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As a CEO, many CMOs are effectively chasing your attention. When they invest heavily in ultimate guides and thought leadership content, what do they need to do differently to get you to engage?
It’s got to be relevant and it’s got to be accessible. I do download content fairly often, but I don’t tend to download massive documents - I just don’t have the time. Time is critical.
I prefer what I’d describe as snackable content. I think a lot of people are overwhelmed by the volume of information out there and we’re all short on time. Most PDFs end up in my “to read” folder and then never actually get read.
The issue isn’t necessarily the insight, it’s the format it’s delivered in. I prefer fast, accessible content: videos, podcasts, short pieces that I can consume easily.
There are exceptions. There are a couple of documents I read every year because they’re directly relevant to the business challenges I’m facing. But fundamentally there’s just a lot out there, so content needs to be targeted, relevant, and consumable.
Many B2B marketing teams would say they already tick those boxes. Is that enough?
There is a lot of repetitive content out there. You only have to look at how many articles are being published on AI, they’re often saying the same things and delivered in the same way.
If content tackled issues in a slightly different way, or was delivered in a more engaging or distinctive format, that would definitely get my attention. Right now, a lot of it looks and sounds the same.
Is content consumption always “on” for you, or are there moments when you actively seek things out?
Personally, I like reading and taking on content. If I’m dealing with a specific business challenge, I’ll actively go out and find solutions to that problem. I’ll ignore a lot of content that feels generic or irrelevant, but when I need to dig into something, I’ll seek it out.
You’ve held senior GTM roles across major organisations. When you look at a marketing dashboard, what’s the metric you care most about and which ones do you have no time for?
The metric I care about most is marketing-sourced pipeline, but it needs to be real pipeline. Opportunities that are actionable and can turn into revenue.
Marketing-attributed revenue is another key one. A single number that shows whether marketing is genuinely helping grow the business.
Those metrics aren’t always available straight away because they rely on good data, systems, and workflows. That data might come from the website, events, inbound enquiries — wherever. But that’s what I want to see.
Vanity metrics, on the other hand, things that look good on dashboards but don’t translate into revenue, are less helpful. Page impressions, generic page views, follower counts: they matter, but they don’t tell me whether we’re generating qualified demand or revenue.
You’re also a practicing artist. Has creativity influenced your approach to marketing?
I’ve been painting pretty much all my life. I wanted to go to art college originally, but my dad encouraged me to get what he called a “proper degree”.
A few years ago I had some downtime and got back into my artwork. We have a place in Cornwall, and I started creating sea-life-inspired pieces in a pop-art style. A gallery there picked them up and began exhibiting them.
So yes, creativity has always been part of who I am.
How does that creative side show up in your marketing philosophy, particularly around brand versus performance?
Brand awareness is vitally important. It doesn’t always translate immediately into revenue metrics, but being known for something, what you’re good at, what you stand for, really matters.
That said, particularly in tougher times, you have to stay focused on growth and revenue. Some marketing metrics simply don’t add value when you’re trying to understand how the business is actually performing.
So it’s about balance. Brand supports long-term growth, but it has to sit alongside clear commercial outcomes.
If a downturn hits and budgets need to be cut quickly, where do you start?
I wouldn’t start by cutting marketing. It’s counterintuitive. You can’t cut your way out of trouble, you have to grow your way out.
Marketing is a lever for growth, not a discretionary cost. I’d look elsewhere first: vendor consolidation, travel, back-office duplication, non-core projects.
In one organisation I worked in, we had around 800 internal projects running at once, many solving the same problems in different ways across regions. We shut most of them down and replaced them with a smaller number of consistent initiatives. The cost savings were significant.
If marketing cuts are unavoidable, it should be about reallocation, not elimination. Dial back experimental activity, but protect channels that reliably generate demand; account-based marketing, targeted industry events, proven performance channels.
You’ve written about the productivity paradox. Are marketers over-tooled?
Yes, I think there are too many tools in most organisations, and that adds complexity. Individually the tools are fine, but collectively - especially in global organisations - they create friction, and friction reduces productivity.
I’ve worked in businesses operating across 30 countries, each with its own CRM system, analytics tools, and implementations. That fragmentation adds cost and slows everything down.
There are huge savings and productivity gains to be made through consolidation. There are dozens of platforms- HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, Pardot, Mailchimp, Hootsuite and many more - all doing similar things.
Reducing the number of tools and standardising how they’re used is absolutely key.
Watch the full interview on the B2B Marketing United YouTube channel.
As a CEO, many CMOs are effectively chasing your attention. When they invest heavily in ultimate guides and thought leadership content, what do they need to do differently to get you to engage?
It’s got to be relevant and it’s got to be accessible. I do download content fairly often, but I don’t tend to download massive documents - I just don’t have the time. Time is critical.
I prefer what I’d describe as snackable content. I think a lot of people are overwhelmed by the volume of information out there and we’re all short on time. Most PDFs end up in my “to read” folder and then never actually get read.
The issue isn’t necessarily the insight, it’s the format it’s delivered in. I prefer fast, accessible content: videos, podcasts, short pieces that I can consume easily.
There are exceptions. There are a couple of documents I read every year because they’re directly relevant to the business challenges I’m facing. But fundamentally there’s just a lot out there, so content needs to be targeted, relevant, and consumable.
Many B2B marketing teams would say they already tick those boxes. Is that enough?
There is a lot of repetitive content out there. You only have to look at how many articles are being published on AI, they’re often saying the same things and delivered in the same way.
If content tackled issues in a slightly different way, or was delivered in a more engaging or distinctive format, that would definitely get my attention. Right now, a lot of it looks and sounds the same.
Is content consumption always “on” for you, or are there moments when you actively seek things out?
Personally, I like reading and taking on content. If I’m dealing with a specific business challenge, I’ll actively go out and find solutions to that problem. I’ll ignore a lot of content that feels generic or irrelevant, but when I need to dig into something, I’ll seek it out.
