Thought Leadership-Driven Growth: Rethinking Sales and Marketing for the Next Generation with Kelli Schutrop

#18: In today's B2B world, the traditional divide between sales and marketing is holding companies back—and "growth at all costs" tactics are losing their edge.

In this episode of Growth Activated, I’m joined by Kelli Schutrop, a sales and marketing leader who’s built her own playbook for modern B2B growth—rooted in strategic alignment, thought leadership, and expert visibility.

We’ll dive into:

• Why sales and marketing alignment alone isn’t enough for today’s B2B marketing leaders
• How leading companies use thought leadership to build brand AND pipeline
• Practical ways to map your buyer journey—and align your content, sales strategies, and messaging at every stage
• Why modern marketing leaders need to drive unified go-to-market motions that are customer-centered, revenue-aligned, and built to last

Whether you're building your first integrated sales + marketing strategy or leveling up a mature GTM engine, this conversation is packed with insights to help you rethink your growth strategy for the next generation.

Hit play and get ready to activate a smarter, stronger B2B growth strategy!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Growth Activated: Elevating B2B Marketing Leadership
• 0:28 Rethinking Sales and Marketing Alignment for Modern B2B Growth
• 1:24 Building a Unified Go-to-Market Strategy: Shared Goals, Shared Wins
• 3:17 Kelli Schutrop's Career Journey: From B2B Marketing to Fractional Leadership
• 8:02 Why Thought Leadership-Driven Selling is Winning in B2B Sales and Marketing
• 10:29 When Sales and Marketing Partnerships Work (and When They Don’t)
• 13:48 Understanding the B2B Buyer Journey: Top, Middle, and Bottom of Funnel Alignment
• 20:10 Target Account Demand Generation: A Smarter Way to Build Pipeline
• 21:31 Buyer Journey Mapping: The Secret Weapon for Sales and Marketing Teams
• 32:09 Quick Wins for B2B Marketing Leaders: Closing Gaps and Driving Strategic Growth

Transcript

Chapter 1: Welcome to Growth Activated (00:00)

Mandy Walker: Hey Kelli, welcome to Growth Activated. We're so excited to have you here today.

Kelli Schutrop: Thanks for having me. I'm excited for our conversation.

Mandy Walker: Yeah, me too. I think it's so rare these days to know go-to-market leaders who have experience in both sales and marketing and understand the entire view, and have empathy for both sides. Given your experience, this is really your sweet spot. I think it's going to be a really fun conversation. I can't wait to learn from you.

Kelli Schutrop: Yeah, empathy is the right word. You see it from both sides of the trenches, and then you have better context for where each side is coming from.

Mandy Walker: Absolutely. So Kelli, share a little bit about your background. I'd love to hear about your evolution in your career and what you're doing now.

Chapter 2: Kelli's Career Journey from Marketing to Sales Leadership (02:50)

Kelli Schutrop: Sure. Going back to undergrad, I majored in marketing and public relations. I really fell in love with the world of promoting whatever it was to people that I could share with. I was also business-savvy from an earlier age—even in high school, I was involved in different business organizations. I had some cool experiences in undergrad around marketing, communications, and public relations, and found a sweet spot for that.

Then I fell into the staffing industry. Before that, I was part of the advertising space in Minneapolis, doing account management as an intern and then supporting the brand itself on the marketing communications side. I realized, "Wow, I like this. It's so much fun to build visibility and credibility, and tell the stories from an external perspective."

I met an individual who had her own executive search firm and needed someone to help her build marketing from the ground up. She said, "I don't know what that means exactly, but I need it." I was looking to explore new opportunities, so I joined her. The cool thing is, I got to learn the ropes of recruiting—formally trained in Boolean search and all things recruiting—in addition to marketing.

From there, she merged with an RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing organization), and all my marketing responsibilities went away. They said, "If you can do the recruiting side, go ahead and dive in." I found that I had a bigger passion for marketing, but I had a deep appreciation for recruiting and the industry.

The individual who brought me in moved to a different company and pulled me with her. I led their marketing for a number of years, building it from the ground up, reporting directly to a visionary CEO. It was an amazing experience to help shape the company's direction after a business split between partners.

I hit a point where the company wasn't growing fast enough for me to level up, and neither could I promote the person under me. So I raised my hand and said, "I'm ready for the next challenge." The CEO said, "We've been thinking about creating a staffing-focused digital marketing agency. Would you want to do for others what you're doing for us?" I said, "Yeah, let's try that."

After a slight panic of "Wait, can I do sales? I've always been in marketing," I wore many hats: account management, project management, marketing execution, and running inbound sales calls. That experience taught me two major things about myself and the industry.

First, I didn't want to be seen as a commodity—someone just doing cold outbound. I wanted to approach it through thought leadership: sharing stories where my audience spends time so that when they have a need, they seek me out.

