Stop "Weeing" On Me: A CIO's View of Marketing
LISTEN &
DOWNLOAD ON:
If your buyer is a CIO or CTO, why does so much marketing never land?
In this episode, host Karen Lloyd puts that question to the person best placed to answer it: a technology leader who has sat through decades of sales and marketing pitches aimed at him. Simon Ratcliffe is a fractional CIO and technology advisor who has spent his career at the intersection of technology, sales and marketing, and he's blunt about what makes him switch off, and what actually gets him to pick up the phone.
Simon is also the CIO that guest Serena Walker referenced in Episode 43, where she shared how she built a peer to peer engagement programme between her marketing team and senior technology buyers.
This episode is that same story told from the other side of the table, and it's a useful one for marketing leaders trying to close the gap with a technical, often sceptical buying committee. Simon explains exactly what marketing looks like when it fails, why sales so often becomes marketing's harshest internal critic, and what it looks like when a message actually works: a peer he trusts, a question he can't answer alone, and language precise enough that it doesn't feel like marketing at all.
From building and losing his own technology businesses to advising CEOs today, Simon offers a rare, candid account of what it actually takes to earn attention from a CIO or CTO, not just what marketers assume will work.
LISTEN TO
KAREN & SIMON
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✔️ Discover Simon's "so what" test, and what happens when marketing fails it
✔️ Why Simon objects to marketing "weeing" on him
✔️ The difference between finding a problem and genuinely understanding it
✔️ How a fractional CIO built and lost a technology business by focusing on the product instead of the need
✔️ Why creating a need beats "flogging the product," and the ad man who taught him this
✔️ Why Simon trusts a CTO's peer to peer view more than a vendor's marketing department
✔️ How precise ICP targeting (down to "what pub I think they drink in") sharpens messaging
✔️ Why chasing AI hype misses the point, and his mantra: people, process, technology, in that order
EPISODE OUTLINE AND HIGHLIGHTS
[01:31] What actually cuts through C-suite noise
[07:40] ABM and demand generation: working together, not separately
[10:54] Building personas without knowing the exact decision-making structure
[14:35] Deciding which accounts are worth pursuing, and when to let go
[20:44] Inside the executive engagement programme
[26:12] Why personalised peer-to-peer video works
[30:26] Final advice for sales and marketing working together
THE “SO WHAT” TEST: SIMON’S ACID TEST FOR EVERY PITCH
Simon's central filter for judging sales and marketing messaging is disarmingly simple, and he applies it to everything that crosses his desk as a buyer.
"I don't like people weeing on me, which is we can do this and this and it's like, yeah, so what? That's my acid test in sales and marketing. And the minute I can say, so what, nothing's landed, it's just stopped."
He learned this the hard way, building and ultimately losing a technology business because the team was excited about the product rather than the problem it solved. "That was, I learned the hard way that the lesson has got to be, you can't sell something to somebody, you've got to make them feel the need for it." The turning point came from an advertising contact who had written the "Beans Means Heinz" slogan, who taught him that a message has to resonate to the point that a buyer feels they can't do without it, rather than simply being told what a product does.
That same discipline shows up later in the episode when Simon describes what he calls the nirvana of marketing: creating a set of questions the buyer cannot answer alone, so they go looking for someone who can. It is the same "so what" test, just applied from the other direction, to what makes marketing actually work rather than what makes it fail.
PRECISION TARGETING AND THE PEER TO PEER CREDIBILITY GAP
This episode connects directly to Episode 43, where Serena Walker described building a peer to peer engagement programme with senior technology buyers. Simon was the CIO on the other side of that programme, and here he explains why it worked.
"I am going to listen more to a CTO who speaks to me than I am to the marketing department of the company that he works for or she works for, because I'm having almost that peer-to-peer conversation."
A generic vendor pitch, however well researched, does not carry the same weight as a conversation with someone who has sat in the same seat and faced the same pressures.
He also credits the precision of the targeting behind that programme for making the messaging land. "We would properly work out what our ideal client looked like to the point where, and I've done this recently with another company, I can tell you how old I think they are and what pub I think they drink in." Rather than spreading messaging thin, Simon and Serena picked two or three messages a year and doubled down on them with research, articles and events until they were seen as the experts. As Simon puts it, marketing without that level of focus and expertise "just becomes slop."
Key advice for marketing leaders
Apply the "so what" test to every message before it goes out
If a buyer can respond to your message with "so what," it hasn't landed. Strip out anything that describes what you do rather than the need it creates.
Understand the problem, don't just find it
Anybody can identify a problem. The value is in genuinely understanding it well enough to communicate it back to the buyer in their own language.
Get precise on your ideal client, then stay there
Know your ideal client well enough to write for one person, not a segment. Precision in targeting is what makes messaging simple and language accurate.
Pick two or three messages a year and double down
Spreading messaging thin produces generic content. Choosing a small number of themes and building research, articles and events around them builds real authority.
Use peer to peer credibility, not just vendor messaging
A senior buyer will listen to a peer's honest account before they listen to your marketing department. Put credible voices in front of credible voices.
Key advice for business leaders
Technology is never the story, business value is
Whether you're buying, building or selling technology, the fundamental problems it solves haven't changed in decades. Only the "how" has changed.
Ask what's keeping your customer's CEO awake at night
The most useful question any salesperson or marketer can ask isn't about your product. It's about the problem your customer's leadership is actually losing sleep over.
Remember people, process, technology, in that order
Technology delivered without consulting the people who use it, and without understanding the process it sits inside, will not deliver value however advanced it is.
Ask how a leader copes with disagreement before you hire or engage them
Change requires challenge. Understanding how someone responds to being disagreed with tells you a great deal about whether real change is possible.
Look around the boardroom before you invest in transformation
If the room isn't genuinely open to challenge, no amount of good marketing or technology will create the change you're hoping for.
TODAY’S GUEST
Simon Ratcliffe is a fractional CIO, board member and keynote speaker whose career spans finance, technology and organisational transformation. He is currently a Fractional CIO at Freeman Clarke, an Associate Partner for Strategy & Value Creation at Beyond M&A, and a Strategic Consultant at Thebes Group, alongside board and trustee roles including Executive Chairman of Artis Video and IT Director of The Dacorum Heritage Trust.
Before moving into technology leadership, Simon trained as an accountant and worked as a CFO, giving him a rare, rounded view across finance, technology, sales and marketing. He has built and run technology businesses for over three decades as Managing Director of Warwick Westbourne, and has held senior consulting and leadership roles at Ensono, Attenda, Advanced 365, Dimension Data and Business Systems Group.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and a published author, Simon is a contributing author for The Digital Transformation People, London Tech Leaders and Informa TechTarget.
OUR HOST
Karen Lloyd is a passionate marketing head-hunter and recruitment expert specialising in marketing and C-suite in B2B industries. With over 25 years of experience in the recruitment industry, Karen brings a unique depth of expertise that sets her apart from most recruiters.
Over her career, Karen has accumulated a wealth of experience that includes serving as a Board Director and being actively involved in growing a business for 13 years. Karen has been a part of five start-ups, giving her first-hand knowledge of the critical importance of hiring the right people.
Currently, Karen is the founder and Director of Armstrong Lloyd. She leads a very special team that partners with businesses and empowers them to build industry-leading marketing and sales teams for some of the most exciting B2B brands - from small, agile and disruptive start-ups to global giants providing a wealth of product and service offerings.
LATEST EPISODES OF THE SPOTLIGHT ON B2B MARKETING