You’ve held senior GTM roles across major organisations. When you look at a marketing dashboard, what’s the metric you care most about and which ones do you have no time for?
The metric I care about most is marketing-sourced pipeline, but it needs to be real pipeline. Opportunities that are actionable and can turn into revenue.
Marketing-attributed revenue is another key one. A single number that shows whether marketing is genuinely helping grow the business.
Those metrics aren’t always available straight away because they rely on good data, systems, and workflows. That data might come from the website, events, inbound enquiries — wherever. But that’s what I want to see.
Vanity metrics, on the other hand, things that look good on dashboards but don’t translate into revenue, are less helpful. Page impressions, generic page views, follower counts: they matter, but they don’t tell me whether we’re generating qualified demand or revenue.
You’re also a practicing artist. Has creativity influenced your approach to marketing?
I’ve been painting pretty much all my life. I wanted to go to art college originally, but my dad encouraged me to get what he called a “proper degree”.
A few years ago I had some downtime and got back into my artwork. We have a place in Cornwall, and I started creating sea-life-inspired pieces in a pop-art style. A gallery there picked them up and began exhibiting them.
So yes, creativity has always been part of who I am.
How does that creative side show up in your marketing philosophy, particularly around brand versus performance?
Brand awareness is vitally important. It doesn’t always translate immediately into revenue metrics, but being known for something, what you’re good at, what you stand for, really matters.
That said, particularly in tougher times, you have to stay focused on growth and revenue. Some marketing metrics simply don’t add value when you’re trying to understand how the business is actually performing.
So it’s about balance. Brand supports long-term growth, but it has to sit alongside clear commercial outcomes.
If a downturn hits and budgets need to be cut quickly, where do you start?
I wouldn’t start by cutting marketing. It’s counterintuitive. You can’t cut your way out of trouble, you have to grow your way out.
Marketing is a lever for growth, not a discretionary cost. I’d look elsewhere first: vendor consolidation, travel, back-office duplication, non-core projects.
In one organisation I worked in, we had around 800 internal projects running at once, many solving the same problems in different ways across regions. We shut most of them down and replaced them with a smaller number of consistent initiatives. The cost savings were significant.
If marketing cuts are unavoidable, it should be about reallocation, not elimination. Dial back experimental activity, but protect channels that reliably generate demand; account-based marketing, targeted industry events, proven performance channels.
You’ve written about the productivity paradox. Are marketers over-tooled?
Yes, I think there are too many tools in most organisations, and that adds complexity. Individually the tools are fine, but collectively - especially in global organisations - they create friction, and friction reduces productivity.
I’ve worked in businesses operating across 30 countries, each with its own CRM system, analytics tools, and implementations. That fragmentation adds cost and slows everything down.
There are huge savings and productivity gains to be made through consolidation. There are dozens of platforms- HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, Pardot, Mailchimp, Hootsuite and many more - all doing similar things.
Reducing the number of tools and standardising how they’re used is absolutely key.
Watch the full interview on the B2B Marketing United YouTube channel.
As a CEO, many CMOs are effectively chasing your attention. When they invest heavily in ultimate guides and thought leadership content, what do they need to do differently to get you to engage?
It’s got to be relevant and it’s got to be accessible. I do download content fairly often, but I don’t tend to download massive documents - I just don’t have the time. Time is critical.
I prefer what I’d describe as snackable content. I think a lot of people are overwhelmed by the volume of information out there and we’re all short on time. Most PDFs end up in my “to read” folder and then never actually get read.
The issue isn’t necessarily the insight, it’s the format it’s delivered in. I prefer fast, accessible content: videos, podcasts, short pieces that I can consume easily.
There are exceptions. There are a couple of documents I read every year because they’re directly relevant to the business challenges I’m facing. But fundamentally there’s just a lot out there, so content needs to be targeted, relevant, and consumable.
Many B2B marketing teams would say they already tick those boxes. Is that enough?
There is a lot of repetitive content out there. You only have to look at how many articles are being published on AI, they’re often saying the same things and delivered in the same way.
If content tackled issues in a slightly different way, or was delivered in a more engaging or distinctive format, that would definitely get my attention. Right now, a lot of it looks and sounds the same.
Is content consumption always “on” for you, or are there moments when you actively seek things out?
Personally, I like reading and taking on content. If I’m dealing with a specific business challenge, I’ll actively go out and find solutions to that problem. I’ll ignore a lot of content that feels generic or irrelevant, but when I need to dig into something, I’ll seek it out.
You’ve held senior GTM roles across major organisations. When you look at a marketing dashboard, what’s the metric you care most about and which ones do you have no time for?
The metric I care about most is marketing-sourced pipeline, but it needs to be real pipeline. Opportunities that are actionable and can turn into revenue.
Marketing-attributed revenue is another key one. A single number that shows whether marketing is genuinely helping grow the business.
Those metrics aren’t always available straight away because they rely on good data, systems, and workflows. That data might come from the website, events, inbound enquiries — wherever. But that’s what I want to see.
Vanity metrics, on the other hand, things that look good on dashboards but don’t translate into revenue, are less helpful. Page impressions, generic page views, follower counts: they matter, but they don’t tell me whether we’re generating qualified demand or revenue.
You’re also a practicing artist. Has creativity influenced your approach to marketing?
I’ve been painting pretty much all my life. I wanted to go to art college originally, but my dad encouraged me to get what he called a “proper degree”.
A few years ago I had some downtime and got back into my artwork. We have a place in Cornwall, and I started creating sea-life-inspired pieces in a pop-art style. A gallery there picked them up and began exhibiting them.
So yes, creativity has always been part of who I am.
How does that creative side show up in your marketing philosophy, particularly around brand versus performance?
Brand awareness is vitally important. It doesn’t always translate immediately into revenue metrics, but being known for something, what you’re good at, what you stand for, really matters.
