Pipeline Brew is the podcast that meets at the intersection of people and pipeline. Hosted by Matt Hummel, VP of Marketing at Pipeline360, each episode will feature fun, yet insightful conversations from marketing experts across various industries.
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Données mises à jour le 01/08/2026
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Brewing Success with Caroline Clark: Stand Apart from the Sea of Sameness
Épisode 32
mercredi 24 juin 2026 • Durée 35:28
As AI continues to infiltrate content programs across B2B marketing, standing out is becoming increasingly difficult as execution is now just one click away. So how can modern marketers use AI effectively while still creating marketing that feels original, relevant, and distinctly human?
On today’s episode of Pipeline Brew, Matt Hummel speaks with Caroline Clark, Managing Director at Radish Agency, to get her thoughts on how marketing teams can avoid falling into the “sea of sameness” as AI adoption reshapes the industry. Caroline shares why human judgement is becoming a true competitive advantage, how marketers can rethink creativity beyond logos and visuals, and why deeper customer understanding matters more than ever.
Additionally, Caroline introduces the concept of “The Missing Middle,” which is the growing concern that entry-level opportunities across industries are disappearing as organizations outsource roles to AI. Why does it matter? Because those early-career positions have traditionally served as critical training grounds for developing future leaders, strategists, and creative thinkers across the industry.
From customer-centric marketing and creative strategy to talent development and the future of agency leadership, this episode offers a thoughtful look at where B2B marketing is headed next.
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Guest Bio
Caroline Clark leads Radish, a specialist Creative ABM agency helping ambitious B2B brands turn brand recognition into revenue.
With extensive experience leading global teams and driving growth across complex organisations, she brings together strategy, creativity and commercial thinking to deliver measurable impact. She is also a strong advocate for the future of B2B talent - actively exploring industry-wide initiatives to invest in and nurture emerging talent, strengthen talent clusters, and address the growing gap in mid-level expertise.
At Radish, this ambition sits alongside helping clients win earlier in the buying journey, build belief with the right audiences, and ultimately make standing out pay off.
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Guest Quotes
“Everyone’s talking about personalization at scale, but I just call it generic personalization at scale. The reality is there’s nothing personalized about it anymore, and you’re losing that soul of what’s really going to turn someone’s head. What’s the emotional piece that makes someone genuinely interested, instead of feeling like they’ve received the same message twenty times already today?”
“Everything that AI produces is based on history. If you’re always thinking about the past, that’s certainly not innovative, and I think that’s where the barriers come in. Original thinking and fresh perspectives are still critical if businesses want to move forward and remain relevant.”
“In three to five years’ time, all of that talent that you would typically nurture from entry-level through to middle management…where’s it going to be? We all benefited from those early opportunities, and I think the industry needs to recognize that we have to invest in the next generation now before we wake up and realize there’s no future pipeline of leaders coming through.”
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Time Stamps
00:00 Episode start
01:00 Ice Breaker
02:40 Caroline’s background and career journey
08:40 Why Caroline joined Radish Agency
13:00 The rise of AI-driven marketing sameness
15:00 Creativity beyond visuals and branding
16:15 The problem with personalization at scale
18:40 Why marketers need deeper customer insights
20:45 Why human judgment matters more than ever
21:30 AI and the risk of losing original thinking
22:55 Understanding “The Missing Middle”
24:20 Why entry-level marketing roles still matter
Brewing Success with Jon Buckthorp: Why Authenticity Beats Performative Thought Leadership
Épisode 31
jeudi 4 juin 2026 • Durée 45:06
What happens when enterprise buyers no longer trust the endless stream of content, campaigns, and “thought leadership” flooding their inboxes every day? And in a world overwhelmed by AI-generated noise, how can marketers actually build confidence instead of just visibility?
On this episode of Pipeline Brew, Matt Hummel is joined by Jon Buckthorp, Director of Growth & Ventures at Differentiated, a UK B2B marketing and sales agency, for a conversation on why belief is becoming the most important driver in modern decision making.
Drawing from Differentiated’s annual Art & Science research, Jon shares why buyers are increasingly skeptical of performative marketing, how “thought theater” is replacing meaningful thought leadership, and what brands must do differently to stand out.
