Trust & Influence in B2B

Why AI makes human experiences more valuable, not less, with Claire Ellis of JPC
ABM was supposed to be about relationships. As AI makes targeting and personalisation cheap and abundant, the thing ABM was meant to build in the first place, trust with the people who actually decide, has become the real differentiator. Nowhere is that more acute than in ABM's biggest deals, where a single account can be worth millions and keeping it can matter even more than winning it.
➡️ Joel Harrison is joined by Claire Ellis, Managing Director of JPC, to unpack experiential ABM: human moments designed to move specific stakeholders, rather than events that simply fill rooms. Claire explains why buyers are now using AI to form preferences early and out of sight, why so much supplier activity is noise rather than relationship progress, and how to work out who really carries the room. She shares how BT moved from infrastructure provider to strategic partner with Translink, where organisations should deliberately keep human judgement in the loop, and why accountability matters more than accuracy when AI shapes what a senior buyer sees. If you run ABM, or are weighing up where your next experience budget should go, this conversation will sharpen how you plan, measure and own those moments. This episode is sponsored by JPC.
What you’ll learn
Why AI has made trust harder to earn in complex deals, and what buyers rely on instead.
How to design experiences around the change you need in specific stakeholders, rather than around the format.
How to spot who really carries the room, and when to rethink your account plan.
Where to deliberately keep human judgement, and how open to be about AI's role.
What credible relationship movement looks like, and who should own what happens next.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction: trust and ABM in an AI world
01:55 Claire Ellis and JPC
04:29 Where suppliers go wrong in complex deals
08:26 AI cuts both ways: why trust is harder to earn
11:59 Influencing an account before the opportunity exists
15:30 What experiential ABM is, and what it isn't
18:06 Why the format gets decided first, and what it costs
22:00 Finding who really carries the room
26:17 BT and Translink: when co-creation is real
31:14 Where to keep human judgement in the loop
35:13 Accuracy, authenticity and accountability in AI
37:44 What credible relationship movement looks like
41:47 What a CMO should ask before booking anything
44:11 Close and where to find out more
Follow Claire Ellis
Claire Ellis on LinkedIn ▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/claireellisjpc/
JPC ▶ https://thinkjpc.com/
Find out more
Read JPC's report, The human advantage in an AI-powered world ▶ https://thinkjpc.turtl.co/story/experiential-abm-roundtable-recap/page/1?pid=6aabbc5b8632548bf34bd33c
Hear Claire and JPC at the Global ABM conference ▶ https://events.b2bmarketing.net/abmconference
If you care about making B2B marketing more meaningful, useful, and memorable, this conversation is for you. It's honest, reflective, and packed with takeaways that can help elevate your approach, whether you're a marketing leader, an ABM practitioner, or working alongside sales on your most important accounts.
🌐 Visit Joel Harrison's website to explore exclusive reports, upcoming events, and join the B2B marketing community ➡️ https://www.joelharrisonb2b.com/
💬 What's the last event in your account plan that actually moved a relationship? Let us know in the comments below.
🔔 Subscribe to the channel for weekly insights, interviews, and on-the-ground perspectives from the world of B2B marketing.
📲 Follow Joel Harrison and Trust & Influence in B2B across the web:
LinkedIn ▶ https://linkedin.com/in/joelharrison/
Podcast ▶ https://trust-influence-in-b2b.captivate.fm/
Instagram ▶ https://instagram.com/joelharrisonb2b/
#JoelHarrisonB2B, #B2BMarketing, #ABM, #AccountBasedMarketing, #ExperientialABM, #ExperientialMarketing, #B2BTrust, #AIinMarketing, #EnterpriseSales, #StrategicAccounts, #SalesAndMarketing, #MarketingPodcast, #B2BInsights, #JoelHarrison, #B2BStrategy, #CMOLeadership, #B2BGrowth

