Growth Activated | The B2B Marketing Leadership Podcast

Mandy Walker
  • 5.0 (11)
  • MARKETING
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Growth Activated is a podcast for B2B marketing leaders who want to elevate their marketing strategies, lead confidently, and drive real business results. Each episode offers actionable insights and proven frameworks to help you activate growth for your team, your company, and your career.

  1. JAN 27

    Community-Led Growth in B2B: How CMOs Build a Trust Moat (and Drive Pipeline) - with Ridhi Singh

    #38 - Community-led growth is becoming one of the most powerful (and most underused) moats in B2B marketing—especially as AI-generated content floods the market and buyers rely more heavily on trust, peer validation, and real human connection to make decisions. In this episode of Growth Activated, host Mandy Walker sits down with Ridhi Singh, Founder of 91 Ninjas, to break down what community-led growth actually means (beyond the buzzword), why it’s surging right now, and how marketing leaders and CMOs can use community marketing and event marketing to build a durable GTM engine competitors can’t copy overnight. You’ll learn the difference between building an audience vs. building a true community, why a Slack group isn’t the strategy, and how to design community programs that create real value, drive engagement, and influence the full funnel—from discovery to advocacy. In this episode, we cover: Why community-led growth is rising now: AI, trust, and modern B2B buyer behaviorCommunity marketing vs. audience building (and why the distinction matters for CMOs)When community-led growth is the right GTM strategy (product complexity, skeptical ICPs, long-term culture)How to start without overbuilding: power users, leadership involvement, and “unscalable” early playsHow community impacts pipeline velocity, conversion rates, retention, and AI/LLM visibilityWhy events and offline moments are back—and how fun + connection drive community stickinessHow best-in-class brands (like Clay) build communities that become self-sustaining growth enginesIf you’re a B2B marketing leader looking to strengthen your go-to-market strategy, earn buyer trust faster, and build a scalable engine that performs in an AI-first world, this conversation will give you a clear framework and practical starting point. Listen now and keep activating growth for yourself and your company. Lead Like a CMO - Group Coaching Lab: Join the Waitlist Let’s Keep the Conversation Going! Loved this episode? Connect with me for more insights on B2B marketing leadership and strategies to grow your business. 🌐 Visit my website: growthactivated.com 🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn: Mandy Walker 🔗 Get Your Free Marketing Planning Guide Today! Don’t forget to subscribe to Growth Activated and share this episode with fellow marketing leaders. Let’s activate growth—together!

    46 min

  2. JAN 21

    Employee Advocacy That Drives 45% of Revenue: How to Build an Employee-Led Content Engine (with Gabe Lullo)

    #37 - Employee advocacy programs are hard. They’re hard to launch - because you’re asking busy people to show up publicly, consistently, and with confidence. And even if you get it going? They’re even harder to keep going without losing momentum, burning people out, or turning into a short-lived push that fades after a few weeks. In this episode of Growth Activated, I’m joined by Gabe Lullo, CEO of Alleyoop, to break down one of the most impressive employee-led marketing programs I’ve seen in B2B. Over the last 4 years, Gabe and his team have scaled their employee follower base from 20,000 to 1.2 million, built a consistent LinkedIn content engine across the company, and turned employee advocacy into a core growth strategy—driving 45% of revenue alongside outbound demand generation. If you’re a CMO or B2B marketing leader looking to strengthen your marketing strategy, build a scalable content creation engine, and create demand in a market where attention is harder than ever to earn, this conversation is packed with actionable takeaways. What we cover: Why most employee advocacy programs fail (and how to keep yours alive)How to build a sustainable employee-led content engine without forcing participationThe “small influencer bench” approach: why 10–20 consistent employees beats 200 inconsistent onesHow to batch monthly content and repurpose one recording into weeks of LinkedIn postsHow Alleyoop time-blocks daily LinkedIn engagement to create consistency without losing productivityHow to connect employee-led content + outbound into one unified demand generation system🎧 Listen now to learn how to create an employee advocacy program that actually drives pipeline, builds brand trust, and becomes a repeatable growth lever for your B2B marketing team. Lead Like a CMO - Group Coaching Lab: Join the Waitlist Let’s Keep the Conversation Going! Loved this episode? Connect with me for more insights on B2B marketing leadership and strategies to grow your business. 🌐 Visit my website: growthactivated.com 🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn: Mandy Walker 🔗 Get Your Free Marketing Planning Guide Today! Don’t forget to subscribe to Growth Activated and share this episode with fellow marketing leaders. Let’s activate growth—together!