From pipeline health and buyer psychology to AI transparency and authentic storytelling, Matt and Jon unpack why the future of marketing isn’t actually about creating more content, but instead about creating clearer, authentic experiences. You’ll also hear practical insights on measuring belief, reducing buyer friction, building genuine executive thought leadership, and why the best brands aren’t necessarily the loudest, but the clearest.
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Guest Bio
Twenty-five years in the tech and telco sectors provide the wide lens required to navigate what happens next. Jon’s background across corporate leadership, scale-ups, and advisory teams offers a comprehensive, real-world view of the complexities facing global marketing and sales organisations.
He specialises in B2B Art & Science; the delivery of high-impact creative marketing backed by rigorous data and sales team integration. From leadership roles at Vodafone UK and Group to his current work with Differentiated Ltd, JonB Studio, and the Women's Sports Alliance, Jon bridges strategy and execution.
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Guest Quotes
Brewing Success with Craig Abramson: Turning Data Into Sales & Marketing Trust
Épisode 30
jeudi 7 mai 2026 • Durée 43:07
Most enterprise marketing teams are focused on building for scale, often sacrificing speed and adaptability. So what happens when you bring a startup mindset into that environment?
On this episode of Pipeline Brew, Matt sits down with Craig Abramson, a demand gen leader who built his career in fast-moving startups before recently bringing that expertise into Workday. Craig shares how his scrappy approach shapes the way he thinks about pipeline and how it helped transform Zimit’s marketing contribution from 5% to over 50%.
From rapidly pivoting strategies with a test-and-learn approach to rethinking how buying groups are identified and engaged, Matt and Craig explore how startup principles can still thrive inside larger, more complex organizations. They also unpack the realities of operating within enterprise systems and where marketers can still find room for innovation.
If you’re navigating the shift from startup to enterprise, or simply looking to bring more agility into your demand gen, this episode offers a practical look at how to improve targeting, strengthen sales/marketing alignment, and drive pipeline which actually converts.
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Guest Bio
Craig Abramson builds marketing engines that drive pipeline, generate acquisition-level outcomes, and deliver significant ROI — often with lean budgets and from scratch. At Zimit, he grew marketing-originated pipeline from 5% to 56% in under a year, culminating in an acquisition by Workday. At Workday, he took that same demand generation expertise and scaled it globally, influencing over $500M in ABX pipeline in FY25.
What makes Craig’s background unique is the combination of startup bootstrapping and enterprise scale. He has personally built and relaunched websites, run SEO campaigns that drove 4,300% traffic increases, managed SDR and marketing teams, implemented Marketo automation and ABM nurtures, and developed analyst relations programs — all while also thinking strategically about Go-to-Market positioning and messaging. Now he also integrates AI tools into his workflow to accelerate content development, data analysis, and campaign optimization.
Brewing Success with Lee Densmer: Simplifying Content Strategy Without Sacrificing Impact
Épisode 29
jeudi 2 avril 2026 • Durée 40:57
Many content marketing teams often view complexity in their programs simply as maturity. But what if the very systems built to scale your strategy is the reason it’s disjointed and underperforming?
On this episode of Pipeline Brew, Matt is joined by content strategist and Founder of Globia Content Marketing, Lee Densmer. Having literally written the book on the most common B2B marketing mistakes enterprises make today, Lee shares her experience auditing over 20 established content programs to figure out where businesses go wrong.
From bloated editorial systems to outdated processes to surface-level research and misaligned messaging, Matt and Lee unpack why overcomplexity eats away at ROI and team morale. You’ll also hear why the term “thought leadership” is overused, how to actually provide content of value versus spicy takes, and ways in which your organization can scale your content programs with simplicity without losing nuance.
If you’re a content leader navigating AI, personalization pressure, and increasing executive scrutiny, this episode offers a practical framework for simplifying your strategy, strengthening your foundation, and driving clearer business impact.
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Guest Bio
Lee Densmer is a content marketing strategist who helps B2B teams fix the costly content breakdowns that stall revenue growth. After digging into more than 20 established content programs, she identified the 40 recurring issues that consistently sabotage performance—and (literally) wrote the book that shows teams exactly how to solve them.
