Briana Belisle is the Executive Vice President of Marketing at Field Nation, where she leads a 22-person team. In this episode of Unicorn Marketers, she joins Brett to break down the structure of the marketing AI hackathon she ran — the pre-training sessions, the event design, the mistake she made asking for metrics inside a safe-space event, and the workflows that actually made it to production. Topics Discussed: How Field Nation's marketing org is using AI — briefs, automated manual tasks, and higher-fidelity outputs The three-part hackathon structure: pre-work, the event, and post-event follow-up The four pre-hackathon training sessions: prompt writing, custom GPTs, Zapier, and core tool functionality The mistake of asking for metrics inside a "safe space" event and why it broke the learning dynamic The workflow that made it to production: Gemini for account research → ChatGPT for tailored outreach sequences A revenue marketer who independently built a Chorus call scoring rubric in Claude to predict large-deal likelihood Team saving 4-5 hours per person per week — ~10% capacity How she structured the hackathon to work across mixed AI fluency levels GTM Lessons For B2B Marketers: AI adoption fails without a forcing function: The failure mode isn't resistance — it's telling your team to experiment without protecting time. "It can come off as a very difficult message where it's like, hey, go learn AI and oh by the way, do all your other stuff." The hackathon forces the leader to commit: protect a full day or admit it isn't a real priority. There was pushback going in; results on the other side justified it. Run pre-event sessions before the hackathon: Most of Field Nation's team had never or rarely used AI before the first event. Briana ran four short sessions — prompt writing, custom GPTs, Zapier, core functionality — to establish what was possible. Without that baseline, teams stall during the event. The 77% jump in self-reported AI knowledge was built on that prep, not the day itself. Don't ask for metrics inside a safe-space event: Briana called this her clearest mistake — framing the hackathon as a confidence-building exercise, then asking participants what metric they'd move. "That was a violation of the safety element." Keep outcome accountability in the follow-up, not inside the event. Anchor on the problem, not the tool: When mixing fluency levels, the frame "here's a problem — how can this help solve it" works better than "here's how to use AI." Her strongest AI user owned the structure and ran short peer-led sessions with recorded examples. No certifications, no vendors. Expect almost nothing to ship directly: Very few projects made it to production from the hackathon. What eventually shipped was shaped by what the team explored during the event. The one example: a team member built an account-specific prompt in Gemini, executed it in ChatGPT, and produced highly tailored outreach for target accounts. The hackathon created the conditions for it. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM
