UnicornyHow to create valueThese episodes get into the real mechanics: account-based marketing, B2B demand generation, buyer enablement, and what genuine sales-marketing alignment looks like in practice. Matt Dixon's research on why half of all B2B sales end without a decision. The case for community-driven activation. The KPI frameworks that create customer clarity instead of internal noise. If you want pipeline that converts, it starts with understanding how your buyers actually make decisions — and building your go-to-market around that rather than around your own structure.
In this episode of The Unicorny Marketing Show, we pull back the curtain on a crucial, yet often overlooked, role in marketing: product marketing. Host Dom Hawes sits down with Leonard Burger to explore how product marketers act as the glue that binds sales,…
In this episode of The Unicorny Marketing Show, Clare Jones, CMO of System C, challenges the common perceptions around demand generation, explores the changing dynamics of B2B buyer behaviour, and discusses the complexities of mergers and acquisitions. Clare…
In this special episode of Unicorny, we're gearing up for B2B Ignite, the business marketing conference taking place on July 3rd at 133 Houndsditch in the City of London. Dom Hawes, your host, talks to Richard O'Connor, CEO of B2B Marketing, about the…
In this episode of Unicorny, Dom Hawes continues the conversation with Géraldine Tenten, a seasoned IBM marketer, about uniting a company around the shared goal of creating happy customers. They tackle the challenges of aligning sales and marketing, the power…
What’s holding back your business from reaching its full potential? In this episode of Unicorny, host Dom Hawes and guest Géraldine Tenten discuss how to achieve sustainable growth by focusing on happy customers and avoiding common pitfalls. With over 20…
In today's episode, part two of our discussion with Adrian Coxon, we explore how marketing drives product innovation and brand competitiveness in B2B. Adrian provides practical ways of using customer feedback and competitive analysis to improve market…
Featuring best-selling author, Matt Dixon, this part two of a two-part episode (did you listen to part 1?) that answers the question so many B2B marketers and sales professionals are asking: how come that perfect-fit prospect died? Matt co-authored a book…
Featuring best-selling author, Matt Dixon, this part one of a two-part episode (part two is available now) that answers the question so many B2B marketers and sales professionals are asking: how come that perfect-fit prospect died? Matt co-authored a book…
In this episode of Unicorny, Dom talks to Richard O'Connor, CEO of B2B Marketing and Propolis, about community, buyer enablement and marketing effectiveness in B2B. Richard challenges the traditional notion of sales and marketing alignment, emphasising the…
Episode Description This week, Dom is joined by Russ Powell, MD at Sharper B2B Marketing and Don Campbell, Head of Alliance and Partner Marketing a Endava to talk about using partnership and alliances to scale. The core of today's conversation is about how…
Episode description: On today’s episode of Unicorny, Dom is joined by co-host Chris Willocks, Strategy Director for Digital Radish, to interview Neil Berry - former Global Head of Deal and Account Based Marketing for ATOS, about the difficulties of scaling…
How can companies ensure they deliver an excellent experience that leaves customers delighted? Join Selbey Anderson’s Dom Hawes and BURN marketing’s David Rolfe as they meet Adam Morghem, Strategy, Marketing and Communications Director at Premium Credit, a…
Fujitsu's legendary ABM lead, Andrea Clatworthy, joins us to expand on her passion for ABM as a fundamental marketing strategy. Andrea extends the principles of ABM by incorporating personalised strategies and building personal relationships with clients. She…
Richard O'Connor, CEO of B2B Marketing, explains it is a live benchmarking dashboard for B2B marketers, built from an established market research firm's data topped up by members through a 'give to get' model. It tracks three areas: budget, spend and ROI; customer growth and attrition; and resourcing and organisational structure. Members can compare their own metrics with the global aggregate, with sector and regional splits. Hear the full discussion in episode 33
Geraldine Tenton says it often comes down to pay: if sales and marketing have different targets and rewards, they end up competing rather than serving the customer. Customers see one company and expect a consistent experience. She argues every function, from marketing to tech support, should share the same dashboards and be aligned to the goal of client satisfaction. Hear the full discussion in episode 57
Adrian Coxon argues that when you compete against better-known brands, only product or service can set you apart. His team includes a research analyst who holds accounts with every competitor to monitor their communications, service and roadmaps, and tracks ideas from fintech that could cross over. He sees marketing as the start-up inside the company: at Exante it adopted AI-generated imagery for daily market reports two years before AI became the talk of the industry. Hear the full discussion in episode 53
Geraldine Tenton, formerly of IBM, says a funnel can look perfect at every stage yet still end with a dissatisfied customer or a deal lost to pricing. She argues the real goal is long-term growth from happy customers, measured by lower churn, longer tenure and greater share of wallet. At IBM she used Net Promoter Score across more than 30 touchpoints, with a culture of resolving issues within 24 hours. Hear the full discussion in episode 56
Matt Dixon's team analysed 2.5 million recorded sales calls and found 40% to 60% of qualified pipeline is lost to no decision, and some SaaS firms now report 70% to 80%. Only 44% of those losses come from customers preferring the status quo. The other 56% come from customer indecision: buyers who want to buy but fear what might go wrong. Hear the full discussion in episode 44
