The Case for Substance Over Simplicity

Dan Beresh: Welcome back to Don't Lose The Point. I'm Dan Beresh, founder of Fide B2B Marketing, and today we have Alex, our creative and strategy director on. And Alex, I'm so excited 'cause we've just released this incredible study, The State of B2B Understanding, and we just wanna take a few minutes to dive into it, talk a little bit about what we discovered, why we did it, and the kinds of things that we're taking away from the information to help you become a better B2B marketer.

So Alex, thanks for being here. Thanks for joining me.  

Alex Furrer: Thank you. Happy to be here. I'm looking forward to the conversation.  

Dan Beresh: So let's start at the beginning. Why did we do this study in the first place? what, d- give me a little context here. How did this start?  

Alex Furrer: Yeah, I think, I mean- We're in B2B, and as, as we start looking at what other agencies are doing and what they're saying, what we started to notice is everyone's talking about simplifying things.

Removing jargon, simplifying, and that's was just a constant thread. And the more we started to think about this and look at it, the-- we started to wonder whether or not that's actually, at the crux of it. 'Cause you can actually simplify things too far. It can't be as simple as simplifying things, was a bit of a thesis that we had looking at that.

And so we started to do a little bit more digging and realizing that no one was really, getting to that, that idea of making sure that people understand what's being communicated. by virtue of, simplifying, yes, it sounds great, but are people actually truly getting the product or service that is being sold?

And oftentimes in what we're working on, as like we're-- these are not easy, necessarily easy, to describe products or services. They are multi-layered. There's lots to say. It's complex. So the simpl- They're not simple. No, not at all, and we can't simplify it so much. So that was the impetus for the study, to dig a little bit deeper and understand how people, and how buyers specifically, what do they need to understand what a company is selling?

Dan Beresh: Sometimes people have asked me, "Hey Dan, what are you working on?" And so you'll show them something you just launched and they'll say, "Oh my God, that's completely full of jargon." Yeah. this doesn't make any sense to me." And this has to me been a bit of my own journey in maturing as a B2B marketer, because when I was younger, I would've agreed with them and said, "Oh my God, we've completely, we've failed here.

we haven't s- properly simplified it," and something should be able- to be explained in, grade five English or, what have you. But I think as I've learned more and more about it, it's exactly that. You can't simplify something that's this complex, and the marketing that you showed your friend, guess what?

Isn't for your friend, obviously.  

Alex Furrer: Yeah.  

Dan Beresh: and you're speaking to very specific audiences, typically very intelligent and very deeply, invested in the specific business problem that they're having, and you need to be able to speak to those people. And often, the way to speak to those people has to be complex.

Alex Furrer: As you start to do all that simplification, you start to realize as well, yes, it might sound great, on, at first, but then you realize it's all starting to sound the same. You start to lose the nuances. You start to lose what, what's unique to a specific business or a specific service, that m- actually truly beyond the jargon makes them stand out and it makes them different.

Dan Beresh: That's right. And the other thing that we've heard from our clients is the more we simplify, the more we say, "Oh, don't even worry, buyer, our product is gonna make this completely easy for you," then the buyer says, "I know this isn't a simple thing to solve." "So don't try to pull the wool over my eyes."

Yeah. What we've often come up with is this concept of putting it behind the curtain, right? Is, okay, we're gonna put the complexity behind the curtain, but we're talking right now about selling, about marketing. And I think you can't just dismiss the client's very valid concerns that the service provider or, the tech product creator needs to understand the level and amount of complexity because otherwise chances are it's not gonna be a successful, project.

Alex Furrer: Absolutely. And, I think that's what our study sh- that was part of like we went into it with some of these as, as a thesis and wanted to see if, in fact that was the case, and I, think that's what we learned as well.  

Dan Beresh: So let's get into it. one of the most interesting things that you discovered when doing this research is there's this interesting conundrum between someone both having not enough information and too much information at the same time.

