Episode 239
“Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb says “understanding how to act under conditions of incomplete information is the highest and most urgent human pursuit”
He might have been referring to B2B marketing. Think of it. Internal teams have internal data that give insight into customer accounts and lifetime value. Their agencies are close to different data: media auction signals, campaign trends. But both of them are data-poor, disadvantaged by limited access to each others’ systems.
As long as we tolerate the status quo, both sides will keep making false assumptions and poor decisions that harm their relationship.
The same problem’s existed in occupations and athletic pursuits, where having one person do it all brings the risk of making a wrong move. The solution is a two-person-team, where each compensates for the others’ blindspot.
One of the earliest examples comes from a young French acrobat in the mid 1800s who experimented with an aerial act he and a teammate performed over a pool. He was Jules Leotard, and yes, his name’s become synonymous with the gymnast outfit he wore.
His most dangerous maneuver started up high on his trapeze, with a teammate who’d dangle by their legs as they swung from their trapeze. When they were at the apex of their swings, he’d vault off into the air, to be grabbed by his teammates’ arms. Talk about trust!
There are many modern equivalents where people work in pairs: we have baseball pitchers and catchers exchange signals, synchronized swimming pairs vault each other out of the water. Airplanes are flown by captains and co-pilots, police and military cover for each other in tactical operations, or train Locomotives which are jointly operated by an Engineer and a Conductor.
Our guest strives for 360 degree views of data shared between his agency and clients.
He has done B2B marketing for startups and brands like Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent.
In 2023 he founded Zinc Marketing, working for B2B technology companies. Beyond this, he has been featured in ABC, BusinessWeek, as well as tech and healthcare publications.
He is also co-host of the B2B Marketing Pint podcast, and his love of camera gear helped us still record when some of my equipment broke.
Head with me to a local pub to hear about trapeze performances done by agencies and clients, from Brendan Ziolo
Chapter Timestamps
00:00 Intro
02:08 Meet Brendan Ziolo
03:22 Agency vs In House Data
06:00 Beyond MQLs to Revenue
11:25 Funnel Alignment Fixes
12:42 Radical Transparency
16:48 Qualifying Clients Fast
19:22 Directional Targets and Scaling
24:30 AI Needs Humans
29:56 Quality Over Quantity
30:52 Email Autopsy and Wrap
People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show
Brandon’s agency Zinc Marketing
Email Autopsy series on YouTube
The B2B Marketing Pint podcast
B2B Marketing Pint (@b2bmarketingpint)
Brendan on Instagram (@b2bmarketingdude)