yeah. Yeah, that makes you had a necessity drove your innovation and the book was, yeah, I get it.

That's fantastic. um And there's so much there. um You know, it's like the playground model makes me think of, you know, the marketing experience that well, the experience buyers are looking for is more choose your an adventure than some sort of linear and the joke linear experience. And the joke I like to make is, uh customer comes into a store, let's say it's a B2B store of some kind.

Yeah, a customer comes into the store says, excuse me taps on the salesperson's shoulder and says that, excuse me, where's the top of the funnel? I need to find the top of the funnel, because I need to go through your predefined process before I can make up my own mind about what I need. And obviously, that's ridiculous. Well, and it's funny because, and it's so timely in terms of like the age of AI and AI visibility, the buyer's journey has gotten so much more complicated.

People are doing so much more of their research. think the stat I'll have to check, but I shared this at, I think both inbound and at B2B Forum. I think it's something like buyers have done 67 % of their own research before they finally reach out to or come to a salesperson. And now a lot of those queries are actually shifting into LLMs instead of Google search, right?

Obviously Google search is still a behemoth and it still dwarfs all of the LLMs. But the funny thing is people are actually going to the LLMs to do that research because they know that brands haven't quite figured out how to game the results in the LLMs yet. So they know, they're like, all of the search results are biased because you can pay to sponsor the top spots. or traditional SEO has been around for so long that like, these brands have just gamed the keywords to end up at the top of the SERP.

But they feel like the brands haven't been able to game the LLMs quite yet, even though a lot of, as you know, a lot of the traditional search, white hat traditional search techniques actually work very well for LLMs, as well as from a PR perspective. You you talked about that seeming counterintuitive that you paired those two early on. And from my perspective, bringing it full circle with AI, it's like, no, actually the earned media and the social portions of that like peso model in terms of paid, earned, social and owned, uh we have so heavily leaned into owned for so long, but actually LLM is all about the PES portion, not just the O portion, right?

So it's actually so funny that it's coming full circle and for folks who really leaned into the fundamentals of marketing, it's like, of course this makes perfect sense that they're off trying to find an unbiased third party to do their research. And of course they don't want to talk to the biased sales rep, right? So uh it's actually quite timely that we're coming back to the fundamentals in the age of AI. Absolutely, and think a lot of uh what you're talking about and the signals marketers need to, need to put into market are uh those that arrive help, that create consensus.

There's a consensus across channels. There's a continuity and a cadence even of signal, meaning that the topical authority and the trust that you're able to earn. because of third party validation, because of things like thought leadership, because of influencer advocacy, organic or paid whatever. But just that experience allows, well, it makes it easier, really.

It makes it easier for the buyer to come up with a conclusion that you're, as we say, the best answer for what it is that they're looking for. think trust is such a big part of that, right? And it's obviously a big part of the book too. sure every marketer academically until actually understands the importance of trust.

But these days, it seems earning that trust is harder than ever. And there's a lot of obstacles. Some of them are in the industry, forces in the industry, as I like to say, and some of them are self-imposed. And I'm wondering if you can talk about what are some of the obstacles that are at the industry level or platform level?

What are some of the obstacles that brands are actually creating themselves to create this trust issue right now? boy, there's a lot to unpack there. I'm very excited about this. Okay, so in terms of degrading trust at like the systemic or the industry level, I'm gonna zoom in specifically on the impact of AI because right now it is faster and cheaper to churn out quantity than ever before.

It is also faster and cheaper to turn out misinformation or disinformation than ever before. So there's the quantity piece, which is not necessarily malicious. And then there's the quantity piece that is intending to mislead people. And that is faster and cheaper to do than ever before.

You've got deep fakes on videos. uh You've got AI that'll just hallucinate and make up sources. And it sounds right, because it'll cite something. And then if you don't dig in and if you don't have the expertise to be like, that's not, really?

Did someone actually say that? Like, does this person actually exist, right? Like who, what book are you actually quoting for, right? And funny enough, there was uh a, again, one of the kind of most egregious hallucinations.

uh There was a lawsuit or something like that. And some associate provided, a case to bolster their own. And that case didn't exist. They never fact checked that the AI that gave them a case citation to support their argument actually existed.

know, and so this idea that like, yeah, just ask chat GPT, it's fine. Like, no, it's not. And so I think this is something that is going to be more and more difficult, particularly for Gen Alpha, where they've grown up. with AI everything.

know, us elder millennials, we had to suffer through citing encyclopedias, right? Like we had to go to the library and physically pull out a book and actually, you know, be able to tell the teacher like, hey, this book exists. Gen Alpha doesn't have to do that. And everything they see online could be fake.

And so I think that's a huge issue. I actually think that to counter that, we're gonna see more importance of in-person one-to-one one to few interactions because I know you're real if you are standing in front of me and shaking my hand, right? Even on video, it used to be that video, it's like, okay, if somebody's on a video, then you know that it's real or if it's an audio recording. But if you look at Notebook LM, I don't know if you've played with that, but the voices are actually great.

