Why You Must Prove Your Value or Lose a Seat at the Table as a B2B Marketer with David Rowlands

David Rowlands: What the best marketers are doing, and we're seeing this all the time, this was a big trend that came out of the award winners from our uh, from our last awards, is that they're using AI, but they're not using it for the sake of using it. And they're not just using it to create more. What they're doing is that they're trying to rebuild how marketing operates as a, as a commercial function, as we spoke about already. And they're using AI to get better insight, to get better analysis, to influence everything they do. But what they're not doing is just using AI to create in a cheap content.

Karen Lloyd: Welcome to the spotlight of marketing brought to you by Armstrong Lloyd, headhunters in the B2B marketing space. I'm your host Karen Lloyd and today's guest is David Rowlands. He is the head of product at uh, Propolis. Now Propolis is the go to community and intelligence platform for B2B marketers globally. And I invited David on because Propolis have done something I find uniquely valuable. They've conducted research from hundreds of hours of real conversations with senior marketers in the B2B space. Really just getting to the bottom of what keeps marketing leaders up at night. And the result is they build a framework, what they call the commercial marketeer. And uh, this is something I've seen play out every day in briefs I take from clients and conversations and I just feel it would be great to share with you. So if you're a marketing leader and you're trying to prove value, you're trying to get close to the board, or you're simply just trying to figure out where your energies and focus should be right now. This one is for you. Welcome David.

David Rowlands: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Karen Lloyd: No worries. So the pressure on B2B marketing has been building for quite some time. But what does the research suggest? That we've just reached this genuine inflection point or is this the same conversation just getting louder?

David Rowlands: It's a really good question. I had to think long and hard about this because I think you could actually make an argument either way. But what I've landed on is that I think it's the same conversation getting louder. I think actually the inflection point was probably, and this, this feels like a bit of a stretch, but bear with me, was probably actually the birth of the Internet. I think what's really started to happen is that traditional B2B sales has Ah, started to lose its influence. You know, if we think about how we buy things today, whether it's a pair of trainers or, you know, enterprise software, whatever it may be, either end of that spectrum, it's increasingly unlikely that you're going to want to speak directly to a salesperson straight away. What's more likely is that you're going to want to conduct your own research, speak to your peers, see what they think, come to your own conclusion using Google or more recently, Chat GPT, and then when you're ready to make the decision, then you would engage a salesperson. So what's happened is that, uh, B2B marketers have become increasingly responsible for driving revenue in their business because the traditional sales model alone isn't enough, although they are still obviously very important. What's happened though, I think is that because the economy is in a tough spot and we've had these sort of compounding shocks over the years, you know, Brexit, US China, trade war, the list just kind of goes on. Marketers are now in a place where not only are they under pressure to prove revenue, but businesses are, uh, you know, it's harder than ever to generate that revenue, if that makes sense. Uh, so I think marketers are in a. I wouldn't say it's an inflection point. I would say they are at a sort of critical, massive pressure that has been building for, you know, many, many years. The only, the thing I would say which I think is, you know, really quite a good bit about all this, is that it's actually great opportunities. Marketers, you know, marketers being increasingly responsible for revenue can only be a good thing. It's just actually dealing with that pressure and finding how to build a, uh, suitable strategy to deliver it is, is not necessarily that easy.

Karen Lloyd: It's, it's a really interesting point actually and I like the way you presented it because it has been a bit of a journey and there was a time, I mean I often joke about this saying that the marketing department was the coloring in department. And if you speak to some people outside of marketing and you say what do you think marketing does? They generally talk about something tactical. Uh, but as you're saying, there's much more pressure on the, on this, you know, to become more commercial. And this is what your report has defined, hasn't it, how like the commercial marketer is someone who basically puts the business objectives first and is moving away from that tactical piece. So how many sort of B2B marketers do you think are actually moving the dial and going to that commercial thing and you know, is there a gap

