The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)
Interviews with top marketers sharing tactical tips, strategies, and lessons learned to help you grow your business. Hosted by Dave Gerhardt, founder of Exit Five, former CMO, and author of Founder Brand. Learn more at exitfive.com.
Episodes
60-Minute B2B Blitz: 9 Marketers Share Their Best Plays from 2026 (So Far)
#369 | It's hard to know what works and what doesn't, what's real and what's not right now. So we tapped 9 B2B marketing pros, all specialists in their area, to share one thing that's produced real results so far this year. Here's how it works: 9 speakers, one play each, two minutes on the clock. When host Dave Gerhardt hits the buzzer, it's on to the next play. The audience votes on thei
Running a Media Company Inside HubSpot with Jonathan Hunt (VP, Media and Content)
#368 | Dave sits down with Jonathan Hunt, VP of Content and Media at HubSpot, to talk about what it means to run a media company inside a software company, and why that framing changes everything about how you build a content team. Jonathan runs a 70-person operation reaching 50 million people a month across 17 YouTube channels and a creator network of 150. They get into how HubSpot think
Influencer Marketing, Podcasting Strategy, and Brand Driving Demand with Jess Cook (VP Marketing at Vector)
#367 | Dave sits down with Jess Cook, VP of Marketing at Vector, to talk about how she spent $12K on seven micro-influencers with zero UTM tracking and generated $1.1M in pipeline. Jess also breaks down why she started a brand podcast as an awareness play, how a B2C copywriting background at major CPG brands shaped the way she thinks about brand and standing out in B2B, and what it actual
Demand Gen Plays for the Antisocial Buyer
#366 | The B2B buyer has gone antisocial. No form fills, no hand raises, just self-directed research through Google, Reddit, and AI before they ever talk to sales. In this session, you'll hear from three marketing pros about how they built a LinkedIn influencer program that doubled branded search volume, why ungating top-of-funnel content drives more meetings - not fewer, and how to build
The Case for Influencer Marketing in B2B with Brianna Doe (Founder at Verbatim)
Most B2B influencer programs fail for the same reason: no defined success metrics before the first post goes live. Brianna Doe, founder of influencer marketing agency Verbatim, breaks down how to actually build an influencer program that maps to pipeline — not just impressions. She covers her "Creator Engine" framework, how to tier creators by authority and reach, and why 90 days is the a
How to Use AI for Content Without Creating Slop with Eoin Clancy (VP Growth at Airops)
Dave sits down with Eoin Clancy, VP of Growth at AirOps, to talk about what's working in B2B marketing right now. They get into the rise of the content engineer role, how to use AI to produce high-quality content without creating AI slop, and why webinars have become AirOps' top growth channel in 2026. Eoin breaks down the three signs that content is AI slop, how AirOps runs their webinar
How to Stand Out in B2B Marketing (with Louis Grenier, Author of Stand the F*ck Out)
#363 | Louis Grenier joins Dave for a conversation about what it takes to stand out in B2B marketing when everything feels the same. They get into how people really decide to buy, why most B2B brands look and sound identical, and the marketing fundamentals that hold up no matter what's changing around them. The kind of conversation that reminds you why you got into marketing in the first
Why Marketing Is a Human Profession
#362 | Dave sits down with Eddie Shleyner, founder of VeryGoodCopy.com, to talk about why great marketing copy can't be generated — it has to be written. They get into why AI writing feels flat, what separates copy that moves people from copy that just fills space, and why the process of writing is where the real work happens. Eddie also shares how he accidentally built one of the most-re
How to Win at AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
#361 | In this episode, Matt Carnevale, Head of Community at Exit Five talks with three marketers doing impactful work in AEO. AI search is changing how buyers find products, and most B2B teams are still figuring out where to start. In this session, each marketer shares what's working and wins they’ve experienced — from earned media and technical audits to homepage fixes and tracking AI v
Why B2B brands should be doing influencer marketing with Ishveen Jolly
#360 | Dave sits down with Ishveen Jolly, founder and CEO of Open Sponsorship, to talk about what influencer and athlete marketing actually looks like for B2B brands — and why it's more accessible than most marketers think. Ishveen breaks down how a $5K March Madness campaign outperformed traditional ads, why your first influencer deal will almost certainly miss on the offer, and how to t
