🎙️ Co-Host of The B2B Playbook | 💭 Bringing Clarity to Demand Generation That Drives Revenue | The 5 BEs Framework

If you're in a small B2B marketing team, I'm guessing you've felt some of these pains:

❌ you're unsure if your brand awareness and thought leadership are getting results
❌ it's hard to show your marketing is making an impact on revenue
❌ you want more engagement with your content from Dream Customers
❌ you are in service of sales
❌ you look for B2B 'hacks' and tactics on sites like Hubspot and LinkedIn
❌ you struggle to get 'buy-in' on your content strategy
❌ your costs on advertising platforms keep going up
❌ you don't have time to document your strategy for your boss

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So how can I help you?
---------------

With our 5 BEs Framework, that shows marketers exactly how to create more demand for your business

Here's what your life looks like after implementing it:
✔️ you have higher intent leads
✔️ you have faster sales cycles
✔️ you have more word of mouth and brand loyalty

Not to mention the other benefits:
✅ you have a system to build relationships at scale, and know how to demonstrate it's working
✅ you are able to show how demand generation wins you more business
✅ you build a community that will vouch for you
✅ sales love you as you send them more qualified buyers
✅ you have all the strategy and tactics you need
✅ you move beyond just 'thought leadership', and experts outside the marketing department help you create content
✅ your entire b2b demand generation strategy is documented for your boss

------------

So! Here's 2 ways you can use The 5 BEs Framework

1/
👉 Listen to The B2B Playbook podcast 🎙️

https://the-b2b-playbook.captivate.fm/listen

2/ 
👉 Get the strategy, tools & templates you need to generate new demand for your business

https://theb2bincubator.com/

Questions?

👉🏼 Shoot me a DM

George Coudounaris

Just got our first copies of our book with Adem Manderovic - Closed Circuit Selling. 

So here's the mandatory unboxing video! You can see my genuine surprise

That it actually turned out pretty good
(save for a few little print errors haha - points for whoever finds them first)

Somehow everyone else seemed to get their copies before me 😆
We've had about 40 people send screen shots of it in their amazon checkout

And a bunch more already posted selfies with the book!

---

In all seriousness, extremely proud of this one. 

To partner with Adem (2x CRO, 7x head of Sales) and bring to market a combination of our frameworks is a privilege 

This book is the origin story with the receipts,
So you can see how Adem used his framework to set records across the globe over 24+ years

And how it connects with our 5 BEs Framework

---

If you're interested in reconnecting your sales, marketing and customer success teams back together

And reconnect your GTM to the market

You can either grab a copy, or I'll send you a PDF summary if of interest!

Off to the post office to deliver a few copies of Closed Circuit Selling with handwritten notes, and tabs on relevant sections. Feels good to go analogue and personal! 

Let’s hope people can read our handwriting 

Word on the street is Adem was never granted his pen licence 

Excited to do more of this in 2026 with Adem Manderovic and Kevin Chen

No alternative text description for this image

Five years ago Kev & I started The B2B Playbook  

At the time, the goal was simple (or at least we thought -).

Share a practical framework for how small B2B marketing teams could grow sustainably.

That framework became the 5 BEs.

Be Ready.
Be Helpful.
Be Seen.
Be Better.
Be The Best.

We wanted marketers to escape the MQL hamster wheel and build marketing that actually compounds over time.

Fast forward to today,
And we’re much further down the road 

• 220+ podcast episodes
• 320+ marketers trained through The B2B Incubator  
• Still hands-on in the trenches running campaigns with our agency

The podcast became the place where we shared the playbook.

The Incubator became the place where marketers learned how to actually implement it.

But along the way something became obvious.

Even the best marketers hit a ceiling.

You can fix campaigns.
You can improve targeting.
You can create better content.

But if the revenue system itself is broken, marketing gets pushed back into the same old role.

Lead generation.

—-

That’s when I met Adem Manderovic  

Adem helped me see why marketing often ends up hamstrung.

The problem isn’t just marketing.

It’s the way most companies structure sales, marketing and customer success.

The system itself is broken.

Which means the fix has to come from the top down.

That’s why the third frame just went up on the wall.

Closed Circuit Selling.

The book we wrote to explain how modern revenue teams should actually operate.

—-

It shares the system Adem used across 24+ years to set records across the globe 

And the foundation behind Chief Revenue School  — where leadership teams learn how to implement the system inside their organisations.

Three frames on the wall.

The B2B Playbook → The B2B Incubator → Closed Circuit Selling.

Three chapters of the same mission:

Helping B2B companies build buyer first, connected revenue systems

Excited to have it up on the wall - we’re just getting started!

Here's how we helped Sam Dunning scale his SEO agency from $0 → $185k/month in 22 months.
Most new clients say "we keep seeing you on LinkedIn"

Here's how we did it - 

(P.S.
Full video includes: 
• screenshares of Sam's top performing posts
• how we measure LinkedIn TL ads (ways that I don't see many others doing)
• how we'll scale this to the next level)
  

---

Before we started working together, Sam was doing what most founders do.

