It wasn’t long ago that experiential marketing was a novelty. No more…according to the data.
It’s now a rapidly growing phenomenon. Businesses of all kinds are investing in customer collaboration centers, immersive conference experiences, experiential road shows and VR/AR/AI experiences.
Experiential B2B customer co-creation centers are increasingly integral to B2B strategies. Also called collaboration centers, executive briefing centers, innovation hubs or insight centers, they have surged in popularity post-pandemic, as businesses and clients value visceral, must-be-there experiences after years of virtual-only meetings. (Gensler)
Notable examples include:
A customer co-creation center can yield multifaceted benefits – growing sales, curating the customer base, enriching the employee experience, and even jump-starting workplace culture. (Gensler) Industry observers note that EBCs are now “one of the hottest subjects” in corporate real estate strategy due to this focus on experience-driven engagement. (Work Design)
Sales–Marketing alignment is top-of-mind for enterprise B2B organizations in 2025.
In a recent survey of North American go-to-market leaders, 52% named strengthening marketing, sales, and customer success alignment as their top priority for the year. (Source: MarketingProfs)
This focus is well-founded. For example, a recent study found that fully aligned teams are 60% more likely to hit their revenue goals (80% success rate vs. ~50% when misaligned). (Source: CMSWire)
Moreover, a recent Forrester study concludes that traditional sales and marketing alignment is going to be derailed as the landscape of B2B marketing and sales is being reshaped by technological advancements, changing buyer behaviors, and evolving business models. That research unveiled four future paradigms (siloed, assimilated, subservient, and proportionate) that will govern the relationship between marketing and sales functions within B2B organizations, each of which has pros and cons.
The challenges fall into four categories: Organization Silos and Culture, Communication Gaps, Misaligned Metrics and Incentives, and Different Views of the Customer. All are addressable. In 2025, B2B enterprises are tackling silos and misalignment head-on by adopting new strategies, technologies, and organizational models.
Here are ten emerging trends we’ve helped support as companies advance the alignment of their Sales and Marketing teams evolve to meet the challenges of a changing B2B landscape.
After laboring endlessly over your website design, spending countless hours carefully understanding your customer persona and carefully selecting keywords that will drive SEO to alert your target that you exist — the moment of truth arrives. A viewer, who you hope will become a prospect, clicks on your link and arrives on your landing page. What kind of experience they have in the first 5 – 15 seconds will likely determine whether they ever go any further.
“What?!? All that work will be judged in 15 seconds? That’s all the time I get to tell my story?!?”
Yes. But guess what, this is not new. As business people we have always had an incredibly narrow window to make a first impression with a prospective customer of client. Many experts say that a potential employer (or customer) forms an initial impression of a candidate within the first ten seconds of seeing them. Sometimes before the person even opens their mouth. And those first impressions are only altered in a remarkably small percentage of instances.
“So what’s all that got to do with my landing page and website design?”
Your landing page is the digital equivalent of that first impression. Assuming you get past the initial visual inspection, you still have a very short while to engage the prospect with a clear understanding of your business proposition and what it will do to make them more successful. In the analog world this is called your “elevator pitch”. The idea is to write a script in your head that you could deliver in a five story elevator ride — one that would leave a stranger with a clear idea of who you are, what you do and why it might be beneficial to them.
One exercise used to create the elevator pitch is to write down your story on a 3×5 index card. And only one thought or bridge phrase per line on the card — NO CHEATING. (OK, you might have to go to the office supply store to buy index cards — you probably don’t use them any more. But it will be a dollar well-spent.)
Still interested in knowing what all that has to do with your landing page? Check out this article from Target Internet to find out.
These are times of profound change for employees everywhere. With new work paradigms like remote and hybrid work to the emergence of AI and gig employment, they’re grappling with more unsettling work issues than ever.
One thing is certain about organizational change: it is inevitable. It may come at you externally as something disrupts your market or upends the assumptions you hold. Or it may come not at you, but from you, as you devise your strategies for growth in an evolving business landscape. Whatever the circumstance, you have a real communication challenge ahead of you. Organizational change is rarely successful unless everyone is on board with it – receptive to change and willing to embrace it.
