Spotlight on B2B Marketing

Welcome to Spotlight on B2B Marketing. Join me as we embark on a journey through the ever-evolving landscape of B2B marketing, featuring engaging interviews with industry leaders and C-suite decision-makers. Listen as we uncover the strategies, insights, and success stories where marketing has helped to drive revenue, innovation, and growth in the exciting B2B space.

Spotlight on B2B Marketing is a business podcast hosted by Karen Lloyd, with 41 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Karen Lloyd hosts Spotlight on B2B Marketing, a business show with 41 episodes published.

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  Episode #41

  Why Great Marketing Is Built on Honesty, Not Hacks with Emma Davies & Ruta Sudmantaite

  Aug 18, 202638 minS1

  There's no silver bullet in marketing. No quick win, no hack, no one dashboard that fixes everything. Marketing leaders know that. The hard part is getting a CEO chasing this quarter's numbers to believe it too. In this episode of Spotlight on B2B Marketing, host Karen Lloyd is joined by Emma Davies, Founder of Advocitude and CEO of Thesmia.ai, and Ruta Sudmantaite, Fractional CMO at Sudmant, two fractional CMOs who have built their careers on telling founders what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. Between them they've been part of successful B2B SaaS exits, and their unfiltered marketing takes have made their podcast, Blame It on Marketing, a favourite with senior marketers who want the truth over the theory. Emma and Ruta share real case studies on connecting disparate marketing data ahead of an exit, what happens to inbound demand when a business switches its marketing budget off overnight, and why treating other fractional marketers as collaborators rather than competitors has been core to how they've built their careers. What You'll Learn in This Episode: ✔️ Why there are so few genuine quick wins in B2B marketing ✔️ How to build a business case for data investment when founders want to hear something else ✔️ What happens to inbound demand when marketing spend is switched off ✔️ Why word of mouth is never really a free channel ✔️ How to use podcasting as a hero piece of content for demand generation ✔️ What makes a client relationship worth taking on, and when to walk away ✔️ How to build the resilience needed to work for yourself long term Emma and Ruta's honest, first-hand account offers a masterclass as Fractional CMOs in building marketing that lasts, without the shortcuts. Connect with Emma and Ruta Brought to you by Armstrong Lloyd - your go-to solution for recruiting marketing, sales, and business leaders in B2B. Want to know more? Discover more at armstronglloyd.co.uk

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  Episode #40

  Leave Your Ego at the Door: The Sales and Marketing Partnership that Disrupted an Industry with Patrick Pordage and Steve Bell

  Aug 4, 202641 minS1

  A Mini Cooper convertible. A surgical robot strapped in the back. And a photographer sworn to secrecy. In this episode of Spotlight on B2B Marketing, host Karen Lloyd is joined by Patrick Pordage, former Head of Marketing and Steve Bell, former Chief Commercial Officer at CMR Surgical, to share the real story behind one of the most disruptive challenger brands in surgical robotics. Taking on a competitor with 100% market share, on a fraction of the budget, Patrick and Steve rebuilt the entire commercial model from the ground up, treating sales and marketing as one function rather than two. From a BBC launch that reached over 100 million people, to a velvet rope strategy that made surgeons desperate to get into the room, this is an unfiltered account of the bold decisions, the friction, and the commercial results that followed. What You'll Learn in This Episode: ✔️ How a shared mission aligned an entire company, from the CEO to the factory floor ✔️ Why leaving ego out of disagreements is what makes a sales and marketing partnership work ✔️ How deliberate exclusivity created a "brand of desire" among key customers ✔️ Why B2B buyers are consumers first, and post-rationalise their decisions with data afterwards ✔️ Why incentivising a commercial team on customer happiness, not commission, changed the culture This episode is the second in our sales and marketing mini-series. Whether you're a marketer trying to prove your value, a commercial leader wanting more from your marketing team, or a business tired of playing it safe, this one is for you. - Connect with Patrick on LinkedIn - Connect with Steve on LinkedIn Brought to you by Armstrong Lloyd - your go-to solution for recruiting marketing, sales, and business leaders in B2B. Want to know more? Discover more at armstronglloyd.co.uk

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  Episode #39

  Stop the Blame Game: How Sales and Marketing Can Win Together with Nick Jones & Max Childs