There's some tells, right? Where they actually, in an attempt to try to make it more human, they add in vocal fillers. but they do it at such a cadence that a normal human wouldn't have those vocal fillers in that way. Like it's, the vocal fillers are too perfectly spaced.

uh It's funny. is not real. Right there, right? But so that's, that's what I think is happening kind of at an industry level and a platform level is AI has made, is getting so much better at churning out, you know, quantity, mediocrity, but it's very hard to tell the difference.

So that's the industry piece. On the brand side of things, I actually think this is something that we can fix today and that's our CTAs. And it's because we are so self-interested. Everything is how do I chase a lead?

How do I capture a prospect? How do I lock down a deal? We have this adversarial mindset about the people behind the screen that we need to capture them and we gotta trick them and we gotta grab them, right? They're running away from us and we need to pounce.

And it's like, okay, well, if that's the thing you're starting with, if that's the mindset you have toward your audience, you're already not starting from a place of trust. And then because of that, You put in CTAs like learn more and it takes you to a form where you have to contact sales. You put in a button that says try for free and it takes you to a sign up flow that requires you to put in a credit card and then has this tiny fine print about how hard it's going to be for you to cancel if you decide that, you know, after doing the free trial that this product doesn't work for you.

Right? Like this is the pricing page that has no pricing information unless hear me out. You fill out a form to contact sales. Aha, I've captured a lead, right?

And so we break that trust with every freaking CTA on the website that does not actually do and land you in a place that it says it's going to. You wanna watch a video, it pops up a form. You wanna get pricing, it pops up a form. No, freaking, if the CTA says watch a video, you should click that button and watch a video.

If it says, read this blog post, you should click that and read a blog post, right? If it says contact sales, great, it should go to a sales rep and that person should contact you quickly because you said contact sales, that's what I wanna do, right? So I think that's what I would say about the two forces from an industry level, you've got the awkwardly at scale and from a brand level, it's actually the micro that's the problem. That's interesting because on the CTA thing, it's like maybe really thinking about it with empathy and as a good user experience.

Really remind ourselves of what a great user experience is, and that is setting expectations and then following through on the expectations that you actually set. And interestingly, on the AI side of things, there's a conclusion I came to in early experimentation. with AI tools and it's like AI makes you more of what you are. So uh if you're maybe not as curious or imaginative and, you know, thinking experience to what you put in is going to be a reflection or what you get out is a reflection of what you put in in terms of context.

In other words, crap in, crap out. Right. And so it's the you know, the pressure to create a quantity of content, pressure to do so more efficiently is resulting in uh these things that these experiences that re erode trust. Right.

And so, yeah, it is really about in terms of AI and marketing, it's learning how the best way to use AI in the process. Right. And ultimately focus not so much on the technology, but focus more on the outcomes and the experiences you're trying to create. Right.

uh But there. I'm just preaching to the choir here, right? We know that. So you talk about some best practices for building trust in the book.

And can you talk about some of those? there's an operationalization element to this too. It's like, I don't know that trust at scale is really, what does that mean? But.

being able to, rather than subjectively apply an element of trust in each content piece, that's one thing, but there's another thing to sort of, know, can you create a system? And like we have an expression trust system that is a part of the best answer marketing framework. I see in the book, you're talking about a lot of the same sorts of things. So can you talk about practically uh what are some ways and brands can, you know, lean into trust building as part of how they go to market?

Sure. So we just talked about one very super easy thing to start changing today. Go to your website, double check, make sure that your CTAs actually have a verb and then that verb land you where you're going, right? Whatever that action is.

And it should be based on the explicit intent for the next action for the audience. So as marketers, obviously we love anything that's buy intent or use intent. So buy intent content is anything that's going to get you as an audience member. prospect customer closer to giving me money.

So things like contact sales, seeing things like activated trial, request a proposal, right? All of that would be buy intent, assets and CTAs. We also love use intent because that means you're getting value from the product, you're getting value from the services. And in our kind of SaaS world, it means that you will continue to buy or renew your subscription.

So use intent assets and content would be anything, uh things like log in, right? uh book your office hours if it's a service. It's anything where you're getting value from the thing you already have. So as marketers, we tend to love those two intents.

We forget that there are other intents. So one is what I actually call trust or affinity intent. And that really is about that rapport, the perception that the brand is actually able to solve your problem and that yes, they are trustworthy, right? They're authentic, they're transparent.

ah They have your best interests at heart. And that doesn't require the audience to do anything other than just change how they feel. Like maybe they share it on social media or maybe they send it in Slack to their colleague, but it doesn't do something for the brand from an upside perspective. There's another one that I call a help or remediation intent.

So sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes people run into a problem, right? They need help. And these CTAs and assets and kind of that portion of the journey often sits with a support team, a customer success team, maybe solution engineers, maybe in your support documentation or community forums.

But again, what happens when something goes wrong? That makes or breaks the experience, particularly from a retention perspective. People are not going to come back if things are constantly breaking and it takes a long time to fix them. And then finally, true learn and take content.

Again, it helps the audience work better, communicate better. uh It offers them some benefit that doesn't necessarily have an obvious upside for the audience. So again, maybe they share on social media. uh We actually at Atlassian do a really great job of this.

have the Atlassian team playbook and it is a series of free and ungated exercises that you can run with your team to improve your project kickoffs, to remove dependencies, to improve your communication, right? It's about helping the teams work better together. So if we go back to our mission, to unleash the potential of every team, our mission is not to sell gering compliments to every team. Our mission is to help teams work better together.

