Lilach Bullock was the guest on the Marketing Leadership Podcast, hosted by Dots of Dots Loves Marketing, in an episode titled “The Sales-Oriented B2B Digital Marketing Playbook” and published on YouTube on 17 April 2025. The 39 minute conversation is about the gap between marketing and selling. Lilach’s position is blunt: most entrepreneurs and even brands spend far more time on marketing because it is more fun, are afraid to sell, and are not making consistent revenue as a result; you cannot scale on word of mouth any more; and the fix starts with knowing your numbers, mapping the buying journey from real data, and getting everyone inside the business aligned before you go looking for more leads. The video is embedded below, followed by the key takeaways, a summary and a cleaned transcript.
Watch on YouTube: Lilach Bullock: The Sales-Oriented B2B Digital Marketing Playbook. The show’s home is dotslovesmarketing.com.
Key takeaways
- The market is more saturated and noisier than at any point in Lilach’s 19 years in business, so mindset is the first requirement: expect things not to go your way, take massive action, and when something “does not work,” ask how much of it you did. It is never enough. Do more of the right things and celebrate the small wins.
- Entrepreneurs love marketing and fear selling. Spend at least as much time selling as marketing, because you cannot succeed on marketing alone, and the businesses that grew on word of mouth are the ones stagnating now.
- Marketing has become too content-centric. Putting content out and waiting for people to come was enough once; today it needs far more outbound and proactive work, so demand generation adds to the SDR role rather than replacing it.
- Map the buying journey from data. Understand where the client is, how they got there and where they want to go, then work backwards through the conversion funnel step by step, and factor in the resources they have: money, people and tools.
- Internal misalignment blocks growth more than lead volume. Ten times the leads will not double the business if the CRM, the reporting, the landing pages and the people cannot keep up. Tools like HubSpot unify sales, marketing and admin, but any tool is only as good as the training and use behind it.
- If you cannot measure it, do not do it. That includes podcasts, speaking and social media time. And in a noisy market, be personal and memorable, even with a handwritten note, and pick tools that fit how you work so you are not overwhelmed.
From legal secretary to Forbes list
Dots opened by asking how Lilach rose to the top. She was a legal secretary who worked up to training manager, had her daughter, was refused part-time hours, and became a virtual PA 19 years ago when almost nobody had heard the term. The business grew faster than she could handle, she sold it within two years, went to Downing Street for a best entrepreneur award, got press for the novelty of it, and started training other mothers to become virtual PAs. She was an early adopter of social media, and she is a great believer that being at the beginning of something is the biggest predictor of success. From there came a digital marketing agency, the 2013 Forbes listing as the 14th most powerful social media influencer, international speaking, a pivot into online PR and content marketing before COVID, and her current work helping entrepreneurs, SMEs and enterprises with marketing, sales and scaling.
Marketing versus selling
Dots framed the topic through the Harvard Business Review idea of linear versus integrated sales and marketing. Lilach’s answer is that it depends on size: an entrepreneur owns both, and only at enterprise level do they become separate departments that stop talking to each other and slow decisions down. The bigger problem, she said, is that most people spend more time marketing than selling because marketing is more fun and selling is hard, and that is why so many entrepreneurs, small businesses and brands are struggling. Everyone is afraid to sell and nobody wants to be sold to, so revenue is inconsistent. On the question of whether demand generation is replacing SDRs, she said marketing has become too centric on putting content out and waiting; that built her own business years ago, but today it takes much more outbound. She told the story of a business owner whose growth had stalled and who proudly said all his leads came from word of mouth: it worked for years, and you cannot scale on it now. Her written playbook for this is B2B digital marketing that is built to produce revenue, with the wider set of moves in the B2B strategies that grow a business.
Mapping the buying journey and getting the team aligned
Asked for her process, Lilach described starting with the client’s current position, history, what works, goals and target, then working backwards through the conversion funnel: what happens before a lead arrives, which platforms, which steps, and the conversion rate at each one, looking for steps to shorten, speed up or add for trust. She is, in her words, obsessed with conversions, and the map has to be built on analytics because most people do not know their numbers. She also looks at resources: money, people, and tools. Growth changes the journey, so part of the work is deciding when to invest in a stronger CRM, better analytics or another person. On alignment, she called it the biggest challenge and the place things most often fail: smaller companies have more control but often resist change, larger ones have too many cooks, and people think the problem is lead volume when the blockers are internal. Her tool of choice is HubSpot, because it serves marketing, sales and admin and grows with the business, with the caveat that any tool is only as good as the people using it. The automation side of that is covered in how marketing automation drives sales when it is set up right.
