There’s a moment in many companies when the marketing playbook stops working. Leads pile up. Sales throws up its hands. The C-suite wants answers. In this episode of The Midgame Mindset, Rich Bishop sits down with Tanya and Tony Thorson — a hybrid duo who wrote Get Off Your Mass to explain why the old divide between B2C and B2B no longer matters. Their thesis is simple and urgent: the buyer is human, and business must become B2A — business to anyone.
Why B2A matters
For decades, marketers drew hard lines between consumer-facing tactics and enterprise selling. Tanya spent 20 years in retail apparel and merchandising; Tony runs a precision gauge distribution business. Together they’ve watched those lines blur. Amazon, social media and on-demand content have taught buyers to research, self-educate, and buy on their own rhythms. As Tanya says, “A person doesn’t transform at 8:59 a.m. and then again at 5:01 p.m. They’re the same human all day long.” That human is the common denominator across B2C and B2B — and that realization is the seed of B2A.
Buyer-led, not product-led
One of the most important reframes from their conversation is the switch from product-led thinking to buyer-led design. In many B2B companies the narrative has been: tell buyers about the product, then close. In B2C, marketers obsess over how the buyer feels and what problem gets solved. Tanya argues this approach must travel to SaaS and enterprise. The result is faster pipelines, better retention, and fewer wasted demos. The Thorsons point out a practical win: when you help buyers self-educate on their timeline, they arrive more qualified and move through the funnel faster.
POISE: A practical operating lens
Tanya and Tony distill their approach into POISE — Personalization, Omnichannel, Innovation, Strategy, and Emotional intelligence. POIS is less a rigid framework and more a compass for behavior.
- Personalization: not just name tokens in email, but meaningful solutions that make a buyer’s job easier. “Personalization in its true sense is not happening,” Tanya says — and that’s where many companies lose trust.
- Omnichannel: be where buyers are — whether that’s TikTok, LinkedIn, email, or a recorded demo at 9 p.m. Recent stats cited in the chat: social platforms like TikTok influence purchase decisions across categories, and ignoring channels is a blind spot.
- Innovation & Strategy: build with one foot in the business fundamentals and the other in new ways to reach people. The Thorsons call this mosaic marketing — assembling “something old, something new, something bold, something true.”
- Emotional intelligence: the human glue. Tony calls it the curiosity crate — the practice of being genuinely interested in customers rather than insisting they be interested in you.
Real business metrics — not vanity metrics
If you want leaders to care, speak P&L. Tanya pushes hard on this: marketing should be judged on revenue impact (pipeline velocity, net new retention, CAC and LTV). “Marketing is fueling revenue, not just making noise,” she says. That perspective forces cross-functional thinking — the cross-functional champion she advocates — so marketing hands leads to sales with skin in the game to close deals and track outcomes.
Why AI won’t replace the human touch
AI will change how we collect and synthesize data. But both guests caution against confusing automation with empathy. Tanya: “AI can do the heavy work, but once the data is there, uncovering what it means is still a human job.” Rich — and many operators — have seen the backlash: slick, bot-driven messages that feel hollow are easy to spot. The lesson: use AI to scale the operational work, then let humans do the interpretation and the relationship-building. Authenticity has real ROI.
Ambassadors, retention and LTV
In retail, Tanya reminded listeners, loyal customers are spokespeople. In B2B, those brand ambassadors translate into case studies, references, and long-term contracts. The temptation to chase logos and new CAC is common. The Thorsons urge balance: “Those customers over there are your ambassadors — they keep the lights on,” Tanya says. Invest in existing customers and you improve LTV, reduce churn, and unlock more scalable growth.
Mosaic marketing and mise-en-marketing
Two memorable metaphors thread through the episode. Mosaic marketing describes building a brand by collecting fragments — old and new tactics, channels, and narratives — into a unified picture. Mise-en-marketing (a playful riff on mise-en-place) is their call for operational readiness: a foundation that lets you pivot without exploding the business. Both ideas underscore a pragmatic truth: frameworks should be flexible and purpose-driven. Know your target outcome, then work backward.
Powerful quotes from the episode
– “A person doesn’t transform at 8:59 a.m. and then again at 5:01 p.m. They’re the same human all day long.” — Tanya Thorson
– “Marketing is fueling revenue, not just making noise.” — Tanya Thorson
– “Get Off Your Mass — stop mass marketing without being human.” — paraphrase of the book’s thesis
– “If it works on you, do that. If it doesn’t work on you, figure out why.” — Tony Thorson on empathy-first marketing
How to apply this in your org (three quick moves)
1) Reframe success metrics: Move beyond lead counts. Align marketing KPIs with pipeline velocity, CAC, and LTV. Make marketing accountable to P&L outcomes.
2) Build a POIS checklist: Test one personalization improvement, expand one new channel intelligently, and add a human-review step for AI-generated outreach.
3) Mobilize ambassadors: Identify three high-value customers and design a referral or case study program that showcases outcomes and reduces acquisition friction.