With 20 years in B2B marketing, Lee created an efficient 3x5 Content Strategy to simplify content marketing so busy teams can do more with less and finally see results. Known for her straight talk and clarity-first approach, she gives marketing leaders the tools to cut through complexity, reduce stress, and build content engines that drive growth.
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Brewing Success with Rick Nendza: Redefining Product Marketing as the Connective Tissue of Growth
Épisode 28
jeudi 5 mars 2026 • Durée 43:08
Product marketing often operates behind the scenes, but is it actually the most important growth lever in your organization? Rick Nendza, longtime B2B tech marketing leader believes it might be. On this episode of Pipeline Brew, he breaks down what product marketing really is and why its role as the connective tissue across departments has never been more critical.
Matt and Rick unpack the biggest misconceptions about PMM, how to measure impact without getting “KPI’d to death,” and why internal adoption of messaging and enablement content is just as important as external performance metrics. Drawing on decades of experience and multiple roles where Rick was the first PMM hire, he shares practical advice for building the function from the ground up and navigating blurred lines across organizations.
You’ll also hear what Rick means when he refers to AI as a “super-eager intern,” how content strategy is shifting as search continues to evolve, and why strong messaging and positioning remain foundational in modern B2B. If you’re a marketing leader trying to align teams, prove out ROI, or take your GTM to the next level, this episode delivers thoughtful, tactical insights you can put to work immediately.
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Guest Bio
Rick Nendza has over 25 years of experience in product and content marketing in the B2B tech space. He currently has a contract role with Forrester, researching and writing Total Economic Impact (TEI) reports for the analyst firm’s clients - and is a fractional product and content marketing consultant “doer” for tech GTM teams.
Rick’s experience has specialized in SaaS product marketing in startup/scale out environments. In 20+ years at TechTarget, he was a key member of the team that launched Priority Engine, the publisher’s flagship SaaS platform. He also delivered content audits for tech customers – combining proprietary data with observed best practices to advise on demand gen content strategy. Since then, he’s initiated the product marketing function at two companies, working closely with demand gen teams in developing positioning and content for SaaS product launches.
Brewing Success with Ben Henson: Reimagining the Buying Journey with AI
Épisode 27
jeudi 5 février 2026 • Durée 40:40
Can AI make B2B buying more human? Ben Henson, Co-Founder and CRO of Peel AI, thinks so. On this episode of Pipeline Brew, he shares how his team is using AI to flip outdated sales motions on their head and create genuinely helpful, buyer-first experiences.
Matt and Ben talk about what’s broken in the traditional buying journey, and where sales and marketing teams can look to fix it. Drawing from decades of experience leading revenue teams, Ben sheds light on the rise of offline buying behavior, the limits of content formats such as PDFs and white papers, and why the phrase “nobody wants to be sold to” has never rang more true.
You’ll hear why Ben believes that Voice Experience (VX) is the next step in leveraging AI to create real connection throughout a buyer’s journey alongside the lessons he’s learning as a founder operating in today’s rapidly changing climate. If you’re under pressure to do more with less or rethinking how your team actually helps buyers buy, this conversation is packed with smart, tactical insights you can apply today.
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Guest Bio
Ben Henson is a seasoned B2B revenue leader and entrepreneur, having co-founded Peel AI in 2024. Serving as CRO, Ben is helping to redefine how buyers engage with brands by bringing AI-driven conversational experiences to static content and sales motions.
Prior to Peel, Ben spent over two decades leading sales, marketing, and GTM strategies to drive growth in B2B. Throughout his career, he has focused on creating more effective ways to connect and communicate, blending practical GTM experience with consistent innovation.
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Guest Quotes
“Nobody wants to be sold to. I think that in our consumer lives, I think that in our professional lives, I think if you feel like you're being sold to, your antennae pick up and you're like, wait a second, what's happening? Conversely, everybody wants help buying. So if they know that they want to do the thing, then it's like, okay, well let's figure this thing out.”
