The ROI Puzzle

Nicole Stirling
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Marketing
  • Biweekly

The ROI Puzzle explores the hardest question in B2B marketing — how to prove what’s really working. Each episode, host Nicole Stirling from Stirling Marketing sits down with marketing and sales leaders from some of the most innovative B2B tech companies to unpack how they’re turning spend into pipeline — and pipeline into proof. From attribution challenges and sales alignment to AI-driven insights and demand generation, The ROI Puzzle gets to the real stories behind the numbers. Expect sharp insights, honest conversations, and practical ideas to help you turn marketing from mystery into measur

  1. Oct 27

    Glocal Strategy That Scaled One Client 50x with Manushree Bahukhandi

    Nicole Stirling sits down with Manushree Bahukhandi, Director of Business Development at Turnitin. Manushree reveals why the "shiny object" of AI is actually forcing a return to deep human connection. She shares how she navigates 60+ stakeholders to turn a small project into 50x revenue growth. 01:35 AI Trends Driving Deeper Human Conversations 04:47 The Two Biggest Blockers Slowing Deal Velocity 05:48 What's Changing in 2026: Stakeholder Alignment from Day One 07:21 Building Local Proof in Global Markets: The Glocal Approach Learn more at https://www.stirlingmarketing.net Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more insights from The ROI Puzzle. ------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT MANUSHREE BAHUKHANDI Manushree leads commercial strategy for Asia Pacific at Turnitin, where she specializes in Greenfield market development and building solutions outside traditional sectors. Her role focuses on connecting the dots between client needs and company capabilities, managing complex stakeholder relationships across multiple organizations. You can reach out to Manushree through: Website: https://www.turnitin.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT NICOLE STIRLING Nicole Stirling is the CEO of Stirling Marketing, a global marketing agency helping tech startups and scaleups accelerate growth and revenue. With over 15 years of experience in the technology industry, she has led marketing strategies for top companies like Sitecore, Acquia, and TechnologyOne, as well as emerging tech innovators across the Asia-Pacific region. You can reach out to Nicole through: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolestirling/ Website: https://www.stirlingmarketing.net ABOUT THE ROI PUZZLE The ROI Puzzle is a podcast that dives into one of B2B marketing’s toughest challenges, proving what truly drives results. Hosted by Nicole Stirling, the show features conversations with executive leaders focused on growth in sales and marketing from top tech companies. Each episode explores topics like attribution, pipeline visibility, sales and marketing alignment, and the use of AI to measure impact. Listeners gain real-world insights and practical frameworks to connect marketing spend to revenue and confidently prove value to the board. To know more about The ROI Puzzle, you can visit the links below: Podcast/Blog: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZXy9ccI8JqEAETghD7eDP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2R7dib6tKP4abfFZjwpbug

  2. Oct 22

    Quang Cao: How to Build Pipeline in Any APAC Market (90 Days)

    Two years to close a deal. That's where Quang Cao started. Six months is where he got it to. Across eight APAC markets at the same time. In this conversation he walks through the exact 90-day framework he built at Blancco Technology Group for entering new markets through channel partnerships — without a local team in place, without years of slow relationship building. Stop. Start. Measure. That's the core of it. He goes step by step. 00:00 Building pipeline where nobody knows you 03:31 The 90-day APAC market plan 05:30 Finding first partners in Vietnam from scratch 08:57 Two regulations quietly creating new pipeline 12:02 How sales cycles went from 2 years to 6 months 15:47 The government program that unlocked his first partners Learn more at https://www.stirlingmarketing.net Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more insights from The ROI Puzzle. ABOUT QUANG CAO Quang Cao is Channel Manager, ASEAN & ANZ at Blancco Technology Group, where he works with banks, government agencies, and large enterprises on data erasure, compliance, and secure data lifecycle management. Over ten years he's built relationships with 30+ financial institutions, 20+ conglomerates, and government agencies across ANZ and ASEAN. His focus is practical: helping organisations manage redundant data, meet regulations like PCI DSS and ISO 27001, and actually execute the transition to cloud or hybrid environments without leaving compliance gaps. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quangcaohoang/ Website: https://blancco.com/ ABOUT NICOLE STIRLING Nicole Stirling is the CEO of Stirling Marketing, a global marketing agency helping tech startups and scaleups accelerate growth and revenue. With over 15 years of experience in the technology industry, she has led marketing strategies for top companies like Sitecore, Acquia, and TechnologyOne, as well as emerging tech innovators across the Asia-Pacific region. You can reach out to Nicole through: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolestirling/ Website: https://www.stirlingmarketing.net ABOUT THE ROI PUZZLE The ROI Puzzle is a podcast that dives into one of B2B marketing’s toughest challenges, proving what truly drives results. Hosted by Nicole Stirling, the show features conversations with executive leaders focused on growth in sales and marketing from top tech companies. Each episode explores topics like attribution, pipeline visibility, sales and marketing alignment, and the use of AI to measure impact. Listeners gain real-world insights and practical frameworks to connect marketing spend to revenue and confidently prove value to the board. To know more about The ROI Puzzle, you can visit the links below: Podcast/Blog: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZXy9ccI8JqEAETghD7eDP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2R7dib6tKP4abfFZjwpbug