Where to learn more
Get Off Your Mass is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Read it as a coffee-table book of practical stories and tactical provocations. If you want to connect with the authors or continue the conversation:
Get Off Your Mass – https://a.co/d/edx4SDc
Tanya Thorson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanyathorson/
Tony Thorson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-thorson-96878b10/
StrategiX Consulting: https://strategixconsulting.carrd.co/
Call to action
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Full Episode Transcript:
Introduction to the Midgame Mindset
0:00Stop mass marketing without being human. It’s ironic in today we can reach so many people so easily with so many
0:07messages and yet less and less is landing. It’s really thinking about it more authentically and not focused on getting
0:13659 leads but maybe 65 leads. Welcome to the Midgame mindset. Join us
0:18as we dive into the pivotal moments that shape today’s top sales and marketing leaders, RevOps innovators, and
0:24entrepreneurs. This is where grit meets growth and the game changes for good. If
0:30you find value in this conversation, be sure to share it with another growth leader who would enjoy it. And now,
0:36let’s get to the show. Welcome to the Midgame Mindset. I’m your host, Rich Bishop, and I love it when people with
0:43different backgrounds come together to create something unique and new. And that’s exactly what we’re going to talk
0:49about today. Today’s guests are Tanya and Tony Thorson. Now Tanya is a growth
0:54strategist, a product leader, and she’s got an extensive background in the BTOC
1:00space, working with brands that we all know like LLBAN, New Balance, Jockey,
1:06um, Lans End, and her husband Tony is the managing director of Litec US, which
1:13is a precision gauge manufacturer. And you may think, how do those two things
1:18come together to create something unique? Well, they’ve written the book Get Off Your Mass, which is a new take
Meet Tanya and Tony Thorson
1:25and a new lens on marketing that actually explains a lot of what we’re seeing in the marketplace. So, I’m really looking forward to this
1:31conversation. Tanya, Tony, thank you guys so much for joining. Thank you. Thanks for having us, Rich.
1:38It’s great to have you guys. Now, I hit a couple of the highlights. I’d love to hear a little bit more about you and then we’ll dive more after that into how
1:45the book came about and some of the concepts there. Sure, I’ll start first. So, um, as you
1:51mentioned, Rich, uh, I’ve been in retail apparel, BTOC, and B2B TOC in retail
1:57apparel for about 20 years. I started my career as a merchant. And as a merchant,
2:03you’re responsible for driving new business, if it’s new line extensions,
2:09if it’s new um, you know, new product updates, what have you. And that, um, is
2:15also uh, responsible for the P&L. And so um as a merchant you have this mindset
2:21about how am I going to take care of the customer? How am I going to drive the revenue right? And so as I moved into
2:27marketing that methodology carried with me and I’m not certain that marketing
2:33has get been given that credibility of thinking about it that way from consumer
2:38to P&L. It’s more consumer or uh buyer I should say to funnel. And so as I moved
2:45into marketing I was different. I was kind of a unicorn and and thinking differently and and thinking about other
2:51KPIs and metrics that the traditional marketing teams don’t think of like pipeline velocity, net new retention.
2:59So as I moved into marketing, I decided to take this huge pivot into SAS, a B2B
3:07startup SAS company based in Chicago, cyber security company. So, a lot of new
3:13lovers for me, a lot of new um you know, things of of how I could really kind of
3:18stretch myself and I was like, let’s do it because SAS is it’s you know, everybody’s talking about it. It’s only
3:25going to get bigger and more robust and I want to learn about it. And so, I took this pivot into a startup, a SAS startup
3:32and that took me into a B2B SAS world and it was different. and we’ll talk
3:37more about it. But bottom line is is I’ve I’ve been in both lanes now B2B B
3:43TOC and retail apparel B2B SAS and I see a lot of synergies a lot of things that
3:49are bleeding over into each other’s lanes and we’ll talk more about that but
3:54um yeah that’s my background and um yeah excited to be here. Thanks for having us. Hey, Rich. I uh I’m Tony and I am
4:02definitely from the business to business world and uh I I am the managing director of Litecus US. That’s a fancy
4:09word for jack of all trades basically. So, a lot of it is marketing as well. And it uh we I have a we’re
4:16distributorship for precision measuring tools in the US, Canada, Mexico for a
4:22Danish manufacturer based in Gilalaya on the North Sea in Denmark. and it’s a
4:27small company, wonderful people, and I’ve worked with them for decades now. Excellent. Yeah. Thank you guys so much
4:33for joining. I would love to hear obviously very different backgrounds, but the B2B is kind of connecting things
4:40together. I’d love to hear how the concept of B2A came about and and how
4:48you guys started to to form that into what’s now the book. Yeah, I you know,
4:53as I said, in playing into both lanes, if you will, I started seeing some
4:59things that I felt we needed to take some of the principles from BTOC into a
The Concept of B2A: Business to Anyone
5:05B2B atmosphere. And when we started doing that buyer,
5:11omni channel, thinking about the funnel not as stages but as signals, thinking
5:16about what’s in it for the buyer, creating content that was much more tailored for solutions instead of it
5:24being productled. I thought to myself, I said that’s still you’re still touching a human there just like you’re touching
5:30a human in B to C. So at the end of the the the rope there’s there’s this
5:36commonality and that’s the human and as we started talking about this and AI
5:41hitting us every which way possible today. How do we still keep that how do we keep
5:47that tradition? How do we keep that um emotional intelligence? Because if
5:53there’s any time now that we need it more as we’re getting so caught up with artificial intelligence, it’s really
6:00being that taking that humanistic approach. And that’s where we started chatting. I mean, we we chat all the
6:06time. And now that we’re empty nesters, we chat a lot more because there’s nobody else to talk to in the house
6:11other than each other. So So I’ll let you kind of take it from there, Tony. Well, yeah. Like like she said, the
6:17conversations me coming from the B2B world and Tanya more more B toC we
6:24she’s got a wonderful um newsletter that she’s writing on LinkedIn and I started
6:30helping, you know, talking and we were we were talking about that and writing different things and eventually we