David Rowlands: still, uh, yeah, I think, you know, there's no easy answer there. I mean some marketers are further, ah, ahead of the curve than others and you know, it's ever thus and I'm sure it will ever, ever be that way. What I would say is that because of that sort of long shift that I've just described, you know, that shift towards marketing having to be more responsible for driving revenue, I think that there's more conversation about it in the industry, you know, through our own events like B2B Ignite or in um, you know, the properties community. We're talking about this all the time. So marketers, ah, are I would say, much more aware than ever about the commercial role they play in a business and they're getting better and better at talking in the sort of language of finance and making that case at board level. What I would say though is that, you know, it's not easy. It's really not easy. And actually being a commercial marketer, uh, the very nature of it means you can't just do it in the marketing silo. You have to be aligned with sales, you have to be aligned with products, you have to be aligned with customer success. And what that means is that this isn't just a marketing challenge, it's actually a business challenge. But in many ways it's up to marketers to really kind of grasp that challenge and lead it forward. So slightly garbled answer, but what I'm getting at is that marketers are increasingly becoming more commercial. They're on that journey to becoming a commercial marketer, but they certainly still need some help along the way.

Karen Lloyd: And would you say there are any sectors that aren't covered? So you say there's some sectors that are more commercial marketeer driven than others that aren't that still maybe in the tactics.

David Rowlands: That's a good question. I, I think it's um, I think certainly if you look in, at tech industries, which is obviously, you know, it's a very broad industry and there's many sub industries within that. But if you look at tech, I think generally speaking, because they are more of a, with digital media, digital marketing and, and how the buyer wants to buy, I think they've had a bit of an advantage there and quite often you'll speak to people in, let's say manufacturing or construction and they're a little bit, I would say behind the curve. It's not because they're not commercially minded, it's not that at all. It's just that uh, the things that actually work today, they Are so uh, in, in some instances at least they're not quite as up to speed as their, their colleagues in tech. So again, you know, it depends on who you speak to but I would say tech marketers generally speaking tend to be sort of leading the way.

Karen Lloyd: I completely agree actually. I would say tech and then probably professional services have come up the ranks in that space because they were less driven on salespeople, um, they were more about thought leaders and people in the business being presented as experts. And then you know, the technology, the sort of manufacturing. They've been late to adopt even a CRM, they've been later to adopt the data and they've just relied on the salespeople with the black book because their legacy and I think for me personally, I think that's where I see the big change coming on. The commercial marketing is within that sector. So it's interesting how we're both aligned in our thinking in that way. So looking at your report, you used AI to analyze hundreds of conversations and um, what would you say the biggest single challenge if there was just one, one major thing that, that is the problem that came out.

David Rowlands: Yeah, I'm glad you've asked because you know marketing, it's responsible for so many things that there's, there's a sort of never ending list of challenges. But if you boil all of it down, it comes down to one thing which is proving the value of marketing. That is the big challenge. You know, it's actually speaking to those in sales, those in uh, finance, the CEO and actually really making a convincing commercial case particularly for long term marketing effort. When you're building a case for sort of short term demand gen let's say, you know, you're building a case for an event and you're going to get 10, 10 hot leads into that event and then there's a chance that 10% may convert or whatever it may be. It's sort of slightly easier to make that case. The problem is, is that marketing done well is inherently a much more long term um, play. You know, brand building efforts can take years to really get under the, under the skin of a prospect. And that's particularly the case when you know, the research suggests that only around 5% of, of your audience are in market at any given time. So actually you need to be kind of building up that brand, making sure that everyone in that market is aware of you so that when they're ready to buy they're actually, they know you and they, and they want to buy from you. So I, I think proving the value of marketing, particularly into long term plays like brand, that's the big challenge. Inherently marketers understand the value of doing it but actually making a uh, a really kind of scientific case for it is, is not always easy.

Karen Lloyd: No, exactly. And you, you identified in your report there were actually six different key skills in that area. And I mean one of them was funny enough, you know, you said about the sort of commercial value, but maybe we could just talk about those six skills um, and what they are and you know, which one where the gap is probably the widest at the moment.

