Here's an uncomfortable idea for any B2B business competing for a high-value deal: your biggest competitor may not be a better business. It may simply be one that's easier to believe.

That's the starting point for the second year of the Trust Advantage research from Emmett & Churchman, which surveyed 200 senior technology decision-makers and sat down with 19 CEOs making real, high-stakes buying decisions. The finding: capable businesses lose deals constantly, not for lack of capability, but because of what the research calls the commercial credibility gap, the distance between what a business can deliver and what a buyer can see, believe and defend.

Joel is joined by Lorraine Emmett, founder and managing director of Emmett & Churchman and the lead author of the research, to unpack why 45% of senior buyers say they've ruled out a supplier for failing to prove its credibility, and what leadership teams can do to close the gap in their own business.

Download the 'Trust Advantage' report here: https://emmettandchurchman.com/trust/

What you'll learn

• What the commercial credibility gap actually is, and why it explains lost deals that looked like safe wins on paper.
• The three questions buyers are really asking of every supplier, and which one businesses most consistently fail to answer.
• Why a frank discussion of limitations and risk can build more trust than a flawless pitch.
• What a smaller or less recognised B2B business can do to compete credibly against a better-known incumbent.
• The first practical step for any leadership team that wants to close this gap in its own business.

Chapters

• Introduction: the commercial credibility gap
• Why Emmett & Churchman ran this research for a second year
• The three questions every buyer is asking: can I see it, believe it, defend it
• Why “can I see it” is the one businesses fail most
• Overpromising versus candour: the biggest destroyer of trust
• The human side of commercial negotiation
• Equipping your champion: evidence that travels beyond the room
• Challenger opportunity: why 57% would choose a trusted smaller supplier
• Reframing commercial credibility as a leadership issue
• The CEO commercial credibility test
• Closing thought: where to start closing the gap

Follow Lorraine Emmett

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorraineemmett-b2b-strategic-comms/
• Emmett & Churchman: https://www.linkedin.com/company/emmett-churchman/home/

Closing boilerplate

If you found this conversation useful, the best way to support the show is to subscribe and leave a rating wherever you listen. It genuinely helps more B2B marketers find us.

🌐 Visit Joel Harrison's website to explore exclusive reports, upcoming events, and join the B2B marketing community ➡ www.joelharrisonb2b.com

💬 What's costing your business the deals it should be winning: capability, or credibility? Let us know in the comments below.

🔔 Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly insights, interviews, and on-the-ground perspectives from the world of B2B marketing. www.joelharrisonb2b.com/podcast

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Why AI makes human experiences more valuable, not less, with Claire Ellis of JPC

ABM was supposed to be about relationships. As AI makes targeting and personalisation cheap and abundant, the thing ABM was meant to build in the first place, trust with the people who actually decide, has become the real differentiator. Nowhere is that more acute than in ABM's biggest deals, where a single account can be worth millions and keeping it can matter even more than winning it.

➡️ Joel Harrison is joined by Claire Ellis, Managing Director of JPC, to unpack experiential ABM: human moments designed to move specific stakeholders, rather than events that simply fill rooms. Claire explains why buyers are now using AI to form preferences early and out of sight, why so much supplier activity is noise rather than relationship progress, and how to work out who really carries the room. She shares how BT moved from infrastructure provider to strategic partner with Translink, where organisations should deliberately keep human judgement in the loop, and why accountability matters more than accuracy when AI shapes what a senior buyer sees. If you run ABM, or are weighing up where your next experience budget should go, this conversation will sharpen how you plan, measure and own those moments. This episode is sponsored by JPC.

What you’ll learn

• Why AI has made trust harder to earn in complex deals, and what buyers rely on instead.
• How to design experiences around the change you need in specific stakeholders, rather than around the format.
• How to spot who really carries the room, and when to rethink your account plan.
• Where to deliberately keep human judgement, and how open to be about AI's role.
• What credible relationship movement looks like, and who should own what happens next.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction: trust and ABM in an AI world

01:55 Claire Ellis and JPC

04:29 Where suppliers go wrong in complex deals

08:26 AI cuts both ways: why trust is harder to earn

11:59 Influencing an account before the opportunity exists

15:30 What experiential ABM is, and what it isn't

18:06 Why the format gets decided first, and what it costs

22:00 Finding who really carries the room

26:17 BT and Translink: when co-creation is real

31:14 Where to keep human judgement in the loop

35:13 Accuracy, authenticity and accountability in AI

37:44 What credible relationship movement looks like

41:47 What a CMO should ask before booking anything

44:11 Close and where to find out more

Follow Claire Ellis

Claire Ellis on LinkedIn ▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/claireellisjpc/

JPC ▶ https://thinkjpc.com/

Find out more

Read JPC's report, The human advantage in an AI-powered world ▶ https://thinkjpc.turtl.co/story/experiential-abm-roundtable-recap/page/1?pid=6aabbc5b8632548bf34bd33c

Hear Claire and JPC at the Global ABM conference ▶ https://events.b2bmarketing.net/abmconference

If you care about making B2B marketing more meaningful, useful, and memorable, this conversation is for you. It's honest, reflective, and packed with takeaways that can help elevate your approach, whether you're a marketing leader, an ABM practitioner, or working alongside sales on your most important accounts.