6:35started saying, you know, really what I’m doing in the business to business is is the same thing. we’re all making
6:42connections with other people and that’s how you know we thought it
6:48was kind of a fun acronym you know to to come up with B to A business to anyone
6:53because really that’s what both sides are doing so we thought it would be a nice way to put everything together
6:58that’s great B2A business to anyone which is interesting because I think in the past there really was a distinction
7:05with how a consumer made a purchase versus how a uh somebody in procurement
7:10on business side made a purchase, right? But those things have really been blending over the last 25 or so years
7:17thanks to Amazon and others for really kind of blurring those lines. Well, yeah, I think Amazon, that’s a
7:23great example. Just this weekend, you talk about the last 25 years. Just this weekend, I’m watching the Packers, you
7:29know, the football game, and you see Amazon doing AWS, and they’re talking about how they can help the NFL bring uh
7:37video to you. Um, which is B2B to C, which is kind of B to A like, and I saw
7:43another uh one was uh Salesforce with their agent force. They have Matthew McConna and Woody Harrelson having
7:50these, you know, what would normally look like a traditional BTOC consumer
7:55advertisement and it’s really businesses talking to businesses in ways that they
8:01can figure out together to collaborate to help the consumer. So that’s kind of B2A, I think. you know,
8:07B to A. I I I think that’s an an interesting concept and it’s one that as a as a RevOps professional, I’ve been
8:13working with companies on not only their their marketing um you know, the marketing functionalities and and the
8:21campaigns that they have, but then of course, yes, very much about funnel management on the sales side. And you
8:27have seen some interesting dynamics over the last few years of people really
8:32doing more and more research before they even pick up the phone or before they’ll even accept a phone call. And it’s
8:38really changing the way that businesses are even going to other businesses.
8:44Absolutely. I I mean the Gartner statistic is I think an individual might
8:50touch your brand 10 to 12 times before they really want to engage with someone
8:57uh from that company. And that freedom and that independence is basically hitting us in the face like hey this is
9:03a buyerled world today. it should be productled and because the resources
9:09that they have because the technology where we’re at and because um the
9:14freedom that they have um you know in one of our and one of our comments in the book is is a person doesn’t
9:21transform at 8:59 a.m. and then again at 5:01 p.m. They’re the same human all day
9:28long. And that’s where I think that’s an unlock for for for me and and and and
9:33and and recognizing that and that’s true. We might be thinking about our budget and then we might be okay what’s
9:40for dinner? What am I making for dinner tonight? Who’s going to pick up the kids from soccer? And then okay, we have all
The Shift from Product-Led to Buyer-Led
9:46that done now. I can go online and instead of requesting a demo and spending 45 minutes of my time because
9:53time is currency, I can now watch it after I put the kids to bed and do it’s a recording of a live demo. So, I can
10:00stop and start it and if I have any questions, then I’ll, you know, engage. But again, it’s giving them the tools
10:07and the resources to do that independently. And so when they do get to you, they they should be further
10:14obviously further through the funnel because of that. And if you’re not, well then shame on you. Yeah. I think that’s so good that like
10:20Rich, you said it’s so difficult to measure today, too. And that we we’re touching so many people at
10:26so many different points and it’s really hard to know for sure until right till
10:31the end if if they’re really, you know, interested. That’s why some of the things in our book I think are are so
10:37important important. We talk about like being human and curious and things like that because when you’re building that
10:43ecosystem I think or we think you know it it’s it’s from the beginning to the
10:49end and and all that beginning stuff and all that preparation all those things that you’re doing um it’ll pay off in
10:56the end we hope but it’s hard to measure up until that point in that funnel right you know it’s well and the mindset is really what
11:04needs to change from an internal perspective we need to in one of the chapters rich uh is the crossf
11:11functional champion breaking those silos down looking at the business holistically what is our endgame and
11:17that’s where the P&L that’s where the revenue comes into play what are what’s our target and how do we work that
11:24backwards so then everyone feels that um autonomy accountability and they’re not
11:30segmented into their little department yes they have responsibilities within
11:35their department but they’re looking at it through the lens of a P&L instead of
11:40through top, middle, bottom of the funnel, passing the baton off to sales and
11:46going, “Okay, let me know how that lead gets if it gets to the finish line.” No, we should be with them getting it to the
11:53finish line and helping them get it to the finish line. And that’s where I think marketing today has this per
12:00people perceive us as this funnel. And the funnel today is um it’s a definition
12:05of however you want it to make it look so your leads look good and
12:12and right as a revops professional you are speaking my language right the the worst
12:18thing in the world is a marketing organization that just throws leads over the fence and they go good luck because
12:24you know what’s happening on the other side sales is going yeah that’s junk that’s junk I’m going to go do my own lead genen and now you got two side it
12:31it’s just a mess. Don’t you think, Rich? It’s I I that’s what I’ve been saying with Tanya, too. Sorry to interrupt it, but I I think it,
12:38you know, like you said, 25 years ago, it it felt like there was a split between sales and marketing, and now I
12:44think it’s kind of coming back together. Well, it is. It has. People need to know marketing. The
12:49marketing need to know sales, but there was a split there for a while. Yeah. And Tanya, to to your point, my
12:55background before I got into this was in finance. So, I’ve I’ve been the one that’s been preaching exactly what you
13:00just said. So thank you for preaching it for me because it does connect to the P&L at the end. Exactly. Exactly. Is you know finance
13:09they when you when marketing’s talking they want to know how it you know finance for example they want to know
13:15how it impacts cash flow. You know if we just say we have 659 leads so what?
