“I wake up every morning, looking to help my friends succeed, and some of them happen to be clients.”
Mo Bunnell’s book, Give to Grow, opens with this powerful idea spread boldly across the first 3 pages.
This book hit home with me because it taps into something deeper: we’re all just people trying to make our way in the world, and we all need a little help from friends to get where we’re going.
Driving back home to visit family this weekend, I spent about 8 hours in the car with two kids. Each of us engrossed in our own little worlds. Here’s what it taught me about B2B marketing (🤣, but seriously).
During the 4-hour return stretch on Saturday night, I re-listened to the excellent Give to Grow by Mo Bunnell. Mo and his team focus primarily on sales activities—often for partners at firms who need to win business, but don't spend the majority of their time selling.
These are doers, not sellers. Leaders who have spent decades honing their craft and developing skills to the point where people often find them.
But in listening, I discovered the obvious truth: Nobody just finds you because of your expertise. Know it or not, those "word of mouth" deals are the result of actions you take that make you more recommendable.
This unlocks powerful growth on a 1:1 level in sales and relationship management, but how does this apply to marketing?
All the best marketing speaks directly to one person.
When marketing works, it feels like you are speaking directly to the hearer—even if it's on a billboard. Even if it's during a Super Bowl ad.
As David Ogilvy put it: "The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything."
That got me thinking about the gap between sales relationship-building and marketing relationship-building.
Mo's framework teaches you how to become more recommendable. (among other things, sorry for butchering this so badly, Mo). In sales, this means consistently adding value, staying top-of-mind, and asking for increasing levels of commitment. (Chapter 15 is gold).
Marketing works the same way.
The brands that last—the ones that weather algorithm changes, economic downturns, and shifting consumer preferences—do so by deepening relationships at scale.
Here's where it gets interesting: The more people you're trying to reach, the more personal your message needs to feel.
The Relationship Gap
Mass marketing that works doesn't broadcast to everyone—it whispers right to you—as if you’re the only person in the world that matters. (Remember what Ogilvy said about your wife?)
But here's where I got stuck: Ogilvy's advice works when you're talking to one person. What about when you need to have that same intimate conversation with thousands of people?
Speaking to Thousands, One at a Time
Most of us solve this by going generic. Broad segments, safe messaging, vanilla content that offends no one and excites no one. I've done it. You've probably done it too.
Can we agree to do better? But, what then, does “better” look like
Why We Buy (And Why It Matters)
Sitting in traffic somewhere between Augusta and Atlanta, something clicked while Mo was talking about how people actually make decisions. We like to think we're rational, but Daniel Kahneman's research (in his seminal book “Thinking Fast and Slow”) shows us something different.
People buy first because they want to buy from you, then they find reasons to justify it. The emotion comes first, the rationalization comes second.
Of course, the companies that broadcast the most about making this work are the same companies that make the technology to enable this sort of relational scale. Companies like Amplitude, Intercom, SalesForce, and SAP. They weren't just building software. They are building a way to have real conversations with thousands of people without losing that human touch (too much).
What I Learned About Time
Here's what sales doesn't have that marketing does: time. Your sales team needs to close deals today–this quarter at the latest. As a marketer or GTM leader, you get to play the long game. You can help someone solve a problem today, knowing they won't need your product for six months. You can share insights with no agenda other than being useful.
But here's the key: you're not helping everyone. You're helping the right people—those who fit your ideal customer profile but aren't ready to buy yet. This isn't charity; it's a strategic investment in future revenue.
I started looking at our own content differently. How much of it was designed to extract something from people versus actually help them? The honest answer was uncomfortable.
So I tried something different. Instead of always asking "How do we get them to convert?", I started asking "How do we get them to trust us?" Turns out, the second question answers the first one—just over a longer timeline.
Three Things That Actually Work
Here's what this realization is leading me to try (and early results are promising):
Look at your last few campaigns. Count how many were designed to take something (email, demo, download) versus give something with no strings attached. The ratio tells you whether you're building relationships or just filling your CRM.
Help people with problems they don't even know they have yet. Everyone's creating content for problems people are googling today. What about the challenges they'll face next year? When they get there, guess who they'll remember?
Track the right things. When measuring relational equity, I care less about conversion rates and more about who's coming back. Same person reading three articles? Visiting the site five times? That's relationship equity building in real time.The weird thing is, when you stop trying so hard to convert people immediately, more of them convert eventually. They do it because they want to work with you, not because your funnel finally wore them down.
