PODCAST · business
Trust & Influence in B2B
by Joel Harrison
I’m Joel Harrison, founder of B2B Marketing.net (formerly B2B Marketing magazine) Propolis and the B2B Marketing Awards. It’s been my mission for the past 21 years to recognise, celebrate and evangelise for the amazing profession that is B2B marketing, which has evolved beyond that recognition in that time.In this podcast, I’ll be exploring what I believe is the biggest challenge facing B2B marketers today: Trust. Buyers have always been cynical, hard to reach and even harder to convince, and increasingly expect to be self-directed in their research. In other words, they only want to engage with you on their terms. As if that wasn't bad enough, media and content channels are fragmented whilst AI is opening the floodgates to a tidalwave of content of questionable quality and veracity. It all adds up to a crisis of trust in B2B. In this podcast, I'll be interviewing innovative and inspirational marketers in the front line of addressing this challenge, providing deep insights into the
Episodes
-
Is a lack of ‘commercial credibility’ the Achilles heel of B2B brands in the sales conversation? | Lorraine Emmett of Emmett & Churchman on ‘The Trust Advantage'
Here's an uncomfortable idea for any B2B business competing for a high-value deal: your biggest competitor may not be a better business. It may simply be one that's easier to believe. That's the starting point for the second year of the Trust Advantage research from Emmett & Churchman, which...
-
How to win trust in ABM's biggest deals
Why AI makes human experiences more valuable, not less, with Claire Ellis of JPC ABM was supposed to be about relationships. As AI makes targeting and personalisation cheap and abundant, the thing ABM was meant to build in the first place, trust with the people who actually decide, has become the...
-
Everyone's talking about BGM, but how do you measure maturity? | Analysis from Pretzl's new Buying Group Index
Everyone's talking about buyer group marketing. Far fewer are doing it well, and most organisations have no reliable way of knowing how mature their approach really is. For this sponsored episode, Joel Harrison is joined by Greg Salmon, CEO of Pretzl, and Jeff Lowe, Pretzl's go-to-market advisor...
-
B2B nostalgia: how and when to go retro in your campaigns | Five creative approaches from the B2B Marketing Awards entries, with Guy O'Brien of Custom Influence
Nostalgia sells everything from trainers to TV reboots, yet it barely registers in B2B marketing. To find out why, Joel Harrison went through three years of B2B Marketing Awards entries in search of the exceptions, and invited Guy O'Brien, co-founder of B2B influencer marketing agency Custom...
-
Think you control the buyer journey? Think again... | Why LLMs and influencers are in the driving seat, with John Rockhold of Spotlight
The winning vendor is usually already on the buyer's shortlist before a single sales conversation happens, and increasingly, it isn't a salesperson or a website that put them there. It's a large language model, quietly checking what real people are already saying about you. John Rockhold, VP of...
-
Automating judgment, not just tasks | Michelle Huff on building AI trust the way you'd onboard a new hire
Every B2B vendor now has an AI story. Michelle Huff, Chief Marketing Officer at Alteryx, argues that's exactly the problem: when everyone makes the same promise, positioning around AI stops being a differentiator and becomes table stakes. Michelle brings more than 25 years leading marketing and...
-
Before 'sleeping giant' Iron Mountain got loud, it had to be believed | CMO Karen Feldman on earning that trust
Iron Mountain is nearly 75 years old, built on physical records storage, and structured as a real estate investment trust — known for most of its history for warehouses and shredding trucks, not brand campaigns. Then Karen Feldman arrived as the company's first-ever Chief Marketing Officer. Karen...
-
Finally! A replacement for NPS... or is it? | How Tony Larks hacked Bain & Co's groundbreaking 'shortlist score'
NPS has survived more obituaries than almost any other metric in B2B marketing — and it's still standing. Bain & Co.'s newest research doesn't try to kill it off again; it argues the real predictor of B2B growth is something else entirely: whether a vendor makes a buyer's 'day one' shortlist, the...