  3. Oct 6

    Why a Sniper Approach Beats the Sprinkler Method in B2B Sales with Victor Pineiro

    Nicole Stirling from Stirling Marketing sits down with Victor Pineiro, formerly Vice President of Asia Pacific at Aptitude Software.Victor has led sales teams across Asia Pacific for Thomson Reuters, AMP, and now Aptitude Software. He's also an open water endurance swimmer who completed a 60km solo swim from the Isle of Man to Ireland. A feat no one had ever done before.Today he breaks down exactly how that same mindset drives the way he grows companies in new markets. And he shares a 90 day playbook for proving pipeline in a brand new APAC country.03:30 — The AI shift and why data quality is the real bottleneck04:48 — One stack ERP is dying. Best of breed is winning06:02 — 90 day pipeline playbook for a new APAC country08:42 — What a 60km Irish Sea swim teaches you about stretch goals12:44 — Why growing a company and endurance training are the same gameLearn more at https://www.stirlingmarketing.netDon’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more insights from The ROI Puzzle.-------------------------------------------------------------ABOUT VICTOR PINEIRO:Victor Pineiro was recently the Vice President of Asia Pacific at Aptitude Software where he led go to market growth across the region. A chartered accountant by background, Victor has spent over 15 years in leadership roles across Australia, Asia, and Latin America with companies including Thomson Reuters, AMP, and KPMG. He is also an open water endurance swimmer who has completed five of the world's seven ocean swims and is featured in The Ultimate Swim, a documentary following his record setting 60km solo swim in the Irish Sea.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorpineiro21Website: https://www.aptitudesoftware.com/-------------------------------------------------------------ABOUT NICOLE STIRLINGNicole Stirling is the CEO of Stirling Marketing, a global marketing agency helping tech startups and scaleups accelerate growth and revenue. With over 15 years of experience in the technology industry, she has led marketing strategies for top companies like Sitecore, Acquia, and TechnologyOne, as well as emerging tech innovators across the Asia-Pacific region.You can reach out to Nicole through:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolestirling/Website: https://www.stirlingmarketing.netABOUT THE ROI PUZZLEThe ROI Puzzle is a podcast that dives into one of B2B marketing’s toughest challenges, proving what truly drives results. Hosted by Nicole Stirling, the show features conversations with executive leaders focused on growth in sales and marketing from top tech companies. Each episode explores topics like attribution, pipeline visibility, sales and marketing alignment, and the use of AI to measure impact. Listeners gain real-world insights and practical frameworks to connect marketing spend to revenue and confidently prove value to the board.To know more about The ROI Puzzle, you can visit the links below:Podcast/Blog: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZXy9ccI8JqEAETghD7eDPYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2R7dib6tKP4abfFZjwpbug

  4. Sep 29

    How Snyk Built 8% of Global Revenue in APJ (And You Can Too)

    Two years ago the average enterprise customer had five or six funded initiatives. Now they have two. Asanga Wanigatunga, formerly VP APJ at Snyk, ran the region with 55 people across India, Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, about 8% of Snyk's global business. He walks Nicole through the account-based approach behind 30% market share in ANZ, why vendor consolidation is moving faster than most sales teams have adjusted for, and the value engineering his team leaned on when customers started cutting spend. He also covers how to build local proof across 44 APJ markets when global campaigns are not enough. 00:00 Why the easy decade in B2B tech just ended 01:48 When customer budgets went from 6 priorities to 2 04:24 What Snyk is doing differently in 2026 06:33 The math that made retention more important than acquisition 08:36 How to build credibility across 44 different markets 10:08 Why ANZ, Singapore and Japan each need a different playbook ABOUT ASANGA WANIGATUNGA Asanga Wanigatunga is the former VP APJ at Snyk, where he ran go-to-market across 55 people in India, Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. His team ran 8% of Snyk's global business, focused on cybersecurity stack consolidation across the region. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asangawanigatunga/ Website: https://snyk.com ABOUT NICOLE STIRLING Nicole Stirling is the CEO of Stirling Marketing, a global marketing agency helping tech startups and scaleups accelerate growth and revenue. With over 15 years in the technology industry, she has led marketing strategies for Sitecore, Acquia and TechnologyOne, as well as emerging tech innovators across the Asia-Pacific region. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolestirling/ Website: https://www.stirlingmarketing.net ABOUT THE ROI PUZZLE The ROI Puzzle digs into one of B2B marketing's hardest problems: proving what actually drives results. Hosted by Nicole Stirling, the show features conversations with sales and marketing leaders from top tech companies on attribution, pipeline visibility, sales and marketing alignment, and using AI to measure impact. Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZXy9ccI8JqEAETghD7eDP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2R7dib6tKP4abfFZjwpbug