    34 min

  3. JAN 13

    The CMO’s Role in an AI-Driven Market: Customers, Competition, and Change with Carol Meyers

    #36 - AI is transforming B2B marketing - but for today’s CMOs, the real challenge isn’t just adopting new tools. It’s leading marketing strategy, marketing planning, and go-to-market decisions in a rapidly changing market. In this episode of Growth Activated, Mandy Walker sits down with Carol Meyers—former Chief Marketing Officer and VP of Sales, now venture advisor and operating partner—to unpack what marketing leadership looks like in an AI-driven world. Drawing on decades of experience building and scaling venture-backed B2B companies, Carol shares how CMOs can elevate their role from tactical execution to strategic business leadership. This conversation is designed for B2B marketing leaders who want to move beyond AI experimentation and step fully into CMO-level ownership—shaping customer strategy, influencing executive decisions, and guiding their organizations through meaningful change. In this episode, you’ll learn: How AI is reshaping the B2B buyer journey and what that means for modern marketing strategyWhy marketing leadership must shift from internal efficiency to external market impactHow CMOs can assess customer behavior, competition, and industry shifts through an AI lensWhat strategic questions should inform marketing planning and go-to-market strategyHow marketing leaders can help their organizations navigate AI-driven change without losing focus, trust, or momentumIf you’re a CMO, VP of Marketing, or senior B2B marketing leader responsible for marketing strategy, planning, and executive alignment, this episode will help you clarify what you own, how you lead, and how marketing drives long-term business growth in an AI-driven market. Lead Like a CMO - Group Coaching Lab: Join the Waitlist Let’s Keep the Conversation Going! Loved this episode? Connect with me for more insights on B2B marketing leadership and strategies to grow your business. 🌐 Visit my website: growthactivated.com 🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn: Mandy Walker 🔗 Get Your Free Marketing Planning Guide Today! Don’t forget to subscribe to Growth Activated and share this episode with fellow marketing leaders. Let’s activate growth—together!

    34 min

  4. 12/09/2025

    How B2B Marketing Leaders Decide What to Keep In-House, What to Outsource, and When to Go Fractional

    #35 - Struggling to decide whether to hire a marketing agency, add in-house headcount, or bring in fractional support? You’re not alone — and the answer is changing fast in 2025. In this special episode, Mandy switches seats and joins Kayla Bryant, General Manager at Two Trees PPC and host of The Marketing Chatroom, for a candid and practical conversation about how to resource your marketing team in an AI-driven world. You’ll hear Mandy’s perspective from 15+ years leading marketing inside large service orgs, startups, and agencies — plus her experience today as a fractional CMO supporting multiple companies. In this episode, you’ll learn: How to evaluate whether an agency or in-house hire is the better move — and the signals leaders often miss.The real differences between agencies, contractors, and fractional roles — including the hidden trade-offs that impact speed and outcomes.How to avoid mismatched expectations with agencies — especially for small marketing teams with limited budgets.The impact of AI on marketing resourcing — and why marketers and agencies need to evolve their value fast.Whether you lead a small marketing team, run an agency, or oversee GTM strategy, this episode will help you make smarter, more modern resourcing decisions in a landscape that’s shifting by the month. Lead Like a CMO - Group Coaching Lab: Join the Waitlist Let’s Keep the Conversation Going! Loved this episode? Connect with me for more insights on B2B marketing leadership and strategies to grow your business. 🌐 Visit my website: growthactivated.com 🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn: Mandy Walker 🔗 Get Your Free Marketing Planning Guide Today! Don’t forget to subscribe to Growth Activated and share this episode with fellow marketing leaders. Let’s activate growth—together!

    29 min

  5. 12/02/2025

    Go-to-Market Science: How Sarah Renner Turns B2B Marketing into an Experimentation Engine

    #34 - What if your marketing org operated like a science lab—with clear hypotheses, clean data, and experiments that actually change how you invest your budget? In this episode of Growth Activated, I’m joined by Sarah Renner, VP of Marketing Strategy & Analytics at MarketBridge and one of the sharpest go-to-market “truth seekers” in B2B. Sarah has spent 20+ years at the intersection of strategy, analytics, and experimentation, helping companies move from opinion-driven decisions to evidence-based growth models that scale. Sarah breaks down what she calls Go-To-Market Science—a data-backed, hypothesis-driven, reproducible approach to marketing—and shows how any B2B team can start building an experimentation factory (even if your data is messy or your volumes are small). In this episode, you’ll learn: The 3 pillars of Go-To-Market Science—data-backed, hypothesis-driven, and reproducible—and why most B2B reporting never gets past the first one.How to turn your team into an experimentation engine: picking the right tests, avoiding inconclusive results, and focusing on experiments that can actually move the business.What to do if you “don’t have good data” yet—and how to start stitching together channel, CRM, and web data while you use qualitative buyer research in parallel.How to partner with analytics, RevOps, finance, or external data science teams to design tests, size budgets, and avoid the “we tested it but learned nothing” trap.Why the winners in 2026 B2B marketing will have sharper audience definitions, human-first messaging, and data-driven media buys that outperform platform algorithms.Practical ideas for experimenting with channels (like paid media, events, and podcasts) without blowing your budget—or starving sales.If you’ve ever felt like your tests are random, your reports are too surface-level, or your budget decisions still rely on gut feel, this conversation will completely reframe how you think about measurement, experimentation, and GTM planning as a marketing leader. Lead Like a CMO - Group Coaching Lab: Join the Waitlist Let’s Keep the Conversation Going! Loved this episode? Connect with me for more insights on B2B marketing leadership and strategies to grow your business. 🌐 Visit my website: growthactivated.com 🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn: Mandy Walker 🔗 Get Your Free Marketing Planning Guide Today! Don’t forget to subscribe to Growth Activated and share this episode with fellow marketing leaders. Let’s activate growth—together!