Second, our industry is really behind in marketing sophistication. Some companies do a phenomenal job, but many are just playing catch-up. This realization allowed me to help share the narrative of what strong marketing can do for them, and it developed a really strong inbound pipeline.

From there, I got recruited to create LinkedIn Learning courses and later joined a digital learning consultancy selling into global tech companies. Through that experience, I realized my passion: helping experts become visible and building narratives that ideal audiences want to engage with.

A year and a half ago, I launched Thoughtful Resound—a fractional sales and marketing leadership consultancy—where I support a select number of retainer clients and projects focused on strategy and advisory services, primarily in B2B professional services.

Chapter 3: Thought Leadership-Driven Sales in B2B Organizations (08:02)

Mandy Walker: I love your perspective on sales. Today, it's so critical to approach sales differently because cold calling is so hard—there's so much noise. AI is also making it harder to break through. Walk us through the companies that are most interested in a thought leadership-led sales approach.

Kelli Schutrop: Sure. It tends to fall into two camps.

One, credible organizations that already do great work. When they get in front of a prospect, they're always a top selection—but they need more people to know about them. They've historically invested in company-level marketing but haven't yet invested in leadership-level or sales-level marketing—building brands around key leaders.

Two, organizations going through major transitions like mergers, acquisitions, or separations. They need to stand up as new entities, and their buyers often know the people, not necessarily the brand. They need their leadership to be visible and active on LinkedIn and in industry associations.

Chapter 4: Bridging Sales and Marketing Alignment (10:59)

Mandy Walker: When you enter an organization, are you typically working with both sales and marketing to build a unified go-to-market motion?

Kelli Schutrop: It depends. For larger organizations, it's typically marketing that brings me in. For smaller boutiques, it's the CEO. I help them align marketing and sales initiatives around building expert visibility and closing revenue gaps.

Sometimes I work with companies that have marketing teams that are executing but don't have time for strategic alignment with leadership vision. Other times, companies have no internal marketing, which is fun but also challenging.

Chapter 5: Common Sales and Marketing Misalignment Pitfalls (13:20)

Mandy Walker: Where are you finding that sales and marketing typically are aligned, and where do they miss each other?

Kelli Schutrop: At the bottom of the funnel—no confusion. Everyone agrees on leads ready to buy.

Higher up, it gets murky. Marketing often says, "We generated 500 leads" (eBook downloads, for example), and sales says, "Those aren't leads." Sales wants warm, qualified opportunities. The further up the funnel you go (awareness stage), the more misalignment there tends to be.

Companies with strong sales and marketing alignment have mutual respect and understanding. Disconnected teams have finger-pointing.

Chapter 6: The Power of Buyer Journey Mapping (21:02)

Mandy Walker: What helps strategically bring sales and marketing together?

Kelli Schutrop: Buyer journey mapping. Mapping what a buyer is thinking, feeling, and doing at each stage of awareness, consideration, and decision.

It creates empathy and clarity around what content is needed—and why—and it gets everyone aligned on moving buyers through stages rather than random tactical asks.

Chapter 7: Table Stakes for B2B Marketing Leaders (32:09)

Mandy Walker: When you first walk into an organization, what are the table stakes every B2B marketing leader should address?

Kelli Schutrop: Online presence audit—LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn company pages, websites, Google searches.

Make sure that what you say you are matches what shows up online. Many companies are professional internally but lack credibility externally. Beyond that: cadence of content, leadership visibility, basic marketing infrastructure like paid, owned, and earned media strategies.

Chapter 8: Quick Wins to Elevate B2B Marketing Strategy (35:58)

Mandy Walker: What's a quick win you'd recommend to help marketing leaders get incrementally better right away?

Kelli Schutrop: Understand your sales process. Map it out from lead to close. Identify gaps and friction points. Understand conversion rates between stages.

Also, consider focus groups with current clients—what made them buy? What could you have done differently?

Chapter 9: Measuring the ROI of Thought Leadership Marketing (42:09)

Mandy Walker: How do you recommend measuring the ROI of thought leadership marketing?

Kelli Schutrop: Closed-loop feedback from sales: "How did you hear about us?"

Also, visibility KPIs: Are target audiences seeing your leadership on LinkedIn? Are strategic pursuits engaging with your thought leadership?

Thought leadership doesn't always show a direct 1:1 ROI—especially for large, long sales cycles—but it's often a major factor in being included on shortlists.

Chapter 10: Final Advice for B2B Marketing Leaders (52:37)

Mandy Walker: One last pearl of wisdom—what's your final piece of advice for marketing leaders?

Kelli Schutrop: Understand what makes your boss successful and align your work to help them succeed. Whether you're asking for more budget, a promotion, or new headcount, if it's framed around advancing the business's success, you're much more likely to get a "yes."