That said, particularly in tougher times, you have to stay focused on growth and revenue. Some marketing metrics simply don’t add value when you’re trying to understand how the business is actually performing.
So it’s about balance. Brand supports long-term growth, but it has to sit alongside clear commercial outcomes.
If a downturn hits and budgets need to be cut quickly, where do you start?
I wouldn’t start by cutting marketing. It’s counterintuitive. You can’t cut your way out of trouble, you have to grow your way out.
Marketing is a lever for growth, not a discretionary cost. I’d look elsewhere first: vendor consolidation, travel, back-office duplication, non-core projects.
In one organisation I worked in, we had around 800 internal projects running at once, many solving the same problems in different ways across regions. We shut most of them down and replaced them with a smaller number of consistent initiatives. The cost savings were significant.
If marketing cuts are unavoidable, it should be about reallocation, not elimination. Dial back experimental activity, but protect channels that reliably generate demand; account-based marketing, targeted industry events, proven performance channels.
You’ve written about the productivity paradox. Are marketers over-tooled?
Yes, I think there are too many tools in most organisations, and that adds complexity. Individually the tools are fine, but collectively - especially in global organisations - they create friction, and friction reduces productivity.
I’ve worked in businesses operating across 30 countries, each with its own CRM system, analytics tools, and implementations. That fragmentation adds cost and slows everything down.
There are huge savings and productivity gains to be made through consolidation. There are dozens of platforms- HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, Pardot, Mailchimp, Hootsuite and many more - all doing similar things.
Reducing the number of tools and standardising how they’re used is absolutely key.
Watch the full interview on the B2B Marketing United YouTube channel.
London
Feb 9, 2026
Rich Fitzmaurice
Letters
"Dear Rich,
I'm a marketing director at a B2B software company. My team is 11 people. Content, demand gen, ops, and a couple of SDRs on a dotted line.
Last month our CEO started talking about AI. He'd seen a demo at some PE portfolio day and a talk from someone who claimed they'd "cut their marketing team in half and 10x'd their output." He hasn't said it directly, but the direction of travel is obvious.
Since then our CFO has started asking about "marketing efficiency gains from AI." My CEO keeps forwarding me articles about companies replacing writers with AI tools. Last week in our exec meeting he asked, in that casual-but-not-casual way, "what does this person actually do?".
I'm not anti-AI. I've been experimenting like everybody else and some of it genuinely impresses me. I can see how it makes ideation faster.
But my team is already stretched. Sales are not doing great and they have open positions. We don't need fewer people. We need the same people moving faster so we can actually deliver what the business is asking for.
Every time I try to make this case I sound defensive. Like I'm just protecting headcount. But if I just nod along and start cutting, we'll be in serious trouble in six months when we can't execute on anything.
So, how do I play it? Without sounding like I'm resisting change?"
Jay, Ohio
Rich's reply
Thanks for your note Jay. My first response was an audible 'ergh'. But the good news is that I am certain so many marketers are facing exactly the same situation right now.
I remember when Marketing Automation was the latest buzzword and a Head of Region asked me how many marketers we could let go because we could automate things. I remember he brought it up again in a meeting with a CFO so I replied that he was completely right…we should be investing in MA but we'd need more people, not less, as we'd need to increase the volume of quality content to be able to build effective nurture tracks and we'd need a dedicated MA manager to build it out. The look on his face was enjoyable. There are some parallels to the situation you face Jay, life continues to be cyclical!
Let's try and take the sting out of things and spin the situation on its head.
First, your CEO has come back from a conference genuinely excited about the potential of your function. We might be able to use that. Most marketing directors would kill for a CEO who believes marketing can be dramatically more impactful. He's not trying to destroy your team. He's looking at it and thinking there's more in it. He's just landed on the wrong lever.
Second, he is talking to you about this. Not going behind your back. Not hiring a consultant. Not restructuring over your head. He's forwarding you articles and asking you questions. That's an invitation to lead the conversation, even if it doesn't feel like one. Even if it irritates you to the bone. He's interesting in the topic so, sorry, it's best to lean in.
Third, you said your team is already stretched and sales are behind. That could actually be your strongest card and you haven't played it yet.
And fourth, you are already experimenting with AI on your own time. Which means you know more about what it can and can't do than your CEO does. He has a conference demo and has heard someone jump up on stage trying to make themselves look like a messiah (Champagne CMO, per chance?). You have reality. That is an enormous advantage if you use it properly.
So let's reframe this.
Right now, in your CEO's head, the story is:
AI is powerful. Our marketing team is expensive. Therefore, AI should mean fewer people and less cost.
That logic feels clean, which is why it's dangerous. Your job is not to argue against it. Your job is to replace it with a better story.
And the better story is already sitting in your inbox. You just told me your team is stretched. That means the business is leaving growth on the table because your team doesn't have capacity. Your CEO cares about growth more than he cares about headcount. If the company is growing, headcount requests go through a lot easier.
In your next conversation with him, don't start with AI and don't start with your team. Start with the gap.
Ask him: Of all the things marketing should be doing for this business right now, what are we not getting to?
He might come up with a list, CEO's rarely have no viewpoint. Pipeline in a new segment. Board pressure to achieve an exit. A country or service line that is struggling. A margin target which looks like it won't be hit. Whatever it is, let him talk.
Then ask: If my team had 30% more capacity tomorrow, which of those would you want us to attack first?
He'll pick one. Maybe two.
Then you say: That's exactly what I want to use AI for.
Not to cut people. To close the gap between what marketing should be delivering and what we currently can. Right now we're spending too many hours on work that AI can accelerate, first drafts, lead research, reporting, content repurposing. If we free that time up, we redirect it straight into the growth areas you just described.
Notice what's happened. You haven't defended your team. You haven't argued about headcount. You haven't pushed back on AI. You've taken his enthusiasm for AI and pointed it at his enthusiasm for growth and connected them in a way that doesn't involve firing anyone. And you've bought yourself some time. And time always makes things a little easier.