David Rowlands: Yeah, of course. So we, as you say we identified six skills that we think are fundamental to acting as a commercial marketer. And these are strategic thinking, market insights, analytical thinking, communication and influence, financial acumen and agile decision making. And if you can, you can tick all those boxes, you still have to, you know, understand your audience, you still have to know all those things. But if you've got those six skills in place and you've got a much better chance than most of actually acting as a, ah, commercially effective marketer. I think the one where there is the biggest gap is financial acumen. It's probably not surprising. I mean if you look at where marketing's been measured in times gone by, it's been on, you know, what we now call vanity metrics, uh, so likes, shares, comments reach, things like that, which are important. It's not to say that they're not important, but they're only important if you can follow them through and prove the impact they're actually having on revenue at the very end. I think that's where marketers often fall down. Partly that's because as I say they haven't necessarily been under pressure to do that. I think the other part of the pressure is, you know, most marketers you speak to haven't actually undergone any formal training particularly in financial acumen. Often you speak to marketers, they've come from all sorts of uh, weird and wonderful backgrounds which is, is great because that's kind of the beauty of marketing. You know, it's, it's a place where creativity thrives and it's, it's always great to get different perspectives and it's not necessarily as straight laced as other as other career paths out there. But I think one of the challenges therein is that just we don't actually have the training in it a lot of the time. So certainly that is the big one. And it kind of comes back to what I was saying a moment ago around proving the value of marketing being the big Challenge. It's not surprising that that's the big challenge and the big skills gap is financial acumen. So if anyone listening could focus on one thing, I think it would be,

Karen Lloyd: it would be that I completely agree. And I think it also goes back to when people started their career. Marketing wasn't seen as, because there wasn't the data available probably you know, even 10 years ago in that area. But even, you know, people have been in the industry for, for a long time and developed their career marketing. They probably went into marketing because they wanted to be creative. Um, and if they were going to do something with finance, they would have gone down the finance route. Funny enough, I started my career in finance recruitment and I moved more to marketing because marketing's become more of a formal career path, whereas it was a bit woolly back when I started about 20, 30 years ago. Whereas finance, there was a framework they had to study, um, and there was all sorts of extra qualifications which though there are marketing, they're very different in terms of where they are. So if you're a marketing right now and you're like, actually I, I'm right, you're, I'm listening to this and I'm thinking financial acumen or, or that that ability with the numbers is, is one of my weaknesses. I'm just gonna carry on choosing jobs that aren't there. I'm gonna bury my head in that. Is that wise or what else could they do?

David Rowlands: I think it's, yeah, I think fundamentally it would be unwise to, to bury their head in the sand. I think it will benefit every marketer, whether they are junior or senior or somewhere in the middle to um, you know, brush up on their financial acumen and make sure they can speak the language of the board. The way that marketing is going is it is increasingly under pressure to prove the return on its budget. What we saw last year is that budgets are, they were roughly flat. You know, it depends on the company you speak to. Some saw big increases, others big decreases, but overall the average was, was quite flat. What did change however, was the expectation on marketers to prove a return on that budget. And essentially what that means is marketers are being asked to do more with less. And the only way they're going to be able to actually make a case for more investment and make a case to focus on, you know, long term plays as is if they have that financial acumen. Otherwise they're just not, it's just not going to be taken seriously when they're in board conversation. So no, I don't think it'd be wise for any, for any marketer not to brush up on that. At the same time, you know, I, to be realistic, I don't think this necessarily means you need to have you know, full accountancy training or anything like that. Although you know, of course that's always a huge benefit. I think there are, there are training courses available. I mean we offer our own training courses within Propolis, um, which are available on demand. But realistically I think the best thing marketers can do aside aside from that of course is actually speaking to the finance team, actually learning what is it they're worried about, what is it that uh, they're trying to achieve, what is it they're worried about and just becoming more familiar with that world. You know, you don't necessarily need to have an in depth knowledge of, you know, whatever it may be. So uh, zero accounting software or something like that. It's just a case of speaking the language of finance.