Brewing Success with John Eitel: Turning Sales + Marketing into One Growth Team
Épisode 25
jeudi 8 janvier 2026 • Durée 47:57
What happens when growth stalls and alignment breaks down between marketing and sales? John Eitel, Chief Growth Officer at Orum, has made a career out of solving just that. In this episode of Pipeline Brew, John joins host Matt Hummel, CMO at Pipeline360, to share how CGOs think differently about scale, structure, and strategic focus.
From his early days scaling Rackspace to leadership roles at Canva, Demandbase, and now Orum, John opens up about the biggest changes he’s seen when it comes to building high-performing GTM teams. He dives into the pressures revenue leaders face today, the value of brand in a demand-heavy world, and why sales-marketing tension is still so common.
You’ll also hear why John believes onboarding is more listening than doing, the steps modern distributed teams can take to build trust, and why alignment starts with shared KPIs and honest communication. If you’re responsible for growth, or accountable to it, this episode is a blueprint for leading with clarity, empathy, and measurable impact.
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Guest Bio
John Eitel is a seasoned revenue and go-to-market leader with over 20 years of experience accelerating growth in B2B SaaS, cloud, and digital businesses. He’s built and scaled high-performance teams across sales, marketing, operations, and customer success in both emerging startups and large enterprises exceeding $1 billion in revenue.
Known for transforming underperforming organizations and launching successful market expansions, John combines strategic vision with operational discipline and a people-first leadership philosophy. He’s passionate about coaching leaders, aligning cross-functional teams around outcomes, and driving measurable business impact.
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Guest Quotes
“Not to say we abandon all other numbers and metrics, but at the end of the day, that shared understanding that pipeline is everyone's problem is so important. I think if you can get that common agreement . . . that really does force a good, healthy dialogue.”
Brewing Success with Chloe Thompson: Making Content Matter Across Marketing, Sales, and Revenue
Épisode 24
jeudi 4 décembre 2025 • Durée 41:40
With content teams being asked to do more with less, how can marketers build a strategy aligning brand and revenue which actually leads to business outcomes? Today on Pipeline Brew, Matt is joined by Chloe Thompson, Director of Content Marketing at Visier, to discuss what it takes to build high-impact B2B content.
Chloe shares her journey from journalism to content marketing, her role in scaling Reward Gateway’s blog into a content engine that supported two private equity events, and how she leverages subject matter experts across the business. She breaks down what content should own, how to partner with demand gen, and why storytelling must align with business outcomes to be respected internally.
Chloe also discusses how content teams can move beyond vanity metrics, build influence with data, and embed themselves in go-to-market strategy. Whether you’re a solo content marketer, scaling a team, or trying to prove your impact in a revenue-driven world, this episode delivers practical frameworks and hard-won lessons for content that actually moves the needle.
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Guest Bio
Chloe Thompson is the Director of Content Marketing at Visier, a workforce intelligence platform. With over 15 years of experience turning editorial storytelling into a growth engine for brands, Chloe has a long background in HR tech with prior roles at Reward Gateway and Compt. A J-school grad turned marketer, she’s built and led global teams, launched research programs that generated millions in pipeline, and helped fuel a $1.4B acquisition.
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Guest Quotes
"When people first start out in their career, you should say yes to every opportunity that you get. I think being the first one to raise your hand in the room gives you a lot of visibility and a lot of opportunity, and I think that's also a lesson that you have to kind of turn on its head as you get more senior in your career and be the one to be able to say no to things strategically."
"I think that content fueled a lot of the things that we did at the organization, but of course it was also our product, our sales, the incredible 750+ people that I worked with across the different markets that really just created a differentiated brand and a vision for the company. But I think content played a really big part in terms of trying to elevate our internal subject matter experts and really making the case for being an ally for our HR audience."
Brewing Success with Reed Hansen: Prioritizing Human Connection Over Software
Épisode 23
jeudi 13 novembre 2025 • Durée 34:40
With today’s marketers bogged down by overflowing tech stacks, where can they cut complexity to focus on what drives measurable growth? In this episode of Pipeline Brew, Matt sits down with Reed Hansen, Owner & Chief Growth Office of the Illinois based agency, MarketSurge, to explore what it means to lead with strategy over software.