There’s no shortage of advice on this subject, and most of it is consistent across the board.
Having often helped large organizations conduct successful change management communications, we’ve seen how these guidelines, properly used, can help make transitions work successfully. We’ve worked with Corporate Communications, HR and change management specialists to tick off the finer points of execution, like making sure to take their organizations’ cultures and extended networks of relationships into account.
When change occurs, everyone is somewhere on the Change Curve.
As a basis for our approach, we lean toward a popular tool called the Change Curve. Adapted in different ways over time from a platform originally developed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the Change Curve is often a good starting point for planning to successful change management communications.
This is particularly true when the change is negative, but even positive change can affect some employees negatively. For example, when new processes are implemented, they require moving out of comfort zones and changing habits developed over many years. And when a merger or acquisition occurs, some duplicated jobs are eliminated. The resulting stress is not limited to those who are let go; it can be stressful for the survivors, who may be losing work friends, may be unsure of their roles going forward, and may even be alarmed to glimpse the reality of employment “mortality”.
The model we use most often charts motivation and performance against time, which is broken down into three stages: Endings, Transitions and New Beginnings.
What does great Change Communications look like? There’s no one formula, but we can say that it looks empathetic and personal. In a word, it looks human.
It also looks well-placed to be well-received. It comes from a place where people’s concerns are known, and their voices heard. It recognizes and addresses incorrect and incomplete information, rumors, and conjectures.
But for all the ways Change Communication is always the same, it is different in every case. Corporate cultures are different. Past histories are different. And whatever the change is, it is unique to each company.
To demonstrate, here are three examples from our own experience over the last twenty years.
A global manufacturer’s national sales meeting of about 300 hundred employees was taking place right after a reorganization. Recognizing the pervasive unease, the VP of Sales decided to forego the usual “pump ‘em up” opening. Instead, he arranged for the first two rows of chairs to be left empty, and he walked on the stage without the fanfare that would typically open a sales meeting.
He opened by telling the group that he understood how they felt. Sad. Uncertain. Scared. He talked with open, heartfelt sorrow about the leadership team’s distress over having to let good people go, and outlined what they had done to help those folks. (This happens to be a great company that takes very good care of its employees, and did so in this instance.)
In short, he validated their feelings. But then he helped them move on, explaining the three stages of the Change Curve and assuring them that together, they would all reach Stages 2 and 3, and come out stronger in the end.
With that, he asked everyone in the room to advance one row, representing the first step – the Transition Stage. The front row remained open, representing the promise of Stage 3 – New Beginnings. And at that moment, everyone in the room was moved and motivated to learn what’s next and what their respective roles would be.
In this instance, the company, a global services firm, had suffered a highly-publicized negative incident in one particular business unit, as the result of improper actions by a few individuals. The impact was felt not just in that unit, but by all employees in all business units. They valued the company name and were horrified to see it associated with wrongdoing. Many talented employees began looking for other jobs.
The leadership team took appropriate action to address the transgressions, but recognized that such a remedial action, while necessary and positive, would not be enough to restore its employees’ belief in the company. And so it committed to a plan to address the issue head-on, with substantive procedural changes and a communication campaign that began immediately and continued through the rollout of the new processes.
Recognizing that its employees were at the early stages of the Change Curve, the campaign was built from the point of view that the company’s employees defined themselves as professionals by the benefits they provide to their customers. This priceless understanding would prove to be the key to the company’s rebound. It began with a video that gave voice to employees’ concerns, expressed as a function of their self-esteem and professional pride.
Meanwhile, the company developed a system of fail-safe processes to help prevent improper actions, whether intentional or inadvertent. This is where the disciplines of great Change Communications was critical. The temptation is always there to launch with a stern warning that the process must be followed, and that there would be zero tolerance for failure to do so.
But the launch of that control system was heralded not as a punitive or restrictive measure, but rather as a mechanism for shared assurance for all employees that nothing would get in the way of their being able to provide valuable services to their customers. It was clear that compliance was mandatory, but the presentation turned what could have been perceived as a burden born of distrust into an expression of shared noble purpose – doing the right thing for every customer. It was assurance for all that the kinds of actions that caused the trouble could never happen again.