So if I'm someone who doesn't understand the study at all, I'm just gonna start by saying "That doesn't make any sense to me." Because how can you have not enough and too much at the exact same time?  

tell me more, like what is it, how, what is this all about?  

Alex Furrer: Yeah, when we, we call it the Goldilocks problem in that sense, 'cause that really is.

It's, there's, there is a, there's a fine balance between getting too much information and not enough information. And it really, as we dig deeper, there's multiple reasons for that. But if I can just, i-in terms of the actual result, we had asked which statement best reflects your experience with marketing and communications from vendors selling services or tech to your company?

And the two things that came up, w-were very close as the first two results. One was, suppliers provide information that's not detailed enough, and the other one that was 2% less than that, but far, both far above everything else, was suppliers provide too much unnecessary information. And it was like, it all depends on who you're talking to and when you're talking to them, and to really understand and dig in about knowing your audience and what do they wanna hear.

Like, when's the right time? What's, the right thing to communicate? And who are they? So you can really give them what it is they're looking for because a, an engineer and a, a CFO- Are not looking for the same type of information.  

Dan Beresh: So let me challenge you here for a second, because I think some of our listeners might say, "Okay, hang on, you got a little percentage here that said there wasn't enough information, and you got another little percentage here that said there was too much information."

So do you not just have two camps of people who are saying not enough, too much, and then you have to meet them in the middle? I think we both know it's more complex than that. Yeah, yep. But tell me a little more about how that works.  

Alex Furrer: Yeah, and I think it's, what we, when we actually dissected it a little bit further, what we realized between two questions, and one question we asked people, what makes communications difficult to understand?

And one of those result- one of the top results was too much information at once. And then when we actually analyzed that among buyers who said that too much information at once makes it difficult to understand, 40% of those also said that a supplier provides either too little or information or not detailed enough information.

So it, this isn't, when you start to layer it on top, you realize that it comes down to who we're talking to at what moment, i- is the way that we're reading this and really pushing into making sure that we, we truly understand who we're talking to and that we're not oversimplifying for the sake of oversimplifying.

We are making sure that we're still giving substance to the people that need the substance and that, and then really defining that subst- substance becomes important, too, in terms of where they are, potentially in the funnel, but also where they are in a company. a lot of times marketers will divide their content by, sectors.

There's a great opportunity to go even deeper than that, so you can go from, sector down to, a company. And but also then even within that company, start to look at the different, positions as well, because everyone in that same company isn't gonna need the same amount of information either.

So it becomes really trying to understand how do you communicate what's in it for me to those specific roles in those specific companies in those specific sectors.  

Dan Beresh: Easier said than done, for sure.  

Alex Furrer: Absolutely, and that's a lot. even as I'm saying it, that's a lot- Yeah ... to say.  

Dan Beresh: and we even have clients saying, "How can we use AI to really personalize this messaging?"

We've been talking about personalization in marketing for a long time, and I think, I've seen a lot of content with that in terms of the B2C side of it. But in the B2B side of it, it's almost more yeah, what's your role, what's your company, what's your sector? And then you triangulate those, try and come up with the right messaging.

The interesting thing for me here is it's, kind of two things, right? We started with it can't be about just simplifying, which is fair, but then when, you comes to what is not simple, what does not simple look like? 'Cause we also, as you, rightly pointed out, there's too much w- and too complex, and the CEO does not need an engineering white paper to tell them about the fact that you're capable of doing a certain thing.

But that, that point, it's that getting to the point, isn't it? and getting to the point is not a singular thing, it's completely multifaceted. To your point, it's who are you, where do you work? And then also the other interesting factor is timing, right? How far are you down the pike of your buying journey, and what do you need to hear at this moment that's relative to who you are and what you want?