And that has to include the people and the processes, not just the tools, right? And therefore in that journey and with our content, we have to give them things that address the people and process portions of that equation, not just the tools, right? So that's one way that we build that trust. using that learned and attained content, right?

uh And so I think that's a big piece of it is really matching the intent that is the explicit next action for the audience. So that's one piece. The second piece, which I know we'll get into more, is showing the humans behind the ideas. And so uh I talk about this in terms of thought leadership, uh influencers, and then subject matter experts.

across the four pillars, which we'll talk about in a bit, I basically rate each of these types of B2B creators, they do different things in the marketing mix. A lot of people think, we need to build a thought leader. We need to do thought leadership for our founder, right? uh They think thought leadership is the best.

And the reality is the best type of person in the marketing mix depends on your goals, right? What are you trying to achieve? Because there are different trade-offs between thought leaders, influencers, and subject matter experts. but showing the people behind the ideas.

And again, if we get super tactical, that means attributing a name to a byline and not just slapping a random person's name on that byline, right? That person actually has to have the expertise and lived experience and bring that unique point of view. uh So we see this a lot, right? Somebody, we'll just ghost write it.

We'll get ChatUpt to pump out a blog post. And then, know, Lee, he's the CEO. We're just going to slap Lee's name on it. And it's like, Does Lee actually know anything about this topic?

Like, does Lee actually have credibility with the audience? No? Why are we slapping Lee's name on it? Like, a senior executive or a founder or CEO is not necessarily the right byline.

So making sure that that byline is actually connected to the human, not just a fancy title that you think lends credibility when it might not. Yeah, yeah. Well, just because you use that example, I have to say in 25 years of having my business, I have had something ghostwritten for me once and that was about 20 years ago. ah Yeah, crazy, but no, it totally makes sense because you're creating continuity and relevance.

And you you talk a lot about a tent. You know, we have a search team that. talks a lot about intent too from a search perspective, like matching buyer intent, matching searcher intent with the corresponding content. You know, that good SEO is good user experience too, right?

Or good search behavior is good user experience. And so these things kind of come together, I think, in creating those, setting those expectations, understanding context, obviously, intent, and then setting and delivering on expectations where there's continuity. you know, I'm kind of interested And you mentioned thought leadership and influencers. uh And there's, in terms of trust too, there's an intersection there.

uh Thought leadership and influence are, I talked about this uh a lot over the last number of years. And it's just the idea of, it's not just to build trust, but it's to build relationships. And you talk about that too. And I'm just wondering, uh There's one question that stands out for me and that I want to ask people who really have in-depth knowledge about thought leadership, and that is this.

uh A lot of conversations around thought leadership, building thought leadership for individuals and a proxy of the individual thought leadership, using the individual's thought leadership as a proxy to the brand's thought leadership, right? You know, probably aligned with the function of the individual. And so my question is the difference between building individual thought leaders, know, arguably in alignment with the brand's goals and the strategic perspective of building thought leadership for the brand itself.

And how are those the same or are they different? You know, uh can you talk a little bit about that? Sure. So I think this is uh a nuanced question and I think it is something that's very hard to find the right balance.

First of all, companies don't have thoughts. Companies are made up of people. People have thoughts, right? And so this idea that some company just magically has thoughts and is the company is a thought leader?

Like necessarily they have to have someone driving that, right? So uh classic example would be a lot of the big consulting firms, right? Like Deloitte and PwC and McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group, right? Those companies put out a lot of research and because of that, they're kind of considered thought leaders or industry drivers or trendsetters in their industry because they are the ones who are doing the research and putting out the information.

But if you look at the back of all of those research papers, they list who actually did the research, right? And they frequently have someone who is in that practice area that is literally, know, Ashley Foss, comma, marketing practice, dash. Deloitte, PwC, BCG, Gartner, whatever, the analyst firms. It's because I, an expert in this craft, inform the areas that we should be doing our research and our surveys, and then I help craft the report that we put out, and then therefore I speak to these results, right?

So there is definitely an interrelated relationship for a lot of those firms that do this research. and have been doing it for many years and have established themselves as an unbiased third party. Now we can have a whole conversation about whether they are in fact an unbiased third party, right? If there's pay to play the whole thing, but they are definitely less biased than Google putting out some report that actually says that Gemini is in fact the best model and the best AI, right?

Like who are you going to trust more, right? Google's assessment that its tool just happens to be the best tool. Or are you gonna assess, again, a Gartner or a PwC or something like that, talking about open AI versus Gemini versus perplexity, right? Which of those do you trust more?

Then which one do you trust even more? If it's coming from a person that has been in the AI space, maybe they have a PhD in AI or natural language processing or machine learning, right? Then you start to get into even more of those, that trust. and credibility piece.

So I do think that it is better for the brands to have specific individuals or a group of individuals if the company is large that are focused in a specific practice area. But again, at a certain point, like if you think about panels, uh having somebody from a larger brand or from a think tank is going to have more credibility and hold more weight than somebody who comes from a five person startup. right, even if they have a big title. So I do think that there is an interplay of.