He may have been dragged over to this event you mention by your PE investors and asked to take a serious look. Maybe it was another firm in the PE's portfolio singing nonsense up on stage and he feels obliged to take a look. He came away from that event thinking about cost. You've made it about revenue. CEOs prefer revenue.
Now, I do want to say something you might not want to hear.
Your CEO's instinct is not entirely wrong. It's just premature.
As AI matures and your team learns to work with it, the shape of your team will change. The person who currently spends most of their week writing first drafts might become someone who spends most of their week on something a little harder and more strategic, with AI handling the drafting. That's a different role. Some people will grow into it brilliantly. Some will struggle.
Your job as a leader isn't to freeze the team in place. It's to evolve it. Help your people build the skills that make them more valuable alongside AI, not in competition with it. If you do that well, nobody needs to be cut, because the team becomes capable of things it couldn't do before, and the business will want more of that, not less.
But if you just dig in and defend the current setup, your CEO will eventually go around you. He'll bring in someone who "gets it" (or make your report into someone who says they do) and you'll lose control of the conversation entirely.
So don't fight the energy. Redirect it in a way you're more comfortable.
Go into your next meeting with the aim of coming out of it with a joint experiment with AI to learn together what its true capabilities are and how it could work for the firm. Give me 60 days to show what that looks like with real numbers.
That's not defensive. That's leadership. And it's the kind of conversation that changes how your CEO sees you, not just your team. You also bring him along on the journey.
If the people standing up at events saying wildly sugar coated claims about their teams and AI are proven to be full of….you know what…(hint - the majority are)…then you'll come to that conclusion together. If you find a way of improving your capacity challenges, then that's great too?
Play this well and you won't just protect 11 jobs. You'll make the case for 13.
Onwards,
Rich
"Dear Rich,
I'm a marketing director at a B2B software company. My team is 11 people. Content, demand gen, ops, and a couple of SDRs on a dotted line.
Last month our CEO started talking about AI. He'd seen a demo at some PE portfolio day and a talk from someone who claimed they'd "cut their marketing team in half and 10x'd their output." He hasn't said it directly, but the direction of travel is obvious.
Since then our CFO has started asking about "marketing efficiency gains from AI." My CEO keeps forwarding me articles about companies replacing writers with AI tools. Last week in our exec meeting he asked, in that casual-but-not-casual way, "what does this person actually do?".
I'm not anti-AI. I've been experimenting like everybody else and some of it genuinely impresses me. I can see how it makes ideation faster.
But my team is already stretched. Sales are not doing great and they have open positions. We don't need fewer people. We need the same people moving faster so we can actually deliver what the business is asking for.
Every time I try to make this case I sound defensive. Like I'm just protecting headcount. But if I just nod along and start cutting, we'll be in serious trouble in six months when we can't execute on anything.
So, how do I play it? Without sounding like I'm resisting change?"
Jay, Ohio
Rich's reply
Thanks for your note Jay. My first response was an audible 'ergh'. But the good news is that I am certain so many marketers are facing exactly the same situation right now.
I remember when Marketing Automation was the latest buzzword and a Head of Region asked me how many marketers we could let go because we could automate things. I remember he brought it up again in a meeting with a CFO so I replied that he was completely right…we should be investing in MA but we'd need more people, not less, as we'd need to increase the volume of quality content to be able to build effective nurture tracks and we'd need a dedicated MA manager to build it out. The look on his face was enjoyable. There are some parallels to the situation you face Jay, life continues to be cyclical!
Let's try and take the sting out of things and spin the situation on its head.
First, your CEO has come back from a conference genuinely excited about the potential of your function. We might be able to use that. Most marketing directors would kill for a CEO who believes marketing can be dramatically more impactful. He's not trying to destroy your team. He's looking at it and thinking there's more in it. He's just landed on the wrong lever.
Second, he is talking to you about this. Not going behind your back. Not hiring a consultant. Not restructuring over your head. He's forwarding you articles and asking you questions. That's an invitation to lead the conversation, even if it doesn't feel like one. Even if it irritates you to the bone. He's interesting in the topic so, sorry, it's best to lean in.
Third, you said your team is already stretched and sales are behind. That could actually be your strongest card and you haven't played it yet.
And fourth, you are already experimenting with AI on your own time. Which means you know more about what it can and can't do than your CEO does. He has a conference demo and has heard someone jump up on stage trying to make themselves look like a messiah (Champagne CMO, per chance?). You have reality. That is an enormous advantage if you use it properly.
So let's reframe this.
Right now, in your CEO's head, the story is:
AI is powerful. Our marketing team is expensive. Therefore, AI should mean fewer people and less cost.
That logic feels clean, which is why it's dangerous. Your job is not to argue against it. Your job is to replace it with a better story.
And the better story is already sitting in your inbox. You just told me your team is stretched. That means the business is leaving growth on the table because your team doesn't have capacity. Your CEO cares about growth more than he cares about headcount. If the company is growing, headcount requests go through a lot easier.
In your next conversation with him, don't start with AI and don't start with your team. Start with the gap.
Ask him: Of all the things marketing should be doing for this business right now, what are we not getting to?
He might come up with a list, CEO's rarely have no viewpoint. Pipeline in a new segment. Board pressure to achieve an exit. A country or service line that is struggling. A margin target which looks like it won't be hit. Whatever it is, let him talk.
Then ask: If my team had 30% more capacity tomorrow, which of those would you want us to attack first?
He'll pick one. Maybe two.
Then you say: That's exactly what I want to use AI for.
Not to cut people. To close the gap between what marketing should be delivering and what we currently can. Right now we're spending too many hours on work that AI can accelerate, first drafts, lead research, reporting, content repurposing. If we free that time up, we redirect it straight into the growth areas you just described.