Alex Furrer: Absolutely, and when are you ready to, take that information in? To use a, B2C example, but, like IKEA, IKEA Kitchens does it really well. If you think about kind of the complexity of building a kitchen, if you were to simplify it too much, it's not gonna work. It's like you're gonna miss little details- Yeah

nothing's gonna, like- That's right ... it's just, a kitchen done well is, down to the fine details of it. But you don't jump immediately into those. You get into the inspiration first, and then you start to get in, into, planning a little bit and doing a bit of a, a scheme, and then you go further in, and it's down the journey, and depending on where you are and who's taking it in, and, and- They do a really nice job of like kind of showing you all the different stages of that and bringing you in whenever you need that information.

B2C, it's a bit of a different story. I, it's, we can't overlay it exactly the same from a B2B standpoint, but it does come down to where you are in the journey in terms of the type of information that you're looking for or that a buyer would be looking for.  

Dan Beresh: exactly. I don't really care if a software company has SOC 2 compliance if I don't even know what the value of the software is to my company.

sure, yeah, it might require certain compliance or HIPAA or whatever, depending on your industry. But it is about meeting them where they are, and it's this interesting sort of, maybe I'll get in trouble for saying merge, but a merger of sort of marketing and sales in a way because people are really doing the shortlisting asynchronously and some of that sales work now has to be done by the marketing department.

and I think traditionally you could have said, "All right, let's get on a discovery call. Who are you? Let me tailor what my message is to you, and I'm just gonna do that in person." And now we have this kind of crazy world where you need to do the exact same thing without knowing who that person is at all.

or it, maybe I could rephrase You need to create messaging that's gonna work across a variety of people, or ensure that the messaging that doesn't work across a variety of people that is targeted is actually going to the right people in the right place at the right time, which is, I think, just an incredibly difficult challenge that all of us B2B marketers have.

Alex Furrer: and they, can find it when they're looking for it.  

Dan Beresh: Yes.  

Alex Furrer: What they said in the study was that they would be more inclined to do some self-research than they would, to necessarily ask, and so that could either be done through AI or through self-research, and then you realize how important it is that all of your content is accessible all the time.

likening it to, you're, always making a first impression 'cause you never know who's gonna, who's looking for what when. going back to what you're saying of like you just really need to, to whoever that is, they're coming to your site at any time of day, whatever process or whatever step they're in the process, you've gotta make that available to them and able to find.

Dan Beresh: Yes, and to your point about AI, I liken this to I'm buying a house and I have a real estate agent. And agent is such a great word, I think, to use because it genuinely is, the actor's agent, the real estate agent. Your AI agent is that agent for you. And so yes, they may be going to your website, but equally, the AI agent may be going to the website, and the agent has, some other knowledge and is able to really understand the competitive landscape much more quickly.

Can point out things like discrepancies in your copy and in, your positioning and things like that. And then is going to very succinctly come back and either say, "Yes, this is the company you should choose," or-  

Alex Furrer: Yeah ... "

Dan Beresh: You know what? this other page that they released in 2004 actually completely contradicts their new positioning in 2026, and why is that still up?"

And so we have to also be thinking about people working behind an agent working on their behalf, and how do we get the specific messaging for the people that's valuable to them in a way that may not preserve the copy we spent hours and hours finessing. We really have to get, I think to your point, is, we have to get to the point quickly, and, here's exactly what we wanna say, in the floweriest language in the world or not, that may not survive the the, the kind of brutal summarization that AI is gonna do.

Alex Furrer: And it goes back to what we talked about at the beginning as well, in that, when there's a concern with jargon and just oversimplification, you all end up sounding the same. Yes. The same goes for how an AI can pull that out too. So making sure that when you are getting to the point, you're making sure that your unique, proposition is absolutely coming to the forefront to make sure that you are standing apart from everyone else that is possibly all saying very, similar things.

Dan Beresh: I used to work with this copywriter who was extremely pro jargon.  