Matt Dixon's JOLT playbook for overcoming customer indecision has four steps: Judge the level of indecision, Offer your recommendation, Limit the exploration, and Take risk off the table. It was built by studying what top-performing salespeople naturally did with buyers who were sold on changing but afraid of messing up. One way to judge indecision is 'pings and echoes': gently naming a fear the buyer might have so they can confirm or correct it. Hear the full discussion in episode 45
Rather than a costly sponsorship like Manchester United, Adrian asks local sales teams what matters to customers in each market; in Latvia that led to a local ice hockey club. Local deals cost far less and make a real difference to communities, but need more people to activate them well. He argues audiences increasingly see through big-money sponsorship and respond to brands that do real, local good. Hear the full discussion in episode 53
Year on year, marketing budgets rose 3% and the share of revenue marketing is responsible for rose 8%, which Richard reads as cautious optimism and a sign marketers are becoming more commercial. Spend grew in market research, social media marketing, demand generation and events, while external spend on brand fell slightly, suggesting firms outsource short-term work and keep long-term brand work in house. Hear the full discussion in episode 33
FOMO, the fear of missing out, helps get customers to decide they need to change. But once they are intellectually sold, FOMU, the fear of messing up, takes over. This reflects the omission bias: people fear losses they personally cause far more than losses from doing nothing, and nobody gets fired for keeping the status quo. Matt found that dialling up FOMO with urgency, fear or discounts at this late stage actually increases the chance of losing to no decision. Hear the full discussion in episode 44
Many options help attract buyers early, but too many choices near the decision cause procrastination and regret. Matt compares good salespeople to a waiter who recommends a favourite dish, which creates a 'delegation effect' where the burden of the choice is shared. Marketing can help by creating pre-configured packages for different segments so sellers can say 'look at these three, not all twenty'. Hear the full discussion in episode 45
Geraldine starts with the last conversion point, because filling the top of the funnel with paid media is expensive. She checks whether weak conversion stems from enablement, sales and marketing alignment, handover or unrecognised group buying, and only adds more at the top once the funnel works. Dom notes that with poor conversion rates, the audience needed at the top can exceed the total market. Hear the full discussion in episode 56
Diamond teams are cross-functional teams built around the customer, bringing together the best people from each discipline, such as content, data and sales, to work in an agile way. They adjust campaigns and execution quickly while members stay connected to their home discipline so learning spreads between teams. Geraldine says this model is easier to adopt than people think, though it requires accepting some uncertainty. Hear the full discussion in episode 57
Geraldine says not all leads are equal: what a prospect did, such as writing in, using live chat, attending an event or downloading a white paper, changes the odds of conversion and who should follow up. During COVID her team recreated face-to-face moments at virtual events by texting sellers when their client was engaging with specific content, so they could join the conversation at the right moment. Hear the full discussion in episode 56
Top sellers set expectations below splashy case study results, pointing to a floor that most customers reach so the buyer can over-deliver. They add safety nets such as some professional services support, a mutual value plan with milestones and owners agreed before signing, and advising customers to start smaller and expand later. Matt and Dom also argue that opt-out guarantees show confidence in the product. Hear the full discussion in episode 45
Average customer tenure among the mostly large organisations surveyed dropped from eleven years to seven, which Richard links to more competition and shopping around, and Dom links to the rise of procurement. Centralised headcount grew 7%, overall marketing team headcount rose around 20% after cuts the previous year, and team attrition fell by 10 points to about 5%. Hear the full discussion in episode 33
When lockdown removed about half of the planned campaign execution, Geraldine's team 'broke the analytics', recognising past conversion data could not predict the future. Rather than swapping events for webcasts, they recreated a pop-up event experience in a simple 2D metaverse, dropping headsets to keep it easy to use, and refined it daily based on client feedback. She sees digital now handling more of the journey, while face-to-face community building is growing. Hear the full discussion in episode 57
Adrian says brands that engage honestly with customers are forgiven when they make mistakes. He cites Abel & Cole, which explains where its food comes from, owns its errors and adds a small gift after a problem, keeping him as a customer for about 20 years. Dom adds that an under-resourced, short-term marketing function builds a brand on sand, while properly resourced marketing creates substance that holds up when things go wrong. Hear the full discussion in episode 53
Matt's research found only 13% of buyers are truly decisive, even though nearly all senior buyers see themselves that way. Indecision stems from personality, from worries about the decision itself (choosing the right configuration, doing enough research, and whether promised results will arrive), and from context such as baggage from past failed purchases or budget pressure. Dom argues marketing can help reduce FOMU through education, social proof and consultative support. Hear the full discussion in episode 44