You know, it's an interesting thing. know, uncovering. well, first, we recently published, uh we did a survey of 797 senior B2B marketers in the US and the UK around thought leadership and published that report not too long ago. But It's been interesting in unpacking, know, like in taking a look at what that leadership means in the B2B context and all instances and looking at those consulting uh or management consulting firms, like you just mentioned, the way they approach it versus the way a software company might approach it is interesting.

one of the, seems that, and I agree with you, there's a significant opportunity to humanize this data. Right? And some of these organizations do a good job of storytelling, but it's interesting how our research actually found those who partner, those organizations who author or commission research, those who partner with industry experts are 74 % more likely to have a successful. In other words, like the specifics of that.

74 % who frequently collaborate with influencers report that their research-based content is very effective versus just 29 % of those who do not regularly collaborate with industry experts. So that collaboration could be, just like you said, it could be informing the questions to be asked. It can be informing the narratives that come out of the analysis. And then obviously it could come from.

be part of the content that is produced as a result of the research being done in advocacy and that sort of thing. So the companies who are participating or collaborating with experts are far more successful at it than those that do not. And this is a huge opportunity I'm seeing in a lot of research reports that have been consuming uh that they're not including their own internal SMEs. Sometimes they do.

And a lot are not including outside subject matter experts or if you call them influencers or creators, but people who are in B2B recognize experts on the topic at hand. It's very interesting. So I wanted to ask you too about, our survey, noticed it was like 99, let me see here, 97 % thought that leadership was critical for success across the customer journey, right? It's like, well, I almost said full funnel.

Full customer life cycle uh opportunity. Yeah, thank you. Full playground opportunity. And I guess I want to back up just a second and ask you, because you are someone who's going to know, can you talk about or lean in a little bit to what thought leadership is and what it is not?

Because there's the thought leadership stuff that's happening from these large management consulting companies and big brands. And then is it possible for thought leadership to be done by a 50 person, you know, SaaS company? Is it possible for a mid-market company to effectively use thought leadership? So what is it and what is it not?

First, I will confirm, yes, even small companies can be thought leaders, right? And that is because thought leadership is fundamentally about innovation and it is about helping your audience think and act in a new direction. So it's not just lofty ideas. It's not just pie in the sky dreams.

It's not, you know, fake predictions or a crystal ball, right? This is innovation. It's testing. It's the discovery.

It's codifying it in a way. that other people can use it and take action. So that's first piece of what thought leadership is. It is not contrarian.

It is not quality content. It is not executive content. First of all, all content should be quality content. Your sales content should be quality content, right?

Again, if we go back to those intents, sales content serves the buy intent. Thought leadership content generally serves either the trust or affinity intent. or learn intent content. So all content should be quality content.

uh By nature, because thought leadership is innovative and it is introducing new ideas, it tends to ruffle some feathers. But contrarian for the sake of being contrarian does not make you a thought leader, right? If you say, oh, LLM search is growing. And I say, no, it's not.

OK, I'm contrarian, but I'm not. thought leader with that statement, right? So just saying the opposite of the status quo or just taking the opposite stance of whatever the person has said to you does not make you a thought leader. It does need to be tested.

It does need to have rigor. um And then same thing from an executive standpoint, right? This idea that like, well, if we slap the CEO's name on it, it's thought leadership. No, it's not, right?

At its core, thought leadership is really boils down to have thoughts. and be a leader. leading a company is different than thought leadership. And I think this is another piece of this where people often mistake a big title or being good at your job.

That means you're a thought leader. And that is not true. If you are missing, and in my parlance, one of the four pillars that I include is this depth of ideas pillar, which is really about the innovation piece of this. You can be very good at your job.

But if you're just solving the exact same problem in the exact same way, you can make a lot of money for yourself, for your company. You can be very good at your job. That does not make you a thought leader. And that's okay.

Again, we've conflated thought leadership with the best and it like, that's not, it serves a different purpose. Yeah, yeah. You know, I had a great m interview with uh Cindy Anderson from IBM, who is co-author of this book. I don't know if you've seen this, but I highly recommend it.

And, you know, just talking about the definition. It's like, you know, helping business leaders solve problems, you know. So it's like, obviously it's innovative ideas, but it's like a perspective that you're sharing that helps them, helps educate them uh to solve business problems. you know, or directionally, it's not necessarily, you know, it's, it's not the lead gen thing.

Um, the derivative content from thought leadership ideas could certainly be demand gen. Absolutely. But, but the thought leadership itself is something that is informing and educating about a way of thinking that can help, you know, those business leaders pursue strategically, uh, what is the problems that they're trying to solve in a particular way. Right.

Um, so You mentioned the pillars like it, you know, the four pillars are a big part. You've talked about, isn't it? Was that your topic at B2B Forum just this last or is it two years ago? OK, yeah.

I think I did a talk on it a couple of years ago where it was very focused on thought leaders, influencers, matter experts. Yeah. Well, it's great. So can you talk about those four pillars?