Everyone's talking about buyer group marketing. Far fewer are doing it well, and most organisations have no reliable way of knowing how mature their approach really is. For this sponsored episode, Joel Harrison is joined by Greg Salmon, CEO of Pretzl, and Jeff Lowe, Pretzl's go-to-market advisor and a former CMO and Chief Commercial Officer at SMART Technologies, to unpack the 2026 Buyer Group Index. Produced in association with the ANA and research firm NewtonX, the Index surveyed 200 senior go-to-market leaders and measured 28 practices against commercial outcomes, from pipeline velocity to time to market.
➡️ Greg explains why so much of what passes for buyer group marketing is persona-based nurture under a new name, why the single score of the MQL is so comforting and so misleading, and how to reach the hidden influencers and build trust with people a vendor may never meet. He also warns that AI can scale bad assumptions as easily as good ones. Jeff draws on his years client-side to argue that separate sales and marketing teams are an outdated idea, explains why connected data has become a CMO's problem, and sets out what the leading organisations do differently.
What You'll Learn
Why so much of what passes for buyer group marketing is persona-based nurture under a new name, and how to tell the difference.
How to identify the hidden influencers in a buying group and build trust with people you may never meet.
Why AI is speeding up go-to-market activity without automatically improving growth, and what to do about how AI represents your brand.
Why connected data and genuine sales and marketing alignment are the highest-impact practices, and among the weakest.
What the leading organisations do differently, and how to benchmark your own maturity in around 15 minutes.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction: Pretzl and buyer group marketing
01:57 Introducing the 2026 Buyer Group Index
03:59 When buyer group marketing is persona nurture by another name
04:38 What a maturity score of 63.2 tells us
07:01 Why the MQL is so hard to let go of
10:06 Who the hidden influencers are
11:25 Building trust with people you never meet
12:28 Practical step: mapping your buyer group
14:57 When most buyer research happens out of sight
16:31 Why AI isn't automatically improving growth
17:36 How AI represents your brand
18:49 Practical step: the next 90 days
20:09 Jeff Lowe: from client-side to Pretzl
20:59 Why the real benchmark is lower than 63.2
22:18 Connected data and the systems gap
24:00 Should sales and marketing be one team?
26:56 What the leading organisations do differently
29:23 Practical step: benchmark your own maturity
31:31 Wrap-up
Follow Greg Salmon, Jeff Lowe and Pretzl
Greg Salmon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-salmon-280a1412/
Jeff Lowe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefflowe2/
Pretzl: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pretzlco/
Take the free Buyer Group Index assessment: [link]
If you're responsible for go-to-market and want an honest view of where your organisation stands, this conversation is for you. It's practical, candid and packed with first steps you can act on now.
🌐 Visit Joel Harrison's website to explore exclusive reports, upcoming events, and join the B2B marketing community ➡️ https://www.joelharrisonb2b.com/
💬 Is your buyer group marketing the real thing, or persona nurture with a new name? Let us know in the comments below.
🔔 Subscribe to the channel for weekly insights, interviews, and on-the-ground perspectives from the world of B2B marketing. https://youtube.com/@JoelHarrison-B2B?sub_confirmation=1
📲 Follow Joel Harrison and Trust & Influence in B2B across the web: LinkedIn ▶ https://linkedin.com/in/joelharrison/ Podcast ▶ https://trust-influence-in-b2b.captivate.fm/ Instagram ▶ https://instagram.com/joelharrisonb2b/
#JoelHarrisonB2B, #B2BMarketing, #ThoughtLeadership, #MarketingPodcast, #B2BInsights, #JoelHarrison, #B2BStrategy, #BuyerGroupMarketing, #BuyerGroups, #GoToMarket, #GTMStrategy, #SalesAndMarketing, #ABM, #RevOps, #AIinMarketing, #CMOLeadership, #B2BGrowth