Rapid fire, measurement and being memorable
In the rapid-fire round her best marketing KPI was around 300,000 to 400,000 social shares of her old blog content, her daily social media time is one to three hours (she was mid digital detox from Facebook and has her phone on permanent do not disturb), and her quote is one she says she coined on stage 15 years ago: if you can’t measure it, don’t do it. She applies it to everything, including podcasts and unpaid speaking, where a week of preparation and travel for free is time nobody would give away in any other job. On tools, she loves HubSpot sequences for automated follow-up but insists on the human voice: in a saturated market, being personal and memorable, even a handwritten letter, makes selling easier, and you should pick tools that fit how you work rather than drown in them. She closed with a structured, targeted approach to selling, which is the same logic as a sales funnel a solopreneur can run alone.
Frequently asked questions
What does Lilach Bullock talk about on the Marketing Leadership Podcast?
Her path from legal secretary to virtual PA business owner to Forbes-listed influencer and marketing consultant; why a revenue mindset matters in a saturated market; why entrepreneurs spend too much time on marketing and too little on selling; whether demand generation replaces SDRs; how she maps a client’s buying journey from their own data and conversion numbers; why internal misalignment blocks growth more than lead volume; HubSpot and automation; and why being personal and memorable cuts through.
How does Lilach Bullock map a B2B customer buying journey?
She starts with where the client is today, how they got there, what is working and what is not, and where they want to get to and why. Then she works backwards through the conversion funnel: what happens before a lead is attracted, which platforms, which steps, and the conversion rate at each step, looking for steps to shorten, speed up or add for trust. The map is built on analytics, not guesses, and it includes the resources available (money, people, tools) so the plan gets them there as fast and efficiently as possible.
When was the episode published and how long is it?
The episode was published on YouTube by Dots Loves Marketing on 17 April 2025 and runs for about 39 minutes. It is part of the Marketing Leadership Podcast, hosted by Dots.
Full transcript
Cleaned and condensed from the episode’s auto-generated captions. Filler, the sponsor break and crosstalk removed, obvious caption errors fixed, meaning kept. Lines are attributed to Dots (host) or Lilach only where the speaker is clear.
Dots: Hi marketers, this is Dots, and welcome to the Marketing Leadership Podcast. With me is Lilach Bullock, founder of Lilach Bullock Limited. Lilach is an influencer, CMO, marketing consultant, Forbes top 20 women influencer and speaker. Yes, she is the GOAT. We will be talking about the sales-oriented B2B digital marketing playbook. Lilach, welcome. How are you doing?
Lilach: Hi, I’m great, thank you. Thank you so much for having me here today.
Dots: It’s an incredible honour. If you are listening and you are an aspiring marketer, strap in. Let’s start with you: your background, your role, and how you rose to the top.
Lilach: I started out 19 years ago; my daughter just turned 19 last week, that is how I count. My background was as a secretary for years, a legal secretary, and I worked up to become a training manager. I did a lot of travelling. Then I had my daughter and they wouldn’t let me go back part-time, so I decided I would become a virtual PA. Nineteen years ago there were not many virtual PAs, so it was a totally different playing field, and it was very local, sales in the UK. The business just grew. I couldn’t cope with the amount of business I had, the opposite problem, because there was so much demand and not enough people offering to help businesses. It catapulted me into the business world, which I love, and within two years I had sold the business. I had been to Downing Street for best entrepreneur of the year and had quite a bit of press, because it was such a novel thing, and I was helping other mums become virtual PAs, which got me into training. At the time of selling I was getting very involved in social media, because it was still early. I was an early adopter, which is crucial to how I got where I am today. I’m a great believer that if you are at the beginning of something you are much more likely to be successful, and there is a lot of talk about timing being one of the real reasons businesses succeed. I’m obsessed with timing. Then I went into digital marketing and had a digital marketing agency, and in 2013 I was listed in Forbes as the 14th most powerful social media influencer, which totally changed my career. I became an influencer, travelling all over the world speaking about digital marketing, content and best practice. Before COVID I pivoted, still in digital marketing but focused on online PR and content marketing. And that led me to where I am today, helping businesses, entrepreneurs, SMEs and enterprises with their marketing and sales, helping them grow and scale. That is my journey in a nutshell. I missed out a lot of hard times and successful times. A lot of water under the bridge.
Dots: Speaking of water under the bridge, what are your top two or three lessons for younger marketers who need to acquire that revenue mindset? You have acted as CMO for many businesses, fractional and full-time.
Lilach: I love that question, and I’ll tell you why. I have been in business a very long time and I have never seen the market quite like it is today. It is incredibly saturated, so noisy, and really challenging for everyone. The problem is that everyone is perpetuating how easy and simple it is, when behind the scenes it is not, and so many people are struggling. We are seeing amazing, talented people who are brilliant at what they do, they have a gift, but they are struggling to get it out to the marketplace. That is why mindset is crucial right now. It is so hard, a million times harder than when I started. I could never today achieve the success I have had over the years, and I don’t think any single influencer could, because it is so competitive. So mindset is really important: a strong mindset to cope when things don’t go your way, which they inevitably won’t, a strong work ethic, and huge, massive action. What worked two or three years ago doesn’t necessarily work today, or it means you have to do more of it. When people say “it doesn’t work,” I ask, well, what did you do, how much did you do? And it is never enough. It is having the mindset to constantly do more of the right things, and to dust yourself off. It is tough out there. I don’t want to disillusion anyone, but it is about honest expectations, celebrating the small wins and giving yourself a chance to succeed.
Dots: I like that: doing more, but doing more of the right things. Many people do more of the wrong things and waste time, especially in marketing where it is easy to attract fluff. Now, on the sales-oriented B2B playbook, sales and marketing working together. Harvard Business Review laid out a linear connection versus an integrated connection between the two. What has happened, historically, that has marketers preferring to stay in their lane, how has that become a disadvantage, and why do sales and marketing need to work together today?
Lilach: Great question. First of all it depends on the size of the company and whether you are an entrepreneur, because if you are an entrepreneur you are responsible for all aspects, sales and marketing. It is only when you get to large enterprise companies that sales and marketing are separate departments. In smaller companies it tends to be the same person or people doing both. The challenge with larger companies is that they don’t always talk to one another. There is a lack of communication and a lot of people in the team, which slows decisions down, and sales and marketing are about doing things quickly and getting things out rather than too much planning. Each has different challenges. As an entrepreneur, most people love the marketing side and focus far too much time, effort, energy and resources on it, because it is more fun, more interesting, and people naturally find it easier. Sales is really tough. That is why we are in the position right now, in 2023, where so many entrepreneurs, small businesses and even brands are struggling: most people don’t like selling and don’t want to be sold to, and the lines get very blurred. Most people spend more time marketing and not enough time selling, and then there is a lack of communication between the two.
Dots: So each side working on its own strengths and complementing each other is one takeaway.
Lilach: It is not just about complementing, because you cannot succeed without sales. People are obsessed with marketing. Marketing worked years ago and it was great, and there was an uneven split. Things are so tough right now, and everyone is so afraid to sell, that they are just not succeeding. They are not making revenue, or not enough revenue consistently. People are petrified of selling, and there is so much negativity towards selling: nobody wants to be sold to, and yet everyone is selling. It is challenging, but as much time as you spend marketing, spend the same amount of time, if not more, on selling.
Dots: There seems to be a trend where marketing, because of advances in storytelling, is slowly replacing the sales development rep. The SDR builds the first relationship, but now, with demand generation campaigns, brands put out the information an SDR would have given, through communities, reviews, podcasts like this one. And B2B buyers have more control and do more of the work themselves. Is it true that the SDR role is diminishing, or is demand generation an added benefit with the SDR role staying as is?
Lilach: It depends on the company, the size, how many people are involved and who your target audience is, because a large enterprise is totally different from an entrepreneur or a small company. But I definitely believe we have become very marketing centric. We feel we put the content out and people will come to us. That used to be the case, and I created a huge business on the back of it, but today that is not enough. There needs to be much more outbound, more proactiveness. We can’t just sit back. I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with someone who needed help growing his business because it was stagnating. We were discussing how he got to where he is, what his lead generation had been, and he very proudly said, all word of mouth. A lot of companies built a business on word of mouth, and it worked for years, but today you cannot scale on word of mouth. It is impossible. People who achieved that, and now the leads are drying up, are really struggling for that reason.
Dots: Now the strategy side. How do you help B2B companies map buying journeys for customers, based on their needs, what Harvard calls the job to be done? Do you have a process or a playbook?
Lilach: The way I work with clients, first it is really important to understand where they are today in their journey, how they got there, what is working, what is not working, where they want to get to and why, who they want to target, whether they want to pivot slightly, what their goals and objectives are. Then we work backwards. What is their conversion funnel like? Before they attract a lead, what are they doing, what steps are they taking, which platforms are they using, what are their conversion rates? I am very obsessed with conversions. When we dig into the analytics of how a prospect becomes a lead, we identify each step and see where we can shorten a step or expedite a step, or whether we should add a step to build more trust. So it is creating a map that is very much based on data and analytics. People have to know their numbers, and this is where so many go wrong: they don’t know their numbers enough. It is so important to know your numbers and understand as much as possible about your target audience, because knowledge is power. It is also about looking at what resources they have available, regardless of company size, and those could be financial, people, or tools they use or could use. So it is looking at all of that and coming up with a plan that gets them from where they are today to where they want to be as quickly, effectively and efficiently as possible.
Dots: I like the importance of market research, analytics and qualitative data, and tools that show where people are on a specific need.
Lilach: And the problem with most companies, and individuals, is that they don’t know how to find that data. Often people know where they want to be, they have some vague idea of how they have got clients so far, and if they are new it is a whole different process. It is about finding that data and creating systems and processes so they can scale, because the whole customer journey changes the bigger you get and the more people you have. If you suddenly get ten times the leads, it does not mean the business doubles if it can only handle ten. So it is about making sure the business can scale with what you have: working out at what point you need to invest in a stronger CRM, or a different email marketing tool, or stronger analytics, or another person or an account manager. All of that is part of the process.
Dots: How do you get the members of a commercial team to work together to make all of that happen: sales with service with marketing with tech?
Lilach: That is one of the biggest challenges, and often where things fail. If you have a smaller company you have a lot more control, but a lot of people in smaller companies are very rigid and resist change. When you are making changes to your business you have to make sure everyone is on board, open and willing to make the changes, to communicate with one another, and able to produce the documents, the reports, the analytics, and set up the landing pages in a timely, cohesive way. When a person or a piece falls apart, that is where problems occur. That is the biggest challenge I have faced working with large companies, and the larger the company, although in an ideal world they have more resources and people, you have too many decision makers, too many cooks in the kitchen. At every stage of a business, whether you are an entrepreneur finding outsourcers or hiring in-house, you will face challenges. People don’t realise the challenges of growing and scaling a business. They think the problem is, we just need to generate more leads. But it is the internal things that are often the blockers.
Dots: Some questions about channels. From a B2B perspective, what are your favourite marketing channels, especially where there is collaboration between marketing, sales and other departments?
Lilach: I’m a huge fan of HubSpot, because it ticks all the boxes. It works with marketing, with sales, with admin and bookkeeping, everyone. It is incredibly robust, it is the one I personally use, I love it, and it can grow with a business. There are a lot of others in the marketplace, and a lot that are cheaper, I must admit. But the key to any platform, any tool in fact, is that it is only as good as the person or people using it. If someone doesn’t have the time or know-how to use all the features and only uses a small amount, you are not going to get value from it. So it is really important, and this is part of the customer journey mapping, that the tools people have come with the correct training, that they know how to use them, that things are regularly updated, that it is all aligned and everyone is talking to one another. That is another place things fall down.
Dots: Something else for the list. Marketing is not easy. If you’re listening and feeling overwhelmed, we will bring some fun into this. After a quick break from our sponsor I’ll ask Lilach some rapid-fire questions, and then my favourite part of every episode: best practices, things to avoid and things to follow.
Dots: Welcome back. It is the performance rapid fire. Three questions, the truth and nothing but the truth. Question one: what is your best marketing KPI, and I don’t want to hear sales?
Lilach: My old blog used to get around 300,000 to 400,000 shares of its content. That is my personal best. Those were five years ago.