And I, it was tough for me because I thought, hang on a second, I don't like this jargon. I want, I want simple language. This is, previous Dan, right? And, I had thought, hang on. what is this, is a person who's been a copywriter for almost two decades.

she's extremely experienced. Let me hear her out. And one of the things that she said to me that really, stick, stuck with me was jargon is a way to get to the point more quickly. Like it's a shortcut, And especially when it comes to these large business terms, and you might, take a couple of sentences to get to somewhere you could get- with a simple piece of jargon. But I think the interesting thing is here now more than ever, that simplification, that sort of skipping the actual explanation is gonna completely cover over your differentiators and make you sound exactly the same as the next person. So then and now, I still do agree that jargon is not the way to go.

and I don't think anyone sits down and says, "I'm gonna write a bunch of jargon right now." But we all exist inside of these vacuums, especially large companies, a lot of in-group talk, a lot of speak that, we understand, colleagues understand, easy for that to get approved through a cycle internally, and then it goes and gets read by your, client and they say, "Hang on a second.

This doesn't make sense," or, "It isn't differentiated."  

Alex Furrer: 42, 42 point, I'm just looking at the study, 42.6% of people, of respondents, when they were asked to say, select up to three things that made it, communications most difficult to understand, jargon was the number one thing. So it absolutely still is there, and it's how do we move beyond that, and how do we provide some really great content that, that gives all, like covers all the rest of the challenges and really starts to speak to people in a meaningful and relevant way?

Dan Beresh: That's exactly it. It's the holy grail, isn't it? It's the ability to retain complexity, get rid of jargon, make it make sense, and fundamentally, that's our job as marketers, and it is an incredibly difficult job, especially in B2B.  

Alex Furrer: Absolutely, and we also don't need to do it all at once. I think that's the thing I like, not everything needs to say it all.

There is that, there, we had, there are so many layers of it, and it's just a matter of, making sure that you're taking people on that journey. But yeah, we don't need to say it all in one go. We're not going straight to a white paper.  

Dan Beresh: that's right, and to understand that it is a journey, and I'm sure everyone listening to this thinks of, their, funnel or their progression of their buyer as being, going through a journey.

But to your point, Alex, if you're commissioning a video, if you're creating a white paper, if you're writing copy for a webpage, it does not need to answer every single last question that someone has. In fact, I think it'd be a lot better, to your point, to be more specific about, okay, this is gonna be served to this person at this point in their buyer journey, and therefore it needs these specific things, and also not too much specificity to make sure that they're still, they're still interested in, in, in continuing to go.

And I think that's an interesting segue into the other thing I wanna talk to you about, which is this idea that sales funnel progression- does not equal understanding. And I'm sitting here thinking, well-  

Alex Furrer: Yeah ...  

Dan Beresh: this whole idea of pipeline velocity is like- ... God, if we're pushing a, if we're pushing a deal through quickly, they must want it, right?

So what's that about?  

Alex Furrer: Yeah, what we d- what we discovered, was that seven in 10 buyers admitted to moving forward along a process, along a sales process before feeling like they truly understood the product or service that was being sold to them. So y- as much as, sales progression and pipeline progression is often seen as this, a metric that everyone is using, it doesn't necessarily mean that people are completely understanding what is in it, what their, the benefit, the business outcome and s- is, what's in it for them, for their business.

and that was a really interesting piece of this because now you've got, people that are, you think are close and, moving along with it, but there's still an opportunity, for a competitor to potentially swoop in if- They don't necessarily truly understand your offering and what makes you so unique.

Dan Beresh: The deep-seated fear that I have here is it's actually different. It's the competitor has the upper hand, and maybe has from the beginning- Exactly ... and you are being pushed along this- Yeah ... sales journey- Yeah ... as sort of the pick number two, or God forbid, pick number five. and people are moving along and thinking, "Yeah, I, think this solution's okay.

I don't really get it, but, it's ... We probably shouldn't just have one person in the, procurement process, so let's..." or God forbid, "I'm forced to triple bid it, so therefore I need to move at least three companies along," and you're, unbeknownst to you, not in anywhere near number one position.

and just because, you have a good product, but to your point, people don't understand what's in it for them.  