That's a really practical, super useful uh model for understanding, um for anybody listening or watching to kind of understand where can thought leadership play? What are some of the mechanisms in which you can make it real? So if you could share a little bit about those four pillars, that'd be great. The four pillars of thought leadership are credibility, profile, being prolific, and depth of ideas.

So the credibility piece is really about, do you know what you're talking about? Right? Do people believe you when you say things? um One of the ways to kind of tell this is to see how often you are asked to cite your sources versus how often you are cited as the source.

So when I first introduced this model years ago, people would ask me like, did you come up with this? where did you find this? Right? And it was obvious that I basically didn't have the credibility that I was the person who came up with these pillars.

Now you'll see people tag me on LinkedIn and they'll say, I really think this dovetails with Ashley's four pillars of thought leadership or Ashley, you have four pillars of thought leadership. Can you talk about this? Right? So that shift.

means that I now have the credibility and I am well known in the space in terms of talking about these pillars. That's the first one. Second one is around profile. And this is what a lot of people think about in terms of being famous or being a thought leader.

Yes, you have a lot of followers on at least one social media platform. You're on a lot of podcasts. You can land in top tier outlets, right? The New York Times wants to talk to you versus just, yeah, I do a meetup at town hall, right?

uh You are often showing up. with other well-known peers, you have industry-level recognition or in some cases global recognition. The prolific pillar is about how much content you're creating and sharing. And this one, in my spicy comment on this, this is 100 % in your control.

The other three pillars have some perception, like you're not 100 % in control of whether someone thinks that you are credible or whether someone follows you on LinkedIn or invites you to keynote at a conference. But being prolific, how often you create and share, that is 100 % in your control. So are you writing? Are you speaking?

Are you making videos? Are you on LinkedIn? Are you on Twitter? Are you on, you know, are you doing podcasts?

Are you speaking at conferences? Right? Being out there helps you build that profile. It gives people something to follow.

The more you talk, the more credibility you have. And then obviously that is how you share your depth of ideas. So final pillar is depth of ideas. And that's really about the nature of the ideas.

So Are you creating new tactics? Are you putting the pieces together from adjacent fields? Are you testing and discovering new things? Obviously at the top, it's like, you're a visionary, you're pushing the whole industry or the whole idea.

Most people in business are not gonna get to kind of that visionary. So I do say that this model has to be adapted to your industry. Obviously, if you're in the hard sciences, right? Like you're literally doing cancer research.

Like, yeah, your depth of ideas is gonna be at the very top. but you might not be very prolific because you're so focused on being in the lab, right? And so all of these pillars have to work together in tandem. People often ask me like, which is the best pillar?

Which is the most important pillar? Which is the hardest pillar? And I'm like, they have to work together in tandem. You have to move up, right?

Depending on where you're starting from. uh And this is where we get into thought leaders, uh influencers and subject matter experts. A lot of subject matter experts, They have very high credibility because they've been in the industry. They've been solving this problem for 10, 15, 20 years.

They're actually really strong on depth of ideas because they're so familiar with the problem space that they actually are coming up with innovative new solutions. The problem is they're very low on prolific and profile because they tend to just focus internally. They tend to work one-on-one with customers. Often they sit in a SaaS company in your customer success or your solution engineering team.

They're very smart. They're actually solving really interesting problems, but they don't talk about it, right? They're not sharing it publicly. So for them, the hardest pillar or the pillar they need to work on is actually being prolific so that they have something to share to actually help them build their profile, right?

um On the flip side of that, influencers are highest in the profile pillar. They have a ton of followers. but they usually only have those followers in one platform. So a LinkedIn influencer, a YouTube influencer, an Instagram influencer.

They tend to be lower on depth of ideas because they're primarily focused on existing solutions. So they have to have some credibility, otherwise they wouldn't have the influence. But for the most part, they're focusing more on the tactics or the existing problems and solutions, right? So for them, if they want to become a thought leader, they want to break out of that bubble, they have to focus more on that depth of ideas piece.

actually doing the research, actually codifying it, and then being more prolific in other ways so that they can showcase that depth of ideas. So again, it's different problems depending on where you're starting and what you're talking to achieve, but all the pillars work together in tandem. Yeah, that really lines up with some of the tenants of our best answer marketing framework where we're talking about a trust system, we're talking about multi-channel distribution, we're talking about content experiences.

So like in the case of that influencer, it is the depth of idea, but you've got to create that consensus across channels of. So there's continuity of idea. It's not exactly the same idea. It's relevant to the audience, but it's just like, gosh, everywhere I look, there are all these different touch points, which reminds me of a Gartner study, the average B2B buyers engaging in 10.

2 distinct channels during their journey, right? It's like, well, are you the best answer across those channels? So whether you're a thought leadership, whether you're a thought leader, an influencer, an internal subject matter expert, or it's your marketing campaign, like a lens through which you can understand the potential impact uh and the utility of the information you're putting out there in the market is to kind of take a step back and go, okay, are we consistent? Are we building consensus across these other, all these channels?

Because that'll manifest not just in terms of human understanding amongst your addressable market or your audience that yeah, you're a day one, you know, short list choice. but it's also gonna manifest in terms of how search reveals you on queries. It's gonna manifest in terms of how LLMs have decided to give you as a resource when people are looking, right? So it's sort of a self-reinforcing uh idea.

uh I wanna ask you one last question about research, or about, yeah, it's about research. One last question about thought leadership, and it's about research. uh So in that research report, that we did this. So it's a state of B2B thought leadership in 26.