Karen Lloyd: Yeah, I think, I think you're right and I think it's probably a mindset shift, isn't it with people as well, you know, in, in their head because this, this would have come out from people saying their opinion and they feeling that they don't have financial ac. Um, so it's a feeling that people have which might not, you know, they may be more astute than they are but that maybe they're just feeling out of that comfort zone in that area and sort of layering that uh, up and you know, imposter syndrome is quite big in, in marketing world people often feel they don't have that so that could be part of it. So doing some training and being familiar sounds like it would be a good step for that side in terms of what they're doing. So could you give an example of a marketeer that you've worked with that has made that shift what they did differently and what, what sort of changed as a result?

David Rowlands: I think, yeah, I thought about this and there isn't frankly, you know, there's not one marketer I'd like to speak to, uh, uh, sorry, identify in particular because you know, don't necessarily want to sort of name uh, and shame what they were doing before. But I think if you look at our whole process within Propolis, I think it's quite an interesting kind of case study in itself. So what we do is when we speak to a marketer, when they're thinking about, you know, hopefully joining Propolis, we run a diagnostic on them. This means we learn about their challenges, their objectives Their, their tech stack, their org structure. We find out basically as much information about them and their company as we physically can. We then also run our skills survey which is a hundred odd question survey on those six skills we discussed and that's on the whole team. What's interesting is, you know, what we get from that is basically a quite clear picture. It says, well, you're trying to achieve X. Uh, your biggest blocker is why. And in order to execute the strategy you need to execute, your team needs to brush up in these two skills out of six because they're quite good at the other one. As an example. Once they go through that process, you can make that shift quite quickly. You know this, this is not a case of oh God, how am I going to become a commercial marketer? This is, this is too daunting, there's too much to do. I don't know where to start. I think fundamentally if you take a realistic look at where you, where your team is as against those six skills, you can actually start to make some changes quite quickly and actually learning about what the business is trying to achieve and, and what sort of figures it wants to report on that can just be a conversation or two. You know, this doesn't have to be months and months and months of work. So is there one particular market I would point to? You know, not necessarily. What I would say is that, you know, we run our B2B marketing awards every year. Um, one of those awards is, you know, unsurprisingly is Marketer of the year. And those individuals are, you know, without fail, they are perfect examples of commercial marketers. So if you read their case studies, it gives a really good example of how they think, how they operate, how they, how they lead as well, which sometimes kind of gets forgotten. So yeah, I mean that's what I would say. I mean really, it's a case of taking an honest assessment of your own team thinking where am I strong, where m, am I weak? Really figuring out what it is the business wants to achieve. And then quite quickly you can start to, you know, make some changes to start acting as a commercial marketer. Albeit, you know, you may not necessarily be at sort of award winning levels overnight. It's a lot of work to be done.

Karen Lloyd: And those six skills, do they need to be, you know, uh, interesting that you have this, a wall. But is, does everybody have those six skills? I mean, is it okay not to have all of those six skills and delegate some of that to someone else in your team?

David Rowlands: It's a good question. I Think for, I think for the leader, yes, they need those six skills. I will be quite sort of blunt about that. I think for the team, I think probably the short answer is probably no. Um, and the reason is because, you know, frankly, you know, if you're more junior in your career, you're not going to start your career and have all six skills perfectly in place. It's not realistic. That doesn't suddenly mean that you are, you know, worthless as a marketer. So, you know, you can learn those things as you go. The leader, in order to build an actually effective commercial marketing strategy, does need to have the ability to think analytically, lead strategically influence the board. You know, they need all those things. I think the team, you know, you can give them more time. Quite often with, you know, more junior marketers, you may be giving them, you know, projects to manage that there, it's more about. And particularly more junior roles. It's, it's more about sort of, you know, learning the ropes, if you like. So do, does everyone need it from the off?

Karen Lloyd: No.