-
Why influencer skills are becoming essential for B2B CMOs | With Archana Dhankar of Proofpoint
Most B2B marketing leaders aren't short on expertise — they're short on the confidence and the practised skill to be visible with it, whether that's in the room with their own board or out in public. Archana Dhankar, VP Marketing EMEA at Proofpoint, TEDx speaker and LinkedIn Top Voice, joins Joel...
-
From the moshpit to the marketing plan | What a decade in the music business taught Jason Miller about attention in B2B
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Jason Miller, who leads content and marketing at V7 Labs and previously held senior content marketing roles at LinkedIn, Marketo and ActiveCampaign. Before B2B, Jason spent a decade in the music industry —…
more -
Stop trying to please everyone! | Karl Van den Bergh of Illumio on why consistency, not consensus, is what earns trust in B2B
Most leadership advice pushes you toward a familiar template: decisive, diplomatic, endlessly composed. It's meant to build trust. Often it does the opposite – because trust depends on people actually knowing who you are, not the version of you assembled to fit expectations. In this episode of...
-
Employee voices drown out brand voices in B2B – so how do you orchestrate them? Rida Oyebade of Workday on employee advocacy
Why is employee advocacy so often mistaken for a content strategy? Rida Oyebade, Senior Social Media Manager at Workday, explains why handing employees “ready-made content” isn’t enough — advocacy only works when it still sounds like the person sharing it, not the brand behind them. In this…
more -
Growth, creativity and trust: the B2B story of Cannes Lions 2026
In this special edition of Trust & Influence in B2B, Joel Harrison is joined by Fiona McKenzie of Marketbridge to make sense of Cannes Lions 2026. Fresh from five days of multi-stream content, installations and fringe events, they let the dust settle and distil what actually matters for B2B...
-
The deal is won before you're in the room | Why the recommended choice now beats the visible one, with Lottie O'Donoghue from Velo
Most of the conversations that decide a B2B deal happen in a room you'll never be in. Buyers swap recommendations, compare notes and build their shortlists in spaces marketers can neither see nor measure – and by the time you're in contention, the decision is often half made. In this episode of...
-
Why lead gen is still B2B's trust free zone | How blind faith and 'tolerable mischief' underpins a global industry, with Robin Caller of Leadscale
Lead generation is the discipline B2B marketing relies on most and trusts least. In this episode of Trust & Influence in B2B, Robin Caller, founder and CEO of Leadscale, explains why, and what it would take to fix it. Most people in B2B know that a good share of the leads changing hands every day...
-
Stop claiming you're the best! AI will mark you down for it | Tom Rudnai on winning influence in the age of Dark AI
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Tom Rudnai, Founder of Demand Genius and author of the Dark AI study — a research project that analyzed hundreds of AI prompt clusters across major B2B categories to map where brands are truly winning and losing...
-
Why Replacing Junior Marketers With AI Is a False Economy | Professor Laura Chamberlain on Next-Gen Talent
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Professor Laura Chamberlain, Professor of Marketing at the University of Warwick and Founder of Think Talk Thrive. They tackle one of the most pressing questions in the profession right now: Do we still need...
-
What Access Group Learned from a Year on the AI Bus | Kate Hassler's Inside Track on How a $9 Billion B2B Software Powerhouse Has Made AI Business as Usual
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Kate Hassler, Group Director of Brand and Comms at Access Group—a $9 billion global B2B software company serving 160,000 customers across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. While headlines scream of AI-driven...
