Look over my shoulder!

Turn every user into your next growth engine — with a little help from AI

HubSpot's CEO came to SaaStr + AI Summit to do a deep and honest dive on how she's transforming the company into an AI-first $2.75B+ ARR B2B leader. And what it means for the future of B2B software.

There isn’t a playbook for CMOs to follow in the AI era, but a growing number are making progress that speaks for itself. Take Jill Cress. As chief marketing and experience officer at H&R Block, Cress has spurred a 24% increase in the use of AI-powered marketing tools across her teams. She’s proud of the acceleration, but she doesn’t chalk it up to technological acumen alone. Rather, she says a disciplined strategy rooted in empathy and education has helped the tax prep brand blaze new trails in AI-driven personalization and precision.

Shaun Rowan-Popoff , Former SVP of Marketing at Green Dot Corporation, shares insights on bridging B2C lessons into the realm of B2B marketing to foster impactful growth partnerships. She delves into the significance of aligning with business partners’ goals, maintaining brand relevance, and elevating executives as thought leaders within their respective industries.

Today, I want to share some insights into what I learned from 16 years of conducting top-performer analysis, to allow you to compare how your sales methodology stacks up. To do that, I'm going to use my Modern Sales Foundations course as a yardstick to measure against, since it includes much of what I learned from those analyses.

In this video, I "interview" ChatGPT about how to use genAI more effectively as a thinking partner rather than just for text generation and summarization. Along the way it spills its secrets about why certain prompts yield very different responses, and how it uses flattery to increase engagement. Stick around for the end of the video where I address genAI criticisms and explain how I made the video.

In physics, “jerk” isn’t just someone cutting you off in traffic—it’s the rate at which acceleration changes. It’s the feeling that makes you grab for the subway pole when the train lurches or brace yourself during an elevator’s sudden start.

Expedify has introduced what it describes as India’s first fully agentic, AI-native CRM platform, aiming to shift the role of customer relationship management systems from passive tools to active teammates. The platform is designed to handle real-time, natural interactions across marketing, sales, and customer service through built-in chat and voice agents.

Long a staple in B2C, SMS is now proving its value in B2B marketing by offering unmatched immediacy and engagement. SMS can cut through noise and connect with prospects like no other digital channel. For B2B marketers looking to drive event attendance, boost webinar participation, share high-value content, reengage cold leads or deliver real-time campaigns, SMS is becoming a high-performing addition to the martech stack.

HubSpot integrates with ChatGPT to enable AI-powered analysis of customer data for marketing, sales and service teams.

Small business owners drowning in marketing tasks finally have a lifeline.

Google, Skype and a $10B SaaS firm all got comfortable. Learn how to spot when your strategy is stuck — and start moving forward.

Influencer partnerships can bring fresh eyes to your products, but turning likes into purchases is another story. If you can’t connect each click to an actual sale, you end up guessing which creators drove growth and which ones didn’t.

What if you could transform your customer service model, retain your experienced service team and scale operations—without the burden of starting from scratch? A lift-out makes this possible.

What makes a brand great? Find out from a chief marketing officer (and Content Marketer of the Year) who has done it more than once in the competitive higher education market.

Ask these key questions to separate press-release claims of complete marketing integration from reality.

Try these seven formulas for powerful introductions that captivate your audience from the very first sentence.

Don’t fall for the vibe marketing hype. The best ideas deserve the time it takes to make sure they’ll matter. That’s where slow-motion marketing (SloMoMa) shines.

Information customers voluntarily share, zero-party, is powerful marketing currency to drive customer engagement and loyalty

In times of economic turmoil, brands have the opportunity to step up and show customers they understand their struggles. Rather than retreating, brands that proactively develop recession response strategies can strengthen trust and build loyalty. Rooted in empathy, these brands prove they’re not just selling products but standing beside their customers when it matters most.

Optimism in generative artificial intelligence jumped nine points from 2023, per new research.