13:21Right. What if I have six leads and those leads get to the finish line and our average
13:28order value went up and our pipeline cut we cut it by 50%.
13:35Um those are things you know products going to want to know h how that’s happening you know it’s just it’s not
13:42speaking always in the traditional KPIs because I think those are bogus too in many ways I you know so
13:48I think it’s marketing is speaking with everyone kind of bringing everyone together we like to think that you know
13:53she talks about crossunctional champions I think the messaging kind of starts with marketing and and that can that can
13:59be internal marketing but all as external as long as when people get on the same page you That’s kind of a
14:05little bit of a different topic, a little more organizational behavior, but I mean I think marketing really has a
14:10key role internally as well. Well, it’s it’s a it’s you know to me it’s marketing is fueling revenue, not
14:17just making noise and we need to speak to it in that language. I think you also hit on an important point here as well
14:23is when when there are silos in an organization through that customer journey, there’s an internal focus and
14:30an internal priority because we are focused on how we operate and less
14:36focused on how the customer goes through their journey because if you take the customer’s viewpoint and the customer
14:42journey first, that’s going to be priority and those seams are going to go away. Absolutely. You hit it right on the
Breaking Down Silos in Organizations
14:48head. It’s it’s more about a sales quota. It’s more about leads and number
14:54of leads. We’re not thinking about it from the buyer’s perspective. And that’s what the book is talking about is
15:00putting it from a buyer’s perspective. The buyer should be in every conversation. When I was in retail
15:07back in the late 90s, early 2000s, even though we didn’t have AI and all
15:12this robust technology, it was always thinking about the buyer. If something’s working, how are we going to amplify it?
15:19If something’s not working, how are we inventory, merchant, design,
15:25you know, finance, all of those people? How are we going to get out of it? Is it through marking it down? Is it through
15:32cutting some loss, you know, cutting some later receipts? It was that mentality. And it was always about the
15:37buyer and the P&L. And today we’re finally coming to terms in B2B that we
15:44have to start looking outward instead of inward. But that inwardness needs to really happen by breaking those silos
15:50down so we can start getting to the the numbers that we need to hit and we look like we’re not just creating noise, but
15:58we’re actually creating, you know, a systematic uh strategy.
16:03Now, easier said than done. Yeah, of course. Of course. I would love to dig in just a little bit more and
16:09tease this one out of the there were concepts in BTOC and there were concepts
16:14in B2B that were separate. What are some of the concepts that you’re now starting
16:20to see blend over that maybe would have been traditionally seen as a BTOC kind
16:25of thought pattern or philosophy that now is entering into that that B2B world?
16:30Well, the first one would be buyerled versus productled. Um, it’s always been
16:36about the buyer and B TOC. Um, and walking into SAS B2B, it’s not that
16:43case. It was productled. We were telling them about us instead of us helping
16:48them. The second one would be it’s nonlinear. So, we can’t just shoot off a
16:54bunch of emails that personalize them by putting hi rich and then everything below it is generic. We need to be where
17:01they’re going to be. There’s four unique generations in the marketplace today. So, we have to understand our personas,
17:08what the product is. Maybe it is Tik Tok that you need to be on. Maybe it is email. Maybe it is this. So, making sure
17:15that you’re everywhere because the analogy or excuse me, the example I use where we don’t transform from 8:59 and
17:22then back on again at 501. We’re we’re in personal, we’re in work.
17:28And so, that freedom, you need to have that omni. And then the third would be is just the messaging. Really
17:35personalizing the messaging at a level where it is about solutions and results
17:42and taking pressure off of those personas you’re going after, making their job easier, making them feel seen
17:49and heard and like this brand gets me. I trust this brand now. Those would be the three things that I would I would say
17:56have been the big unlocks and that helped us in my SAS startup is bringing those to um action and making those work
18:04and we were able to tighten the sales cycle up by 50%. That’s that’s that’s really good. Two of the things that come to mind for me
18:11would be uh B to C is brings emotion and B to a lot that’s pretty generalized but
18:19I think if you bring those two basic ideas together that’s where we like to think of of of B2A you talk about for
18:26example we talk about PaloAlto Networks they they had the uh cyber security
18:32campaign with K which I thought was really interesting you know that’s a be to style campaign
18:40having fun with, you know, your your customers are probably in Matrix Watchers, you know, maybe and and you’ve
18:47got somebody like Taylor Swift who’s everybody thinks is making the connections all B to C, but boy, she had
18:52an the operations going behind with the different deals with AMC and and and
18:58things like that. So, she brought a B2B mentality to, you know, her very
19:03personal relatable lyric. So that’s emotion lot kind of coming together.