-
B2B Tech Marketing's Human-First Future in The Age of AI | Exclusive Insights from B2B Marketing Awards Data, Focusing on Four Key Trends, with Tejal Patel
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Tejal Patel, Independent Marketing Consultant and former marketing leader at Cisco, Microsoft, and Nokia. Together, they examine how B2B technology marketing is changing as AI reshapes content creation and…
more -
Best in show B2B | Why The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is blooming for Addleshaw Goddard's full-funnel campaign, with Brian Macreadie
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Brian Macreadie, Head of Marketing at Addleshaw Goddard, one of the UK's most creatively ambitious international law firms. Brian reveals how his team did something no legal firm had ever done before—becoming…
more -
Why Data is Still The Achilles Heel of B2B Marketing | Trust in Data Remains at Rock-Bottom for Enterprises — Maureen Blandford Explains What Marketers Can Do About It
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Maureen Blandford, Founder of Serendipitas and co-author of the Diginomica Enterprise Data Health Study. Together, they expose one of B2B marketing's most uncomfortable truths: that senior leaders across major...
-
The Four Pillars of Success in The Agentic AI Era: Governance, Judgement, Taste and Orchestration | With Angela Tangas of Oliver
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Angela Tangas, CEO of Oliver, part of the Brandtech Group—the original pioneers of the in-house agency model. Together, they tackle one of the most urgent questions facing B2B marketing leaders right now: how do...
-
Is PE killing the B2B ROI imperative? | Nick Eades on what PE-backed marketing teaches the rest of B2B
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Nick Eades, Chief Strategy Officer at Freemarket and one of B2B marketing's most experienced senior leaders, having served as CMO five times across PE-backed, publicly quoted, and VC-funded businesses at…
more -
Chaos is B2B's problem. Coherence is the answer | Why B2B marketers need to fix their operating model, with Alastair Hussain of TMP
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Alastair Hussain, Chief Strategy Officer at TMP (The Marketing Practice), a specialist B2B marketing agency. Together, they confront one of the most pressing realities in B2B marketing today: the chaos most...
-
Is fractional the future — or a warning sign? | Skip Fidura on what the rise of the fractional CMO really tells us about B2B marketing
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Skip Fidura, Fractional CMO, Non-Executive Director, and Board Advisor with over 20 years of experience across B2B and B2C marketing on the client, agency, and provider sides. The fractional CMO model is having…
more -
When AI agents handle your B2B buyers, who owns trust?
Agentic AI is one of the most talked-about developments in B2B right now — but most marketers haven't yet asked the question that matters most: what happens to buyer trust when an AI agent starts acting on their behalf? In this episode, Joel Harrison speaks with Andy Johnson, founder and director...
-
The Advocacy Gap: The huge missed opportunity of employee voices in B2B campaigns
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Robyn Hartley, Managing Director at Paper Kite Media. Drawing on a rigorous analysis of B2B Marketing Awards entries, they expose the uncomfortable truth behind employee advocacy: most brands are deploying it as...
-
Trust: the antidote to machine-gunned AI slop | Why AI's content explosion is putting humanity at the forefront, with Phil Treagus-Evans
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Phil Treagus-Evans, Co-founder and CEO at Giraffe Social. Phil discusses his 2025 book, "Human First Marketing," which provides a framework for putting people back at the center of marketing strategy during a…
more -
Inside influencer marketing: the most powerful tool you're probably not using (yet) | Five trends driving success, based on B2B Marketing Awards case studies
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Kristen Esto, Founder of Customer Influence, a specialist influencer and creator marketing agency. They explore what the data actually tells us about how influencer marketing works in B2B—and what it reveals…
more -
Breaking down marketing's closed door | Why widening access makes marketing better for everyone, with Martin Troughton of the Marketing Skills Trust
Marketing is often described as a profession that welcomes everyone. The reality is rather different. Entry still depends too heavily on who you know, which school you attended, and whether marketing even appeared on your radar as a viable career path. For many people — particularly those from...
-
From openness to insularity | Insights from Edelman's Trust Barometer on why trust is retreating and what B2B marketers must do about it
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Andrew Mildren, MD of Edelman Business Marketing for EMEA, to dig into the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer — based on nearly 34,000 responses across 28 countries. The headline finding is sobering: 70% of people...