Alex Furrer: And the other piece of that is, if you, even if you think you've got a champion in there, you're not always in the room with them, so you're hoping that they're able then to explain it.

But if, they're not necessarily feeling that they truly understand it, makes it really hard to then explain it. And another piece that came out of the study was that people, revealed that the best indicator for them to, that they've truly understood a, a complex product or service, was that they could accurately explain it to another stakeholder.

So then you've potentially got 30% of people that you think are well on the line that, don't have enough information necessarily to truly explain it to someone else within their own organization. And, a- at that point, we're talking about, for them even to understand what's, what, how it's beneficial to them, let alone, equipping those champions then to also sell it in to other people who probably have different, different views in terms of what they need from a certain product or service.

U- Using that CFO and engineer example again, but, is a champion equipped to actually be able to sell it in to their CFO who's gonna need a different business relevancy than the white paper or some technical specs? And equipping them for that, is a really important piece that we saw coming out of this, and how do you do that to make sure that the progression really is showing that- The progression that you're hoping that it is, and that understanding is following along with it.

Dan Beresh: The word champion is, to me, almost too reductive.  

Because they're a champion, sure, but who are they gonna go champion this to?  

Alex Furrer: Yeah.  

Dan Beresh: Are they a champion among the engineers or the individual contributors who are gonna know if, wanna know if the UX and, how it actually works is great, or are they the C-suite champion that's gonna go, to your point, take it to the CFO and say, "Hey, listen, this is the business value that we need to invest in"?

So really being a lot more granular, I think, around exactly who people are going to be pitching internally to. Because I think if there's one thing we can guarantee in B2B, especially big B2B, is that you're never gonna be able to speak directly to every single possible person who will influence the ultimate outcome of the deal.

Alex Furrer: Absolutely, and I think it's like we, before we were talking about making sure that one person knows the, the what's in it for me. and I think in this c- and that's inter- from the buyer's perspective, but in this case, we're talking about a company and who's actually saying it for you.

Who i- who is, doing the selling for you when you're not in the room? And I, think it, it's, a very, there are many audiences on the other side that you've gotta equip people for, to be able to do that because you can't, to your point, you're, not gonna meet everyone.

And, and- Yeah ... you're not necessarily even gonna, know within a specific company if you're not meeting everyone exactly what it is that, their challenge is. So as much as you can start to understand their challenges and try to answer the different ones, the better. But, th- this comes down to someone being, that champion, if you will.

asking the questions and seeing what you can get from them to help equip them, to sell it when, you're not there. And if there are some specific challenges, really giving them some answers there and getting a bit even more personalized with some of those, tools that they can have.

Dan Beresh: Absolutely. and giving them those sales enablement tools is, I think, hopefully what's gonna enable- them to cascade, multiple bits of messaging. Alex, I'm curious though, we talk a lot about sales and, pipeline obviously in this last segment of our, of our podcast.

I think it's a really important thing for everyone to understand. But for those people who are just purely marketers and who have, a relationship with the sales team, what is it that you would recommend those people take away from this specific insight? How can marketers do better as a result of knowing that pipeline progression does not necessarily equate the buyer is interested, or the buyer understands, excuse me?

Alex Furrer: I think part of it comes down to being as business relevant as possible to their outcomes, and talking about Not about yourself as a product, but getting into the benefit first. and what we learned is that most people were asking for, they wanted to value, want, they want to understand the value it delivers to the business.

They want to understand the business problem it addresses. So if you're not doing it, reframing messaging so that it's benefit led to the prospect, to the buyer, rather than, product led. So you're following, and you're following up with the product details, and I think that's a big shift and sometimes depending on, messaging to really lead with so that the re- lead with the, outcome, lead with the solution to those potential problems that, that you've heard already from potential customers, from existing customers, and, build on those, and then fill it with the product rather than product first.

Dan Beresh: exactly. And the other interesting thing, and something that came out of this, this study was a recent article we released on how to optimize your content for AI, which by the way- check that out on our website if you're, going through the throes as I think we all are figuring out how do we make sure these AI agents are picking up on our brand, take a look at that article on our website.