Reed shares his shift from SaaS sales to entrepreneurship, the decision to buy MarketSurge, and how he transformed it from a CRM implementation shop into a growth engine powered by strategy and human connection.
Reed also reveals how his podcast, Inside Marketing with MarketSurge, became an unexpected growth lever—fueling client acquisition, partnerships, and sharper thinking. He explains why showing up in public conversations builds more credibility than traditional sales outreach, and how authentic, human-first marketing can outperform any tech stack.
Whether you’re leading your own agency, navigating the chaos of MarTech overload, or looking for practical ways to drive results without losing authenticity, this episode delivers sharp perspective and actionable ideas for marketers who want to scale smarter.
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Guest Bio
Reed Hansen is a seasoned marketing leader and growth strategist recognized for his ability to scale businesses through visionary leadership and data-driven innovation. As Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, Reed leads with a clear mission: to help businesses transform marketing chaos into streamlined systems that drive predictable growth.
With a career spanning startups to Fortune 500 companies, Reed has held leadership roles at Northwestern University, Punchkick Interactive, and Solstice, where he built and guided teams that delivered high-impact digital products and record-breaking revenue growth. Prior to MarketSurge, he founded Million Dollar Studio, where his leadership extended beyond strategy into operations, mentoring, and building resilient teams.
Brewing Success with Steven Pritt: Leadership for a New Era of Content Marketing
Épisode 22
jeudi 16 octobre 2025 • Durée 43:27
How do you lead modern marketing teams through disruption without losing purpose, clarity, or connection? In this episode of Pipeline Brew, Matt is joined by Steven Pritt, VP of Content Marketing at Thomson Reuters, where he’s built a high-performing content function that balances scale, creativity, and authenticity.
With a career spanning creative agencies, sales, and enterprise marketing, Steven shares why today’s best leaders act as stewards, not gatekeepers, and how a clear sense of purpose aligns individuals, teams, and strategy. He breaks down the difference between tension to solve vs. tension to manage, why marketing silos shouldn’t be tolerated, and what it takes to create content that’s both measurable and meaningful.
Listeners will hear Steven’s take on AI as a force multiplier, how to foster team culture from any role, and why friction is often a sign of movement, not failure. Whether you’re scaling a content team, navigating leadership challenges, or rethinking how marketing delivers value, this episode delivers practical insights for marketers leading through change.
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Guest Bio
Steven Pritt is an award-winning marketing executive with over a decade of experience in the information technology and services industry. As the VP of Content Marketing at Thomson Reuters, he has spearheaded the creation of a center of excellence that integrates content marketing, creative services, organic social media, and SEO.
Steven's leadership is characterized by his innovative approach to developing and executing comprehensive content strategies that drive engagement and conversion. He is also recognized for his expertise in team building and leveraging generative AI to modernize the content supply chain.
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Guest Quotes
“I think a demand for more authentic content is going to be really, really important. Not even just personalized content, but content that is really providing a service. Is it coming out of an attitude of really serving up information? Is it really servicing the need of what the customers are asking versus putting it out there just for a hook or a barb?”
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“The brands that are best aren’t necessarily the loudest, but they are the clearest. They’re investing in real quantitative research, they’re honest about the natural trade-offs that you’re gonna have, and they don’t pretend certainty when nothing exists.”
“If you want visibility, go all out. Be that person, be provocative. Create the drumming gorilla. But if the goal is understanding, ‘Hey, I’ve got a thing I wanna tell you,’ that’s when you get leadership. 83% of buyers only believe thought leadership is useful if it's grounded in research with real people. So I would say less polish, more substance.”
“Stop asking how do I get more content out, and start asking what would genuinely, and I mean genuinely, help someone decide my product is fit for them. Stop thinking of more, and start thinking of better. Belief is really, really fragile. When you earn it, trust, and therefore growth, will follow.”
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Time Stamps
00:00 Episode start
02:00 Ice breaker
03:40 Jon’s background and entrepreneurial journey
“There's no one size fits all when it comes to buying groups, I think that's the challenge that a lot of companies are facing. When I started to dig into the data of the content syndication programs I was running, we were bringing in a lot of manager titles. But those managers weren't having conversations with our SDRs, but Director+ titles were. And once we went Director+, it just increased the quality that we were bringing in.”
