In this episode of Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast, titled, Your Brand Is Your Future: Scaling B2B Revenue Beyond Playbooks and Tech Stacks, host Kerry Curran sits down with brand strategist and three-time founder Lindsay Tjepkema to challenge the conventional wisdom dominating B2B go-to-market strategies. Amid the noise of AI, tech stacks, and templated playbooks, Lindsay makes a bold case: brand is the ultimate growth engine—and the most overlooked.

Together, Kerry and Lindsay unpack why so many B2B leaders are stuck in a cycle of sameness, chasing tools and frameworks while ignoring the emotional resonance that actually drives buyer decisions. Lindsay shares her BRAVE framework and explains how real, human brand storytelling creates clarity, trust, and long-term revenue impact.

If you’re tired of performance marketing that plateaus, or if your tech stack feels full but your pipeline doesn’t—this episode will show you why your brand is your future.

Podcast transcript

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:00.952)
Welcome, Lindsay! Please introduce yourself and share your background and expertise.

Lindsay Tjepkema (00:06.845)
Great! I'm Lindsay Tjepkema, founder of Human Brands Win. I bring over 20 years of experience in B2B marketing and am a three-time founder, including several years as a venture-backed SaaS founder and CEO. Now, I leverage that experience to help B2B brands, founders, and executives grow their businesses using brand, content, and storytelling as a foundation.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:34.894)
We're so excited to have you here today, Lindsay! I first saw you on stage at B2BMX—B2B West—earlier this month, or maybe last month (I can’t even keep track anymore!). I loved your presentation, and I'm so grateful to have you join us today. Since you're in a lot of conversations with business leaders and CEOs, what are you hearing right now? What's the buzz?

Lindsay Tjepkema (00:49.032)
Yeah.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:04.858)
Around B2B marketing and branding?

Lindsay Tjepkema (01:10.537)
Everything is, well—what is it, five letters? Everything is GTM and AI. Everything. Everywhere. And the funny thing is, I don’t think anyone really knows what either of those things actually means. It’s quite ironic.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:28.878)
Yeah, definitely! I’m hearing a lot of buzz around those as well. There seems to be a rush—"We need AI. We need to be using AI. We need to shift to go-to-market." What are the challenges of making those quick, reactionary moves just to check those acronym boxes?

Lindsay Tjepkema (01:57.619)
So, AI—obviously, everyone’s living it. Everyone is asking, "How do we adopt it? How do we go faster?" That’s one thing, and it’s sitting on its own island.

GTM—go-to-market—is solid and real, but I think the obsession with it stems from a lot of fear, anxiety, and scarcity.

That scarcity is being felt everywhere, but especially in B2B—B2B SaaS, B2B marketing. The market has shifted. Sales cycles aren’t what they used to be. Budgets aren’t what they used to be. Teams aren’t what they used to be. Buying decisions and committees aren’t what they used to be. As a result, there’s a ton of pressure, driven by fear and the urgent need to deliver results.

So, people are latching onto this idea that "Go-to-market equals results. Go-to-market equals selling and growing. It’s revenue-centric." But the challenge is that while that’s the goal, people are still figuring out, "What does that actually mean? What does it mean for me? For us? For our team and strategy?"

Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:16.608)
Yes, definitely! And I’m seeing that as well—it’s so sales-driven. "We need another technology partner in our tech stack. We need another MarTech SaaS tool to get more signals and feed into this and that."

And yet, there’s a sea of sameness among so many of these brands.

Lindsay Tjepkema (03:40.670)
Yes.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:46.612)
It’s a buyer’s market. We’ve seen the data from Sixth Sense and other sources. Buyers are spending so much more time researching, understanding, and making their shortlists that you can have all the tech stack in the world—and it’s still not going to help you truly resonate.

Lindsay Tjepkema (04:04.165)
Yeah, for sure. One of the things I talked about at B2BMX was: everyone’s playbook is nothing. “What’s your go-to-market playbook?” No tech stack, no playbook, no AI prompt is ever—ever—going to get you to that ultimate breakthrough, that legacy status, that hockey-stick growth, that legendary place in people’s minds. It just won’t.

There are tools that might help you get there, but just like you said, it’s a sea of sameness. Best case scenario: you’re mediocre, driving mediocre results, just treading water in that sameness.

And the one thing I think we’re kind of circling around here is: what helps you stand out? What helps you actually find that special place in your buyer’s heart? ...and in their budget.

It’s Brand. 

No one likes that answer—except all of the brand people (myself included). But people don’t want that to be the answer. They want it to be the tech stack, or the playbook, or unlocking a framework. Or they say, “Well, if we just invest more into sales or efficiency...”