Posting organically, cold calling for his first few clients 

Great content and engagement

But organic reach alone wasn’t enough to stay in front of the right buyers consistently.

(LinkedIn has made it harder and harder to get this organic reach)

---

So we layered in LinkedIn Ads to turn his content into an engine.

Not lead gen ads - 
Not a lot of “request a demo” ads

Just amplifying the right content to the right companies.

---

Here’s the simple version of the system we built:

1. Start with the ICP (not the ads)
When your budget is small (Sam started with £1,200 pounds), targeting matters more than creative.

We manually built a vetted company list of SaaS businesses that actually buy SEO services.

Every campaign started with the list.

---

2. Turn organic posts into Thought Leadership Ads

Instead of company ads, we promoted Sam’s personal posts.

Why?

Because they look like normal content in the feed.

That meant:

• Engagement rates up to 15%
• Lower cost per impression
• Way more attention from buyers

---

3. Map content to the buying journey

We used the 5 Stages of Awareness to structure the posts.

Cold audience → helpful ideas and frameworks
Warm audience → case studies and stronger CTAs

Every post had a next step with a CTA. 

---

4. Layer in brand + social proof

Over time we added:

• Company page ads
• Client posts talking about results
• Partner endorsements

So the brand grows beyond just the founder.

---

5. Play the long game

Most buyers aren’t ready today.

They already have a vendor (SEO provider)
Or they don’t have the budget yet - because they're not ready

But when timing changes…

They reach out to the company that’s been consistently showing up.
That shows they understand their pain 

And have undeniable proof of the outcomes they get for their clients. 

---

That’s exactly what happened with Sam.

Prospects literally tell him they were:

“Retargeted to hell.”

Maybe that's a little extreme - but we're certainly staying top of mind - which is a big part of the game in B2B

I just released a full video breaking down the exact LinkedIn Ads strategy we ran for Sam.

Step-by-step so you can replicate it.

If you run a B2B company and want to see how to turn LinkedIn into a pipeline engine, I think it's worth a watch!

Nearly 2 years ago, Kevin and I recorded an episode of The B2B Playbook with partnership expert Bryan Williams from Hockey Stick Advisory.

We recently revisited that conversation.

And honestly… almost everything he said has aged incredibly well.


Back then we talked about three ideas that stuck with me.

---

1. Partnerships cut through the noise

Buyers today are drowning in content, outreach, and ads.

When someone you already trust introduces you to another brand, it acts like a shortcut to trust.

It’s the same in life.

If a mate says, “You should meet this person,” you’ll probably give them the time of day.

That same trust transfer happens in B2B partnerships. 

---

2. Partnerships make your marketing dollars work harder

Every year it’s getting more expensive to acquire customers.

Paid media costs go up. CAC creeps higher.

But when two companies share audiences and distribution, the economics change.

Instead of paying for every click and every impression, you’re leveraging trust and reach that already exists. 

---

3. Partnerships aren’t a “nice to have”

Bryan made a point that stuck with me:

Partnerships shouldn’t sit off to the side as a small initiative.

They should be part of your go-to-market strategy.

Done properly, they become a way to power up with another company that serves the same customers you do. 

---

The reality is:

• It's hard for buyers to know who to trust
• Paid acquisition keeps getting more expensive each year
• Outbound gets filtered more every year

Which makes trusted introductions and ecosystem plays even more powerful.

So we’re bringing Bryan back on the show soon.

And this time I want to go deeper.

What questions should we ask him?

A few I’m thinking about:

• How should B2B companies structure partnerships in 2026?
• What mistakes kill partnerships early?
• How do you measure partnership ROI properly?
• When does a partnership become a true GTM channel?

But I’m keen to hear your ideas.

👇 Drop your questions below and we’ll bring the best ones to the episode.

Sam Dunning sent this to me last night: "You're going to like this, LOL" 
(It's an inquiry for his SEO services - inbound sourced as LinkedIn Ads)

The person who inquired said they were "Retargeted to hell. ;)" 

We manage Sam's ads for him (plus the strategy). So this bit of feedback told me a few things:

1. Sam stayed top of mind until this company could afford SEO services
2. The thought leadership content reaffirmed his position as an authority
3. LinkedIn continues to be an unreal channel for Sam and Breaking B2B 

But it made me wonder - 
How much retargeting is too much?

Here’s what we actually run:

We have limits in place on both our cold and retargeting layers:
• INDIVIDUAL Frequency cap of 4 impressions every 7 days (LinkedIn's native solution)
• COMPANY Frequency cap of 16+ impressions over a 30d period 

We build this for each account dynamically using the 'Company List' feature in LinkedIn Ads, and add it as an exclusion to our campaigns. 

(This is to ensure LinkedIn also just doesn't spend its budget on a handful of top companies, and helps increase your reach in your target audience)

This particular account had 40 paid impressions over the last 90 days. 