But the thing that came out of that as well was this, this problem mentality as well and that's the other interesting nuance that maybe AI is, forcing us into in a, good way, is yeah, you can talk to your point about features all day long, but when we identify what the business problem is that the audience specifically cares about, and again, that's gonna be multiple different problems for multiple different people in multiple different verticals and companies, then we can speak directly to the solution to that problem that is delivered by the, the thing that we are trying to sell into.

And I think that is a much better way to create a through line between the challenge that someone feels like they're stuck in and, and the solution that you, the solution you can provide. So yeah, the more I think marketers can identify that, and that it, it's really hard to do, it's, we can talk all day about how you should, could, would do this. I think the marketers that can hit the nail on the head here are gonna be the ones who are successful, but I'm not trying to say it's easy. It's, it takes a lot of upfront work.  

Alex Furrer: Absolutely. and I think it's almost thinking about if you had a problem, how would you, what would you type into an AI to identify, what is it you're searching for?

and, 'cause that is how I think, how we would, how we search. We have this issue, we're looking for this type, wh- find me a solution. And you're leading- Yeah ... with that challenge often. so building it to that, but to your point, it, it does take, it's not an easy thing to, reshift some of the, a lot of the content.

And as we said, like at this point, like everything on a website, everything that, everything you've got out there is potentially, a touch point that could be found at any moment in time. it's a lot. And I think it's also just thinking about the, the new stuff that you're putting out there, in terms of starting to, lead with, with that benefit and with those outcomes, and with those answers.

Dan Beresh: The cool thing about where we are now is if you think of some of these one-on-one sales conversations being converted into an AI conversation, the marketer now has the ability to go to the AI, and by the way, do this when you're not logged in and in an incognito window 'cause the AI's gonna give you a totally different result if it knows who you are.

Yeah. But that being said, go and look and, ask the questions yourself. You have the ability to do that, and you can see what the AI is returning and, it's incredibly powerful. I do it, all the time for our business, and trying to just optimize and, a little bit better every single time gives you a great sense of, okay, h- what is the AI picking up on?

'Cause the other thing when it comes to that part of it is we don't really know exactly how these things work. the companies are not telling us. So we only have the n- thought leadership that they've put out there and a little bit of interpolation around sort of what our best practices are.

But anyone who's sitting out there saying, we can guarantee you placement in an AI," just like people who are saying, "We can guarantee you number one on Google-" Those are not the people to hire, I think. So Alex, anything else in terms of, in terms of this study? Anything else you wanna share with folks before we wrap up?

Alex Furrer: I think we've covered a fair bit. I think, I, I, in the end, I feel like what we learned was this is about relevancy more than, a- and, you need to-- The jargon's not gonna get you to that relevancy. It is about, as, as we like to say, getting to the point without losing the point, and that's about knowing the audience and knowing who you're talking to and what it is they're actually looking for.

Dan Beresh: Absolutely. certainly something that, I think is gonna continue to be a challenge and perhaps fundamentally, that has always been the challenge for the marketer, knowing your audience and delivering a message that resonates with them, and it continues to be the goal, that we have. It continues to be the goal of the B2C marketer, and it's just a, a new world that's moving a heck of a lot faster with a heck of a lot of new tools that, we all have to be good at.

Yeah. So Alex, thanks for joining me today. I appreciate it.  

Alex Furrer: Thank you.  

Dan Beresh: And folks, if you wanna read the study, it's fideb2b.com/insights/research. You can get a copy of it, obviously for free. love to hear your thoughts. Please do reach out to us. Let us know what you think about this. We're gonna do lots more research in the future, and, would love to hear what you want us to know a little bit more about, what would help you in your career to be a little bit more successful.

So Alex, thanks very much and, this has been Don't Lose the Point. I'm Dan Beresh, and, we're Fide B2B Marketing.