-
Resourcing, recruitment and responsibilities | How trust is defining new models for teams and roles for individuals - with Jon Watton and Tom Howe
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Jon Watton, Fractional CMO and experienced B2B tech marketing leader, and Tom Howe from Jefferson Group, to explore one of the most pressing issues facing the industry: the future of B2B marketing roles, team...
-
Thought Leaders, Influencers and Advocates | Introducing the B2B Matrix of Influence
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Katy Howell, Founder and CEO of Immediate Future, a social media agency she has led since 2004. Together, they tackle one of B2B marketing's most persistent blind spots: the difference between thought leaders,...
-
Thought leadership's great leap forward | Five trends illustrating TL's emergence as a dynamic, full-funnel marketing discipline - with Rob Mitchell of Exhibit-B
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Rob Mitchell, Co-Founder of Exhibit-B and former CEO of FT Longitude. Together, they explore how thought leadership is undergoing a dramatic transformation, evolving from a traditional top-of-funnel…
more -
Martech integration isn't a tech problem – it's a trust problem | Why the most persistent challenge is human, not technical, with insights from the Mosaic thinktank
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Adam Sharp, CEO and Co-founder of Clever Touch, Robert Nicholson, Digital Marketing Director at Robert Walters, and Alec Weeks from Clever Touch. Together, they tackle one of B2B marketing's most persistent...
-
From -10 to +63 NPS: How Mitie Used Brand Purpose to Win Hearts and Minds | Maria Winn on a Trust-led Transformation
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Maria Winn, Chief Marketing Officer at Mitie, the UK's leading facilities management company. They explore how Mitie transformed from a -10 NPS to +63 NPS through authentic brand purpose. What does it take to…
more -
Trust & Influence in B2B Trailer
B2B marketing faces a growing trust and attention crisis as buyers are overwhelmed by content and AI-driven noise. Hosted by Joel Harrison, a long-time B2B advocate and founder of B2B Marketing Magazine, the podcast focuses on how trust and influence are truly built in modern B2B. Through...
-
Experiences, relationships and craftsmanship | Jon Miller (Marketo founder) on building trust in the age of AI slop
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Jon Miller, co-founder of Marketo and Engagio, and one of the most influential figures in modern B2B marketing. Jon literally helped create the demand generation playbook that defined an entire era of marketing...
-
The $6 trillion opportunity: how western B2B brands can thrive in Japan and Korea | With Robert Heldt of AIM
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Robert Heldt, CEO of AIM B2B, a B2B marketing and PR agency specializing in helping Western companies navigate the Japanese and South Korean markets. With 17 years of experience in Japan and a new office opening...
-
Trust is B2B currency but how do we measure it? | A review of FT's 'Trust Gap' report with Paul Collier of Funnel Fuel
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Paul Collier, CMO at Funnel Fuel and a serial B2B marketing leader who's worked with Fortune 50 tech companies. They unpack the FT's landmark "Bridging the Trust Gap" report, which reveals that companies…
more -
Why fake reviews are the latest B2B trust crisis | Daniel Mohacek of Truth Engine on combating 'negbombing' and how to avoid hefty fines
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Daniel Mohacek, Founder and CEO at Truth Engine, a company building technology to detect fake reviews at scale. Daniel has spent 25 years in digital marketing, including time at Yahoo in its early days and...
-
Why trust is a critical innovation enabler in B2B | Carla Johnson on the power of high-trust teams
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Carla Johnson, a globally recognized marketing and innovation strategist, speaker, and author of Rethink Innovation. Carla has helped some of the world's top B2B brands—from Emerson and Dell to Intel—reimagine…
more -
B2B Events Take Centre-Stage | Why events are now the headline act For GTM - with Felicia Asiedu of Cvent
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Felicia Asiedu, European Marketing Director at Cvent, a global leader in event technology. Together, they explore a critical shift happening in B2B marketing right now: the move from treating events as one-off...
