Revenue Diaries Entry 27

I spent the past week in London, mostly attending an industry conference and spending time with the amazing crew at Docebo. But over the last two days, my wife and I carved out a little time to do something different…  we went to see The Book of Mormon, my first-ever musical (yah, I know, I know).

Now, I grew up in an evangelical Christian home. So, sitting in a packed theater, watching a show that pokes (hard) at organized religion, it hit differently. Parts of it were outrageous. Hilarious. A little uncomfortable, if I'm honest. 

But underneath all the jokes (and there were multiple times where I was cry-laughing), I was reminded of something…

That even when things are messy, contradictory, and imperfect… at the core, most people are trying to do good.

It made me think a lot about my upbringing. About the ways we can hold both laughter and love, criticism and connection, all at once.

And maybe the most powerful part? Walking out of the theater and hearing a dozen different languages, people from all over the world buzzing about what they just watched. 

Talking about what they felt. What they learned. What stuck with them.

Art has a way of doing that. So do great cities. They pull wildly different people into the same room and remind us we’re not as different as we think.

♥️ kyle

Thanks to Share Your Genius, who is our first partner in the newsletter and podcast. I’ve known the team and their CEO for years. They are the best creative agency, helping brands build deeper relationships with their audience through binge-worthy podcasts and great content.

Being OK With Missing Them: Navigating Parenthood and Professional Demands

I wrote this from a hotel room in London, before attending my first industry conference as the CMO at Docebo. I’m also spending this weekend with my wife, carving out space for our relationship amid the constant demands of work and parenting.

And yet, even with all the logical reasons in the world, it’s hard.

Hard to step out of the parenting mindset.

Hard to be away from my kids.

Hard to know they might be missing me, struggling a little, feeling the distance and still choose to stay here.

And hey, it’s OK. 

It’s OK if they miss me.

It’s OK if they struggle a little.

It’s OK if they feel the sting of separation.

And it’s OK for me to feel it too, without immediately rushing to fix it.

In high-stress, high-profile roles, travel is often non-negotiable. Opportunities come with a cost, and often that cost is time away from the people we love most. Every instinct as a parent says: protect them. Minimize their suffering. But the truth is, if you’re building something meaningful for your family and your career, there will be moments when you have to trust that temporary discomfort builds strength… because it does.

And not just for them, for you, too.

There’s a strange kind of growth that happens when we let our kids miss us. They learn that sadness doesn’t break them. They learn that love isn’t tied to proximity. They learn trust, patience, flexibility… the very traits that will serve them for life.

And as parents, we grow too.

We learn to cope with missing them without letting it break us.

We learn to honor our ambitions without collapsing into shame.

I’m not suggesting it’s easy.

Every photo or FaceTime call tears at my heart.

Every "I miss you, Daddy" text lodges itself in my mind. 

But the work I'm doing is for them too. It's for a future where they’ll know what it looks like to chase something big without abandoning the people you love.

So if you find yourself in the same spot… boarding a plane, dialing into a late-night call across time zones, sitting in a conference room halfway around the world… 

You better remember this:

You’re not failing them by being away.

You’re teaching them, even now.

And they’re stronger than you think.

And so are you.

Attribution Is the False God of B2B Marketing (But We Still Pray)

In B2B marketing, there’s a silent prayer we all whisper under our breath: Please let this work and please… oh god please… let me prove it did. 

Attribution models are the altar we’ve crafted (or were handed). CFOs want neat ROI reports. We want job security (and let’s be honest, a little personal validation too). So we bow.

But the truth is, attribution is a false god. Especially in B2B.

Rory Sutherland, one of my favorite voices in life (and especially in marketing), reminds us, in the most recent episode of Uncensored CMO, that real success is much messier, more emotional, and less predictable than a damned Google spreadsheet. His warning about the dangers of "false certainty" rings loud in B2C marketing. Still, I’d argue it’s even more dangerous in B2B, where buying decisions unfold over months, involve layers of politics, and are riddled with fear and career risk.

And nowhere is that false comfort more dangerous than in B2B, where deals span multiple quarters, decisions are made by multiple people and shadowy committees, and fear, politics, and peer influence often outweigh logic nine times out of ten.

Still: We can’t just throw our dashboards out the window. Attribution isn’t going away,  it’s the language of survival.

The trick is learning how to use it without worshipping it.

Why Attribution Feels So Good (and Leads Us Astray)

Attribution gives us (B2B marketers) something we desperately crave: proof. Proof that a campaign worked. Proof that a lead came from this ad, this event, this webinar.

Proof that earns us the next quarter’s budget. But proof comes at a cost.

Because attribution tends to favor whatever’s easiest to measure, it pulls us into over-investing in bottom-of-funnel activities. Whitepapers. Landing pages. Retargeting ads.

Meanwhile, the real magic… the events, podcasts, community building, and thought leadership gets shortchanged because it doesn’t fit neatly into a last-click report.

We often fail to optimize for what truly matters. We optimize for what’s easy to track. 

Why B2B Gets Hit Harder

B2B marketing brings its unique flavor of chaos:

• Long sales cycles blur the early moments of influence.

• Buying committees mean you’re rarely marketing to one clean persona.

• Career risk means your buyers aren’t just choosing vendors — they’re managing their reputations.

And the forces that actually close deals, trust, fear, peer validation, FOMO, don’t show up cleanly in any CRM or attribution model.

We see the final click. We forget the thousand invisible steps that led there.

Smarter Ways to Think About Attribution

At the Pavilion CMO Summit (highly recommend any marketing leader to check it out), Jon Miller (Marketo co-founder and someone who wrote the modern B2B playbook) said it perfectly:

"Marketing attribution shouldn't be used to prove investment. It should be used to improve investment."

That little shift changes everything. Attribution isn’t a courtroom verdict. It’s a weather report. It helps you make smarter bets, not guarantee outcomes.

Here's how I try to stay sane:

Treat attribution as a guide, not gospel >> Expect some fuzziness. Your gut still matters. Trust your instincts alongside your dashboards.

Budget for brand >> Reserve at least 10–20% of your spend for the slow-burn stuff: trust-building, community, content that won't pay off tomorrow but but it’s how buyers first hear, trust, and remember you.

Watch for soft signals >> Brand searches. Direct traffic spikes. Random LinkedIn mentions. Inbound DMs. These are the whispers that you’re winning, even when attribution can’t prove it.

Talk openly with leadership >> Be transparent with finance and leadership. Set expectations: Not every valuable marketing effort will show short-term attribution. Trust and reputation take time, and they usually pay off bigger than we can predict.

Think in bets, not guarantees >> Smart marketing isn’t deterministic. It’s probabilistic. Your job isn’t to find guaranteed wins…  it’s to make smart bets across a diverse portfolio, knowing some will pay off and some won’t.

Here’s the deal… 

B2B marketing tempts us to chase false gods. Neat attribution models. Perfect forecasts. Clean lines between effort and result.

We crave the comfort of certainties, but the real world doesn't work that way. Deals are won in the messy, emotional middle. Trust is built slowly. 

Momentum comes from a hundred unseen moments, not just the last click.

The best marketers I know aren't the ones who worship the false gods harder. They're the ones who know they're false and choose to keep playing anyway.