  5. Sep 16

    The Global Marketing Head Who Tracks $7M Pipeline Reveals All

    Jasmeet Sawhney has spent a lot of time on this problem. He is the Global Head of Marketing at Axtria, where sales cycles are long and some of the most important marketing work - executive relationships, brand credibility - never shows up in any dashboard. 00:00 Why proving marketing spend keeps getting harder 02:16 The events everyone loved but nothing showed in the CRM 03:00 Why "if you can't track it" needs a caveat 04:37 The marketing work that matters but can't be measured 06:44 How AI is changing what you can actually prove 08:12 The metric he almost refused to name ABOUT JASMEET SAWHNEYJasmeet Sawhney is Global Head of Marketing at Axtria, an analytics and cloud software company that works with life sciences companies on commercialisation and patient outcomes. He's spent his career trying to make marketing spend legible to the rest of the business - harder than it sounds in long B2B sales cycles. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasmeet-sawhney/ Website: https://www.axtria.com/ ABOUT NICOLE STIRLING Nicole Stirling is the CEO of Stirling Marketing, a global marketing agency helping tech startups and scaleups accelerate growth and revenue. With over 15 years in the technology industry, she has led marketing strategies for Sitecore, Acquia and TechnologyOne, as well as emerging tech innovators across the Asia-Pacific region. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolestirling/ Website: https://www.stirlingmarketing.net ABOUT THE ROI PUZZLE The ROI Puzzle digs into one of B2B marketing's hardest problems: proving what actually drives results. Hosted by Nicole Stirling, the show features conversations with sales and marketing leaders from top tech companies on attribution, pipeline visibility, sales and marketing alignment, and using AI to measure impact. Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZXy9ccI8JqEAETghD7eDP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2R7dib6tKP4abfFZjwpbug

  6. Sep 10

    Why B2B Deals Are Moving Back Into the Room

    AI was supposed to push B2B marketing further into the digital. The room landed somewhere else. Face-to-face is becoming the premium play. In this episode, Nicole Stirling covers the second half of the B2B Marketing Leaders panel she moderated in Melbourne, with IBM, Twilio and Zendesk. She breaks down why Zendesk splits its year between brand awareness and pipeline conversion, why IBM's CXO roundtables go unrecorded on purpose, the difference between account-based marketing and account-based motion, and why another e-book probably isn't the answer. She also shares how Stirling Marketing turned a forgotten lead list into more than 30 warm sales conversations in under three weeks, with zero ad spend. 00:00 The other half of the Melbourne B2B marketing panel 00:52 30 warm sales conversations in three weeks, no ad spend 01:13 Bigger expectations, leaner teams, no clean formula 01:38 Why face-to-face is becoming the premium play 02:03 IBM's CXO roundtables, deliberately not recorded 02:46 Account-based marketing is really account-based motion 03:19 Put your hand up for the messy project 04:11 Stop making thought leadership nobody reads ABOUT NICOLE STIRLING Nicole Stirling is the CEO of Stirling Marketing, a global marketing agency helping tech startups and scaleups accelerate growth and revenue. With over 15 years of experience in the technology industry, she has led marketing strategies for top companies like Sitecore, Acquia, and TechnologyOne, as well as emerging tech innovators across the Asia-Pacific region. You can reach out to Nicole through: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolestirling/ Website: https://www.stirlingmarketing.net ABOUT THE ROI PUZZLE The ROI Puzzle is a podcast that dives into one of B2B marketing's toughest challenges, proving what truly drives results. Hosted by Nicole Stirling, the show features conversations with executive leaders focused on growth in sales and marketing from top tech companies. Each episode explores topics like attribution, pipeline visibility, sales and marketing alignment, and the use of AI to measure impact. Listeners gain real-world insights and practical frameworks to connect marketing spend to revenue and confidently prove value to the board. To know more about The ROI Puzzle, you can visit the links below: Podcast/Blog: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZXy9ccI8JqEAETghD7eDP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2R7dib6tKP4abfFZjwpbug