Notice what's happened. You haven't defended your team. You haven't argued about headcount. You haven't pushed back on AI. You've taken his enthusiasm for AI and pointed it at his enthusiasm for growth and connected them in a way that doesn't involve firing anyone. And you've bought yourself some time. And time always makes things a little easier.
He may have been dragged over to this event you mention by your PE investors and asked to take a serious look. Maybe it was another firm in the PE's portfolio singing nonsense up on stage and he feels obliged to take a look. He came away from that event thinking about cost. You've made it about revenue. CEOs prefer revenue.
Now, I do want to say something you might not want to hear.
Your CEO's instinct is not entirely wrong. It's just premature.
As AI matures and your team learns to work with it, the shape of your team will change. The person who currently spends most of their week writing first drafts might become someone who spends most of their week on something a little harder and more strategic, with AI handling the drafting. That's a different role. Some people will grow into it brilliantly. Some will struggle.
Your job as a leader isn't to freeze the team in place. It's to evolve it. Help your people build the skills that make them more valuable alongside AI, not in competition with it. If you do that well, nobody needs to be cut, because the team becomes capable of things it couldn't do before, and the business will want more of that, not less.
But if you just dig in and defend the current setup, your CEO will eventually go around you. He'll bring in someone who "gets it" (or make your report into someone who says they do) and you'll lose control of the conversation entirely.
So don't fight the energy. Redirect it in a way you're more comfortable.
Go into your next meeting with the aim of coming out of it with a joint experiment with AI to learn together what its true capabilities are and how it could work for the firm. Give me 60 days to show what that looks like with real numbers.
That's not defensive. That's leadership. And it's the kind of conversation that changes how your CEO sees you, not just your team. You also bring him along on the journey.
If the people standing up at events saying wildly sugar coated claims about their teams and AI are proven to be full of….you know what…(hint - the majority are)…then you'll come to that conclusion together. If you find a way of improving your capacity challenges, then that's great too?
Play this well and you won't just protect 11 jobs. You'll make the case for 13.
Onwards,
Rich
"Dear Rich,
I'm a marketing director at a B2B software company. My team is 11 people. Content, demand gen, ops, and a couple of SDRs on a dotted line.
Last month our CEO started talking about AI. He'd seen a demo at some PE portfolio day and a talk from someone who claimed they'd "cut their marketing team in half and 10x'd their output." He hasn't said it directly, but the direction of travel is obvious.
Since then our CFO has started asking about "marketing efficiency gains from AI." My CEO keeps forwarding me articles about companies replacing writers with AI tools. Last week in our exec meeting he asked, in that casual-but-not-casual way, "what does this person actually do?".
I'm not anti-AI. I've been experimenting like everybody else and some of it genuinely impresses me. I can see how it makes ideation faster.
But my team is already stretched. Sales are not doing great and they have open positions. We don't need fewer people. We need the same people moving faster so we can actually deliver what the business is asking for.
Every time I try to make this case I sound defensive. Like I'm just protecting headcount. But if I just nod along and start cutting, we'll be in serious trouble in six months when we can't execute on anything.
So, how do I play it? Without sounding like I'm resisting change?"
Jay, Ohio
Rich's reply
Thanks for your note Jay. My first response was an audible 'ergh'. But the good news is that I am certain so many marketers are facing exactly the same situation right now.
I remember when Marketing Automation was the latest buzzword and a Head of Region asked me how many marketers we could let go because we could automate things. I remember he brought it up again in a meeting with a CFO so I replied that he was completely right…we should be investing in MA but we'd need more people, not less, as we'd need to increase the volume of quality content to be able to build effective nurture tracks and we'd need a dedicated MA manager to build it out. The look on his face was enjoyable. There are some parallels to the situation you face Jay, life continues to be cyclical!
Let's try and take the sting out of things and spin the situation on its head.
First, your CEO has come back from a conference genuinely excited about the potential of your function. We might be able to use that. Most marketing directors would kill for a CEO who believes marketing can be dramatically more impactful. He's not trying to destroy your team. He's looking at it and thinking there's more in it. He's just landed on the wrong lever.
Second, he is talking to you about this. Not going behind your back. Not hiring a consultant. Not restructuring over your head. He's forwarding you articles and asking you questions. That's an invitation to lead the conversation, even if it doesn't feel like one. Even if it irritates you to the bone. He's interesting in the topic so, sorry, it's best to lean in.
Third, you said your team is already stretched and sales are behind. That could actually be your strongest card and you haven't played it yet.
And fourth, you are already experimenting with AI on your own time. Which means you know more about what it can and can't do than your CEO does. He has a conference demo and has heard someone jump up on stage trying to make themselves look like a messiah (Champagne CMO, per chance?). You have reality. That is an enormous advantage if you use it properly.
So let's reframe this.
Right now, in your CEO's head, the story is:
AI is powerful. Our marketing team is expensive. Therefore, AI should mean fewer people and less cost.
That logic feels clean, which is why it's dangerous. Your job is not to argue against it. Your job is to replace it with a better story.
And the better story is already sitting in your inbox. You just told me your team is stretched. That means the business is leaving growth on the table because your team doesn't have capacity. Your CEO cares about growth more than he cares about headcount. If the company is growing, headcount requests go through a lot easier.
In your next conversation with him, don't start with AI and don't start with your team. Start with the gap.
Ask him: Of all the things marketing should be doing for this business right now, what are we not getting to?
He might come up with a list, CEO's rarely have no viewpoint. Pipeline in a new segment. Board pressure to achieve an exit. A country or service line that is struggling. A margin target which looks like it won't be hit. Whatever it is, let him talk.
Then ask: If my team had 30% more capacity tomorrow, which of those would you want us to attack first?
He'll pick one. Maybe two.
Then you say: That's exactly what I want to use AI for.
Not to cut people. To close the gap between what marketing should be delivering and what we currently can. Right now we're spending too many hours on work that AI can accelerate, first drafts, lead research, reporting, content repurposing. If we free that time up, we redirect it straight into the growth areas you just described.