19:10Yeah, that’s a good one. Yeah, it’s not just a transaction anymore. You need to build the relationship. And I think
19:17traditional sales thought that they built the relationship, but it has to be seen through the the the teams and that
19:26relationship starts with, you know, the outreach that marketing is doing. And that marketing outreach needs to be um
19:34uh it needs to come through in agreement with both, you know, customer success and the sales team so we’re all on the
19:40same page speaking the same language. Yeah, it’s a um it it attribution models
19:46are very interesting now to work with, right? Because because it’s not linear anymore and because you have all of
19:52these pieces, but I love that you touched on it. It also has to follow through the sales the traditional sales
19:58funnel into the client success side of things too. So marketing scope really
20:04and and the importance there I think has increased a lot that that you are following that customer from awareness
20:11all the way through and continuing to stay with them through that customer journey. Right? We need to also be thinking about two uh
20:19metrics CAC customer acquisition cost and lifetime value LTV. Those are really
20:27important. And when I what I see a lot of is CAC, like just get new customers, new customers, new customers. And we
20:32forget about all of these existing customers. Well, in retail, we used to say those customers over there are your
20:38ambassadors. They’re the ones that keep the lights on in the building. They’re the ones that are talking to you and telling you issues, focus groups you we
20:46would have and and and they were a voice of the brand in a good way and a constructive way. And so to me, it’s
The Importance of Customer Engagement
20:53always finding that balance between the two. And I don’t think we look at it that way in B2B SAS. We look at it more
21:00logos, more logos, more logos. That’s wonderful. You talk that’s an interesting thing. We never talked about that about how they’re brand ambassadors
21:06that I liken that to say a case study or if we, you know, if we are dealing with
21:12General Dynamics and they love our gauges, it’s like, hey, look at us. We help them build a tank. You know,
21:17there’s there’s our LITC ambassador. So there there’s a similarity there. So, just made me think of that.
21:23No, that’s that’s a good point. Um, and one that is that’s interesting to follow
21:28through. And we see that the ambassador piece becomes more and more visible now, I think, because of social media. You’ve
21:35got Instagram, you’ve got Tik Tok, you’ve got all of these pieces which has become for many companies a central
21:41focus of their marketing strategy where that the definition of an ambassador
21:47before probably looked different in how it it showed itself, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And to me, it’s
21:55it’s critical in growing your business and scaling your business. um not
22:00necessarily when you’re bringing in new logos, the quality of those new logos might not stick with you and these
22:06people have stuck with you. And so I think the more emphasis and more curiosity and more engagement with um
22:14our customers that are with us needs to be happening and that’s where the engagement, the emotional intelligence
22:21comes into play and helps us drive our business going forward. So we do get that scalability.
22:26Yeah. the influence and the and and and things like that. You talk about Tik
22:32Tok, I mean, that’s everywhere. If you watch CNBC or Fox Business, uh, that all they’re talking about. Can’t imagine how
22:39much money must be making. You know, I I’ I’ve heard the investor guys say, “Whoever gets the piece of that US part
22:46of Tik Tok invests.” Now, don’t invest based on what I said,
22:51but that’s what I my point is they must be making a lot of money through influence, collaborations, and
22:58ambassadorships. And it’s just changed so much. I think we all know that uh because we’re social media, but it’s
23:04just I mean those collaborations are really interesting. They’re fun to watch and and see how they happen. Like with
23:11Sydney Sweeney, I mean that was a great one. That worked. Yeah. in a really good way for American
23:18Eagle. Absolutely. Now, you guys had said something a little bit earlier that I want to come
23:24back to. I I recently had Stephen Uman on the show and we talked a lot about
23:29the the personal aspect of the purchase. And I’d love to get your take because
23:36you did say at the end of the day it’s a human that’s making the decision. Yet on the other side, there has been a really
23:43big push in the B2B space to automate as much as possible, to leverage AI, to go
23:50out to tools like Clay and others and just suck up as much information about this person as we can, spit it into chat
23:57GPT to create the perfect message that we can send to them, and that’ll take care of it for us. Those are two very
24:04different thought patterns. I’d love to get your thoughts. Yeah, I think the automation piece is we can use we have
24:12it, we can use it now because of AI can help us get the the results um the data
24:19that we need but the once the data is there to uncover and look at what that
24:25data means is still a human. So the days of having to go into a room for 3 days
24:32with all this data and like all this paper and okay we’re going to come out in 3 days and let you know what we what
24:38our findings are. AI can do that for us. They can do the stuff that more the operational piece the stuff under the
24:43hood. What’s really important though is and what’s not happening to your point rich is be um we are so fixated on
24:51following every step of where the buyer is today. And so we’ve got this technology and this software and the
24:58next thing you know your operations people are like I’ve got 30 you know pieces of technology here now I all have
25:05to centralize this and that is being helped through AI but what it’s doing is
25:12is you’re you’re just getting through the the fundamentals of it or not the fundamentals but the um the numbers
25:18you’re not you’re not actually really reading the numbers and what they mean and it’s a just a pass off then to the
25:25seauite like here’s that dashboard you wanted and nobody’s really making the time to really look at the data and say
25:32what does this mean what does this outlook mean and that is where the agility needs to come into place like
25:38you probably have a business model of where you’re going um that’s the foundation but maybe your buyers are
25:44saying you know I need they’re not responding to your content so maybe it needs to be more of you know the content
25:51needs to alter and we’re not having those types of conversations because we’re trying to watch every step that
25:57the buyer is taking and I think that is become the issue. It’s very transactional and I think it’s also a
The Role of AI in Marketing
26:04generational thing too is once someone pulls those numbers they’re going to get back on TikTok when they’re done.
