In today’s economic climate, losing a customer isn’t just disappointing—it’s potentially devastating. Yet many businesses miss the early warning signals until it’s too late.
I’m experiencing this firsthand with one of our vendors right now. The relationship is deteriorating, and I can see exactly where things went wrong. Don’t let this happen to your business. Here are the critical warning signs to recognize and address immediately:

1. Service Deterioration

When service quality stumbles at the start and never recovers—or worse, begins strong but steadily declines—customers notice immediately. This often stems from internal turnover or stretched resources, but regardless of the cause, clients can sense when they’re no longer a priority. Remember: consistency is as important as quality.

2. Communication Breakdown

Poor communication compounds service issues and accelerates relationship decline. Worst of all is attempting to cover problems with transparent excuses—this damages trust far more than the original issue. The solution is straightforward but crucial: honest, proactive communication can salvage even troubled relationships.

3. Eroding Trust

If your customer begins questioning your expertise or experience, you’re facing a five-alarm fire. Once trust evaporates, recovery becomes exponentially more difficult. This warning sign demands immediate intervention—schedule a candid conversation about expectations and reset the relationship before it’s unsalvageable.

4. Subpar Deliverables

Sometimes the sales team sets impossible expectations, creating a delivery gap from day one. Other times, businesses overreach beyond their core competencies. Either way, consistently disappointing deliverables will end relationships. Focus on excelling at what you do best rather than attempting to be everything to everyone.

5. The Toxic Team Member

One underperforming team member can poison an entire customer relationship. Don’t retain problematic employees simply to fill a position—they consume disproportionate management resources while actively damaging customer relationships. Make the difficult staffing decisions before they cost you valuable clients.

6. The Preemptive Reset

Sometimes the boldest move is acknowledging when you can’t meet expectations. Proactively addressing shortcomings—even suggesting a pause in the relationship—demonstrates integrity and preserves future possibilities. A temporary revenue hit is preferable to a permanently damaged reputation.

The Path Forward

Customers don’t make switching decisions lightly. When a vendor is deeply integrated into operations or fulfills a critical function, transition costs are substantial. This reality often creates a window for relationship recovery—but only if you recognize the warning signs and act decisively.

Use this opportunity to genuinely improve your service delivery. Not only might you save the relationship, but you’ll also remove the constant weight of knowing you’re underserving a client—a burden no business owner should carry.

The post Are You About to Lose Your Customer? Warning Signs You Can’t Ignore appeared first on Carbon Design.

5 Ways to Protect Against an AI Bot Attack

Businessman and former Presidential candidate Andrew Yang once said, “Automation is no longer just a problem for those working in manufacturing. Physical labor was replaced by robots; mental labor is going to be replaced by AI and software.”

AI bots are starting to deliver on that promise in the market research arena, to the detriment of research practitioners and their clients. Recently, we deployed an online survey for a client, dangling a financial incentive for completing the twenty minute questionnaire. As soon as the link hit social media with the financial incentive the AI bot sharks smelled blood in the water.

Within a few hours we had over 400 completed forms, and over 1,500 (!) within a day. And their completion rate was much higher than among our real human survey takers. Yes, AI bots are now trained to be able to navigate a 48-question survey with multiple choices, including intelligence designed to eliminate responses that don’t fit our profile.

If that isn’t shocking enough, no two survey responses were alike. Bots responded as if they were in different industries, big and small companies. And presumably by gauging the length and difficulty of the survey, bots seemed to learn to slow their response pace down to more closely mirror the typical speed if taken by human beings, typically completing at similar lengths of time as our population of human participants.

Before we shut things down after discovering what was happening, the bots completed the survey 1600 times out of 2100 starts.

How did we detect them?

The most obvious giveaway was the sheer volume of responses received within a very short time. We had been sending out the survey via email and had anticipated a response rate, based on past experience which was much slower.
Additionally, we could tell by the fake emails they created. The bot submissions ended with false gmail accounts (an email was required in order to receive the gift card award – easily spotted as garbage.

How to prevent this in the future?

According to our head of research, Steve Wolf, recommends five things to consider in order to prevent bots from hijacking your survey:

• Gauge expected response metrics – starting with a trusted, proprietary sample of responders (e.g., a client’s customer base) can provide a baseline of start and completion rates, and time per survey, when taken from living breathing humans.
• Create a unique link – don’t rely on one master weblink to the survey, which would make it very difficult to identify which respondent is coming from where. Instead, assign a unique URL per channel (such as email, client website, social media). This way, one can isolate bot submissions to the channel which they took over.
• Add open ended questions – bots have gotten smarter, but they still are unable to answer open ended questions…yet. Sprinkle in 2 or 3 open ended questions throughout the survey.
  Use a “trap question” – trap questions ask the survey taker to take an action proving they’re a human – similar to a CAPTCHA. For example, a survey asks “please enter the number 32”. Bots are best at reading multiple choice surveys and picking an option.
• Try adding an invisible question – using a hidden question is another way to trick a bot. Use white font on a white background. Since humans can’t see the question it will always be skipped, but bots will answer it.