93 % of the B2B marketers that we surveyed said original research based content is effective at driving engagement and leads. And half said, or just about half said it's very effective. And I'm just kind of curious, what's your opinion about the role of either original uh research survey data or even proprietary data that exists within the organization itself. um What's your take on the utility of that um in thought leadership content or thought leadership initiatives?

Original research or proprietary information is essential for your thought leadership. The kicker is it cannot be done from a place of a demand gen mindset. It cannot be, we're gonna do research for lead gen. And I see this a lot, and this is also part of why I cannot with the funnel.

People say thought leadership is top of funnel. No, it's freaking not. Top of funnel implies a buy intent process. Thought leadership has nothing to do with buying anything.

Like, they fundamentally don't go together, right? So, if you, if like, the goal of your thought leadership is to like, generate leads this quarter, I don't even understand, like that makes no sense to me, right? Like I just fundamentally, that's not what. or even contact acquisition.

irks me so much when it's like, okay, we understand these aren't real leads because you know, it's thought leadership, but we want to generate contacts. And I'm like, can we not actually like these people again, you're for example, your state of B2B thought leadership, right? I get it that, you know, top rank can help you make content and share your content and whatever. It's relevant.

It's, correct that you are putting out this report. But somebody who is consuming that report does not need to get pitch slapped right out of the gate with like, I downloaded this report. And so now it's like, oh, you care about thought leadership. I can help you.

It's like, you suddenly got very close to the screen and I'm very uncomfortable, right? So yes, it is essential, but it cannot start from a biased place of like, how do we conduct research that shows we're the best? Well, that's not thought leadership, right? It has to come from a place of genuine curiosity and, you know, genuinely helping the audience uncover something that they wouldn't otherwise know.

And again, from a proprietary data standpoint, this is part of why now you see everyone copying Spotify wrapped and there's starting to be a backlash against the copycat Spotify wrapped, right? Like, I don't need to know this or that because it's not... actually helping me take action. Like this is the other piece of the thought leadership and why that research is essential.

It has to actually help you take an action. So if I read your, your state of thought leadership report, what am I going to do? What does this information help me do? Well, it helps me potentially prioritize my content mix and my budget allocation in 2026, right?

It potentially helps me evaluate and understand uh at a higher unbiased level, the channel mix that I should be testing into in 2026. I can take action on that, right? The only thing it shows is that people who work with top-rank marketing have better thought leadership outcomes. That helps you.

That does not actually help me, right? And so if you put it in those stark terms of what action can I take, regardless of whether it helps you as a company, that's how you know you're getting at a decent piece of proprietary data or, you know, building community in the Spotify wrapped, right? Great, great point, great point. So I'm glad you brought that up or you characterize it in that way, because like our strategy with that research report, well, first we ungated it.

So we've created interactive version of it that is freely available to anybody who wants to look at it. And for a time, um if they wanted a PDF, they would download, but there's no nurture. There's no nurture after the download. um And there's no case studies or anything like that in the research report.

It's just the data and helping to understand through a framework what this might mean for you. And then the follow on is a playbook. So if people want a playbook, they can go ahead and we need to know where to send that. that playbook is more tactical.

It's like, okay, now here's how you take some of the ideas that were born out of that research. And here's what they mean according to the the best answer marketing or the six pillars that drive uh success. Basically the narrative is that, you know, are you blending in your EBDB brand that's blending in or do you want to be a best answer brand? Right.

So what does that mean? You know, and how do you do that? And then, so in the playbook, there's some examples and stuff, and there's a webinar they could attend and blah, blah. But the research itself is meant to be frictionless distribution available.

like, look, We're trying to rise, rising tide lifts all ships kind of thing here, right? And try to make this information available um and for people to consume it and come to their own conclusions about what to do next, whether it's with us or somebody else. It's kind of an interesting output though of well-structured research content is from a search perspective. Like if you Google B2B thought leadership report, You know, there's a brand we all know that has been putting out B2B thought leadership reports, a very, very large PR conglomerate.

But guess who's showing up now? Only second to them. And it's amazing, right? But it's not so amazing really, because it's an architected thing.

know, it's like, you know, the investment in utility, the investment in original ideas. the partnership with people who are trusted voices around those topics to be a part of building and uh advocating for all spell consensus for the idea that a particular entity is a good answer for a particular topic, right? so uh I 26 is here, right? When we publish this interview, it's going to be 2026.

And I'm kind of curious. What are some of the changes that you would love to see this year in the B2B marketing world or in marketing in general? This will not shock you at all, but I would actually say uh showcasing the humans and the interesting thing about this, and I've talked about this for a long time now, but I think it's gonna be even more important to your point about the consensus across all of the signals. And that is elevating people who have the credibility and who have the unique ideas because they're in the trenches, not just because they have the big title.

And... I think that we are starting to see that more and more where you have people who are breakout speakers, influencers, whatever it is, even though they don't have that VP or C level title, it's very clear that the ideas shine. And so actually having the brands amplify those people instead of saying like, give us all your ideas and we're just going to slap a senior title on it. It's like, no, no.