26:09I I I think you are hitting at the core of idea of our book which is get off your mask which basically means
26:17stop mass marketing without being human. It’s it’s ironic today we can reach so
26:23many people so easily with so many messages and yet less of it less and
26:28less is landing. So what one of the things that on the cover of our book we
26:34have a little smudge and that’s a representation of Andy Warhol who took
26:40automation to a new level you know he was it was silk screening uh Campbell soup cans and things like that but that
26:46then again each little one cuz they were silk screen in ink you know they would have a little smudge and that was a good
26:54thing and I we like I thought that was a nice analogy for you know you like we
26:59said we can we automate. We can touch so many different people, but if you really don’t get to the core and and be are
27:05relatable and authentic in your messaging, uh it’s it’s not going to land right.
27:10Yeah. The personal the personalization in the in its true sense is not happening. You know Darren McKe, Stephen
27:17Uman, they talk a lot about doing a lot more upfront of your homework, knowing
27:23about the customer, knowing about the business, knowing maybe something, you
27:28know, uh that the earnings report or if they were in the news or, you know, just
27:34something that makes a a little bit more of a connection like, oh, you’re not just reading something off of a script
27:40that was created for you from your marketing team. It’s really thinking about it more authentically and not
27:46focused on getting 659 leads but maybe 65 leads. Yeah. And I think that really comes that
27:52comes from uh humanity. We we call it the curiosity crate. She was talking about being interested in your
27:58customers. We we like to say you know a lot of people when they are uh influencers they
28:04say look at me I’m interesting right? Follow me. We’ve always said this started out actually we talked to our
28:11kids and we said you know if you want to be interested interesting be interested be interested in other things in other
28:17people. So as marketers and as brands you know the more interested you are in
28:23your ecosystem that you’re building hopefully you know if if you’re building these relationships you have purpose and
28:29you have mission hopefully that that comes back to you and that those people find you interesting if you’re genuinely
28:36interested like at work we talked about Anthony Bourdain about how it was just amazing the way that he could go into
28:42any different culture and and talk to anyone and they really felt like wow this guy this guy really cares. He’s
28:48really interested in whatever it is that we’re see and and I think we all saw that on TV if you watch Parts Unknown
28:54and things like that. I love that show. But anyway, it’s so that’s what we we like to think. We like to lead with
29:00curiosity and you know hopefully that’s authentic curiosity. I think people can tell the difference in that.
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29:18optimization, we help you get it right so that your organization can grow as your topline grows. Let’s transform
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29:34We’re still in the early stages of AI and and in the last few years it’s
29:39really gone leaps and bounds, right? And I think just like any new technology, people will likely take it a little bit
29:47too far, right? You almost have to cross the line to go, okay, that’s a little bit too far. Let’s pull it back now to
29:54its its utility and the usefulness that we’re going to get out of it long term. One of the areas where anybody that I’ve
30:02talked to so far has has said that we’re going too far is in in this personalization thing to make it seem
30:10like it’s genuine and that somebody is really interested when you know damn well it’s a bot on the other side,
30:17right? That is a massive massive turnoff for anybody that gets those messages.
30:22LinkedIn all day long. You know, connection requests that you can tell are the same freaking chat GPT prompt
30:29that that’s used from one to the next, right? But there really is a premium on
30:34that authenticity and that connection. And I’m I’m curious to see kind of your
30:41thoughts on how that’s evolving in the B2B space. I think Tony, you talked about emotion coming into play a little
30:48bit more. Is that where you start to see that? Sure. Sure. I think that’s that’s definitely one place we start to see
30:53that with with people connecting different ways um is whether it’s emails
30:58through your website. One of the ways that we in the book about connecting and
31:04personalization to your point showing people how it doesn’t work,
31:11you know, everybody’s like, well, how do you and how how do you make things show talk about your neighborsky?