How Snowflake Runs ABM with Casey Patterson
#359 | Dave sits down with Casey Patterson, Director of ABM at Snowflake, to talk about what ABM actually looks like inside one of the biggest companies in enterprise software. Casey breaks down how she cold LinkedIn messaged her now-boss Hillary to get her ABM decks reviewed before ever working together, why ABM works best when marketing stops thinking about credit and just focuses on he
What’s Actually Working in B2B Email Right Now
#358 | Ben Wallis (Customer Lifecycle Manager, Quo), Jaina Mistry (Director of Brand and Content Marketing, Knak), Kremi Mestanova (B2B Content and Growth Strategist, Kremi Marketing), and Tyler Cook (Head of Email Marketing, Hypermedia Marketing) join Dave for an Exit Five live session on what's actually working in email right now. Ben shows how Quo built a Spotify Wrapped-style year-in-
How Ramp Is Rebuilding Marketing Around AI Agents
#357 | Dave sits down with George Bonaci, VP of Growth at Ramp, to talk about what growth actually looks like at one of the most talked-about brands in B2B. George breaks down why Ramp has no CMO and why he thinks that's a feature, not a bug. He makes the case for attention as the new moat when execution gets commoditized, and shares how he went from hardcore attribution obsessive to bett
How to Think About AEO with Brett Domeny (Director of Product Management at Webflow)
#356 | Dave sits down with Brett Domeny, product lead at Webflow focused on AEO, to talk about what it actually takes to show up in AI search. Brett breaks down Webflow's AEO maturity model — four core areas that actually matter: content, technical structure, authority, and measurement — and why most of AEO is just good SEO done right. They get into how LLM crawlers work and what your sit
Should You Run Marketing Like a Product Team?
#355 | Dave sits down with Maria Scheifler to talk about why your marketing team might be getting less done as it grows — and what to do about it. Maria makes the case for running marketing like a product team: two-week sprints, a prioritized backlog, and a lightweight intake process that kills approval bottlenecks without losing control. She walks through the context-switching exercise t
Customer Marketing Deep Dive
#354 | Sue (Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Monarch Money), Jonathan (VP of Marketing, Seamless.AI), and Naomi (Senior Product Marketing Manager, Customer.io) join Dan for a live Exit Five session on customer marketing. Sue breaks down how Monarch discovered that the best time to promote their referral program was during trial and the data behind a 64% lift in referral shares and half a mill
How CMOs Are Deploying AI Across Marketing
#353 | Tara (CMO, Optimizely), Julia (Director of AI Adoption, Optimizely), Lily (CMO, Three Play Media), Pejman (CMO, Menlo Security), and Kevin (CMO, CompTIA) join Dave for a live Exit Five session on how real marketing teams are actually using AI right now. Lily shows how she replaced two BDR headcount with a HubSpot prospecting agent and went from an 18% to 46% response rate on inboun
Build a Better B2B Growth Engine with Uzair Dada from Iron Horse
#352 | Dave sits down with Uzair Dada, CEO of Iron Horse, to talk about why most B2B companies are overcomplicating their marketing and what to do instead. Uzair breaks down his three-part growth framework — get discovered, get chosen, close — and explains why most companies are wasting the majority of their ad budget targeting the wrong audience entirely. He also gets into how to actuall
Claude Code for B2B Marketers (with Corey Haines)
#351 | Dave is joined by Corey Haines, the founder of Conversion Factory, Swipe Files, and Marketing-Skills.com, which has over 20,000 stars on GitHub. He's been all-in on AI since 2023 and in this episode he shows Dave exactly how he works now. He pulls up his screen and walks through live keyword research from an API, 10 programmatic SEO pages generated in under a minute, a cross-refere
B2B Social Media Strategy Discussion
#350 | Dave was a guest on Slate's Social Social Club webinar for a conversation about everything organic marketing and B2B social media strategy with Jeff Meltz (Head of Social at Atlassian), Brianna Doe (Founder, Verbatim), and Carmen Vicente (Social Strategist at Slate). If you are thinking about things like creating content on LinkedIn, making videos, writing content for your executiv
Real Talk from Three CMOs: Attribution, Paid Media, and Why B2B Is More Emotional Than You Think