Notice what's happened. You haven't defended your team. You haven't argued about headcount. You haven't pushed back on AI. You've taken his enthusiasm for AI and pointed it at his enthusiasm for growth and connected them in a way that doesn't involve firing anyone. And you've bought yourself some time. And time always makes things a little easier.
He may have been dragged over to this event you mention by your PE investors and asked to take a serious look. Maybe it was another firm in the PE's portfolio singing nonsense up on stage and he feels obliged to take a look. He came away from that event thinking about cost. You've made it about revenue. CEOs prefer revenue.
Now, I do want to say something you might not want to hear.
Your CEO's instinct is not entirely wrong. It's just premature.
As AI matures and your team learns to work with it, the shape of your team will change. The person who currently spends most of their week writing first drafts might become someone who spends most of their week on something a little harder and more strategic, with AI handling the drafting. That's a different role. Some people will grow into it brilliantly. Some will struggle.
Your job as a leader isn't to freeze the team in place. It's to evolve it. Help your people build the skills that make them more valuable alongside AI, not in competition with it. If you do that well, nobody needs to be cut, because the team becomes capable of things it couldn't do before, and the business will want more of that, not less.
But if you just dig in and defend the current setup, your CEO will eventually go around you. He'll bring in someone who "gets it" (or make your report into someone who says they do) and you'll lose control of the conversation entirely.
So don't fight the energy. Redirect it in a way you're more comfortable.
Go into your next meeting with the aim of coming out of it with a joint experiment with AI to learn together what its true capabilities are and how it could work for the firm. Give me 60 days to show what that looks like with real numbers.
That's not defensive. That's leadership. And it's the kind of conversation that changes how your CEO sees you, not just your team. You also bring him along on the journey.
If the people standing up at events saying wildly sugar coated claims about their teams and AI are proven to be full of….you know what…(hint - the majority are)…then you'll come to that conclusion together. If you find a way of improving your capacity challenges, then that's great too?
Play this well and you won't just protect 11 jobs. You'll make the case for 13.
Onwards,
Rich
Content
Feb 21, 2026
Content
How to's
In my experience, most PR underperforms for one simple reason. It is built to generate coverage, not influence.
Press releases go out. Coverage appears. Logos get dropped into decks. Somewhere along the way, teams convince themselves that visibility equals impact.
It does not.
In complex B2B buying, nobody buys because they saw your logo in the trade press. They buy because choosing you feels safe, defensible, and sensible to the people who have to put their names against the decision.
PR only works when it reduces risk. When it does not, it becomes noise.
What PR is actually for in B2B
PR is not about announcements or press releases (I am not even sure journalists read them anymore). It is not about share of voice. It is not about chasing journalists for coverage.
In our world, PR exists to build external credibility that buyers can borrow internally.
When a deal is live, buying group members are quietly asking themselves variations of:
Are these people legitimate?
Do they understand our world?
Have others trusted them before?
Would I look foolish defending this choice internally?
This aligns closely with buying group research from Gartner, which shows that deals stall far more often due to lack of confidence and consensus than lack of information. PR contributes to what Gartner calls sense making. It helps groups align around whether a decision feels safe.
So from that viewpoint, PR is another tool in the arsenal that helps do that job.
PR is not the same as media relations
One reason PR disappoints is because it is often reduced to media relations alone.
It actually includes:
Media commentary
Executive visibility
Analyst relations
Third party validation
Consistent narrative across external touchpoints
Media coverage is just one output. Credibility is the outcome.
You can get plenty of coverage and still be ignored in deals if what you say sounds generic, inconsistent, or self-congratulatory.
Why most B2B PR fails
Most B2B PR fails in predictable ways.
It sounds like marketing
It talks about the company, not the problem
It overclaims and underexplains
It avoids trade-offs and reality
It focuses on announcements that only matter to that firm, rather than insight for anybody else
This is why buyers skim it or ignore it entirely. They are not looking for promotion. They are looking for reassurance.
Research from the Edelman Trust Barometer consistently shows that people trust expertise, transparency, and third-party validation far more than corporate messaging. PR that feels polished but empty actively erodes trust.
What is actually newsworthy in B2B
Most B2B companies are not newsworthy because they exist. They become newsworthy when they help others make sense of change.
What journalists and buyers actually care about:
What is changing in the market?
What is breaking or no longer working?
What leaders are seeing that others are missing?
What trade-offs organizations are facing?
What mistakes are being repeated?
This is why commentary outperforms announcements. Insight travels further than information.
If your PR plan is built around what you want to say rather than what your market is struggling to understand, it will not perform. It simply adds to the plethora of noise that is already out there.
Credibility is built through consistency, not volume
Buyers do not remember one article. They remember patterns.
This is where mental availability matters. Research from the B2B Institute shows that brands grow by being consistently associated with specific problems and outcomes over time.
Effective PR reinforces the same story across:
Executive interviews
Bylined articles
Panel appearances
Analyst commentary
Partner quotes
If each appearance tells a slightly different version of who you are, or if different executives say conflicting things, you are not building credibility, you are creating friction.
Reality check
If your CEO sounds visionary, your CTO sounds tactical, your PR agency sounds promotional, and your sales team sounds defensive, buyers will trust none of them.
How PR actually supports live deals
PR will never close deals directly, of course, but bad PR can lose it.
It can make sales conversations easier.
Good PR helps when:
Prospects already recognize your name
Stakeholders reference your perspective unprompted
Objections sound familiar rather than hostile
Sales spends less time proving legitimacy
This aligns with Forrester guidance on executive thought leadership, which emphasizes that credibility shortens evaluation cycles by reducing perceived risk.
PR works best when sales does not have to explain it.
How to tell if your PR is building credibility
If you want a simple diagnostic, ask these questions:
Would a journalist describe us as experts in one specific thing?