So that's, that's the first thing is like, let's, let's nurture and grow the people who actually have the ideas. And this is true, you know, from a, even on a LinkedIn standpoint, right? Like the number of AI comments and AI generated posts, it's like, okay. Right.

And so again, I think, I think you were going to start to see less focus. on, this is a big account, so we need to follow it and amplify it and say that this person is the expert if their ideas are not grounded in reality, if they're not grounded in lived experience, this go viral thing just because you have the right structure, I think that's going to decrease. I think the second thing that I would like to see, and I'm already starting to see some of those shifts, is more intimate in-person conversations.

You know, the dinners, the round tables and seeing that reflected in the metrics from a marketing standpoint. So it used to be, we're not going to go to this event unless I can speak on a stage in a room of 5,000 people. We're not going to go to this event unless I can get a thousand booth scans, right? Like we have to have the booth.

We got to scan a thousand badges. Instead, I think, I think the shift from an attendee perspective is already moving towards that more intimate gathering. I want to be in the room with the right 10 people for this one goal and this one conversation, not I need to scan thousands of badges or I need to be talking to thousands of people for tens of goals, right? I don't think we've quite made that shift in the marketing metrics.

I'm still seeing us talk about the success or failure of an event with volume. instead of with intention. So that's another big shift that I hope we make. And again, I'm seeing it ah on the attendee side of things.

I don't think we've quite gotten there on like the sponsorship prospectus and the demand gen metrics, right? Like that's, I think a big thing that we'll start to see. So those are the two things that I would say. I mean, obviously there's more to it, but I think elevating the people who actually have the ideas and are putting in the work to...

explore, curate, and share those ideas, and then focusing more on the actual kind of intent and in-person conversations from a quality perspective, not just a quantity and scale perspective. You know, the authenticity you're talking about, the quality emphasis you're talking about are at the center of the human driven marketing experience and you nailed it. So, um, love that, love that. Let's take a step back as we wind things up here a little bit and go beyond B2B because I've got to ask you a little more.

So it wasn't just at university that you were studying acting and you had aspirations, but like you're continuing to sing and act and do all the things. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, yeah, it's great. So it's funny, I, over the years have managed to do at least one show a year, basically every year except COVID.

Obviously that was a whole situation. But I did Brigadoon in 2025, which was a great like classic golden age musical. And then I am actually cast, depending on this, when this comes out, I'll be starting rehearsals for Sister Act in early 2026. yeah, and it's...

It's great. And I have to say, you know, it sounds obvious, but I think for people who are very ambitious and dedicated in their careers, it is a hard lesson that I learned many times. But basically that what I do for my soul is just as important as what I do for money. And I am a much better version of myself, both personally and professionally, when I am performing.

You know, from a... Practical standpoint it brings structure right I have to be focused because I've got to leave at a certain time I have to do my meal prep because I have to eat before I can go to rehearsal right I have to you know when I'm at rehearsal. I'm I'm singing I'm dancing I'm doing a lot of physical things and so I have to be fueled properly both mentally and physically to do those things uh And I have to say there is something It hits different when you are in person.

uh I don't know if you sing or do music, but for folks who do When you're singing harmony and it's tuned perfectly and it locks in, you can literally feel it in your voice. And there's a moment where it's like you're singing it and you're kind of like, something's not quite right. And then it locks in and you're just like, there it is. There, like you can physically feel it.

It's, it's a very cool feeling. And I think that that sense of, you know, adaptability creating, you know, being in that moment. And obviously there's a ton of crossover. with marketing from a public speaking standpoint, from an audience empathy standpoint, right?

uh But for me, that creative outlet is just, you know, it makes me better personally and professionally. So yeah, I love it. I'm thrilled that I have managed to be able to continue to do it over the years. Well, that's fantastic.

mean, you know, your creative and expression of creativity is such a satisfying thing. And you're also creating an experience, right? And you get to see feedback right away. Like, are they leaning in?

Are they taking photos of you? Or are they doing something else? And I think that there's some interesting parallels to the creating experience for marketers, as we were talking about before, that exists there. Another thing that you're super passionate about is fitness, right?

And you're talking about like you're in Mexico right now, right? And doing kite surfing or kite sailing, And kite boarding there, okay, third time's a charm. And m I'm kind of curious. like I've gone through a sort of a fitness journey myself, but I'm curious, there's discipline that's involved with fitness clearly.

You know, doing so you can't just be inspired to work out. You can't just be inspired to do the thing. You've got to have the ability to do it whether or not you feel like it. And I don't know if that's the parallel to marketing or being in business or contributor to success in business from your perspective or not.

But I'm just wondering what are the parallels between fitness and your success in marketing? Yeah. So it's funny. know it's kind of like a cringy trope now to be like, you know, what fitness taught me about B2B marketing, right?

On LinkedIn. And I'm like, no, actually it really is. so, yeah, it's like, no, actually, so I've written a number of posts on this actually with my playground, um, playground conversation about the funnel and mapping content, um, and talking about different depths. So conceptual, strategic, and tactical.