The beloved American children's classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was published in 1939 by the Montgomery Ward department store. So it's tempting to think of it—like Campbell's Green Bean Casserole—as yet another lasting piece of seasonal content marketing.

Today, B2B buyers are busy, busy, busy... doing the work of multiple people. The last thing they have time for is a salesperson who takes a spray-and-pray approach: a generic presentation that's all about the product/service being sold.

If generative AI is ever to be more than a distracting novelty, you may need more people on your team, not fewer. Here’s why (and which skills they’ll need).

What would you do if every new “user” signing up for your app cost you money?

Growing optimism about GenAI’s future impact is fueling new marketing investments that prioritize growth and not only efficiencies, according to BCG’s annual global survey of 200 CMOs. To support this strategic shift from experimentation to scaling, CMOs now need to focus on measurement, talent, and the implementation of end-to-end processes.

Smart sellers know that a mid-year sales funnel check ensures they’re on the right track. A lot can happen in the first six months of the year. Pausing to look over your funnel’s health helps identify any issues that can cause trouble ahead.

Human interaction seems to drive conversions, despite the intense focus on AI.

The B2B marketing playbook is evolving fast, and marketers adapting quickly are pulling ahead.

Big brands might have deep pockets, but mid-sized companies can also win by being sharper, faster, and more strategic.

For mid-sized companies, the pressure to compete with large enterprises and meet rising customer expectations has reached a tipping point. As a result, more and more of these businesses are rethinking their digital interaction strategies and upgrading their conversational AI systems to stay ahead.

Francis Rodino is an expert in sales strategy, digital growth, and the power of automation. With a career spanning more than two decades, he’s helped drive digital campaigns for some of the world’s biggest brands — from PlayStation and Disney to the Olympics — and was behind Top Gear’s first 10 million Facebook followers.

Explore simple strategies and behavioral nudges to improve CRM adoption in your organization.

Fast-growing AI startups risk losing customers unless they monitor real product usage, not just ARR.

Insights and wisdom for people in Customer Service, CX and Customer Success

NotebookLM · ChatGPT · Claude.ai → A "Story Stack" To Sell Your Narrative, Not Just The Feature

Bart Fanelli , Founder of Skillibrium, explores why B2B CROs often fail and highlights the key elements for long-term success. He emphasizes the importance of making tough decisions and aligning marketing, sales, and customer success efforts. Bart's insights offer CROs a roadmap for sustainable growth through an integrated go-to-market strategy that drives business transformation and lasting success.

When it comes to important skills for building in AI (especially for PMs and engineers), evals are at the top of the list. So, today, we break down evals in-depth with an expert.

Revenue Action Orchestration (RAO) is a sales execution framework that connects sales data, AI-driven insights, and real-time actions to drive effective sales outcomes. It helps revenue teams turn information into intelligent next steps, guiding sellers to take the right action at the right time within their workflow.

I’ve seen it over and over — experienced, talented marketers bearing the brunt of budget cuts and layoffs when business gets hard. Despite this, marketing remains one of the most critical functions in driving sustainable growth. But too often, it’s misunderstood, undervalued, or misused.

Six months into 2025, it’s time to revisit the trends shaping product management. What’s holding strong? What’s fading? And what’s newly emerging?

To get the most out of discovery you need strong research, great questions, and a point of view.

In this article, you’ll learn practical strategies for using content marketing to grow your business, educate your B2B audience and turn interest into lasting relationships.

The rapid development of Artificial Intelligence has enabled enterprise businesses to truly revolutionize customer service processes by introducing dedicated AI Agents that help engage with customers, solve problems, and save time and money.

The Numbers Don’t Lie: A Market Overall in Retreat … Other Than AI

We sat down to map out my biggest opportunities and priorities… and he led me through a process that completely blew my mind. It was so powerful, I knew I had to share it with you. With just a few questions and a spreadsheet (which I’ll give you below), it’s like the priorities were yanked right out of me in a way I just wasn’t seeing before.

Gartner delivers tough love to marketing leaders: adapt now, or risk being replaced. The data? Brutal. The advice? Urgent.