And it never has. Employees did embrace the control system, the expanding exodus of talent was stopped in its tracks, and the company was able to move on to regain its growth track.
Sometimes, the most important factor in cascading change through an organization is to emphasize that the change is not so much in the company’s strategy as in the way the company talks about the strategy.
This was the case in one engagement. The company had been through a rough patch, and a new leadership team had developed a strategy that began to turn it around. Then, based on insights gained from the initial rollout period, the team decided to make a few adjustments to accelerate growth, make operations more efficient and provide a better experience for customers.
One of those adjustments was to revise the company’s communications about its strategy. The existing strategy was described in relatively granular terms. Over the course of several months, a committee of leaders worked to distill the strategy down and to express it in a much more succinct way that would be instantly clear and memorable.
The internal communications team made a conscious decision not to hype or oversell the updated strategy. Employees were getting into a productive groove, and might be unsettled by a major overhaul. A lighter touch, they concluded, would be more credible.
So the launch was what could be called, “Change Management Light”. It celebrated the existing strategy and the employees around the world who had helped make it successful, and presented the updated strategy as a refresh of its presentation – simpler, more accessible and more memorable. In particular, the refined expression of the strategy’s objective and goal helped crystallize the company’s vision and made it easier for employees to engage in it.
What lessons can we glean from these stories? In all three of these cases, the leaders met their employees with empathy and respect. They actively sought to understand and acknowledge what their employees were feeling. And where some might have adopted a command-and-control approach, these leaders chose a care-and-engage approach.
For 28 years, MossWarner has supported hundreds of high-stakes presentations on main stages around the world, and have often found it’s the little things that can screw up even the most brilliant presentation.
Most presenters are so focused on their presentations before they take the stage that they tune out all other things – often including when and how they’ll be introduced. It’s not a confidence builder to start the big presentation with a look of surprise on your face.
To avoid that awkward start, get the answers to two simple questions:
Who’s introducing you?
Sometimes the “who” could be the “Voice of God” (that deep-voiced announcer over the PA system who somehow makes it to every meeting), so it’s good to not be surprised when a big booming voice summons you to the stage.
How will you be introduced?
We’ve all seen presenters arrive on the stage flummoxed by their names being butchered, their titles incorrect, or by some personally-offensive choice in music for their play-on. All of this is easily avoided if you prepare in advance.
The next peril you might face appears as soon as you are (hopefully) handed the “clicker” by the previous speaker. The clicker advances your slides or pings a graphic operator backstage to advance for you. Clickers come in many shapes and sizes. The preferred ones have just one button –a bright green, oversized forward arrow; it is, after all, a slide “advancer”. Other buttons can include “Back” and “Blackout” – both generally not good for advancing through a presentation on a big stage. In our experience, it’s inevitable that a nervous presenter will find one of those two other buttons at some point during the presentation. To avoid clicking the wrong thing, keep it simple and use clickers that only do one thing – advance
Reading a full script word-for-word has a way of clearing the mind of everything it once knew about a topic. Instead of recalling facts and reciting anecdotes, the speaker’s mind is focused on the mechanics of reading, which can make the delivery stiff and stilted.
There is a time and place for reading a full script – usually when you’re planted at a podium with a teleprompter operator, or on a presidential panel. But if you like to pace or prowl the stage, as many presenters do, the speaker notes need to be:
Best practice is to edit your own prompt points into the fewest possible words needed to prompt you – and definitely not in full sentences which will force you to read. Also, ask the AV team to modify how the Notes appear on the confidence monitors. Ironically, the standard Notes view in PowerPoint does not favor the Notes (see below), but it’s easy to change the view.
Typically, there are 2 confidence monitors placed downstage and, if so, ask for the current slide to be on one (stage left typically) and an expanded Notes view on the other.
Nothing ruins that mic drop moment like having to walk back on stage, pick the mic up, and introduce the next presenter. Before you conclude your presentation with, “Umm, I think we’re going to break now but not sure…” ask who you’ll be segueing to and how you should introduce the next item in the run of show.
All the items above are things that can be easily addressed and sorted out during a short rehearsal. Maybe you’re one of those confident speakers who don’t feel they need to rehearse, but experience shows that everyone benefits from rehearsals – especially the crew supporting the presenters behind the scenes. Remember, it’s usually some technical person with no understanding of the content that has a finger on the button during your presentation.
Take whatever time you’re given to rehearse on stage, mic’d up with the clicker in hand. At least click through your slides, get your Speaker Notes view locked in, and make sure the crew knows where the media (sound, video, polls, etc.) will play during your presentation.
And remember, this time is for rehearsing how to deliver your presentation, NOT to make final tweaks. Last-minute changes lead to the potential for last-minute errors.
Everyone is different. Indeed, that’s the most important part of great speech delivery – being yourself.
For some executives, delivering a speech is second nature. They seem to relish the idea of standing in front of an audience, “playing the room” and eliciting a response. For most, however, the idea of it is more daunting than delightful. And it’s perfectly natural to think that those who make it look easy are lucky to have been born with stage presence.
But for a lot of those “naturals”, luck had nothing to do with it. They enjoy it because they’ve learned how to look like they’re enjoying it. Once you’ve mastered that, you will too.
Having coached hundreds of corporate speakers, from CEOs to Line Managers, and from multibillion dollar global
companies to ambitious start-ups, we know that everyone is different. Indeed, that’s the most important part of great speech delivery – being yourself.
But there are some universal truths about delivering speeches that can help you feel relaxed and confident – with good reason. Here are a few of those truths, distilled down to four simple tips:
As a creative agency serving a wide range of major corporate clients, we view the writing and delivery of speeches and presentations holistically. But for our purposes here, we’re focusing solely on delivery, aside from the following observation:
Whether you’re developing your own script or directing others to develop it based on your input, you will ultimately own it. So at a very high level, you need to make sure that:
You believe in it, confident that every fact is true and every proposition embodies what you really feel
You believe that everyone in the audience will be better off for having heard your speech, knowing and/or feeling something that will improve their lives in some way
For this discussion, let’s assume you have that covered – that we’re not covering writing techniques, presentation structure or visuals.
So now that you have a script…
Once you are satisfied with the messaging, learn the script inside out. The point is to know it so well, you could deliver it without reading. That doesn’t necessarily mean memorizing it; it generally means being able to come across as speaking authentically – with the audience, not at the audience.
How do you get to know it that well? Practice. A lot. There are no short cuts. Go through it as you will present it, over and over again. Do it in front of a mirror. Do it in front of a camera and watch it back. Then do it again. And again.
A good guideline is to practice 3-5 minutes for every minute of your speech, for at least three days. More is better; it’s easy to rehearse too little, and virtually impossible to rehearse too much.
Besides knowing the material, you’ll derive one other benefit. Practicing the speech out loud will give you a chance to refine the wording so it feels right – so it says what it says just as you’d say it on the fly. You’ll also have a good feel for where you want to pause to emphasize a point or to transition to the next part of your speech.
If you’re using humor to make a point, to help to clarify a situation or to relieve tension, practice the timing to make sure you deliver it as intended. If it feels genuine, it’s more likely to connect with your audience.
Know the room. Rehearse your speech on stage and with other presenters and AV support team, if any. If you have any visuals, rehearse with them. Get used to the clicker. If there are props or any stage action planned, rehearse them.
Rehearse your stage movements until you know them by heart so they look and feel natural. And be sure to rehearse them with the video crew so they will have a sense of how to follow you and light you properly.
If you are on IMAG (Image Magnification video on stage), your movements, facial expressions, etc. are magnified, so you may need to tone down your onstage movements lest the audience focus on your movements rather than listening to you.
For tips on On-Stage Movements, download this article and refer to the Checklist at the end.
If you’re using a teleprompter or floor monitor, practice using them without staring at them. Remember, it’s the audience you need to make contact with, not the device. In the case of a teleprompter, rehearse together with the teleprompter operator. For tips on Using a Teleprompter, download this article and refer to the Checklist at the end.
Have a printed copy of your notes or script with you, either to use as your primary reference or as backup in case a teleprompter or monitor you’re using malfunctions. The text should be large and double-spaced.
If you’re using the printed notes as your primary reference, practice looking down and reading at a glance, and then looking up to recite them. If you’ve prepared as we’ve discussed previously, this should be easy.