Do our leaders sound consistent across interviews?
Does sales ever forward this coverage without being asked?
Would a cautious buyer feel safer after reading this?
If the answer is no, the issue is not distribution it is a lack of substance.
How to measure PR without pretending attribution
PR does not lend itself to last click attribution and pretending otherwise damages its credibility internally.
Avoid over relying on:
Raw coverage volume
Share of voice without context
Generic sentiment scores
Last click revenue models
Instead, look for signals that confidence is forming:
Sales referencing coverage in meetings
Increased inbound credibility rather than inbound volume
Faster movement through late-stage objections
Analyst inclusion and citation
Executives being sought out for perspective
PR should be discussed in the language of influence, not performance marketing.
The simple rule to remember
PR in B2B is not about being visible. It is about being believable.
If your PR helps buyers feel safer choosing you and helps sales spend less time proving legitimacy, it is working. If it just fills a coverage report, it is not. Especially if you don’t actually recognise the publications who picked up your press release verbatim.
Call to action
Audit your last six months of PR and ask one hard question.
If a cautious buyer read this, would they feel more confident choosing us?
If the answer is unclear, stop producing more content and fix the narrative first.
Decide what you want to be trusted for.
Ensure your leaders sound consistent.
Prioritize insight over announcements.
Measure confidence, not clicks.
If you want help turning PR into a credibility engine rather than a coverage machine, get in touch and we will introduce you to people who genuinely know what good looks like.
In my experience, most PR underperforms for one simple reason. It is built to generate coverage, not influence.
Press releases go out. Coverage appears. Logos get dropped into decks. Somewhere along the way, teams convince themselves that visibility equals impact.
It does not.
In complex B2B buying, nobody buys because they saw your logo in the trade press. They buy because choosing you feels safe, defensible, and sensible to the people who have to put their names against the decision.
PR only works when it reduces risk. When it does not, it becomes noise.
What PR is actually for in B2B
PR is not about announcements or press releases (I am not even sure journalists read them anymore). It is not about share of voice. It is not about chasing journalists for coverage.
In our world, PR exists to build external credibility that buyers can borrow internally.
When a deal is live, buying group members are quietly asking themselves variations of:
Are these people legitimate?
Do they understand our world?
Have others trusted them before?
Would I look foolish defending this choice internally?
This aligns closely with buying group research from Gartner, which shows that deals stall far more often due to lack of confidence and consensus than lack of information. PR contributes to what Gartner calls sense making. It helps groups align around whether a decision feels safe.
So from that viewpoint, PR is another tool in the arsenal that helps do that job.
PR is not the same as media relations
One reason PR disappoints is because it is often reduced to media relations alone.
It actually includes:
Media commentary
Executive visibility
Analyst relations
Third party validation
Consistent narrative across external touchpoints
Media coverage is just one output. Credibility is the outcome.
You can get plenty of coverage and still be ignored in deals if what you say sounds generic, inconsistent, or self-congratulatory.
Why most B2B PR fails
Most B2B PR fails in predictable ways.
It sounds like marketing
It talks about the company, not the problem
It overclaims and underexplains
It avoids trade-offs and reality
It focuses on announcements that only matter to that firm, rather than insight for anybody else
This is why buyers skim it or ignore it entirely. They are not looking for promotion. They are looking for reassurance.
Research from the Edelman Trust Barometer consistently shows that people trust expertise, transparency, and third-party validation far more than corporate messaging. PR that feels polished but empty actively erodes trust.
What is actually newsworthy in B2B
Most B2B companies are not newsworthy because they exist. They become newsworthy when they help others make sense of change.
What journalists and buyers actually care about:
What is changing in the market?
What is breaking or no longer working?
What leaders are seeing that others are missing?
What trade-offs organizations are facing?
What mistakes are being repeated?
This is why commentary outperforms announcements. Insight travels further than information.
If your PR plan is built around what you want to say rather than what your market is struggling to understand, it will not perform. It simply adds to the plethora of noise that is already out there.
Credibility is built through consistency, not volume
Buyers do not remember one article. They remember patterns.
This is where mental availability matters. Research from the B2B Institute shows that brands grow by being consistently associated with specific problems and outcomes over time.
Effective PR reinforces the same story across:
Executive interviews
Bylined articles
Panel appearances
Analyst commentary
Partner quotes
If each appearance tells a slightly different version of who you are, or if different executives say conflicting things, you are not building credibility, you are creating friction.
Reality check
If your CEO sounds visionary, your CTO sounds tactical, your PR agency sounds promotional, and your sales team sounds defensive, buyers will trust none of them.
How PR actually supports live deals
PR will never close deals directly, of course, but bad PR can lose it.
It can make sales conversations easier.
Good PR helps when:
Prospects already recognize your name
Stakeholders reference your perspective unprompted
Objections sound familiar rather than hostile
Sales spends less time proving legitimacy
This aligns with Forrester guidance on executive thought leadership, which emphasizes that credibility shortens evaluation cycles by reducing perceived risk.
PR works best when sales does not have to explain it.
How to tell if your PR is building credibility
If you want a simple diagnostic, ask these questions:
Would a journalist describe us as experts in one specific thing?
Do our leaders sound consistent across interviews?
Does sales ever forward this coverage without being asked?
Would a cautious buyer feel safer after reading this?
If the answer is no, the issue is not distribution it is a lack of substance.
How to measure PR without pretending attribution
PR does not lend itself to last click attribution and pretending otherwise damages its credibility internally.
Avoid over relying on:
Raw coverage volume
Share of voice without context
Generic sentiment scores
Last click revenue models
Instead, look for signals that confidence is forming:
Sales referencing coverage in meetings
Increased inbound credibility rather than inbound volume
Faster movement through late-stage objections
Analyst inclusion and citation
Executives being sought out for perspective
PR should be discussed in the language of influence, not performance marketing.