31:18That’s that’s going we we decided to to to do the do personalization through a
31:23paradox and show how when it doesn’t work. If you’ve seen Nap Godsy do the
31:29George Washington thing and his everybody that you know right everybody
31:34in and around the boat are like you know that’s people in a meeting thinking that’s not what the way we think’s
31:41happening or we see Kate McKinnon when she’s with Ryan Gosling and the spaceships are coming down and you’ve
31:47got the two people saying this this experience for me was it was the best
31:52and Kate McKinnon’s like that’s not how I saw things you know So, it’s we we
31:58tried to show that uh SNL through comedy is really it was a difficult chapter to
32:03write and to to show to your point was we’re we’re getting so specific but
32:08people can tell the difference when it’s not real. It’s just like that’s that’s BS, right? So, how do you do that? It’s
32:14it’s not easy. You know, we we talking smudges and the human element and uh different ways to do it. But um
32:21yeah, I I wouldn’t really I can’t really add anything more to it. I I I think it is that it was very transactional in B2B
32:29and with AI now coming in it it has kind of felt like it’s even more because it’s
32:34they’re not using AI as a two-way conversation. It’s really just one way. And to your point earlier on, Rich, um
The Concept of Poise in Marketing
32:41it’s it’s really that authenticity. You can call you can call things when you see it, right? And there’s a
32:48lot of that happening now because they’re not many people aren’t using AI the way that it should be used. And to
32:55everyone’s, you know, there’s a lot of people who don’t understand how to use it. So there’s this world of trying to
33:02embrace something where there’s not a lot of education that’s being put around it to help people um make it robust and
33:10how to use it in the right in the right ways. So in the book you guys have this
33:15concept of poise. I’d love to hear a little bit more about that and and how
33:21that’s working into the BTOA kind of revolution that we’re seeing. Sure. Um I would so poise is something
33:30that uh I’ve always how I’ve always operated in BTOC and B2B retail and in
33:36B2B and it stands for personalization omni channel innovation
33:42strategy and emotional intelligence and we got poise you know full transparency through dropping this into
33:50chat GBT and saying what can we call this and PO came up and we’re like damn
33:55that’s good it because that means something right then and there. We both said, “How did we not see that?” It was
34:01there. We had the words just not the acronym. And and and so I think the operational
34:07piece of how you build a business, how you grow a business, how you maintain a business, how you scale a business,
34:13these five functions are imperative. And personalization is the first one. And we’ve talked we’ve touched a lot on this
34:20earlier in our conversations, but it needs to be more meaningful. Nate, it needs to be where people feel seen and
34:26heard. And it’s it’s it’s not easy. It’s not a one hit where you get that. It’s
34:33building. It’s it’s it’s nurturing. It takes time. But if you start with the
34:39right information and you’ve done your homework, that personalization, they should grab on much quicker and and be
34:46much more efficient within the salesunnel, if you will. Um, and that to
34:51me is really uh important, that personalization and understanding it through the entire funnel, through the
34:57entire pipeline. Um, that’s how you should be writing your content. That’s how you should be speaking to your
35:03potential buyers is in that personalization. Tony if you want to add anything
35:09as a I love it as an acrony it’s also because it’s a way not even only in
35:15marketing but life and we end the book with one of our favorite people is Queen
35:22Elizabeth we thought you know it’s not your typical marketing study but she
35:27went with through life with such poise and such grace going through all theation omni channel innovation and
35:34we’re like wow she really embodies this it’s it’s amazing and it’s all really
35:40pulled together. I we we all know what omni channel and innovation and strategy
35:45are but the e the emotional intelligence you know bringing that together the the the human element in everything I think
35:53that that just matters more than ever. I I I really believe that the royalty I mean they they never had
35:59any facetime right they were behind the walls they never had to connect with
36:04with you know the people and the people wanted to have that connection and so
36:09it’s a great chapter to kind of round everything out and you know she speaks to all of these uh all of these acronyms
36:16and it’s it’s really it’s it’s it’s a great way to end the book um but you know omni channel innovation strategy
36:23and EQ those are the others And we’ve touched on all of those and I think they’re just really important that the
36:30framework is loosey goosey too though. I mean it’s not just B2B or B TOC. You
36:35kind of start with what are your objectives? What are your initiatives? And then kind of like I said start with
36:41what are your goals and work backwards and how you’re going to make that happen. Because Tony and I would have conversations. I’m like people are going
36:47to go we don’t have a framework then what does that mean? frameworks don’t it’s not they’re not going to work for
36:54just one way and that’s where the flexibility has to be and that’s why we built the chapter of Mison marketing
37:01where you have this foundation you’ve got this core business and so when you need to pivot and you have this agility
37:09you’re not throwing everything up in the air and then hoping it’s you know spraying and praying again and then if it doesn’t work that way you’re throwing
37:15it up again you’ve got some solid footing and how many companies have you seen where you leadership come in and
37:21and there’s, you know, we’re going to change the we’re going to change the customer, we’re gonna make the customer younger, we’re gonna, you know, we’re
37:27going to do X, Y, and Z. And it’s like stick with what stick with your core. Stick with your brand essence and then
37:34have that foundation. It’s like building a house without, you know, building, you know, the basement. Why would you do that?