#349 | Megan Lueders (CMO, Sonatype), Ido Mart (CMO, ManyChat), and Kim Storin (CMO, Zayo) join Dave for a live CMO panel from an Exit Five meetup in Austin. Megan breaks down how the pace of change in marketing has outrun every other function in the business. Ido talks about why your strengths as a CMO only matter if you choose the right environment for them. And Kim shares how she measu
How to Create a Category When You're Already the Market Leader (with Melton Littlepage, CMO at 1Password)
#348 | Dave sits down with Melton Littlepage, CMO at 1Password, to talk about what category creation actually looks like inside a company that's already won. Melton breaks down why 1Password is betting on an entirely new category called Extended Access Management, how they chose it over competing in an existing one, and the tactics behind it: lightning strike events, analyst relations, an
How ClickUp Built a B2B Social Machine with Chris Cunningham from ClickUp
#347 | ClickUp drives millions of impressions for the company through videos and content for B2B marketers on social, and in this episode Dave sits down with Chris Cunningham, a founding member of the marketing team at ClickUp and the guy who runs social there now, to talk about how they do it. Chris breaks down why 99% of companies are doing social wrong, how ClickUp runs a weekly writer
Inside Ramp's Marketing: Creative Bets, Measurement, and AI Agents (with Drew Pinta)
#346 | Dave sits down with Drew Pinta, Director of Growth Data at Ramp, to talk about what it actually looks like to measure marketing when the hardest things to measure are often the ones working hardest. Drew breaks down how Ramp uses incrementality testing and event studies to put real numbers on brand stunts, how they split budget 70/30 between proven channels and experimental bets, a
Creative + AI examples from B2B marketers
#345 | Luke (Head of Growth & Marketing, ElevenLabs), Liz (CMO, Brain Labs), Vicente (Creative Director, Bitly), and Carter (Global Brand Team, UiPath) join this Exit Five Live session to show how they're actually using AI to do creative work. Luke breaks down how his team built a full brand video with one person in one day using voice cloning, image models, and AI video tools. Liz sh
The 6 Types of Ownable Ideas (And How to Find Yours) with Katelyn Bourgoin, Founder of Unignorable
#344 | Dave sits down with Katelyn Bourgoin, founder of Unignorable, to talk about the one strategic move most B2B marketers overlook: owning an idea so tied to you that it sounds like an echo coming from anyone else. Katelyn breaks down the six types of ownable ideas, from coined categories to named problems to X vs. Y frameworks, and walks through how to find the central argument your b
How to Make Outbound Work and Build Pipeline in 2026 (with Jen Allen-Knuth, Founder of DemandJen)
#343 | In this session from Drive 2025 titled “Building Pipeline in the Shiny Object Era”, Jen Allen Knuth unpacks why deals stall even when your product is objectively better, how the explosion of shiny tools and AI noise is making it worse, and why most teams are unintentionally fueling the problem with me-centric messaging. Jen shares the two zero-dollar exercises every team should run
How to Be the CMO Everyone Wants to Work With (with Dave Kellogg)
#342 | Recorded live at Exit Five's Marketing Leadership Retreat, this episode features Dave Kellogg sharing his framework for being the CMO everyone wants to work with. Dave draws on 12 years as a CMO across three companies, two CEO stints, and ten board seats to cover CMO failure archetypes, how to build a real partnership with your CRO, and why internal marketing is just as important a
B2B Ad Campaigns That Actually Worked (From Five Demand Gen Marketers)
#341 | In this Exit Five Live session, Cindy Dubon (Director of Growth Marketing, Goldcast), Kelly Arndt (Sr. Demand Gen Manager, Vector), Jeremy Chung (Founder and CEO, Ads by Jer), Tess Pfeifle (Associate Director of Marketing, AirVet), and Richard Meyer (Director of GTM and Growth, GoHappy) each break down a real ad campaign — the channel, the creative, the targeting, the spend, and th
From HubSpot Blog to CMO: Kipp Bodnar on Career Growth and Marketing Leadership
#340 | Dave sits down with Kipp Bodnar, CMO of HubSpot, to talk about the journey from running a company blog to leading marketing at a $2B business. Kipp started at HubSpot in 2010 when it was doing $10M in revenue and grew the blog from 200k to 1M monthly uniques before taking on more and more of the marketing function. They get into how to set big goals and work backwards from them, ho
ABM (Account-Based Marketing) Overview with Brandon Redlinger
#339 | Dave is joined by Brandon Redlinger, former VP of Marketing and co-founder of The Forge, for a conversation about how to build an ABM program that works. They cover how to know if your company is ready for ABM, how to select and score target accounts, and why most teams fail by spreading themselves across too many accounts too fast. Brandon also shares the plays that generate real