“The startup experience helped because at different places, I had to integrate the CRMs somehow. By default, I was the one who was implementing Salesforce. And then when I would bring in HubSpot, integrating HubSpot. And then taking that out and integrating Marketo and just getting a sense of all the data that's in there. And that actually carried over to Workday and going into all the different systems and figuring out what information do I need? And what's the best place to get it from?”
“I was at a company where the CEO wanted friction between marketing and sales. And at one point I went right to the CRO and said: ‘Look, we're trying to accomplish the same thing. Let's work together.’ And he was on the same page. And anytime there was friction created, we would talk to each other on the side and figure out what was going on and figure it out. Let's do what's best for the company and the teams to make sure that marketing's driving the right leads and sales.”
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Time Stamps
00:00 Episode start
01:05 Craig’s scrappy startup background
05:00 Quick pivots in demand gen
10:00 Bringing startup thinking into enterprise marketing
13:00 Navigating processes and speed at large companies
16:25 ABM vs. ABX explained
18:15 Moving from leads to buying groups
22:15 Improving lead quality with better targeting
“The other thing that I find in established content programs is that they've become overly complicated over time. So in other words, somebody painted the car over and over again without removing the previous layer of paint. You've just got these layers, somewhere it got over complicated with legacy junk. And the right foundations aren't in place.”
“Thought leadership is grossly misunderstood and overused as a way to describe content. Not all content is thought leadership. A bottom of the funnel pricing piece is not thought leadership. A middle of the funnel how to piece is not thought leadership. It is identifying who in your organization has done some deep thinking about customer problems and has unique and interesting ideas about it. Thought leadership also involves taking a risk.”
Quality content, in its most simple form, answers buyer questions in a clear, easy to understand way. [But] there's more to it than that because you can have a clear piece that doesn't answer a buyer question or that doesn't have any purpose. Back to the client who had the quality problem, I was reading the pieces and they were clearly written, but they didn't answer buyer questions and they didn't have a strong path for the reader to follow, for the buyer to follow.”
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Time Stamps
00:00 Episode start
02:00 Lee’s background and entrepreneurial journey
06:35 What’s broken in modern content programs?
08:55 Tackling legacy systems and outdated processes
12:05 Identifying strong buyer personas
15:00 Volume vs. value
21:00 Balancing demand content with thought leadership
27:05 Managing complexity across products and personas
31:00 Advice for content marketers in 2026
32:30 Getting content a seat at the executive table
“Product marketing is the connective tissue between the executive level, sales, marketing, customer success and product. Being naturally collaborative is one thing, but you sort of have to be super focused in terms of how you're gonna get folks from around the organization to collaborate and to agree on things, and be really mindful and methodical on how you approach that from the start.”
“The way that product marketing is measured is ultimately going to be on pipeline and sales, right? But I think that there's two extremes that I've seen. One is: You're gauged on how the company is doing and you know, you're not the CEO, so it's not granular enough to give a fair assessment of what you're doing. On the other side, the product marketing function can be KPI’d to death.”
“If you've got messaging and positioning and you've got AI tools, the key really goes back to create the best content. Step back and say the way that content is being found is changing, so let's just refocus on creating the best content and stuff that's interesting and sounds different from things that your competitors are saying and something that somebody might find. Whether it's posted on social or on your website, or a sales rep is using it, have it be something that everybody is excited about sending.”
“If you don't know the answer to a question, ask your customer. You want to adjust your pricing? Ask your customer. You want to add a new product? Ask your customer. The basics, the fundamentals, still come into play here in a very meaningful way.”
“Go try [AI]. Go get better at it. Have fun with it. Don't get rigid. We're in a brave new world, and marketers have the flexibility and the ability to try new things and figure out how we can communicate well to somebody else. How can we give them good customers, and this is the place that you really get to play, that you really get to stretch your legs.”