--- 

We're fortunate that Sam continues to release incredible content for us to work with, so a higher frequency is less likely to annoy people

We also know this is working:
• We continue to increase our audience penetration (reach) of a highly targeted company list
• Frequency as a whole is not unreasonable across the account
• Inquiries keep rolling in for Sam 

(he's gone from 50k/mo to 200k/mo over the last year)

So the question is - 

Are you staying present long enough for timing to catch up, and for your target companies to come into market?

Because memory decays. 

--- 

Follow along as we share more of our journey with Sam!

We're 8 days into launching our book Closed Circuit Selling, and I'm blown away by the response from the GTM community. Some read all 228 pages in two days, others sending us selfies with the book 🤯

That one has been surreal.

Seeing the book on desks, in offices, on kitchen tables around the world.

Thank you.

I think the early response comes down to a few things.

---

First, 

A lot of people in sales and marketing are tired. Tired of being slaves to activity metrics and dashboards.

Tired of the churn-and-burn approach to pipeline.

We all feel it.

And deep down we know something about the current system is broken.

Buyers don't move in neat funnels. And revenue doesn’t come from more activity.

It comes from reconnecting with the market. Understanding people, speaking to them 1:1. 

And reconnecting Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success back into one system.

---

Second, 

This book si really a testament to Adem Manderovic 

Adem has been shouting about a return to first principles for years.

Long before it was fashionable.

Over 24 years, across 12 industries, he’s used the foundations of what became Closed Circuit Selling to set sales records again and again.

A lot of people have been watching.

And waiting for him to finally put it all down in one place.


---

Third,
We built a waiting list before launch.

Because… marketing.

Turns out the fundamentals still work.

---

To everyone who bought the book early.
To everyone who shared a photo.
To everyone sending us messages about how it’s challenging the way they think about revenue.

Thank you, it means a lot! 

This book isn’t magic fairy dust.
It’s simply a return to first principles.

And judging by the response so far…

A lot of people were ready for that.

Can’t believe our book is out there in the wild! It’s been available for less than 48 hours, and Amazon is showing us sales rolling in across the world.

One early adopter is legend Ricky Pearl - a big name in the Aussie sales and recruitment scene. 

It’s a credit to Adem Manderovic and the reputation he has built across 24+ years - as a 2x CRO, 7x Sales Leader

People have heard about Closed Circuit Selling 

They are feeling th struggle and failures of applying Predictable Revenue 

(Or the market’s misinterpretation of it) 

And now the book reveals the origins of Closed Circuit Selling, and how it forms the beginnings of Revenue Alignment Architecture 

Reconnecting sales, marketing and customer success 

—-

If you don’t have an endless money ramp, and if it feels like your GTM team is disconnected from the market and each other 

You might want to check it out!

GTM ANZ community | Creating high functioning revenue teams through performance based recruitment and outcomes based training

Sweet little treat. Seeing my name in another book :) 

Excited to tuck into Adem Manderovic and George Coudounaris's book Closed Circuit Selling. 

The name of this book is perfectly keyword optimised for exactly what people want right now (we would expect nothing less from one of Pointer's partners) 

"Architect Predictable Revenue in an Unpredictable Market"

After reading this I might finally understand what Adem has been banging on about all these years! Everyone keeps telling me its brilliant 

Jokes aside - we are lucky to have these two strong revenue leaders in our community and everyone will be better off for reading their work.

B2B Marketers - you don't need that new 'playbook' that's comment-gated on LinkedIn... THe biggest impact is going to come from applying the fundamentals with structure, clarity, and confidence. The only issue is,

Most marketers never get the time to do it, because we're stuck on the hamster wheel. 

And the best time to do that planning for 2026 is now
Everyone is back in action - and its time to build the strategy, get buy-in on it, and start executing

That’s why now’s the perfect time to work on the fundamentals most marketers never get around to:

+ Building and documenting your demand gen system
+ Aligning your strategy with sales and leadership
+ Setting up a repeatable framework you can actually scale

That’s exactly what The B2B Incubator is built for.

It’s a 6-week demand generation program designed to help you:
✅ Build and document your demand engine step-by-step
✅ Apply proven frameworks and templates directly in your company
✅ Get expert feedback and accountability so you’re not building in isolation

You’ll build alongside a small group of like-minded B2B marketers,
with live Q&As for guidance, collaboration, and support.
And you’ll walk away with a firm plan to execute in 2026 and tools to do it

(not just ideas)

Over 310+ marketers have completed the program so far.
Some now with their revenue team drive 70–80% of pipeline and have tripled qualified opportunities from the systems they built during it.

(And that's 'real' pipeline, with timing validated - not fake pipeline to inflate numbers. Of course, nothing happens in a vacuum — revenue’s a team sport.)

If you’re responsible for demand generation and want to:

+ Build a strategy you can point to
+ Create a system you can explain
+ And start 2026 with clarity, alignment, and momentum

👉 Details and application link are down below for cohort launching 9 March

Spots are capped at 10 marketers per group.

Check it out below! 

#b2b #demandgeneration #marketingstrategy

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George Coudounaris

Mike Carr ≡ B2B Marketer

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