Dots: You are still a very popular influencer, so it is the seeds of then that are working now. Question two: how long do you spend on social media every day?
Lilach: I’m trying to get it down and down. I have been blocked on Facebook right now, and I was really annoyed. I reported someone for scamming and made a mistake, so here is some good advice: if someone is doing something they are not supposed to, report them privately. Don’t call them out in a comment, because then they report you instead. They blocked and reported me before I had the chance. So right now I’m on a digital detox from Facebook and I’m loving it, the best thing that has happened to me. I have a screen time widget so I can see how long I spend on my phone every day, and my phone is on do not disturb permanently, so I never get notifications and I control when I log in and out. It is so addictive. Anywhere between one and three hours a day.
Dots: I’m also considering a digital detox.
Lilach: I just came back from a few days at the Dead Sea at a spa, and I hardly had my phone. I put my out of office on, which I never do, and it was so refreshing. I highly recommend more digital detox.
Dots: Third question: what is your favourite marketing quote?
Lilach: I’m going to tell you my own quote, and I’m about to forget my own quote. It is something like: if you can’t measure it, don’t do it. Anything you do in marketing, if you don’t know how to measure it, you shouldn’t be doing it. I have said that for about 15 years, at speaking events.
Dots: I had a guest give the same one; maybe they got it from you. I agree, and on the flip side, don’t over-measure. It is sometimes fine to measure correlation, or to accept attribution in the dark, dark social and dark channels, because people get so engrossed in measurement they miss the brand purpose. But never start a campaign if your tracking pixels are not done.
Lilach: I’m not even only talking about campaigns. Anything and everything. If you post an update, you need to be able to measure it. Even the podcast we are doing now, I will be measuring it. If it is not worth my while doing podcasts, I won’t do them. I love doing them, but I have to take the emotional side out. A lot of people speak for free because they love it and chase their egos, and they get very little back, and you have to question the ROI, because it is not just the time on stage, it is the preparation and the travel; it can be a week of time not getting paid, which is mental. You wouldn’t work for free for a week on anything else. Every activity, even an hour a day scrolling social media, has to have an ROI on your time.
Dots: With this podcast, at dotslovesmarketing.com/podcast we track our metrics, listener growth, episodes and downloads, and I update it about once a week. Before I let you go, from your exposure to the technical side of sales and marketing alignment, what solutions are out there, lead scoring, email automation, analytics, that help sales, marketing and service work together as one force to drive commercial value?
Lilach: I’m a huge fan of automation. It is really necessary. I love HubSpot sequences, because instead of sending follow-up emails by hand it does it for me automatically, which makes life a lot easier. But it is finding the right tools and also applying the human voice. As much as I love automation, we have to have the human voice as well, personalise and tailor. There are a lot of automation tools, and a lot of analytics and measuring tools, but at the end of the day, in such a noisy, saturated space, being personal, even doing things we did 20 years ago like sending a handwritten letter, stands out. The key is to be memorable, and to be vulnerable. If you can achieve that, your sales will be much easier, because people remember you. I’m very blessed that my name is unique and different, and that helps me, and I play on it, I must admit. It is about playing on your strengths and knowing your weaknesses, and finding tools that don’t overwhelm you, because that is another challenge: the tool industry is now saturated as well, and it can be overwhelming. Find something easy to use and intuitive that works the way you work, so it doesn’t feel like you are resisting. And don’t be overwhelmed by the number of sales and marketing tactics; you could spend all day talking to people. Be very structured and very targeted in your sales approach.
Dots: Look for what works for your own situation. It is a cliche for some, but many still don’t know. Lilach, this has been a great and fun conversation. This episode is Marketing Leadership Unscripted. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, your perspective and the authenticity behind it. Where can business leaders find you if they need help growing their businesses?
Lilach: My website, lilachbullock.com. No, I’m not Sandra’s sister. I’m also on LinkedIn and on pretty much every social channel. I’m the only Lilach Bullock in the world, so you can type my name into Google and I’m everywhere. Come and say hi and connect. I have a ton of free resources and trainings on my website as well.
Dots: That’s all for today. See more episodes at dotslovesmarketing.com and subscribe to the Marketing Leadership Podcast on Apple, YouTube and Spotify. Till next episode, connect the dots.