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Time Stamps
00:00 Episode start
01:25 Icebreaker
04:05 Ben’s background
06:20 What inspired Peel
10:00 Enabling buyers at the moment of curiosity
13:35 Asynchronous research and content clarity
16:20 Rethinking content hubs and deal rooms
19:45 Building a GTM engine with limited budget
23:50 The power of real thought leadership
25:15 UX to CX to VX
28:45 AI, voice, and the rise of interactive selling
“In that first month of onboarding, remember you have two ears and one mouth. Listen more than you talk. Resist the urge to just take action right out of the gates and start kind of showing up with your point of view. Ask a ton of questions, take a lot of notes, listen, absorb; people will notice.”
“I learned early in my career the power of when [marketing and sales] are aligned. It's a magical thing. But many folks never ever get to see that, right? I now have responsibility for sales and marketing, and so this has been fun for me to lean out of my comfort zone and bridge that gap even more so and really put my money where my mouth is.”
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Time Stamps
00:00 Episode start
01:25 Icebreaker
03:00 John’s background
06:15 Finding alignment across distributed teams
09:45 Marketing misunderstandings on revenue
13:00 Closing the sales/marketing gap
16:20 Finding the balance between brand and demand
20:05 Aligning sales and marketing around pipeline
28:10 The one metric that ties everything together
34:40 Advice for new GTM leaders
39:00 How customer trust shapes sustainable growth
"The subject matter experts that I've worked with in the past, they're so passionate about what they do. Like you find someone who loves what they do, who loves their job, that's passionate about it, they want to share their knowledge. They want to help, but it needs to be in a way that feels natural instead of feeling prescriptive and like it's another thing on their to-do list."
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Time Stamps
00:00 Episode start
01:15 Icebreaker
03:00 Chloe’s career journey and early lessons
07:30 Building the content function at Reward Gateway
10:30 Clarifying the line between content and demand
12:45 Content’s impact on a $1.4B acquisition
15:30 Strategic advice for new content marketers
17:15 Working with SMEs across the business
21:20 Content metrics that prove value
24:00 Connecting content to revenue and brand
28:00 Making the case for content at growing companies
Known for his ability to blend creative problem-solving with operational discipline, Reed has become a trusted authority in digital marketing and organizational growth. His leadership style emphasizes clarity, collaboration, and empowerment — guiding teams and clients alike to see marketing not just as a cost center, but as a powerful growth engine.
Beyond his executive role, Reed is the host of Inside Marketing with MarketSurge, where his leadership voice extends to the broader business community through conversations that challenge assumptions, explore innovation, and inspire action.
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Guest Quotes
“There's a tremendous opportunity to approach marketing like a white-glove business: results-focused rather than tool-focused. Clients don’t care about a line item list of platforms. They care about growth, leads, and pipeline. And marketing leaders today need to adapt to that mindset shift.”
“Podcasting is like the new city square or barbershop. It’s where people go to be heard, to connect, and to spark ideas in a space that feels casual but still meaningful. It’s helped me synthesize ideas, build partnerships, and even get clients. I didn’t expect that, but it’s been a tremendous growth lever.”
“I would spend much more time on creating great content and making sure to get myself out there and doing more networking conversations. The content that I can generate is a bigger determination of our business success and growth than any of the traditional sales efforts.”
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Time Stamps
00:00 Episode start
01:25 Icebreaker
03:00 Reed’s journey from sales to entrepreneurship
07:05 Diving into MarketSurge
11:55 How podcasting became a top tier growth lever
“I think my view of leadership is really where can I bring clarity? Where can I remove obstacles for my team members? And then along the way, if I can give away as much credit, I feel like I'm doing a successful job.”
“Businesses want to use AI, they just don't know how to use it in the right way or in a more meaningful way. And I think the content marketers who can demonstrate that or show that propensity will definitely have a leg up. It's beyond just, ‘Do you know how to use ChatGPT?’”
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Time Stamps
00:00 Episode start
02:00 Icebreaker
04:15 Purpose, clarity, and team alignment
06:05 Building Thomson Reuters' content center of excellence
08:15 Centralization vs. personalization in content marketing
10:35 Managing vs. solving tension in marketing teams
13:20 Why you need a little friction
15:25 Creating culture at every level
17:05 The evolving role of content in a post-AI world