LinkedIn Advertising: What's Working Now in 2026 (with Davang Shah, VP Marketing at LinkedIn)
Dave is joined by Davang Shah, VP of Marketing at LinkedIn, for a conversation about what actually works with LinkedIn ads right now. They cover why brand and performance aren't two separate strategies, how to think about measurement beyond last-click attribution, and why 95% of your buyers aren't in market at any given time. Davang also shares the data behind thought leader ads, what mos
Building a Marketing Machine from Scratch (with Erin May, CMO at User Interviews)
#337 | Dave sits down with Erin May, CMO at User Interviews, who joined as the company's first marketer with a two-page website and zero recurring revenue and helped grow it to $20M+ ARR over eight years. Erin breaks down how she picked one niche audience and went all in, why she led with ungated content, and how she built a quarterly operating rhythm around "Bangers," tentpole marketing
How Marketers Are Creating High Quality Content with AI (That's Not Slop!)
Eoin Clancy (VP of Growth at AirOps), Connor Beaulieu (Senior SEO Manager at LegalZoom), and Adina Timar (Head of AEO at Weflow) join this live session to talk about how to create high-quality content with AI. Connor walks through a workflow his team built at LegalZoom to automatically source expert quotes.. Adina shows how she rebuilds competitor pages from scratch using sales calls, LLM
How to Build a Product Marketing Motion That Works (with Jeff Hardison)
#335 | Jeff Hardison, now VP of Product Marketing at Sanity, joined Dave when he was running product marketing at Calendly to break down what the product marketing role should actually look like inside a B2B company. They get into how Jeff structured his team to serve both a PLG motion and an enterprise sales team at the same time, why he hires for specialization instead of making everyon
What B2B Marketers Can Learn from Restaurant Marketing (with Jessica Serrano, CMO at Bagel Brands)
#334 | Dave is joined by Jessica Serrano, CMO at Bagel Brands (Einstein Brothers, Noah's, Bruegger's, Manhattan Bagel), for a conversation about what B2B marketers can learn from consumer restaurant marketing. They discuss why consumer and B2B marketing are way more similar than people think, how she’s using AI across her marketing and sales process, and her philosophy that her job is to
How to Navigate a Rebrand with Clare Schmitt
#333 | Dave is joined by Clare Schmitt, a seasoned marketing leader and a member of our CMO community, to walk through what it actually takes to lead a rebrand at a mid-market B2B company. Clare shares how she partnered with her CEO to drive a full rebrand, from hiring a naming agency and running an RFP, to managing a small decision-making council, rolling out the new brand across every d
How Domitille de Saint-Exupéry (CMO at Lemlist) Turned $1.2M into $31M in New ARR
#332 | Dave is joined by Domi de Saint-Exupéry, CMO at Lemlist, a bootstrapped $40M ARR sales engagement platform, to break down exactly how she turned $1.2M in marketing spend into $31M in new ARR in 2025. Domi shares the full breakdown of every channel, agency, influencer strategy, and partnership play that drove results. This includes how they went from $0 to $500K in paid ads, why par
ABM: What Ramp, Snowflake, and Hightouch are doing in 2026
#331 | Dave is joined by a group of marketing leaders from Ramp, Snowflake, and Hightouch for a discussion about ABM and their plans for 2026. Casey Patterson (Director of ABM, Snowflake), Drew Pinta (Director of Growth Data Science, Ramp), and Brian Kotlyar (CMO, Hightouch) break down what ABM actually looks like in 2026 and what’s working right now inside of their companies. They share
How to Build a Brand in B2B with Ryan Narod (VP of Marketing at Rippling)
#330 | Dave is joined by Ryan Narod, VP of Marketing at Rippling, to break down how Rippling has built one of the stand outbrands in B2B right now. Ryan walks through real examples of campaigns they’ve run over the last year, from scrappy iPhone videos and webinar promos to high-production customer stories and their 2026 Super Bowl commercial. They talk about how Rippling shifted from bei
How to Upgrade Your Webinar and Email Strategy for 2026 with Jay Schwedelson (Founder, SubjectLine.com)
#329 | Dave is joined by Jay Schwedelson, Founder of SubjectLine.com and GURU Media Hub, to break down why most webinars and email programs underperform and what to do instead. They talk about how packaging drives performance, why the word “webinar” kills registrations, and how small tweaks like renaming your session, shortening it to 22 minutes, or adding an “attend to receive” hook can