The simple rule to remember
PR in B2B is not about being visible. It is about being believable.
If your PR helps buyers feel safer choosing you and helps sales spend less time proving legitimacy, it is working. If it just fills a coverage report, it is not. Especially if you don’t actually recognise the publications who picked up your press release verbatim.
Call to action
Audit your last six months of PR and ask one hard question.
If a cautious buyer read this, would they feel more confident choosing us?
If the answer is unclear, stop producing more content and fix the narrative first.
Decide what you want to be trusted for.
Ensure your leaders sound consistent.
Prioritize insight over announcements.
Measure confidence, not clicks.
If you want help turning PR into a credibility engine rather than a coverage machine, get in touch and we will introduce you to people who genuinely know what good looks like.
In my experience, most PR underperforms for one simple reason. It is built to generate coverage, not influence.
Press releases go out. Coverage appears. Logos get dropped into decks. Somewhere along the way, teams convince themselves that visibility equals impact.
It does not.
In complex B2B buying, nobody buys because they saw your logo in the trade press. They buy because choosing you feels safe, defensible, and sensible to the people who have to put their names against the decision.
PR only works when it reduces risk. When it does not, it becomes noise.
What PR is actually for in B2B
PR is not about announcements or press releases (I am not even sure journalists read them anymore). It is not about share of voice. It is not about chasing journalists for coverage.
In our world, PR exists to build external credibility that buyers can borrow internally.
When a deal is live, buying group members are quietly asking themselves variations of:
Are these people legitimate?
Do they understand our world?
Have others trusted them before?
Would I look foolish defending this choice internally?
This aligns closely with buying group research from Gartner, which shows that deals stall far more often due to lack of confidence and consensus than lack of information. PR contributes to what Gartner calls sense making. It helps groups align around whether a decision feels safe.
So from that viewpoint, PR is another tool in the arsenal that helps do that job.
PR is not the same as media relations
One reason PR disappoints is because it is often reduced to media relations alone.
It actually includes:
Media commentary
Executive visibility
Analyst relations
Third party validation
Consistent narrative across external touchpoints
Media coverage is just one output. Credibility is the outcome.
You can get plenty of coverage and still be ignored in deals if what you say sounds generic, inconsistent, or self-congratulatory.
Why most B2B PR fails
Most B2B PR fails in predictable ways.
It sounds like marketing
It talks about the company, not the problem
It overclaims and underexplains
It avoids trade-offs and reality
It focuses on announcements that only matter to that firm, rather than insight for anybody else
This is why buyers skim it or ignore it entirely. They are not looking for promotion. They are looking for reassurance.
Research from the Edelman Trust Barometer consistently shows that people trust expertise, transparency, and third-party validation far more than corporate messaging. PR that feels polished but empty actively erodes trust.
What is actually newsworthy in B2B
Most B2B companies are not newsworthy because they exist. They become newsworthy when they help others make sense of change.
What journalists and buyers actually care about:
What is changing in the market?
What is breaking or no longer working?
What leaders are seeing that others are missing?
What trade-offs organizations are facing?
What mistakes are being repeated?
This is why commentary outperforms announcements. Insight travels further than information.
If your PR plan is built around what you want to say rather than what your market is struggling to understand, it will not perform. It simply adds to the plethora of noise that is already out there.
Credibility is built through consistency, not volume
Buyers do not remember one article. They remember patterns.
This is where mental availability matters. Research from the B2B Institute shows that brands grow by being consistently associated with specific problems and outcomes over time.
Effective PR reinforces the same story across:
Executive interviews
Bylined articles
Panel appearances
Analyst commentary
Partner quotes
If each appearance tells a slightly different version of who you are, or if different executives say conflicting things, you are not building credibility, you are creating friction.
Reality check
If your CEO sounds visionary, your CTO sounds tactical, your PR agency sounds promotional, and your sales team sounds defensive, buyers will trust none of them.
How PR actually supports live deals
PR will never close deals directly, of course, but bad PR can lose it.
It can make sales conversations easier.
Good PR helps when:
Prospects already recognize your name
Stakeholders reference your perspective unprompted
Objections sound familiar rather than hostile
Sales spends less time proving legitimacy
This aligns with Forrester guidance on executive thought leadership, which emphasizes that credibility shortens evaluation cycles by reducing perceived risk.
PR works best when sales does not have to explain it.
How to tell if your PR is building credibility
If you want a simple diagnostic, ask these questions:
Would a journalist describe us as experts in one specific thing?
Do our leaders sound consistent across interviews?
Does sales ever forward this coverage without being asked?
Would a cautious buyer feel safer after reading this?
If the answer is no, the issue is not distribution it is a lack of substance.
How to measure PR without pretending attribution
PR does not lend itself to last click attribution and pretending otherwise damages its credibility internally.
Avoid over relying on:
Raw coverage volume
Share of voice without context
Generic sentiment scores
Last click revenue models
Instead, look for signals that confidence is forming:
Sales referencing coverage in meetings
Increased inbound credibility rather than inbound volume
Faster movement through late-stage objections
Analyst inclusion and citation
Executives being sought out for perspective
PR should be discussed in the language of influence, not performance marketing.
The simple rule to remember
PR in B2B is not about being visible. It is about being believable.
If your PR helps buyers feel safer choosing you and helps sales spend less time proving legitimacy, it is working. If it just fills a coverage report, it is not. Especially if you don’t actually recognise the publications who picked up your press release verbatim.
Call to action
Audit your last six months of PR and ask one hard question.
If a cautious buyer read this, would they feel more confident choosing us?
If the answer is unclear, stop producing more content and fix the narrative first.
Decide what you want to be trusted for.
Ensure your leaders sound consistent.
Prioritize insight over announcements.
Measure confidence, not clicks.
If you want help turning PR into a credibility engine rather than a coverage machine, get in touch and we will introduce you to people who genuinely know what good looks like.
Content
Feb 8, 2026
Content