And unfortunately, the best option would be to avoid tempting bots in the first place – especially as AI bots become more and more sophisticated. Just avoid “open” surveys – such as those promoted on social media channels or advertised via banner ads – and recruit target participants from other “closed” sources such as email, or at least “quasi-closed” sources such as company newsletters or blog posts.

Lastly, today’s researchers must be especially diligent on reviewing the completed surveys. If you are using a financial incentive to drive survey completions, know that there are bad actors out there looking to cash in.

More Bot Bad News

More and more people are using AI assistants to read and respond to emails. As a result, it is impacting your campaign success rates.

We just switched email platforms. Our company newsletter was the first item to be sent and the performance dropped significantly. Open and click thru rates were half of what they historically had been. The reason? The new platform can filter out bot/agent responses.

For the most part, marketers have been focused on the upside of AI, in particular, generative. What has been missed for the most part is the impact of AI on our results. As I just illustrated, AI bots are disrupting our marketing research efforts, and AI assistants are distorting email response rates. Expect more disruption as AI agents become better at understanding workflows.

AI is turning out to be a double-edged sword. The focus of last year was mostly application and production. This year, we will need to make the time to start considering the impact it will have on our efforts. Or, maybe just program your own bot to figure it out.

The post When Bots Attack! appeared first on Carbon Design.

Sales may be a “numbers” game but selling is not.

We often confuse the two. Treating prospects as a “number” that we need to reach more broadly, and more frequently.

I had the opportunity this year to evaluate a half a dozen new AI enable sale and marketing tools on the market. New tools that promise the world but at the end of the day they deliver basically the same thing we are using tools for today.

• Volume – aka scale, scratching the “reach more’ prospect itch
• Speed – scratching the “more frequently’ itch
• Efficiency – an output of speed and some interesting capabilities to improve productivity

If the goal is greater efficiency you’re in luck, but if it’s efficiency AND effectiveness you’ll be disappointed.

Why? Because performance is not a scale or speed issue, in fact, they make it worse. To get to the root of the performance problem, you have to do post modem on stalled or lost deals.

Here’s what we’ve seen based on our assessments:

• Corporate Priorities – as in you’re no longer on it, priorities shift all the time as well as budgets, this one is interesting because companies often come back to solving the issue at some point
• ROE – the costs, the solution, resources investment, timeline, roi, etc. and/or some combination of those kills the decision
• Motivation – loss of sponsorship, other priorities, effort level, elements of ROE slow the progress
• Inside Job – they did it themselves, gave it to an existing vendor, picked someone they knew/trusted, etc.

Can you think of any sales or marketing tool that can fix the bullets above? If you answered no, you’re right, because they are “selling problems.”

Keep that in mind as you’re watching demos of the latest and greatest.

The post What Value Should You Expect with New AI Tools? appeared first on Carbon Design.

As previously published on 8/5/21 in The Drum

by Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 4 Minutes

Years ago, doctors treated gastric ulcers as a chronic disease, most likely brought on by stress or spicy foods. As a young pharma rep carrying the world’s first billion-dollar drug in my bag, I’d actively promoted how this wonder product could relieve the symptoms for their ulcer patients.

That was until the day I met a doctor who questioned why we weren’t selling a drug to cure the problem. It was a very valid point, one that would not be fully understood until a couple of years after I left that job.

Given the success of that drug, other similar products would soon follow, all for the relief of ulcer symptoms. Pharma companies followed the money, rather than investing in developing a cure.

Recently, I recalled this memory while looking at Scott Brinker’s Martech Landscape, which now includes 8,000 companies. There are companies investing millions of dollars into B2B marketing technologies that have hardly moved the needle on marketing performance – tools created to treat the symptoms of poor performance rather than fix them.

This issue has persisted for years. Performance should be improving by now, unless we’re missing something.

Here’s an example: ask a salesperson to describe their ideal buyer in detail and this is what you will likely hear. They want more buyers who are ‘risk-takers’, ‘innovators’, ‘people who are looking to make a name for themselves’ or ‘big-picture thinkers’.

What you won’t hear is prospects who are ‘technical buyers’, ‘budget holders’ or the ‘CEO’. Do you see what we are missing? Sales reps are describing personality attributes that make prospects ideal buyers, not their role, title or budget authority. The martech stack doesn’t capture those descriptors.

Still not convinced? Ask a salesperson why they lost a deal when they should have won it. You’ll probably hear “they had an existing relationship” (trust) or “they have used the solution/service in the past” (security). These are emotional decision drivers also not capturing or seen in CRM tools.