The Strategy Behind Canva’s B2B Growth with Emma Robinson and Kristine Segrist
#329 | Dave is joined by Emma Robinson, Head of B2B Marketing at Canva, and Kristine Segrist, Global Head of Consumer Marketing at Canva, to break down how Canva is scaling growth across both enterprise and consumer audiences. They talk about how Canva balances brand-building with pipeline accountability, how they turn bottom-up product adoption into enterprise deals, and why brand invest
How to Lead Marketing Through the AI Shift with Bill Glenn (SVP of Marketing at Esper)
#328 | Jess Lytle is joined by Bill Glenn, SVP of Marketing at Esper, for a conversation about what it actually looks like to lead a marketing team through the AI shift. They talk about why most teams are still figuring AI out, how leaders should think about adoption beyond just tools, and why curiosity and experimentation matter more than having the “right” answers. Bill also shares how
How to Use AI for Content Without Creating Slop with Eoin Clancy (VP Growth at Airops)
#326 | Dave is joined by Eoin Clancy, VP of Growth at Airops, to break down what it takes to create great content without pumping out AI slop. They talk about the rise of the content engineer role and why more teams are hiring for it and three dead-giveaway signs content is low-quality AI generated. Eoin also shares why webinars are Airops’ best growth channel right now, including how the
How To Drive Revenue Through Content with Lashay Lewis (Founder, Authority Plug)
325 | Lashay Lewis helps B2B SaaS companies create profit driven content strategies. We talk about why a B2B content strategy should be built from the bottom of the funnel up, why she interviews sales teams to understand "life before using the product" and why she interviews customer success teams to understand "life after using the product" and how that influences content strategy, how w
How Marketing Leaders are Thinking About AEO
#324 | Dave is joined by three marketing leaders from different industries to talk on a live session about AI and SEO and what they've learned over the last year. Dave Steer (CMO at Webflow), Marcy Comer (CMO at EagleView) and Clare Schmitt (VP, Marketing & Communications at Piedmont Global) break down how buyers are learning about products through ChatGPT and why traditional SEO fund
How to Master B2B Positioning with Anthony Pierri (Fletch PMM)
#323 | Anthony Pierri from Fletch PMM joins Dave to talk about what actually matters in B2B positioning and messaging. They break down how to think about value props, why buyers don’t care about your features, and what makes a homepage instantly click. Anthony shares lessons on positioning from working with hundreds of early-stage B2B SaaS companies and explains how to connect real custom
How to Stand Out in B2B Marketing (with Louis Grenier, Author of Stand the F*ck Out)
#322 | Louis Grenier joins Dave for a conversation about what it actually takes to stand out in B2B marketing when everything feels the same. Louis sent Dave 10 surprise gifts to open during the show, and each one sparks a conversation about marketing, career, and life. They talk about the reality of how people decide to buy and why Louis is so focused on timeless fundamentals.Timestamps(
Influencer Marketing, Podcasting Strategy, and Brand Driving Demand with Jess Cook (VP Marketing at Vector)
#321 | Jess Cook, VP of Marketing at Vector, joins Dave to break down what’s actually working in early-stage B2B marketing. They dig into how she thinks about attribution for brand channels, how Vector's podcast became a top marketing channel, why they created a brand mascot, and details on what content strategy is working on LinkedIn right now. They also cover shift from content leader t
How to Build a Community People Trust with Matt Carnevale
#320 | Matt Carnevale, Head of Community at Exit Five, joins Dave for a discussion about community building. They dive into a bunch of the lessons learned from building the Exit Five community over the last few years, including specific plays like onboarding, matchmaking, and moderation. If you’re thinking about community building in 2026, this is a good primer; plus the guys give their o
How B2B Marketers Are Actually Using AI at Work with Jess Lytle
#319 | Dave sits down with Jess Lytle, Head of Marketing at Exit Five, to talk about how AI is changing the job of B2B marketers and the reality of how AI is actually being adopted internally. They also cover how AI even helped Jess get her job at Exit Five and why she’s become obsessed about deploying AI in marketing and really believes this is the most important martech wave yet. Timest
The Future of B2B Marketing with Kieran Flanagan