  Jul 22, 202632 minS1

  What can happen when sales and marketing stop pointing fingers and start working as one team? In this episode of Spotlight on B2B Marketing, host Karen Lloyd is joined by Nick Jones, founder of Glendower Advisory, and Max Childs, Fractional Marketing Director, to explore just that. Nick and Max discuss their journey at Lucidworks where they took an EMEA pipeline that was close to zero to a record year with 250% growth. No theory, no framework, just the decisions, the near misses, and the culture shift that made it happen. What You'll Learn in This Episode: ✔️ The commercial results of getting sales and marketing to work as one team ✔️ Why asking "why" matters more than chasing the numbers ✔️ How a blame-free culture turned a frustrated team into top performers ✔️ Why logos from one region often mean nothing to buyers in another ✔️ How a single clause in a master contract was quietly killing case study opportunities ✔️ Why the team pivoted from B2C e-commerce search to B2B manufacturing ✔️ How to tell the difference between the wrong leads and the wrong market ✔️ Why one big trade show will never be enough to build a market presence - Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or find out more about Glendower Advisory - Connect with Max on LinkedIn or find out more about Technology Marketing Europe About the Host: Karen Lloyd is the host of Spotlight On B2B Marketing and Managing Director of Armstrong Lloyd, a specialist sales and marketing headhunting firm. To discuss your hiring needs of the current market, contact Karen at karen@armstronglloyd.co.uk Connect with Karen on LinkedIn Brought to you by Armstrong Lloyd - your go-to solution for recruiting marketing, sales, and business leaders in B2B. Want to know more? Discover more at armstronglloyd.co.uk

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  Episode #38

  How Smaller Businesses Beat Bigger Competitors with Gareth Lockwood

  Jul 6, 202634 minS1

  What does a Chief Product and Technology Officer know about marketing? More than you might expect. And that is exactly the point of this episode. Host Karen Lloyd is joined by Gareth Lockwood, Chief Product and Technology Officer at TrustLayer, a scale-up cybersecurity firm, to explore why siloed thinking between marketing, sales and channel quietly kills commercial performance, even when every team is working hard. Gareth shares what it really takes for smaller businesses to compete and win against far bigger, better-funded rivals. The thread running through this conversation is simple but powerful: small companies do not beat large companies by copying them. They beat them by changing the game. And the only way they can change the game is when product, marketing, sales, customer success and partners all move together. What You'll Learn in This Episode: ✔️ Why siloed marketing, sales and channel teams create activity but not momentum ✔️ How "positioning debt" builds up inside growing tech businesses and what it costs you ✔️ Why marketing sets the commercial North Star, not just the creative output ✔️ What a minimum viable go-to-market plan looks like in practice ✔️ Why smaller companies should never try to out-Goliath Goliath ✔️ How to win on speed, simplicity and focus against bigger, better-funded competitors ✔️ Why partner-led growth is the smartest route for smaller tech companies right now ✔️ How the partner marketing model is shifting from resale to co-selling, influence and integration Connect with Gareth on LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/garethlockwood/ or find out more about TrustLayer at trustlayer.co.uk About the Host: Karen Lloyd is the host of Spotlight On B2B Marketing and Managing Director of Armstrong Lloyd, a specialist sales and marketing headhunting firm. To discuss your hiring needs of the current market, contact Karen at karen@armstronglloyd.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lloydkaren/ Brought to you by Armstrong Lloyd - your go-to solution for recruiting marketing, sales, and business leaders in B2B. Want to know more? Discover more at armstronglloyd.co.uk

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  Episode #37

  Why You Must Prove Your Value or Lose a Seat at the Table as a B2B Marketer with David Rowlands

  Jun 9, 202631 minS1

  The pressure on B2B marketers to prove commercial value has been building for years. But what does it actually take to step up, earn a seat at the board table, and lead marketing as a genuine revenue driver? In this episode of Spotlight on B2B Marketing, host Karen Lloyd is joined by David Rowlands, Head of Product at B2B Marketing, providers of Propolis, the go-to community and intelligence platform for B2B marketers globally. Propolis has spent hundreds of hours in real conversations with senior B2B marketers to understand what is keeping marketing leaders up at night, and the result is a framework they call the Commercial Marketer. David shares the research behind that framework, what the six skills of a commercial marketer actually are, and why financial acumen is the single widest gap holding B2B marketers back right now. He also gives a direct assessment of what the next 12 months hold: two paths, and a clear warning about what happens to those who sit still. What You'll Learn in This Episode: ✔️ Why the pressure on B2B marketers has reached a critical mass and what is driving it ✔️ What the commercial marketer framework is and why it matters now ✔️ The six skills every B2B marketing leader needs to operate as a commercial function ✔️ Why AI amplifies a poor strategy as easily as a good one ✔️ How the best marketers are using AI to rebuild their function, not just produce more content ✔️ The two paths marketers face in the next 12 months and what each one means for your career Find out more about Propolis and connect with David on LinkedIn About the Host: Karen Lloyd is the host of Spotlight On B2B Marketing and Managing Director of Armstrong Lloyd, a specialist sales and marketing headhunting firm. To discuss your hiring needs of the current market, contact Karen at karen@armstronglloyd.co.uk Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lloydkaren/ Brought to you by Armstrong Lloyd - your go-to solution for recruiting marketing, sales, and business leaders in B2B. Want to know more? Discover more at armstronglloyd.co.uk

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