Get at the cause to find the cure

There is a buyer’s journey that is hidden. Our sales and marketing tools are not built to capture, track or provide us with insights into what to do about these ‘soft’ factors that impact deals. And it may be more important than anything we are tracking or measuring today. It’s time, like the doctor I encountered all those years ago, to ask the question of why we aren’t fixing the problem.

In 2005, a couple of Australian researchers named Barry Marshall and Robin Warren were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work on linking the bacteria Helicobacter Pylori to the formation of gastric ulcers. They won this coveted prize after spending decades trying to convince the world of their discovery, even coming to a point where Marshall ingested H. Pylori to prove the causation to ulcers (it worked, he developed an ulcer three days later).

Marshall’s research was hugely disruptive and would eventually lead to the demise of a multi-billion-dollar therapeutic class of drugs. Their joint research in the late 80s was discredited for years, until the first drug of its type (the one I promoted) came off patent. Suddenly, gastric ulcers could be cured by prescribing a common antibiotic (which, ironically, was also manufactured by the same company).

Millions of dollars have been invested into martech tools, yet our sales and marketing performance have not improved. This industry is thriving by treating poor performance as a chronic disease – developing tools to keep the focus on extending reach and increasing scale, not on improving conversion rate or return on effort and investment.

Just as Marshall and Warren used postmortem research and forensic medicine to link the cause and effect of H. Pylori on the body, we are doing the same with breaking down deals closed, both won and lost. We are starting to get at the ‘cause’ – and to find a cure.

What we’re finding doesn’t necessarily match with the conventional wisdom of the day. Intent data may not actually show any real intent. Lead nurturing programs may be set up to nurture prospects that will never become leads. Campaigns may be targeting ‘buyers’ who are actually the exact opposite, a personality type that is more likely to kill a deal than help to close it.

It’s called personality-based marketing, and it has the promise to cure our ills… but please don’t make me ingest a lead to prove it.

The post Feel lost? Understanding the hidden B2B buyer’s journey appeared first on Carbon Design.

As previously published on 5/21/21 in The Drum

by Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 4 Minutes

Not the “C-Suite.” Sorry if you were hoping to hear otherwise. Despite the pleas from the sales and product organizations, unless you have a solution for a “c-suite” level issue (and few companies have that), they are most likely not your audience. 

Sure, they may have to make the decision and/or sign the deal because they own the budget which makes them an important target…for your sales organization, not marketing. 

There I said it feel free to forward this post to the head of sales. I can say this because the goal of marketing is to find an audience, get their attention and motivate them to take action. It’s not to sell them, which is often forgotten. 

So given that, who is the audience for B2B marketers? 

It’s a “director” level position. 

Now before you throw the baby “c-level” out with the bathwater, let me explain why they’re important. Actually, I’ll give you three reasons which are all backed by “the numbers.” 

1. There are more of them 
2. They feel the pain 
3. They’re motivated to take action  

Think of an organization chart: there is a pyramid with the “c-level” executive on top, vice presidents in the middle and directors near the bottom. As you cascade down the pyramid there are more and more positions. Logically, for every one c-suite executive there are possibly 10’s of director level positions. And marketing, like sales, is a numbers game. More important, is the role each level plays in the purchase decision process. Typically, the “c-suite” executive is the decision maker, the VP the budget holder, and the directors, well, they’re the users. And as the users of the product or services, they are also the ones who feel the pain. 

Feeling the pain makes for a motivated audience and that’s who marketers need to get in front of with content. There is also another really important reason that directors are important and it also has to do with motivations. 

Being a source of information and bringing new ideas, vendors, and solutions to the table is a smart way to demonstrate value to the organization. They’re motivated by career ambitions so feed them information. 

Not convinced yet? Here are some numbers to back up my argument. Over the past year we’ve collected data from clients on over 10,000 prospects and leads sources from marketing activities, lead nurturing programs, and new MQL entries into CRM. 

Guess how many had “director” level titles? Over 60% and that number went even higher for MQL’s. Yet for some reason when we plan marketing campaigns, the target audience is often defined as the “c-suite.” 

The problem, the c-suite does not actively seek information from marketing channels. If they are looking for a new solution or vendors, they are relying on their network. Peer-to-peer is the number one source of information, and it’s not even close. 

Marketers, it’s time to step up and defend your audience. You need to understand and build content for directors with the understanding that they will share it with their bosses and perhaps their bosses’ boss. They are the door openers as well as the path to decision makers. 

For sales, they’ll also one day realize that they are key for them as well. Directors are at the beginning of the buyers’ journey and without motivated participants it doesn’t move. 

The truth is, just like the fact that the c-suite is not a viable marketing audience, marketing doesn’t actually motivate prospects to take action. Rather it finds motivated audiences who are seeking information, and that audience is dominated by directors. 