And it’s like—all of those things...

Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:10.414)
Finally!

Lindsay Tjepkema (05:32.027)
But seriously—people don’t want brand to be the answer. They want the answer to be in their tech stack, their playbook, a framework, or even just a bigger sales investment. They want efficiency hacks.

It might be part of it, but no one’s going to buy from you because you’re really good at implementing a playbook. It’s because of who you are. It’s because of what you stand for. And ultimately, it’s because of what you stand for for them.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:49.134)
I love that. And I think it’s a challenge, though, because we’ve been in a world of performance marketing—of trackable customer acquisition costs and time to sale.

And yet, brand is a squishier part of the strategy. It’s needed. But when CFOs can’t see the direct correlation, it’s more of a challenge to convince them.

So what do you see as you’re talking to your peers and clients? How do you convince them that they need to make this investment in brand?

Lindsay Tjepkema (06:34.907)
Yeah. Okay, so a couple of things there. As we know, not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that can be measured matters. Some people get that, some don’t. Some can be convinced, and some just can’t.

I’ve been on every side—I’ve worked with board members, investors, team members, bosses, CMOs, and CEOs throughout my career. It’s a battle we've been fighting for a long time. This isn’t new.

So, how do you convince someone? Well, you can point to examples. Like I said when I was on stage—think about any brand that’s made it. Just sit there and ask, “What brands, what businesses are really crushing it right now?” Then ask, “Okay, how do you think they’re doing that?”

Lindsay Tjepkema (07:32.027)
And any answer they give—whether it's their sales team or something else—you just keep asking, “But why?” Ultimately, it comes down to clarity of message, clarity of solution. They’re marketing the solution.

They fully understand their audience, their buyers, and the problems they solve. They’re not selling features; they’re selling holistic, life-changing solutions—no matter what they’re selling. And that’s brand.

People often think brand is about redesigning logos and adjusting color palettes, but it’s not. It’s the foundation holding up the entire business. It’s your why. It’s how you tell people—and make them feel—that why. It’s the whole thing.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:31.982)
Yes, and it’s so important. To your point, it’s the why, it’s the messaging. It’s the “this is how we are going to make your life better,” whether I’m a consumer product or a SaaS product. To my target audience, this is what I solve, these are the outcomes I drive.

And making that part of a narrative that really hits home and resonates emotionally is so important—but it’s also a challenge.

I love what you said about “not everything that can be measured matters.” It’s a challenge, but there are ways to track it. Whether it’s brand lift, engagement, more comments... We used to even look at branded search volume.

There are ways to measure it, but as a whole, it’s more abstract. And I often tell people—

Lindsay Tjepkema (09:21.769)
Correlations, yes!

Kerry Curran, RBMA (09:39.63)
Your audience has to have heard of you, first and foremost. Then they have to believe that you have what they need. That’s branding.

So by the time people get to you, it seems like they understand that. But how do you help them dive deeper? Whether it's a rebrand or a relaunch, how do you guide them?

Lindsay Tjepkema (10:09.041)
You’re right. By the time people come to me, they already know we’re going to talk about brand.

So, how do we do it? I start with why, just like Simon Sinek. If I get to talk to a founder, I ask: “Why are you here?”

Being a founder isn’t the easy or glamorous path. It’s hard. It’s gritty. It’s not pretty. So you have to be really, really passionate about it.

Usually, there are some incredible stories behind that passion—stories that aren’t just compelling but are also differentiators. They’re your unique value propositions. They’re the reasons people buy from you. They’re the reasons people trust you.

So that’s one piece. The other is talking to customers and understanding their why. “Why are you here? Why are you buying from this company? Why do you stay? Why do you use the product?”

That’s the foundation. It helps shift the conversation from features to outcomes. Nobody cares about features. Everybody cares about what this is actually going to do for them.

Lindsay Tjepkema (10:39.177)
Being a founder, I can tell you from firsthand experience, is not the easy, glamorous path. It is really hard. It is gritty. It is not pretty. It’s not glamorous at all. It’s the hard path. And so, you’ve got to be really, really passionate about it.

And there are usually some incredible stories there that aren’t just good stories—they’re differentiators. They are your unique value propositions. They are the reasons people will buy from you. They are the reasons people will trust you. So that’s one.

Also, talking to customers and understanding their why—why are you here? Why are you buying from this company? Why do you stay? Why do you use the product?

And from there, that builds the foundation of some of the differentiators—how we talk to customers and how we shift away from just talking about features. No one cares about features. Everybody cares about, Hey, what’s this actually going to do for me as the buyer?

So we start there.