Nostalgia sells everything from trainers to TV reboots, yet it barely registers in B2B marketing. To find out why, Joel Harrison went through three years of B2B Marketing Awards entries in search of the exceptions, and invited Guy O'Brien, co-founder of B2B influencer marketing agency Custom Influence, into the studio to make sense of what he found.
➡️ Together they unpack five ways B2B brands are going retro, from Exel Composites retelling the Three Little Pigs to Allica Bank's bowler hat, and ask why so few try it. Guy's verdict is that nostalgia isn't wrong for B2B, it's just hard: target the wrong generation and you alienate the buyers coming through; lean too far into the joke and people remember the ad but not the brand. Joel adds a warning of his own about nostalgia that stirs the wrong memories. If you're weighing a bolder creative idea, this conversation will help you judge when going retro will pay off.
What You'll Learn
Why nostalgia is everywhere in consumer marketing but rare in B2B, and why that comes down to difficulty rather than suitability.
The five creative approaches B2B brands are using to go retro, with campaign examples from the B2B Marketing Awards.
How to avoid alienating buyers from other generations as B2B buying groups get younger.
Why the brand, not the nostalgic idea, has to be what people remember.
How a nostalgic idea can build a community rather than a one-off moment.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction: where this conversation came from
01:52 - Guy O'Brien and Custom Influence
03:44 - Nostalgia and the humanisation of B2B
04:27 - Trend 1: Generational era cues (Just Group)
09:45 - Why nostalgia is so rare in B2B
11:25 - Trend 2: Childhood storytelling (Exel Composites)
17:16 - Trend 3: Retro media formats (Infoblox and 6sense)
22:45 - Trend 4: Period-specific aesthetics (Ecolab)
27:14 - Trend 5: Iconography of tradition (Allica Bank)
34:29 - The verdict: is nostalgia viable in B2B?
36:14 - When nostalgia backfires
40:47 - Where to find the campaigns
Follow Guy O'Brien
LinkedIn: [link]
Custom Influence: https://custominfluence.com/
Closing boilerplate
If you care about making B2B marketing more meaningful, useful, and memorable, this conversation is for you. It's honest, reflective, and packed with takeaways that can help elevate your approach to creative and thought leadership, whether you're a content creator, strategist, or brand leader.
🌐 Visit Joel Harrison's website to explore exclusive reports, upcoming events, and join the B2B marketing community ➡️ https://www.joelharrisonb2b.com/
💬 Would you take your B2B brand retro, or is nostalgia best left to consumer marketers? Let us know in the comments below.
🔔 Subscribe to the channel for weekly insights, interviews, and on-the-ground perspectives from the world of B2B marketing. https://youtube.com/@JoelHarrison-B2B?sub_confirmation=1
📲 Follow Joel Harrison and Trust & Influence in B2B across the web: LinkedIn ▶ https://linkedin.com/in/joelharrison/ Podcast ▶ https://trust-influence-in-b2b.captivate.fm/ Instagram ▶ https://instagram.com/joelharrisonb2b/
#JoelHarrisonB2B, #B2BMarketing, #ThoughtLeadership, #ContentStrategy, #MarketingTrends, #B2BContent, #Storytelling, #MarketingPodcast, #B2BInsights, #JoelHarrison, #B2BVideos, #B2BStrategy, #NostalgiaMarketing, #B2BCreative, #CreativeEffectiveness, #BrandBuilding, #InfluencerMarketing, #B2BMarketingAwards

The winning vendor is usually already on the buyer's shortlist before a single sales conversation happens, and increasingly, it isn't a salesperson or a website that put them there. It's a large language model, quietly checking what real people are already saying about you.
John Rockhold, VP of Market Engagement at Spotlight, joins Joel Harrison to unpack Influence Orchestration, Spotlight's new research into how buying preference now forms in AI answer engines, peer communities and analyst conversations, long before a deal ever reaches a pipeline. John's team interviewed 23 leaders who build and measure B2B influence, reviewed 27 published studies of buyer behaviour, and analysed millions of AI engine answers and citations across B2B technology categories. The conversation also draws on Spotlight Summit, the event John's team ran in Kansas City the week this episode was recorded, where Joel spoke alongside Bijou Barry, Megan Burns and other voices shaping this shift.
What you'll learn
Why buyer preference now largely forms out of sight, in AI prompt windows, peer conversations and communities, before a vendor even knows a deal exists
What separates the vendors AI answer engines actually recommend from the ones they ignore
Why earned trust compounds over time, while paid attention resets the moment you stop paying for it
Who should really own influence inside a B2B company, and why almost nobody does today
What to check in your own AI visibility on Monday morning, and what to do if you don't like what you find