-
Only 9% of B2B orgs are confident in their growth targets – here's why | Teresa Allan on bridging the GTM Confidence Gap
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Teresa Allan, Managing Partner at Magnus Consulting, to explore a striking disconnect in B2B leadership: only 9% of commercial leaders feel highly confident about hitting their 2026 growth targets, yet over half...
-
Trust is not fluffy - it's the strategic foundation for B2B growth | With Kate Mackie from EY
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Kate Mackie, Partner at EY and author of "B2B Marketing Fundamentals." Kate has over 20 years of experience leading global marketing initiatives across both agency and client-side roles. She's a Fellow of the...
-
Pretzl: A New Recipe for B2B Agencies? | Clive Armitage on a Five-Into-One Merger with AI Baked In
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Clive Armitage, CEO of Pretzl, to discuss one of the most significant transformations in the B2B agency landscape. Clive shares the inside story of how five established Next 15-owned agencies—Agent3, Together,...
-
Beyond Gen AI - What Agentic Intelligence Means for Your Insight Function with Eddie O'Brien from Sage
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Eddie O'Brien, Senior Director of Global Customer Insight at Sage. Together, they explore the transformative shift happening in market research and customer insight—moving beyond generative AI into the world of...
-
From Pyramid to Constellation? The evolution of the B2B agency operating model | With Stuart Giddings of Beettoo
Based on the podcast transcript, here's the revised episode description: Episode Description In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Stuart Giddings, CEO and co-founder of Beettoo, a new generation B2B agency built on flexible talent models and...
-
From Colouring Books to Billboards - The Story of AVK's Brand refresh | With Guiseppe Caltabiano
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Giuseppe Caltabiano, Senior Director of Marketing at AVK. Together, they explore the fascinating journey of how AVK transformed from a niche data center energy provider into a bold, memorable brand that's…
more -
Why ABM success depends upon trust in account selection | Dan Shaw of Funnel Fuel on building foundations for ABM excellence
In this episode of Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison sits down with Dan Shaw, CEO at Funnel Fuel. Together, they tackle one of the most overlooked yet critical aspects of Account-Based Marketing: account selection. While ABM has become a cornerstone strategy for B2B marketers…
more
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
I’m Joel Harrison, founder of B2B Marketing.net (formerly B2B Marketing magazine) Propolis and the B2B Marketing Awards. It’s been my mission for the past 21 years to recognise, celebrate and evangelise for the amazing profession that is B2B marketing, which has evolved beyond that recognition in that time.In this podcast, I’ll be exploring what I believe is the biggest challenge facing B2B marketers today: Trust. Buyers have always been cynical, hard to reach and even harder to convince, and increasingly expect to be self-directed in their research. In other words, they only want to engage with you on their terms. As if that wasn't bad enough, media and content channels are fragmented whilst AI is opening the floodgates to a tidalwave of content of questionable quality and veracity. It all adds up to a crisis of trust in B2B. In this podcast, I'll be interviewing innovative and inspirational marketers in the front line of addressing this challenge, providing deep insights into the
HOSTED BY
Joel Harrison
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Trust & Influence in B2B have?
Trust & Influence in B2B currently has 78 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Trust & Influence in B2B about?
I’m Joel Harrison, founder of B2B Marketing.net (formerly B2B Marketing magazine) Propolis and the B2B Marketing Awards. It’s been my mission for the past 21 years to recognise, celebrate and evangelise for the amazing profession that is B2B marketing, which has evolved beyond that recognition in...
How often does Trust & Influence in B2B release new episodes?
Trust & Influence in B2B has 78 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Trust & Influence in B2B?
You can listen to Trust & Influence in B2B on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Trust & Influence in B2B?
Trust & Influence in B2B is created and hosted by Joel Harrison.
URL copied to clipboard!