Along those lines, it’s a good idea to memorize your opening, so you can make a strong, confident start. That confidence can help carry you through your entire presentation.
Let’s start with a universal truth: Stage fright is normal. Every speaker faces it. You can’t overcome it entirely, but if you learn to control it, you can harness it to sharpen your senses and increase your energy.
If appropriate, chat with audience members where they are, not from the podium. It’s easier to speak to people you know, and it will help you make and maintain connections as you speak.
Before you speak, whether you’re backstage or on stage, take a few deep breaths. If you’re backstage, get up and stretch. Take a sip of water.
When you begin to speak, be conversational. Be yourself. Talk directly to people in the audience. Look at the friendliest faces in the audience, and make periodic eye contact. Turn your attention from one to another every few moments. And take a small sip of water now and again, to help maintain the quality of your voice and to give yourself some comfortable pause moments.
Be animated and enthusiastic, and put some excitement into the presentation. Show a sense of passion for your topic, and for the positive impact you’re hoping to have on your audience.
Be colorful. Use the dramatic pause and change of pace to keep things interesting. Talk at different speeds, vary your pitch, change volume occasionally.
Be clear. Pronounce the words clearly. Don’t talk too fast. Don’t mumble or run words together.
Turn your head and body from side to side at intervals, so you appear to be speaking extemporaneously to different sections of the audience, and not reading.
If your script contains humor or stories, don’t alert the audience that a story is coming (e.g., “That reminds me of …”and don’t end with “But seriously folks …” Just let it end naturally.
Finally, the most important tip of all: BE YOURSELF. The more natural and authentic you are, the more successful you will be. The audience will read that and feel it. And when that happens, you’ll feel it too.
Good luck!
With this article, we’ve tried to present a high-level view of how to effectively deliver a speech or presentation. Of course, the speech itself has to be compelling in the first place. As we mentioned earlier, that’s an entirely different story. If you’re looking for advice or assistance in crafting a speech, delivering it or both, we’ll be happy to help. Refer to our contact information and feel free to reach out at any time.
You’re getting ready for a main stage presentation to an important audience. You’ve put the time into crafting what you want to say and have some killer slides. Now, it’s time to deliver. Feeling nervous? Relax! Try these final tips before taking the stage.
Owning the room starts with owning the content. Owning the content starts with you.
It’s easy to rehearse too little. It’s hard to rehearse too much.
3. Brush Off Stage Fright
Turn nervousness into sharpened senses and increased energy.
Talk directly to each person, not at the group.
Make every movement deliberate and purposeful.
Sometimes a big presentation or speech needs a full script and teleprompter. Here are some tips for those situations:
Here’s what it comes down to when we’re talking about company meetings or any corporate meetings:
And, here’s a universal truth: There is not, and never will be, a substitute for in-person engagement. That’s the purpose of a corporate leadership summit, Management Team conference or National Sales Meeting. You bring people together to engage them to a degree that no virtual meeting can match, no matter how great the technology may be.
Engagement is the “secret sauce” that makes new strategies, campaigns, processes and other initiatives successful. Engaged employees and leaders feel positive about their companies – what they’re trying to do, and how they go about doing it. They understand what is expected of them and are energized by contributing to the business’ success.
Now, how do you engage your attendees? And, we mean what specific tactics can you apply, not just general theoretical ideas and concepts! What could you add to what you’re currently doing? What should you do differently than what you currently do? What could you learn from the companies that are really good at engaging their event attendees and benefiting not only with better ROI but also effecting the post-event actions they desire?
Our Guide gives you those tactics to help maximize your return, to minimize your investment and to measure your ROI based on our long history of making that happen for our clients. And we’re not keeping it a secret – have a look for yourself to see what you might do today and contact us if we can help you make it happen for you too!
A customer centric culture is not a new concept. If anything it’s becoming expected – at every level in the organization. Companies like Amazon, Apple, Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines, and Disney have proven how powerful a deep knowledge of your customer and thinking from the outside in, can be. They understand the job of nearly everyone in a company is to create value for the people they serve (who are ultimately their customers) and to consistently look for ways to increase that value. With the rise of social media, today’s CEOs are also very clear on the power “word of mouth” can have on their business results.