#318 | Dave is joined by Kieran Flanagan, SVP of Marketing at HubSpot and former CMO at Zapier. They break down how AI is reshaping B2B marketing workflows, content creation, and team structure, plus Kieran’s leadership philosophy for managing a 300+ person team while staying deeply involved in creative execution. This episode offers a clear look at how AI is changing the game and how B2B
How to Master LinkedIn for B2B
#317 | Dave hosts a live session with Dasha Shakov (Head of Marketing, Proton.ai), Emeric Ernoult (Founder, CEO, Agorapulse), and Finn Thormeier (Founder, Project 33) to break down what’s working on LinkedIn right now. They discuss why LinkedIn is the most important channel for B2B, why social media is the best marketing channel available today, how founder-led and employee content drives
How to Build a Brand People Pay Attention To
316 | In this episode, Dave breaks down how the best companies win by standing out through smart ideas, creative execution, and consistent attention. He pulls lessons from Drift, Savannah Bananas, and his own wins to show why ideas matter, why brand is a durable long-term advantage, and how strong content can still break through today. Plus: thoughts on AI slop, why LinkedIn can be a powe
How Marketing Teams Are Using AI to Drive Pipeline
315 | Jess Lytle (Head of Marketing at Exit Five) hosts a live roundtable with Morgan Cole (VP of Demand Gen at Red Canary), Lisa Cole (CMO at 2X), and Jean Cameron (Sr. Director of Field & Partner Marketing at Demandbase) on how B2B teams are using AI to drive pipeline and revenue. They share real examples of how marketers are identifying in-market buyers earlier, moving deals faster
How to Write Great Marketing Copy (And Generate More Ideas, Faster)
314 | In this episode, Dmitry Shamis sits down with Dave to break down how Dave writes—the process behind emails, newsletters, landing pages, and posts that get attention. They talk about why Dave starts with the hook, why editing matters more than writing, and why most B2B marketing fails by trying to say too much. Dave also shares how podcasting shaped his thinking, why formatting is un
How to Standout in B2B with Udi Ledergor, Chief Evangelist at Gong
#313 | In this episode, Udi Ledergor joins Dave to break down the ideas behind his new book, Courageous Marketing, and why most B2B marketing fails because it plays it safe. He also shares his journey from marketer #1 to CMO to Chief Evangelist at Gong, where he led category creation, brand, and marketing through massive scale. They unpack how Gong built a brand that actually stood out, w
How to Do Better Email Marketing
#312 | Jess Lytle (Head of Marketing at Exit Five) hosts a roundtable with a group of email experts on what’s actually working in email, SMS, and in-app messaging right now. They dig into AI’s impact on the inbox, how to sound human when everyone’s using the same tools, and why relevance beats volume. The group also breaks down how to personalize without being creepy, what to do with “lur
Five Marketing Principles That Matter More Than AI
#311: Dave goes solo this week (his decision, he said give me the mic; but Dan is also on him about podcast downloads around the holidays) with a quick November breakdown from real life - recapping the Exit Five team trip to Arizona, a big leadership update at the company, and covering five timeless marketing principles that matter more than ever (if you care about fighting AI slop). He a
How to be Irreplaceable in B2B Marketing (with Josh Lowman)
#310 Category Creation | In this episode, Dave Gerhardt digs in with Josh Lowman, Founder & CEO of Gold Front, to unpack what “category creation” actually takes, why most companies get it wrong, and how the best brands win by owning a spot in the customer’s mind. They get into the four real paths to category leadership, the trap of “fake” category design, why vibe and soul still beat
How to Make Your Product Positioning Impossible to Ignore with April Dunford (Founder, Ambient Strategy)
#309 Product Positioning | This episode is from a Drive 2025 (our annual Exit Five event) session with April Dunford (Founder, Ambient Strategy). April pulls from working with 300+ tech companies to unpack the real patterns behind winning positioning from calling out competitors’ nonsense to teaching buyers what actually matters, avoiding category-creation traps, and fixing the sales mess
How To Create Urgency, Build Pipeline, and Make Outbound Work (with Jen Allen-Knuth, Founder of DemandJen)
#308 Sales Alignment | In this session from Drive 2025 titled “Building Pipeline in the Shiny Object Era”, Jen Allen Knuth unpacks why deals stall even when your product is objectively better, how the explosion of shiny tools and AI noise is making it worse, and why most teams are unintentionally fueling the problem with me-centric messaging. Jen shares the two zero-dollar exercises every
Should You Invest in Community?