🌐 Visit Joel Harrison's website to explore exclusive reports, upcoming events, and join the B2B marketing community ➡️ https://www.joelharrisonb2b.com/

💬 What's the last event in your account plan that actually moved a relationship? Let us know in the comments below.

🔔 Subscribe to the channel for weekly insights, interviews, and on-the-ground perspectives from the world of B2B marketing.

📲 Follow Joel Harrison and Trust & Influence in B2B across the web:

LinkedIn ▶ https://linkedin.com/in/joelharrison/

Podcast ▶ https://trust-influence-in-b2b.captivate.fm/

Instagram ▶ https://instagram.com/joelharrisonb2b/

#JoelHarrisonB2B, #B2BMarketing, #ABM, #AccountBasedMarketing, #ExperientialABM, #ExperientialMarketing, #B2BTrust, #AIinMarketing, #EnterpriseSales, #StrategicAccounts, #SalesAndMarketing, #MarketingPodcast, #B2BInsights, #JoelHarrison, #B2BStrategy, #CMOLeadership, #B2BGrowth

Everyone's talking about buyer group marketing. Far fewer are doing it well, and most organisations have no reliable way of knowing how mature their approach really is. For this sponsored episode, Joel Harrison is joined by Greg Salmon, CEO of Pretzl, and Jeff Lowe, Pretzl's go-to-market advisor and a former CMO and Chief Commercial Officer at SMART Technologies, to unpack the 2026 Buyer Group Index. Produced in association with the ANA and research firm NewtonX, the Index surveyed 200 senior go-to-market leaders and measured 28 practices against commercial outcomes, from pipeline velocity to time to market.

➡️ Greg explains why so much of what passes for buyer group marketing is persona-based nurture under a new name, why the single score of the MQL is so comforting and so misleading, and how to reach the hidden influencers and build trust with people a vendor may never meet. He also warns that AI can scale bad assumptions as easily as good ones. Jeff draws on his years client-side to argue that separate sales and marketing teams are an outdated idea, explains why connected data has become a CMO's problem, and sets out what the leading organisations do differently.

What You'll Learn

• Why so much of what passes for buyer group marketing is persona-based nurture under a new name, and how to tell the difference.
• How to identify the hidden influencers in a buying group and build trust with people you may never meet.
• Why AI is speeding up go-to-market activity without automatically improving growth, and what to do about how AI represents your brand.
• Why connected data and genuine sales and marketing alignment are the highest-impact practices, and among the weakest.
• What the leading organisations do differently, and how to benchmark your own maturity in around 15 minutes.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction: Pretzl and buyer group marketing

01:57 Introducing the 2026 Buyer Group Index

03:59 When buyer group marketing is persona nurture by another name

04:38 What a maturity score of 63.2 tells us

07:01 Why the MQL is so hard to let go of

10:06 Who the hidden influencers are

11:25 Building trust with people you never meet

12:28 Practical step: mapping your buyer group

14:57 When most buyer research happens out of sight

16:31 Why AI isn't automatically improving growth

17:36 How AI represents your brand

18:49 Practical step: the next 90 days

20:09 Jeff Lowe: from client-side to Pretzl

20:59 Why the real benchmark is lower than 63.2

22:18 Connected data and the systems gap

24:00 Should sales and marketing be one team?

26:56 What the leading organisations do differently

29:23 Practical step: benchmark your own maturity

31:31 Wrap-up

Follow Greg Salmon, Jeff Lowe and Pretzl

Greg Salmon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-salmon-280a1412/

Jeff Lowe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefflowe2/

Pretzl: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pretzlco/

Take the free Buyer Group Index assessment: [link]

If you're responsible for go-to-market and want an honest view of where your organisation stands, this conversation is for you. It's practical, candid and packed with first steps you can act on now.

🌐 Visit Joel Harrison's website to explore exclusive reports, upcoming events, and join the B2B marketing community ➡️ https://www.joelharrisonb2b.com/

💬 Is your buyer group marketing the real thing, or persona nurture with a new name? Let us know in the comments below.

🔔 Subscribe to the channel for weekly insights, interviews, and on-the-ground perspectives from the world of B2B marketing. https://youtube.com/@JoelHarrison-B2B?sub_confirmation=1

📲 Follow Joel Harrison and Trust & Influence in B2B across the web: LinkedIn ▶ https://linkedin.com/in/joelharrison/ Podcast ▶ https://trust-influence-in-b2b.captivate.fm/ Instagram ▶ https://instagram.com/joelharrisonb2b/

#JoelHarrisonB2B, #B2BMarketing, #ThoughtLeadership, #MarketingPodcast, #B2BInsights, #JoelHarrison, #B2BStrategy, #BuyerGroupMarketing, #BuyerGroups, #GoToMarket, #GTMStrategy, #SalesAndMarketing, #ABM, #RevOps, #AIinMarketing, #CMOLeadership, #B2BGrowth