In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, initiatives to engage employees in putting customers first and delighting customers consistently requires building a company-wide customer centric culture. But it’s not an easy task and it takes time, which is why so few companies are successful at it. For one thing, many associates in any type of company may spend their careers never talking to an external customer or client – ever.
How often do we ask them to think like customer-facing employees and “become more customer centric”?
Even though customer centricity can drive product and service innovation and strengthen the relationships a company develops with its customers by improving customer loyalty, lifetime value, and lowering churn (which lowers cost-to-serve and increases employee engagement to create a competitive “moat”).
Associates may not think of the work they do as having a direct impact on the company’s customers. Many may view themselves as support functions – processing invoices, payroll, or managing internal processes not generally seen by the outside world. They know they have a role to play, but their view of how the work they do impacts external customers is fuzzy. Asked to be more customer centric, they may respond with what appears to be legitimate pushback:
“I don’t ever talk to a customer.”
“Isn’t customer centricity for salespeople?”
“I know my work is important to the business; does it matter if I’m customer focused?”
As communications leaders, we are asked to help employees become more “customer centric” to engage everyone in the customer focused culture. But, getting your associates to see and feel that what they do can impact a customer is critical to ensuring that a company’s strategy and mission can be achieved. How do you “connect the customer dots” for your team?
Over the course of my career in a variety of Communications, Voice of Customer and Customer Service roles at some of the world’s largest organizations, I was asked to think about how we connect these dots for associates. Over the years, I came to recognize three important considerations:
Define your customer up front, if you want your employees to think about the external customer, then define it that way. There may be internal customers in addition to external customers, so understand up front that both are part of your customer centricity strategy. It’s important in any communication about customers that everyone is on the same page with who we are talking about. Consider including the definition in annual employee satisfaction surveys, ensure it’s understood in annual reviews and, when discussing impacts or outcomes that center on customers, spell out the definition. Make sure leaders are clear on definitions when they discuss customer focus with employees.
Sharing customer insights with employees allow them to put themselves in your customers’ shoes. What are the customer pain points? What keeps them up at night? How are we addressing our customer needs? And develop your plan and communications accordingly. There are some unique and fun ways to do this – consider the following, interviewing actual customers, interviewing customer service associates, or creating a “day in the life” of a customer service representative. If you’re in retail, have employees walk the floors of your brick and mortar sites as customers and sales associates do each day.
The first hurdle in any new way of thinking is to acknowledge the proverbial elephant in the room. If associates aren’t customer facing, don’t try to tell them they are. Explain that the goal is to consider how their work makes an impact on the customer, not just whether it touches the customer. Don’t tell associates that everyone’s work touches the customer.
Philosophically, we all know our work impacts our customers. Creating a communications campaign that simply asks a non-customer facing associate to “become more customer centric” won’t work. Showing them how their work touches the customer is more important. And if you can do it visually, that’s even better (see #3).
Make it fun. Make it visual. An infographic that shows how their work connects to a customer could be fun. Ask employees to “draw” their links to the customers and share or even have them tell their story on camera about what they do that helps a customer. An example I’ve seen work well is playing “six degrees of separation”. Challenge associates to see how many degrees it takes to connect them to a customer. Create a contest and have associates share their analyses via internal social media. For instance, if you work in payroll, show how the work you do to ensure that associates’ payroll experience is simplified and accurate allows them to focus on their work and their operations in support of customers. The less time focused on issues around their pay, the more time they must focus on the work that DOES impact customers.
I’ve seen first-hand what can happen when associates are encouraged to think about their work in the context of creating value for their companies’ customers.
They begin to see themselves as ambassadors for those same customers. We often don’t think about our internal associates as an extension of our marketing department, but we could and should. By building this connection and advocacy, any employee can be empowered to feel as if they are customer facing.
To make customer focus a constant in associates’ minds, reminding them often of how their work connects to customers should become a common theme in employee communications. It’s not a one-time communication initiative. It’s about keeping the customer out in front of associates. Run communication initiatives over the course of the year that allows employees to share their voice on their connection to customers. Keep it simple, real, engaging, and fun!
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