  7. Sep 8

    How B2B Teams Are Actually Using AI

    IBM, Twilio and Zendesk aren't talking about hypothetical AI use cases. Their marketing teams are already putting them to work. In this episode, Nicole Stirling shares lessons from a B2B Marketing Leaders panel she moderated in Melbourne. She breaks down how IBM is using AI to personalise event follow-up, how AI can act as a marketing assistant, and how teams are using it to solve attribution problems between sales and marketing. 00:00 Inside the Melbourne B2B marketing panel 02:39 What IBM, Twilio and Zendesk are doing with AI 03:18 IBM’s AI-powered event follow-up system 04:56 Why AI should be treated like a marketing assistant 06:54 Using AI to fix sales and marketing attribution 08:04 How to position AI without making it sound like a threat08:59 Where the real AI debate is heading ABOUT NICOLE STIRLING Nicole Stirling is the CEO of Stirling Marketing, a global marketing agency helping tech startups and scaleups accelerate growth and revenue. With over 15 years of experience in the technology industry, she has led marketing strategies for top companies like Sitecore, Acquia, and TechnologyOne, as well as emerging tech innovators across the Asia-Pacific region. You can reach out to Nicole through: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolestirling/ Website: https://www.stirlingmarketing.net ABOUT THE ROI PUZZLE The ROI Puzzle is a podcast that dives into one of B2B marketing’s toughest challenges, proving what truly drives results. Hosted by Nicole Stirling, the show features conversations with executive leaders focused on growth in sales and marketing from top tech companies. Each episode explores topics like attribution, pipeline visibility, sales and marketing alignment, and the use of AI to measure impact. Listeners gain real-world insights and practical frameworks to connect marketing spend to revenue and confidently prove value to the board. To know more about The ROI Puzzle, you can visit the links below: Podcast/Blog: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZXy9ccI8JqEAETghD7eDP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2R7dib6tKP4abfFZjwpbug

  8. Aug 19

    The Dext GM Who Transformed His Team's Close Rate

    Your buyer already knows your product before they talk to your sales team. They've done the research. Run it through AI tools. Compared you against the competition. By the time they get on a call, they're not there to learn — they want to know if the numbers hold up. Paul Wittich has been dealing with this shift for a while now. He's General Manager APAC at Dext, and in this conversation he talks through what's actually changed in pipeline generation across Asia Pacific - longer cycles, more people in every buying decision, and data residency requirements that kill deals most North American teams never see coming. 00:00 Why your sales team's job just fundamentally changed 01:41 The five shifts hitting B2B pipeline right now 03:24 Why your sales cycles keep getting longer 05:53 The training that banned product talk entirely 08:24 Why global campaigns fail in local markets 11:36 The deal they lost and won back in 90 days ABOUT PAUL WITTICH Paul Wittich is General Manager APAC at Dext. He runs go-to-market strategy and pipeline generation across Asia Pacific, where the buying process looks nothing like what the global playbook assumes. He's learned most of that the hard way. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulwittich/ Website: https://dext.com/ ABOUT NICOLE STIRLING Nicole Stirling is the CEO of Stirling Marketing, a global marketing agency helping tech startups and scaleups accelerate growth and revenue. With over 15 years of experience in the technology industry, she has led marketing strategies for top companies like Sitecore, Acquia, and TechnologyOne, as well as emerging tech innovators across the Asia-Pacific region. You can reach out to Nicole through: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolestirling/ Website: https://www.stirlingmarketing.net ABOUT THE ROI PUZZLE The ROI Puzzle is a podcast that dives into one of B2B marketing’s toughest challenges, proving what truly drives results. Hosted by Nicole Stirling, the show features conversations with executive leaders focused on growth in sales and marketing from top tech companies. Each episode explores topics like attribution, pipeline visibility, sales and marketing alignment, and the use of AI to measure impact. Listeners gain real-world insights and practical frameworks to connect marketing spend to revenue and confidently prove value to the board. To know more about The ROI Puzzle, you can visit the links below: Podcast/Blog: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZXy9ccI8JqEAETghD7eDP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2R7dib6tKP4abfFZjwpbug

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The ROI Puzzle explores the hardest question in B2B marketing — how to prove what’s really working. Each episode, host Nicole Stirling from Stirling Marketing sits down with marketing and sales leaders from some of the most innovative B2B tech companies to unpack how they’re turning spend into pipeline — and pipeline into proof. From attribution challenges and sales alignment to AI-driven insights and demand generation, The ROI Puzzle gets to the real stories behind the numbers. Expect sharp insights, honest conversations, and practical ideas to help you turn marketing from mystery into measur

Information

  • Creator
    Nicole Stirling
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    19
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Nicole Stirling
  • Show Website
    The ROI Puzzle