#307 Building Community | In this episode Dave joined Ali Orlando Wert (Director of Content Marketing & Brand at Databox) on their podcast called Move the Needle. She did an interview with Dave focused on community building. They cover how Exit Five grew 80 percent by operating more like a startup than a Slack group. Dave gets into the truth of building community, why most companies s
What’s Working Right Now in B2B Marketing - Live from Drive 2025 with Sylvia LePoidevin, Trinity Nguyen, and Natalie Taylor
#306 Executive Insights | This episode was recorded live at our annual event, Drive 2025. I hosted Sylvia LePoidevin (CMO, Kandji), Trinity Nguyen (CMO, UserGems), and Natalie Taylor (Head of Marketing, Capsule) for a leadership panel breaking down what’s working in B2B marketing. They get into events that reliably create pipeline, outbound that still converts, media plays LLMs keep citin
The Case for Influencer Marketing in B2B with Brianna Doe (Founder at Verbatim)
#305 Influencer Marketing | This episode is a live session from Drive 2025 with Brianna Doe, where she breaks down why influence is now shaping every step of the buying journey, how smart B2B brands are borrowing plays from B2C, and what it really takes to build a creator program that doesn’t flame out on day one. She gets into the messy reality of picking the right creators and measuring
The B2B Buying Experience With AI: What Changes?
#304 | AI Buying Shift | This episode is from a recent Exit Five live session where I pulled together Lindsay O'Brien (Head of Marketing & Operations, Predictiv), Tom Wentworth (CMO, incident.io), and Aditya Vempaty (VP of Marketing, MoEngage) for a real talk on how AI is completely rewiring the B2B buying journey. We got into why buyers no longer need your pretty funnel, how AI-power
The Day You Become a Better Storyteller with Harry Dry (Founder of Marketing Examples)
#303 Storytelling | This episode is from Drive 2025, our 2-day in-person event for B2B marketers in Burlington, VT. Harry Dry, creator of Marketing Examples and one of the best copywriters on the internet, shared a masterclass on storytelling, creativity, and writing marketing that actually connects—showing how to find great ideas, turn real stories into memorable campaigns, and make peop
From Comms at Zoom to VP of Marketing at Neat, with Priscilla Barolo
#302 Growth | Dave is joined by Priscilla Barolo, former head of comms at Zoom (for nearly 10 years, including the pandemic) and current VP of Marketing at Neat, an Oslo-based video tech company. Neat’s tech is used around the world from major enterprises like Atlassian to the White House. With a decade-long career at Zoom, including during its hypergrowth through the pandemic, Priscilla
Why Marketing Is Back In The Driver Seat (with Maura Rivera, CMO at Qualified)
#310 Leadership & Strategy | I sat down with Maura Rivera, CMO at Qualified, to talk about what it’s like leading marketing at one company for six years (and why most of her team has been there just as long). We got into how product launches are the glue that hold their marketing together, what agentic marketing really means for the future, why outbound is actually working for them ri
What Your Messaging is Missing: How to Close the Meaning Gap (with Diane Wiredu, Founder of Lion Words)
#300 Drive | This episode is from Drive 2025, our 2-day in-person event for B2B marketers in Burlington, VT. It features Diane Wiredu, Founder of Lion Words and expert in B2B messaging and positioning. She shared a killer talk on “What Your Messaging Is Missing,” breaking down why most B2B copy sounds the same and how to close the meaning gap by focusing on clarity, balance, and buyer con
GTM Growth Decoded: 100 Companies, 3 Stages, 1 System with Sangram Vajre, Co-Founder & CEO of GTM Partners
#299 Drive | This episode is from Drive 2025, our 2 day in-person event for B2B marketers in Burlington, VT. Our first speaker was Sangram Vajre, Co-founder and CEO of GTM Partners and expert in GTM strategy. He shared a great session on building a repeatable GTM Operating System for sustainable growth, offering insight from 100 companies on what separates teams that scale from those that