If you find this conversation valuable, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast and leave a rating or review. It really helps other B2B marketers discover the show.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction: the shortlist is already written
01:47 Welcome, John Rockhold
02:08 Inside Spotlight Summit
04:22 What Spotlight does, and where the report began
08:25 Why “Influence Orchestration”
11:22 The day one shortlist: 95% and what it means for the buyer journey
15:05 Robots, humans, and the return of intermediaries
16:55 The verification loop: how buyers check what the machine tells them
19:20 Earned versus owned: the quote, the sidebar, and the flip
22:13 Megan Burns and the internal trust problem
25:28 Why nobody owns influence, and why that has to change
26:42 The 50% ceiling: when owned content collapses your visibility
28:20 Three predictions for 2027 and 2028
33:48 What to check on Monday morning
35:15 Does compounding influence favour challengers or incumbents?
38:33 What John learned at Spotlight Summit
Chapter times are taken from the pre-edit transcript. Re-time against the published cut once the final edit is locked.
Follow John Rockhold
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrockhold/
Spotlight: https://spotlight-io.com/
More from Trust & Influence in B2B
🌐 Visit Joel Harrison's website to explore exclusive reports, upcoming events, and join the B2B marketing community: https://www.joelharrisonb2b.com/
💬 What's the one place your buyers are checking that you haven't thought about yet? Let us know in the comments.
🔔 Subscribe to the channel for weekly insights, interviews, and on-the-ground perspectives from the world of B2B marketing: https://youtube.com/@JoelHarrison-B2B?sub_confirmation=1
📲 Follow Joel Harrison and Trust & Influence in B2B across the web:
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/joelharrison/
Podcast: https://trust-influence-in-b2b.captivate.fm/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/joelharrisonb2b/
#B2BMarketing #TrustAndInfluence #InfluenceOrchestration #AIinMarketing #GEO #AEO #BuyerJourney #AnalystRelations #B2BPodcast #MarketingPodcast #JoelHarrison #Spotlight #JohnRockhold

Every B2B vendor now has an AI story. Michelle Huff, Chief Marketing Officer at Alteryx, argues that's exactly the problem: when everyone makes the same promise, positioning around AI stops being a differentiator and becomes table stakes. Michelle brings more than 25 years leading marketing and go-to-market strategy at Oracle, Salesforce and UserTesting to the question of how a 25-year-old analytics brand earns its place in the AI era without sliding into hype.
Joel and Michelle talk through how Alteryx replaces claims with proof – a 760,000-member user community, customer stories, and a framework (Visible, Understandable, Repeatable, Auditable) for what makes an automated decision trustworthy. Michelle also unpacks a strikingly simple way to think about handing judgment to AI: treat it like onboarding a new hire, earning autonomy step by step rather than switching it on and walking away.
What you'll learn
Why positioning around AI is now table stakes rather than a differentiator – and what to do about it
How to move a brand beyond me-too claims to demonstrable, genuine value
What proof of substance actually looks like to a buyer who's heard every AI promise before
Why the real AI story is about automating judgment, not just tasks
A practical framework for deciding what's ready to automate and what still needs a human in the loop

Chapters
00:00 Introduction: why AI positioning is now table stakes
02:02 Meet Michelle Huff and Alteryx's 25-year evolution
04:54 25 years across tech shifts: the instinct that carries through
08:49 Beyond the AI me-too: proving value, not just claiming it
10:36 Community and advocacy at scale
12:21 Building movements, not monuments: the Salesforce influence
14:00 Where AI genuinely changes the product vs. just the language
15:50 Vision vs. reality: staying grounded while pointing ahead
16:19 Repositioning a legacy brand without over-claiming
20:15 The BIRA framework: visible, understandable, repeatable, auditable
23:50 Data vs. story: which one wins when they pull apart
26:45 Automating judgment: the new-hire analogy and the trust score
31:02 Task-owners vs. problem-owners: staying valuable as AI reshapes marketing
32:58 Advice for teams that don't trust their AI output yet
34:29 Closing thoughts
Follow Michelle Huff
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellehuff/
Alteryx: https://www.alteryx.com/
Closing boilerplate
If you care about making B2B marketing more meaningful, useful, and memorable, this conversation is for you. It's honest, reflective, and packed with takeaways that can help elevate your approach to thought leadership – whether you're a content creator, strategist, or brand leader.
🌐 Visit Joel Harrison's website to explore exclusive reports, upcoming events, and join the B2B marketing community ➡ https://www.joelharrisonb2b.com/
💬 Where's the line for you between AI that's a genuine step change and AI that's just new language on old capability? Let us know in the comments below.
🔔 Subscribe to the channel for weekly insights, interviews, and on-the-ground perspectives from the world of B2B marketing. https://youtube.com/@JoelHarrison-B2B?sub_confirmation=1
📲 Follow Joel Harrison and Trust & Influence in B2B across the web: LinkedIn ▶ https://linkedin.com/in/joelharrison/Podcast ▶ https://trust-influence-in-b2b.captivate.fm/Instagram ▶ https://instagram.com/joelharrisonb2b/