37:42Maybe if you live. Oh, well, yeah, they don’t have basements. Yeah, but you still have a foundation,
37:47so And should know because he’s in Florida. That’s right. Yeah. If I had a if I had
37:53a basement, it would be a problem. See the gator swimming around down
37:58there. Um Yeah. Well, I I think omni channel is probably the one that stands out to me
38:05the most related to what we were talking about earlier in terms of its relevance with B2B. Omni channel was a a unique
38:13concept and wasn’t 25 years ago. It wasn’t necessarily relevant in B2B, but
38:19it very much is now based on some of the things that we’ve we’ve been talking about and how things are moving there. Absolutely. Absolutely. And to me, it’s
38:27not going to go away. And you know, Tik Tok is I you know, we were talking about that earlier. 80 I this is a statistic I
38:33was reading 85% of people uh Tik Tok uh play a role in in using you know in in
38:39their purchase decisions. So 85% of the people that are on Tik Tok. That’s crazy. And it’s not just BTOC now. It’s,
38:47you know, there’s a there’s a there’s there’s product that can be sold in in many different ways. And so you can’t
38:54ever say, “Oh, this social platform is not for me.” Don’t ever say that because you just never know. The other nice
39:01thing that you were talking about in terms of frameworks, um, I think relates to the way that I’ve I’ve described some
39:07of the frameworks that I have on the on the RevOps side of things is that you you have a puzzle and you know what the
Building a Go-to-Market Strategy
39:14final picture should look like, but each company that you work with and each situation that you walk into, you start
39:21with a slightly different set of pieces. And depending on the company, the pieces are shaped differently as well. So you
39:27know what the end product looks like, but how you piece it together is going to be very different depending on the
39:34situation, depending on the goals, etc. I’d love to find out from you, you know,
39:40as you’re going into a a company or, you know, whether it’s a startup, you’re
39:46working with entrepreneurs or a larger, more established company, how do you take some of those frameworks and really
39:52assess, okay, here are probably the one or two highest value next steps that I can take. One of the things that we have
39:58in the book and way and Tony can probably speak some of this too. One of the things we have in the book is uh we
40:05call it mosaic marketing where we have you build with uh we have a little
40:10framework where we build with something old, something new, something bold, something true, right? It’s a little bit
40:16of a a wedding adage and we like to uh say that it like you said if you have
40:21the foundation like you do in Florida like we do anywhere and you bring fragments from all different parts of
40:27your life into a mosaic into that brand mosaic into the customer’s mosaic into
40:32yours. We liken it to Leonardo da Vinci. You know I I talk about myself as a jack of all trades. He was an architect. He
40:39was a painter. He was he was an engineer. He was all these things. You can build that mosaic
40:46for your brand in a lot of different ways and bring that to like you know
40:52omni channel it’s touching us everywhere like we say you’ve got whether you are checking in
40:57at 9:00 and leaving at 5:00 you might be talking about the soccer game at lunchtime you might you know you might
41:03be buying a software package at night in bed at 9:00 at night so it’s it’s just
41:09such a different world in terms of omni channel And it’s not like you have to be everywhere. It’s just you have to be at
41:15the right place at the right time, which is another old marketing adage, but it’s still true, right? It’s just that got a
41:21lot of different so many more different ways to uh to reach people in on the channel, right?
41:27Yeah, I would I would echo a lot of that. Um it’s, you know, when you look at businesses and understanding what
41:34their issues, opportunities are, how how can you be an extension of that company?
41:39Now, think of it that way instead of just a transaction. And so, that’s more
41:45effort, that’s more EQ, that’s more emotional intelligence, that’s more um
41:50engaging, that’s becoming that, you know, that connection that people want today. Not everyone. I mean, there’s
41:57going to be still some old school, you know, people that just don’t want that, but the majority today do. And that’s
42:04where we have to recognize that and build that into the goto market framework, the go to market strategy,
42:11what that what that means and how we’re going to get there. Yeah, personal attention can be face to face, but it can also be agent bots. You
42:18know, it can all like you as long as it that’s difficult to get there. But, you know, if it’s however that person is is
42:25comfortable, you know, uh making that purchase or or interacting with that brand or interacting with your company,
42:31figure out what that means. We like to think that it’s uh connect and I think that’s the you know the be all end all
42:38for us. It’s maybe not for everyone but you know still want to feel some type of connection. You have to be able to
42:44figure out what that is right but I would say but my kids would say to me what what is marketing? I said
42:51if it works on you do that and and if it doesn’t work on figure why if it you
43:00right it’s because it’s easy. If it works on you, it’s like, “Oh yeah, I can do that because it this worked on me.” But if it doesn’t work on you, that’s
43:05the hard part. That’s when you got to put in the work and say, “Okay, this doesn’t resonate with me. Why does it resonate with them?” And that can be the
43:12fun part, too. That’s part of the curiosity, right? And learning yourself and just being a better marketer.
43:17That’s great. I love the concept of business to anyone. And the book is Get
43:22Off Your Mass. So, where can everybody find that book? Absolutely. It is on Amazon. Uh, so
43:29there is a paperback and there is a Kindle version. Um, you will be able to find it there.
43:34Excellent. Yes. And we’ll include no um links to that in the show notes as well. So Tanya, Tony, thank you guys so much
43:42for joining us. Are there any last thoughts before we wrap? I’m good. No, I you know, other than I I
43:47think go into this book with an open mind. Um, I see the book as kind of a
43:53coffee table type book where you can pick it up and kind of read another part of it and it might make you laugh. It
43:58might make you think a little differently. Um, and so enjoy the book and I’d love feedback too that you I’ll
44:06give you my email address as well, Rich. Excellent. All right. And if people want to find out more beyond the book, uh,
44:13how do they do that and how do they connect with you guys? connect with us on LinkedIn. Definitely. And we’ll include those um
44:20addresses as well. Yeah, that’s the easiest way. Yeah, definitely. I I I hope people like the
44:25book. It’s it’s more about stories and hopefully you can see yourself in some of these stories and you can relate and
44:31make analogies to your marketing and into and to your life. It’s it’s not a stepby-step anything. Mm-
44:37it it’s just, you know, let’s let’s go in and and and talk about um marketing and and in in real life and uh hopefully
44:45it hopefully people like it. That’s great. I’m sure they will. I’ve definitely enjoyed this conversation uh
44:51and diving into this, too. So, thank you guys so much for joining us. Thanks for joining us on the Midgame Mindset. If
44:56today’s episode sparked a new idea or helped shift your perspective, share it with someone who’s ready to grow.
45:02Subscribe, leave a review, and keep playing the game. With the right mindset, the best moves are still ahead.
45:07Until next time, keep changing the game.