I Answered 15 Questions About Work and Life from the Exit Five Team
#298 Q&A | OK I asked my team for some questions; a bit of a mailbag type of episode. So I sat down solo for this one and answered 15 questions from the Exit Five team about work, life, marketing, and everything in between. We got into everything from my daily routine and how I think about LinkedIn, to the best career advice I’ve ever gotten, what I’m reading, and a few personal stori
From Growth Marketer to CMO: How Kelly Cheng Leads Marketing at Goldcast
#297 Leadership | I sat down with Kelly Cheng, CMO at Goldcast, to talk about her path from growth marketer to marketing leader, how she’s built and scaled Goldcast’s marketing org, the shift from PLG to sales-led, and why she believes great CMOs play the long game.Timestamps(00:00) - – Intro
(02:00) - – Kelly’s path from Hong Kong to Boston
(05:00) - – Joining Goldcast and the PLG pivo
Live from LGA my NYC Recap
Hey it's me live from the airport, LGA to be exact. Sorry for the poor audio, my AirPods make it way worse than just talking into the phone, now I know. But we cleaned it up a bit. Recapping our NYC event if you missed it, talking about the ROI of hanging out in person and what's next.
Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about
Mastering Messaging, Copy, and Clarity with Emma Stratton
#295 Messaging | Dave is joined by Emma Stratton, founder of Punchy, where she helps B2B tech companies sharpen their positioning and write messaging that actually connects. Emma’s worked with hundreds of teams to cut through vague, abstract copy and turn it into language buyers instantly get.Dave and Emma cover:How to go from vague to punchy using specificity and buyer empathyWhy most B2
Behind the Scenes of Drive 2025 with Anna Vermillion and Allison Saxon
#294 Event Strategy | First time podcast guest alert! I invited Allison and Anna from the Exit Five team on for a conversation post Drive 2025 - to talk about lessons learned and behind the scenes from our annual marketing conference in Vermont. Snag your tickets for next year now exitfive.com/driveTimestamps(00:00) - – Intro
(01:00) - – Why events are making a comeback in B2B marketing
Email vs. Real Mail
#293 Email Marketing | I'm trying to make my way from Vermont to New York and back with a mini episode talking about email (is email dead?), direct mail, the Dream 100, and a smart lesson from a non-B2B marketer.
Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Broug
Traveling and The ROI of Events
#291 In-Person Events | I decided to break the pattern with a solo podcast, just me and my phone, walking around the woods at my home in Vermont on a damp October morning before heading to NYC for the Exit Five meetup. I talk about my goals for the week, our plans, why we're hosting a dinner, the value of meeting in-person, remote vs. in office work, and other ramblings.*If you listened t
Beyond Copy: How To Use AI to Build GTM Systems That Scale
#290 AI Workflows | In this episode, Dave is joined by Dan Guenet, GTM Engineer at Compound Growth Marketing, and Eoin Clancy, Head of Growth at AirOps. Both guests are at the forefront of building AI workflows that make marketing more efficient and scalable, from content creation to sales enablement.Dave, Dan, and Eoin cover:How to use Clay, Zapier, and AirOps to build repeatable GTM sys
Events, AI, and The Future of B2B Buying with Sydney Sloan, CMO at G2
#289 Strategy | Dave is joined by Sydney Sloan, Chief Marketing Officer at G2, where she’s leading the charge on integrating AI into marketing, rethinking team structures, and modernizing how B2B brands build trust. Sydney brings decades of experience from companies like Adobe, Alfresco, and Salesloft, and now oversees one of the largest software marketplaces in the world.Dave and Sydney
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