And we go through this whole process—how do we tell the stories? How do we tell the human stories? How do we build up the personal brands of the people behind the business and the brand itself? And how do they fuel each other?

Then, once that’s all said and done, we get into the BRAVE framework that I shared at B2BMX.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:56.182)
Excellent. I love your framework, too, because hearing from customers is so important. They might have a completely different reason than you expect.

They might say, “Actually, we subscribed to you for X, but I’ve found that it’s really helped me with Y.” And that gives you a whole new value proposition.

I think that’s an important step that not enough people take.

Lindsay Tjepkema (12:02.907)
It’s so important.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:20.736)
It’s something I include in my framework with clients because I’ve learned that you really need to get to that why—the real outcome they’re driving toward.

Lindsay Tjepkema (12:33.393)
Yes. One thing I notice when I’m talking to a prospect or a customer is that there are two extremes—and sometimes they happen at the same time, which is really funny.

One side says, Nope, we know our customers. We know who we’re working with. We don’t need to do any of that.

And the other side says, We need to do customer research. We need market research.

And while market research is important, a lot of the time, it’s not actually needed.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:46.318)
Right.

Lindsay Tjepkema (13:01.897)
It’s not necessary—sometimes you just need to talk to your customers.

So I’ll ask, How often do you talk to your customers?

And they’ll say, Oh, I talk to my customers every day.

Okay, but about what? Are you talking about issues they’re having?

That’s where having a third party come in and really dig into the why can be so valuable. Why are they here? Recording those conversations can also create great content.

So that’s one of my key observations—you don’t know your customers as well as you think you do. And you don’t necessarily need a $10 million market research study to figure it out.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (13:30.988)
Right. I definitely agree. And again, it’s about getting those insights that will truly differentiate your brand.

Tell us about the BRAVE framework.

Lindsay Tjepkema (13:42.153)
Sure.

Thinking BRAVE is ultimately a mindset. It’s a framework that helps you make decisions.

Once you’ve got your brand in place, it comes into play at every level. I introduce it at the beginning, saying, This is how we’re going to think about things.

Then, as we go along and make strategic decisions—should we invest in this? Should we hire this team?—we apply BRAVE.

It’s something leaders can use. It’s something individuals can use as they prioritize their work. And it’s something you can even use personally—for life decisions, personal brand decisions, all of it.

BRAVE stands for:

• Brand
• Relationships
• Audacity
• Values
• Energy

When making a decision, ask yourself:

• Brand: Is this in alignment with my brand? (You need to know your brand first.)
• Relationships: Does this help me build or strengthen relationships with people I want to know, like, and trust long-term?
• Audacity: Are we thinking big enough, or are we playing it safe? Did we hold space for creativity and innovation?
• Values: Does this align with our values, or are we just chasing attention?
• Energy: Does this drive positive energy? Does it feel right?

If you answer yes to all five, green light. Move forward.

If you have a no or a question mark anywhere, stop. Fix those first. Otherwise, you won’t reach your full potential.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (16:13.581)
I love that. And I love that it’s not just a brand or marketing exercise—it ties back to business goals.

Even with go-to-market strategies, it’s about focusing on the customers who will truly drive long-term value.

It’s such an important shift—focusing on who will grow with you rather than just who will pay today.

I imagine that can be a challenge when coaching clients. What are the hardest roadblocks you run into?

Lindsay Tjepkema (17:12.105)
One of the hardest things, time and time again, is that leaders—especially CEOs—want branding to be someone else’s responsibility.

They’ll say, Okay, so the marketing team is going to use this when they decide whether or not to invest in brand.

But then they’ll just go do their own thing.

And I’ll say, Can we at least walk through it really quick?

Because honestly, I don’t think this decision is audacious—I think you’re playing it really safe.

That can be a tough conversation. But the nice thing is, BRAVE is common sense.

It creates a shared language where you can simply say, I don’t think this is really in alignment with our values.

That’s where brand truly lives—guiding how we make decisions and invest our limited, precious resources.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (22:42.506)
Excellent. Lindsay, this was so helpful.

For people listening who are thinking, This is brilliant—I want to get started! what foundational steps do they need?

Lindsay Tjepkema (22:49.804)
Great question! I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, so you can find me there.

My website is lindsaytjepkema.com, but Human Brands Win is easier to spell!

Also, I host a show called Actually, I Can, where I talk to founders and leaders about times the world told them they couldn’t do something—and they did it anyway.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (23:25.75)
Excellent! We’ll include all of that in the show notes.

Lindsay, thank you so much for sharing your time and expertise with us today.

Lindsay Tjepkema (23:35.783)
Thank you, Kerry.

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