Fitness is my go-to example for that. What does it mean to be healthy and fit? Most people agree it's some combination of diet and exercise, but you're gonna answer that question very differently if you're runner's world versus muscle and fitness versus yoga journal. When I say that to you, you immediately know, oh yeah, I'm in your case runner's world, right?

You can't really speak to the yoga portion of it. I mean, neither can I. I'm muscle and fitness, right? I can't speak to what I'm supposed to, right?

But we speak to different audiences, the language we use. That's one piece of it, right? uh I was thinking about this the other day, actually, with the kite boarding. There's a concept in kiting uh where basically if you crash, it's called getting yarded.

And it's like, I got yarded, right? And that means something very specific about how far you traveled when you crashed. One of my friends rides horses. She would never say she got yarded from the horse, right?

She would say she got thrown or she got bucked. I wouldn't say I got thrown. got, that's not, I got yarded because I'm a kiter. And she would say like, I got thrown because she's an equestrian, right?

And so the words that we use means something very specific. And that jargon in that community means something very specific that signals I'm part of the audience, right? from an attribution standpoint, you mentioned that you went through a transformation and lost a lot of weight. Exactly which mile in all of your running, what one was the one that made you lose 60 pounds?

And that's a patently absurd question, right? Like you didn't lose 60 pounds because of this one mile. I didn't get ripped arms because of one bicep curl. There's no moment that you can pinpoint in the biceps.

that like, this is the rep where suddenly that's patently absurd. And yet that's what we do in marketing. What's the one touch point? It has to be the last touch.

Clearly the last touch is the one that got the sale, right? From a fitness standpoint, you didn't get strong because you did one bicep curl, right? You do 20, 30, a hundred for 10 years. And that's how you slowly build your muscles, right?

uh And then I'll finish with kind of this example, cause I think it's a super fun one. was chasing the one plate bench, so 45 pound plates on each side, flat bench. And uh I've been chasing that freaking milestone for off and on for years. And so I was working on it.

And one of my colleagues is a powerlifter. One of my colleagues is like a karate sensei. And then my husband is a bodybuilder. So I've basically got three kind of weightlifting specialists in my, you know, advising me and I'm talking to them and I'm like, why can't I get the stupid bitch, right?

And the power lifter is like, you just go hard, no weakness, you gotta eat, you gotta pound, right? And then I got the sensei who's like, focus on your technique. Every moment is, every moment is progress and connects the mind and the body, right? And then I got my bodybuilder husband who's like, how's your accessory work?

How's your supplementation, right? How's your sleep? And the reality is you gotta have all those. There has to be a little bit of that warrior like freaking crush it mindset from the body, but from the powerlifting standpoint, you do have to have the mind body connection from a sensei standpoint.

And yeah, you got to do your accessory. You got the other muscles around it. Got to be strong, right? It's the same thing in marketing.

Demand gen is not how you get leads. Product marketing is not how you win a user over, right? Thought leadership is not how you gain trust. Those don't happen by themselves.

each of those disciplines is focused on a specific goal, but they don't exist in isolation. And so when I finally got that one plate bench, which one of those guys should I credit for giving me the best advice? Right? I get the credit for putting in the work, right?

And so when you start to realize it, it's an ecosystem and each of those things pushes you to get to the goal, but you have to put in the work and you have to pull in all of those specialties from all the different disciplines. It's the same thing in marketing, right? It's not, ew, we don't do that gross paid marketing. Ew, we don't do that wimpy organic marketing.

No, organic and paid gotta go together, guys. So for me, it is quite common that I am in the gym and I'm like, I should write a LinkedIn post about this for marketing. And then I'm like, don't be that person. You don't need to be that person, right?

But it's there together or in conversations about. attribution or language or jargon or whatever it is. I'm like, okay guys, but like, did you get yarded by a kite or thrown by a horse? Like, you know.

It makes sense though. It's you know, people understand things in terms of what they already know. So when you can share stories that are speaking the you know using the lexicon of their community, you know uh or as metaphor, you're making it easier for them to understand the thing. Yeah, that's great.

So let's wrap up with a dream career question. If you could be doing anything else as a career option, what would it be? I mean, I gotta go with the Broadway star. We gotta bring it all the way back to the top of this interview.

Like, being, I would say, playing Christine Dyer in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway would be like, that's, that would be freaking cool. Freaking cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, want to, I want, this has been a great conversation.

In fact, I could have added another 45 minutes to be honest. and I really appreciate the insights you've shared. know everyone watching or listening, it appreciates them as well. Um, and of course I want to make sure people pick up this book, right?

Amazon, wherever you like to buy your books and we're can. What's the best place for people to find you to connect with you? On LinkedIn? Yeah.

a bit of time there hanging out, posting, uh engaging in the comments. So yeah, I'd to see people on LinkedIn. You are a high quality poster on LinkedIn and that's reflected by uh how much engagement you get there. So yeah, I echo that.

Definitely follow Ashley on LinkedIn. Of course, we'll include a link in the notes. So thank you very much, Ashley. I appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I want to thank you for tuning in to the Beyond B2B Marketing Podcast. Make sure you subscribe and stay tuned for our next guest. And remember, there's no better time than now to break free of boring B2B.