David Rowlands: Should every market to be striving to have all those skills? I would say absolutely not. Only because the business will benefit as a result. Obviously, if, you know, the whole team is thinking like a one real commercial engine, that's only going to be a good thing, but it's also great for their careers. You know, if they want to be a leader tomorrow, you know, as we've seen, they're going to need those six skills. So if you don't have all those skills today and you're, and you're a marketer listening, you know, it's not, it's not the end of the world. But I would absolutely be, um, trying to brush up on all of them.

Karen Lloyd: I think that's really interesting that, that you've pointed that out, because I, I would say that when I've worked with companies who may be hiring their first marketing person in, or, or they've hired a marketing person, they failed and they've said it doesn't work. Marketing doesn't work for us. It's often because they've, they've hired a more junior person. And, um, for me, I've always noticed that the big skill gap is the ability to push back and question and communicate with the board. And actually, you know, the board's telling you, you know, senior person might be telling you, do this, do this, do this, and that people are setting fires in lots of different ways. And a senior person will be able to say, look, it's all great. We can do Everything. But you know, what's gonna move us forward and have that gravitas. And I think that's a really, really good point. But this is a skill that you learn overnight. And often, you know, you don't learn overnight. Sorry. And it's because you've been mentored by somebody. So I think you've made a really good point of that. And also, you know, it's where you need to become, but you don't have to be the finished article if you're developing where you are. AI is changing so fast at the moment, even this last two years, I cannot believe how much it has sort of outpaced how much people are adopting it. Do you still think that it can accelerate that market commercial shift or do you think it's giving people a place to hide from the more strategic work?

David Rowlands: It's a really good question, I think. I think kind of both is the answer. If you have a, a poorly thought through marketing strategy and it's purely focused on, let's produce as much content as possible and drive as many people to, uh, like our posts on LinkedIn and then we will hope for the best that some of those turn into business later down the line. AI can help amplify that. The problem is that AI is just amplifying a poor and ineffective strategy. I think what the best marketers are doing, and we're seeing this all the time, this was a big trend that came out of the award winners from our, uh, from our last awards, is that they're using AI, but they're not using it for the sake of using it. And they're not just using it to create more. What they're uh, doing is that they're trying to rebuild how marketing operates as a, as a commercial function, as we've spoken about already. And they're using AI to get better insight, to get better analysis, to influence everything they do. But what they're not doing is just using AI to create cheap content, if you like. Unfortunately, a lot of marketers are doing that, but those are the ones who, who aren't finding as much success with it. So AI, it's sometimes kind of seen as a sort of wonder, uh, sort of wonder technology that can kind of do everything. And in some ways I suppose it is, but it really depends on how you use it. Some marketers are using it to incredible effect and they are reinventing how marketing is seen and, and how it creates revenue and all of these things. Other marketers are just using it to do more, um, and they're increasingly Getting pushed into that kind of tactical pens and PowerPoints sort of department. You know, they're just seen as this sort of, oh, we need an event stick, give it to marketing. And AI helps them deliver that. But I don't think it's necessarily a good thing in the long run.

Karen Lloyd: No, exactly. And have, have you in, has your research, have you looked at how much people are adopting, is there like a disparity between how some companies are adopting AI and using it versus others?

David Rowlands: We are collecting the data as we speak, so we'll see very soon. Um, you know, we did, we did actually run a survey on it last year. But what's interesting is just how quickly it changes. I think when we spoke about it last year, we, a lot of people were still in uh, that sort of experimentation phase. You know, we're trying it for, we're giving it a go with some of our content creation for example. But I think we're now in this place where, you know, as I say, people are using it as a sort of broader part of their tech stack and how they operate. So we don't have the most up to date data just yet, but we'll be having that in the next sort of month or so. So we're really excited to see what that says.