The post The Real Audience for B2B Marketing is… appeared first on Carbon Design.

Productizing an organization’s intellectual property makes sense for many reasons. It can help build scale, improve valuations and create efficiencies. The challenge is to get the desired outcome it may require new skill sets, a change in culture and significant investment. Learn how to avoid the pitfalls and create a strategy for success from Eisha Tierney Armstrong, author of Productize in our latest podcast.

To hear Scott’s entire conversation with Eisha Tierney Armstrong, author of Productize about “How To Productize Professional Services IP”, listen or download here:

The post How To Productize Professional Services IP appeared first on Carbon Design.

As previously published on 4/16/21 in The Drum

by Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 5 Minutes

How ‘false positive’ personality types disrupt B2B intent data.

There is no argument that when a B2B buyer begins their journey, they start online. All of the research and data points are right, the journey starts with a search; often times with a solution and/or vendor in mind. Do you know what else B2B buyers do? They search for information even when they’re not in a buying cycle, which is a problem because our tools don’t know the difference. Here’s what you need to keep in mind.

If your organization is in the “advisory” or information services industry, and/or considered to be a thought leader in the industry, congratulations, the majority of the people consuming your content are not buyers, they’re fans.

The expensive intent data you’re buying or retargeting campaign is going to waste because it is tracking engagement, and not real intent. To get to intent, you must first understand the audience’s motivations.

In particular, there are two segments of your audience who actively search and use content but neither doing as part of a buying journey, and if they are, they’re planning to make things difficult. Take for example these two scenarios.

1. The false positive “C-level”. Nothing will set off the bells of a lead nurturing program like a C-Level hitting your content. A senior executive “Seeker/Sharer” personality type is constantly scanning the horizons searching for new insights. The problem is they don’t own anything. They love finding new solutions, ideas, tools and vendors, but a resulting action will require someone else’s involvement. These personalities will “turtle” on you, hitting your content especially if you’re a thought leader, and then disappear only to reappear again in three to four months. It’s super frustrating for lead nurturing programs because they are not linear. They’ll hop around from topic to topic as they search for information to share with others. Unfortunately, this personality type only meets the “A” on a BANT scoring index, the budget and need, most often, will sit with someone else.

2. The entrenched “status quo seeker”. This is a tough one. Not only can this personality fool marketers, they can also trick sales into thinking there is interest. The “Neophobe” personality type seeks to reinforce their own point of view by consuming information that aligns with their own beliefs. Think of this person as someone who only watches Fox News or CNN as their source for political news and information. Your content doesn’t move them to take action, it entrenches them in their own world. Even if it was different from their POV, they will read it through their own filter that will align with how they think. As for confusing sales, this personality is friendly, in fact, it’s one of their key attributes, but they will do nothing to advance a sale, advocate for your brand and/or solution. It’s just not in their DNA.

Once you are able to filter out the false positives, you can get to real intent. “Intent” is shown through intentions…e.g. someone has to do something. Downloading a piece of content or attending a webinar doesn’t dig deep enough into motivations to satisfy that criteria.

To do that you need to understand how different personality types interact with each other in the buying group, this requires watching their online behaviors. The key is not consumption of content or engagement, it’s sharing.

The “Seeker/Sharer” whom I mentioned earlier, they are the most important audience for marketing. Stop chasing them and find out who they are sharing your information with…that’s your target. Seekers will find the “doers” inside the organization. And those people will most likely also have the need and the budget.

Now you have intent, that person intends to drive the buying process forward… because it’s their personality, they champion other people’s good ideas. Sharers need champions, champions need sharers, and you need to know them to be successful.

The post How ‘false positive’ personality types disrupt B2B intent data appeared first on Carbon Design.

The post Want to convert that B2B sale? You’d better be aware of these 4 buyer personalities. appeared first on Carbon Design.

Today there are an abundance of solutions available for sales and marketing, yet sales productivity still lags. On average, an ABM program could be using up to 16 different platforms. Scott interviews Usman Sheikh, Founder & CEO of xiQ on their solution and how organizations can get a better return on their sales and marketing investments.

To hear Scott’s entire conversation with Usman Sheikh, Founder & CEO of xiQ about “How To Get A Better return From ABM”, listen or download here:

The post How To Get A Better Return From ABM appeared first on Carbon Design.

With all of the changes and impact resulting from the pandemic, companies are repositioning their brand, offerings and services in the marketplace. Scott interviews Leslie Tullio, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at McDermott Will & Emery on these current challenges and discusses how to build authenticity into branding once again.

To hear Scott’s entire conversation with Leslie Tullio, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at McDermott Will & Emery about “Brand Transformation”, listen or download here:

The post Brand Transformation appeared first on Carbon Design.