    51 min

  6. 11/25/2025

    AI-Powered Rebrand in 6 Weeks: How CMO Dana Gagnon Relaunched Her Brand & Website with a Tiny Team

    #33 - What if you could pull off a full rebrand and ship a new website in six weeks—without a big agency, giant budget, or in-house dev team? In this episode of Growth Activated, CMO Dana Gagnon (Every, ex-Pluralsight) breaks down how she used AI to lead one of the fastest, most modern B2B brand relaunches I’ve seen. She shares the exact playbook she used to reposition the company, refresh the visual identity, and write 13 core pages of web copy in an afternoon—while still protecting quality and brand voice. We cover: When it’s really time to rebrand (and when you should not touch your logo or website yet).Dana’s 6-week AI rebrand & website roadmap—from positioning and messaging to launch-day execution.How she used Claude, ChatGPT projects, agents, and vibe-coding tools (like V0 by Vercel + WordPress/Elementor) to move faster than most agencies.The workflow she used to get on-brand, non-“AI slop” copy for 13 pages in a single afternoon.Where human creativity still matters most—design, animation, and strategic judgment—and how she balances speed vs. quality.What this means for B2B marketing leaders, CMOs, and agencies as AI becomes a core competitive advantage.If you’re a B2B marketing leader or CMO trying to do more with a small team—and you want to see what’s really possible with AI-powered workflows—this episode will completely reset your expectations for how fast you can move. Lead Like a CMO - Group Coaching Lab: Join the Waitlist Let’s Keep the Conversation Going! Loved this episode? Connect with me for more insights on B2B marketing leadership and strategies to grow your business. 🌐 Visit my website: growthactivated.com 🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn: Mandy Walker 🔗 Get Your Free Marketing Planning Guide Today! Don’t forget to subscribe to Growth Activated and share this episode with fellow marketing leaders. Let’s activate growth—together!

    51 min

  7. 10/29/2025

    A Little Life Update Before the Next Big Chapter

    #32 - It’s been a full season - from wedding planning and family celebrations to prepping new episodes for the podcast. In this short update, Mandy shares what’s been happening behind the scenes, why the feed’s been quieter, and what listeners can look forward to when Growth Activated returns in mid-November. Lead Like a CMO - Group Coaching Lab: Join the Waitlist Let’s Keep the Conversation Going! Loved this episode? Connect with me for more insights on B2B marketing leadership and strategies to grow your business. 🌐 Visit my website: growthactivated.com 🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn: Mandy Walker 🔗 Get Your Free Marketing Planning Guide Today! Don’t forget to subscribe to Growth Activated and share this episode with fellow marketing leaders. Let’s activate growth—together!

    2 min

  8. 09/16/2025

    The Pipeline Black Box: Why Your GTM Factory Stalls (and How to Fix It)

    #31 – What’s really happening inside your GTM engine before opportunities are created? That hidden stretch - what today’s guest calls the pipeline black box - may be the single biggest blind spot in B2B growth. Four-time marketing leader Carolyn Dilks (ex–VP Marketing, now Co-Founder at Passetto and co-host of GTM Live) joins host Mandy Walker to unpack how revenue teams can finally see what’s working, what’s wasting resources, and how to engineer predictable pipeline. You’ll learn: The Pipeline Black Box: Why it matters and what most teams miss before opp creation.Handraisers vs. MQLs: Why meetings - not MQLs - are the metric that actually matters.Attribution Myths: Where attribution helps, where it misleads, and the better metrics to run your GTM factory.Pipeline Ownership: How to align sales, marketing, and RevOps around system-level accountability.Planning Implications: How to defend budget, stop vanity metrics, and prioritize what drives growth.About our guest: Carolyn Dilks is a four-time marketing executive and the Co-Founder/CEO of Passetto, an advisory + instrumentation platform helping B2B revenue teams unlock their pipeline black box. She also co-hosts GTM Live, where she and her co-founders share lessons from building modern go-to-market systems. If this episode sparked an idea, share it with a fellow B2B marketing leader. And as always - keep activating growth for yourself and your company. Lead Like a CMO - Group Coaching Lab: Join the Waitlist Let’s Keep the Conversation Going! Loved this episode? Connect with me for more insights on B2B marketing leadership and strategies to grow your business. 🌐 Visit my website: growthactivated.com 🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn: Mandy Walker 🔗 Get Your Free Marketing Planning Guide Today! Don’t forget to subscribe to Growth Activated and share this episode with fellow marketing leaders. Let’s activate growth—together!

    48 min
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5
out of 5
11 Ratings

About

Growth Activated is a podcast for B2B marketing leaders who want to elevate their marketing strategies, lead confidently, and drive real business results. Each episode offers actionable insights and proven frameworks to help you activate growth for your team, your company, and your career.

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