Karen Lloyd: Yeah, exactly. And I know quite a few tech companies actually are uh, hiring people in to help AI adoption into companies because there are certain sectors that are slightly more cautious than others who are kind of, you know, larger legacy companies or companies that may be in a regulatory space. They're really frightened of AI and implementing, um, so they're bringing in change managers and doctors and knowledge managers to try and to, to develop that. Whereas there's a couple of smaller companies that I've been talking to and they've completely restructured their whole marketing function based on AI. They've set up projects for sales and marketing. They've got, you know, they've got like a whole, they've almost done virtual marketing assistance for different, different people and they're, they're, they're hiring people based on that and that are very AI sort of savvy opposed to just traditional marketeers.

David Rowlands: Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, I think actually sometimes it's the smaller businesses, I mean it's not surprising really, but the smaller businesses are more agile and they're able to jump on these things faster and that is ultimately their advantage. And quite often when you speak to the bigger businesses, there's so much, you know, there's so many processes to go through there's so much bureaucracy, it actually becomes that they actually kind of become their own enemy in a way. So yes, certainly, I mean some of the most exciting stuff's actually happening on the smaller scale and we've seen that uh, too.

Karen Lloyd: How is AI working for you? Have you sort of integrated it in a big way or is it still something that you're adopting?

David Rowlands: No, we have, we integrate it hugely. I mean we speak to clients all the time. The nature of our business is that we, we provide content, we provide events, but we also have our propolis, uh, experts who are uh, marketing consultants with decades of experience, both broadly and in certain specialisms like ABM or customer experience, whatever it may be. And they are speaking to clients, they're learning about their challenges, they are helping them overcome them, that, you know, they do all these things. And what we do is, you know, we hear those conversations, we listen to them. And um, using AI, we're able to aggregate the major findings internally. So we're able to use those findings to say, hang on a minute, this is a big shift we're seeing across industries, across uh, across countries. This is the big shift that's happening in marketing. Therefore, we're gonna, we're going to run an event on XYZ and we're gonna build a workshop on abc, you know, whatever it may be. So that's certainly uh, one, one big part of it. The second thing we've done is we've just built Propolis AI. Propolis AI is uh, our new site. It's a AI powered helper for the whole marketing team. Essentially how it works is we take all of our propolis content, all of our uh, case studies, webinars, whatever it may be, and we make that available to our uh, members only via an LLM interface. So rather than having to dig out in page 76 of a PDF for that tidbit of information that they're looking for, they can actually just ask an agent and it will aggregate the findings and it will tell them the answer based on, you know, thousands of pieces of best practice and it'll give them a really strong answer. So yeah, certainly. I mean, we're using AI both internally to help us create more effective events and content and obviously, you know, help our business grow. But at the same time it's actually becoming part of our, uh, part of our offering as well. So yeah, I think, you know, we're certainly learning a lot. I think anyone who claims to have all the answers with AI is, is not telling the truth. You know, we Are. We've got a lot to learn ourselves, but I certainly think we are very, uh, much an AI first business.

Karen Lloyd: No. Fantastic. And I think that sounds, what you've done with your product sounds absolutely spot on because there are so many, there are so many products I've used and they haven't changed at all in terms of the way that you're searching and you're still having to use filters, you're still having to go through it and it's the same thing. Like, uh, there's a couple of companies that I use and I just think your product's going to be dead within the next year, if not already, you know, because people have now got so used to searching and asking in that certain way that they're not willing to do it in the other way. And if you know. So I think your site sounds like it's amazing that you've, that you've produced this AI product and made it really easy and made it the interface that people are using all the time. So I think it sounds to me like you're really ahead of the curve on that. So well done. Um, it's exciting to see what's happening and how much has changed, as we've said earlier, uh, in the last even six months to 12 months in terms of AI and adoption. Let's talk about the future then, in the next 12 months. I mean, we talked at the beginning that it's been a difficult time. There's been lots of changes, it's been a tough economy, We've had AI, we've had all sorts of things. And then there's this pressure to, to show return on investment with tight budgets, optimism. What do you think the next 12 months could bring from a marketing perspective and what people should be looking out to do?

David Rowlands: Short answer. I think it's going to be more of the same. I think there's going to be more pressure. I don't think that's going to abide anytime soon. I think marketers are going to be increasingly expected to prove even more return on revenue as the expectation goes up. So I don't see that fundamentally changing on the negative side of things. I think what we'll see happening is marketers will go down one of two routes and there'll be some marketers that want to become commercial marketers that, um, are aware of, you know, what marketers need to do in order to really prove their value in the business and help the business grow. And those will, I think, be in for a fantastic career. They're the ones who will be proving their impact on revenue. They'll be able to have better conversations with the board, obviously, that, you know, in their own career that means they can, they can argue for better roles and, and better careers and of course better salaries. I think other marketers, I think maybe won't listen to that, or maybe won't listen, but won't necessarily act on it urgently. And I think those marketers will continue to be in the sort of promotional marketing space, pigeonhole, whatever you want to call it. And I think with AI increasingly getting better, uh, that work will start to be chipped away at increasingly. So I'm optimistic about the future for those marketers who want to do something about it. But I think those marketers who sit still, I think the future is fairly grim. So the future is sort of what you make of it, I think.

Karen Lloyd: I think that's a really good point. And I think the point overall that I've taken from what you've said is that basically, you know, you can take a view of it, you can look at it in one of two ways. You can say it's a really tough market, I don't like it, I don't think I'm going to change, I'm just going to sit and spiral. Or you can say it is a tough market, that's the reality. What can I do to change and improve myself to the changing environment that's coming up? And you know, there's no point being nostalgic about the heydays of what was happening in the early, you know, 2000 and 20s, when, you know it, the market was growing, customers were buying, there was all sorts of stuff. But it is, it is a different challenging market. And so you need a different set of skills.

David Rowlands: No, exactly. And I think, you know, um, marketers are, I think I said this at the beginning, they're in a golden opportunity because buyers don't want to buy directly from traditional B2B salespeople anymore. B2B salespeople still have a strong role to play. You know, if you're buying, you know, multimillion pound consultancy packages or technology, you know, whatever it may be, there's still a need to speak to a person, meet them, really make sure you're on the same page, get that reassurance. Sales people are not going anywhere, but they can't do it alone anymore. You know, there's a lot of research out there that suggests that often when a, uh, when a uh, buyer buys something in B2B, they've actually made their decision before they've even spoke to the salesperson. The salesperson is just sort of getting them over the line. It's like they're sort of convincing them they've made the right decision. So I think, you know, with that in mind, it's a. It is genuinely a really good opportunity for marketers because they're in the place where they're the ones who can step up and suddenly become, you know, the what B2B salespeople have historically been, which is, you know, the kind of leaders of industry. So there's this huge opportunity there. But, yeah, as we say, it's, um. There's a lot to step up in order to get to that.

Karen Lloyd: Well, time has gone very quickly. Dave, um, I can't believe we've. We're right to the end, but is there anything I haven't asked you that you wanted to talk about in this episode?

David Rowlands: Truthfully, no. I think, you know, there's a lot of ground to cover. I think, you know, one of the beauties of marketing is that you can talk all day.

Karen Lloyd: We.

David Rowlands: We could go into the campaigns, things that have worked, things that haven't. But, um, yeah, maybe you'll get me on for another show. We'll cover that next time.

Karen Lloyd: Absolutely. It would be my pleasure. So thank you so much for taking time to talk about it and, you know, the things that are keeping people up at night. So it's been a great discussion. So. And this podcast does exist for one reason. It's to arm B2B marketers and leaders and people that hire them with the conversations that matter. So I really hope this helps. And if there's someone else that you feel is going to get value from listening to this conversation today, please do share it with them. I'm also incredibly lucky to be a podcast host, and I speak to brilliant commercial leads such as Dave. And as a passionate business leader myself, I'm also a headhunter and the managing director of Armstrong Lloyd sales and marketing search firm. Um, so if you're looking to grow your team and you'd like a conversation about what the current market looks like, please do drop me an email at Karen Armstrong Lloyd.co.uk.