Liam Moroney

Co-Founder, Storybook Marketing | Full-service demand generation agency

I lead Storybook Marketing, a consultancy that specializes in brand marketing strategy, to help companies become the brand that buyers think of, using an evidence-based approach to marketing.

We offer customized services, consulting, team workshops and training, to level up marketing programs so they are capturing market share and not just leads.

Founder

When we apply a performance marketing mindset to the top of the funnel, we can end up putting a lot of effort and expense into building an audience that often isn't big enough, and sometimes isn't even real.

In B2B tech I'm increasingly seeing this happening, especially with the new obsession to rank in AI search results. 

Where the effort is on trying to reach Goldilocks prospects who haven't been influenced by competitors yet, or even ones who haven't come to realize they need a solution yet, so we can come along and become their only solution.

While a very attractive concept, it's often an expensive effort to build an audience of unicorns. 

The research in B2B continuously shows that most buyers are experienced ones, or at least part of their buying group is. Kerry Cunningham frequently talks on the topic, and his research at 6sense continuously shows it.

Blank slate buyers who are problem aware but not solution aware are a fringe group, if they even exist at all. Most of our addressable market knows and has experience with the category, and have some form of a consideration set in mind.

The job in marketing isn't to find the undiscovered buyers, but to win the underserved ones. 

Our growth comes from people that exist in the big group in the middle, who have familiarity with the category and most of its players, have likely bought from at least one of them in the past, and don't need "educating".

They need a better alternative - and we have to show up often and relevantly to position ourselves in their consideration set.

Brand Marketer | Storybook Marketing | MarTech contributor

Brand gets underinvested in because it doesn't show up clearly enough in our attribution models, but should it?

Should attribution really be the central and core method for measuring marketing?

I'm not in any way anti-attribution, but I get incredibly frustrated at how much it's come to be how we, and especially leadership, believes that marketing works and gets measured.

What never gets measured in attribution is the underlying conditions that determine how well any of our efforts grow:

❓ How many potential buyers know we exist, and are we continuing to create awareness in new buyers over time?

❓ How effectively are we getting our brand to be thought of as an option to consider - something that becomes existential when purchase risk increases?

❓ How successfully are we being thought of by those buyers when they actually do come in market?

None of this shows up in attribution tools, and yet those conditions determine just how much of an upper limit there is in the effectiveness of our demand gen and performance marketing efforts.

Brand is very possible to measure in a growing variety of ways, and has been for a long time, but it requires leadership understanding and belief in how it works.

When we force it to show up in a measurement tool designed for something else entirely, we set it up to fail.

It's like trying to measure climate change with a thermometer - it will very easily miss the bigger and more existential trends because it's too narrow a view.

Brand is measurable. It's the leadership understanding that's lacking.

This race towards “AI visibility” is feeling like a gold rush without any guarantee of gold, but shovels of all shapes and sizes for sale. 

Everyone is obsessed with being mentioned or cited by LLMs, but it seems like those two things might not even be related - though you’d hardly know it from the confidence of those showing up as AI experts. 

Rand Fishkin has been raising some really important points and insights about how makes up the AI answer may not even necessarily be sourced from the citations. 

Rather it’s looking like citations are often post-hoc ways to support the answer and not what actually always informs it. 

Which, from a user standpoint is hardly reassuring, since AI might be using citations to make the answer look accurate as opposed to actually being accurate. 

And, from a brand point of view, this leaves a potentially massive delta between being part of the answer and beyond a supporting act to prop it up. 

We could easily be targeting metrics that don’t actually mean much, but the train is fully out of the station to try. 

And all of this is before we address whether being the true source of answer drives real brand value and exposure, or how much less value again a barnacle cited link might bring. 

Just like old-school SEO, more backlinks don’t guarantee more business, and not all search visibility is equal. 

All we know for sure is that none of us know for sure yet. 

It’s the Wild West out there - beware overconfident AI experts bringing their data and selling their shovel.

It's often said that "brand drives performance, and performance builds brand", but in many cases only the first half of that statement is true.

Which is problematic when you have a program whose budget heavily favors performance marketing.

Brand definitely should drive performance, and should make existing performance work better, since it's ideally creating more and better awareness of the solution to a broader group of people with at least some of them in-market now or very soon.

And performance marketing is a critical part of a healthy program, activating on people who are in-market and ensuring those hard-build brand memories get activated.

But, performance marketing often has little brand benefit since it's so volatile and opportunistic.

An ad trying to get you to take action on something you're not currently looking for is usually either totally ignored or very temporarily remembered. Our brains simply don't waste valuable cognitive energy and space on things that aren't relevant to us.

Much of performance marketing is about a moment-in-time ask - sometimes it's a price discount, sometimes just a request to take a demo.

There is little about creative like that that is remembered, if it's ever even paid attention to at all by people who aren't in-market.

It's not to say performance marketing isn't valuable - it's a critical part of an efficient program - but on its own it frequently doesn't have any lasting memory value at all. 

And, when you have programs where 70-80% of the budget is trying to nudge people to take action, you can end up with a program that is failing to build any real brand value, no matter how many logo impressions get served.

Marketing does all work together in a complex and integrated way, but it doesn't mean one type of creative is a good substitute for the other.

And when that nuance is missed, we can end up with a very ineffective and inefficient program even with a very healthy budget.

There is still a big brand marketing gap in the industry and the massive push to use AI isn't solving it. 

Most of what's being done to attract business with AI right now is reactive marketing - showing up in answers being asked in LLMs, and being mentioned as a solution when people are seeking one.

While it's important to make sure we place our brand where interest and traffic is happening, this doesn't solve the much harder job of proactively making the brand more familiar and considered before people are even there.

A lot of the buying searches happening in AI search are comparisons, where consideration search is anchored around the brands who are known, and where buyers are comparing them against others.

In essence, AI is mostly helping to do the digital equivalent of merchandising. 

We're putting the brand on the new shelves, and betting rather big that those new shelves are where most of the future buying will happen, which remains to be seen. 

But, just like getting on the shelf in a physical store, it still doesn't guarantee that you get bought even when it exposes you to active buyers. Plenty of brands have spent a fortune to make the shelves of Walmart, Target, etc, only to find that they need to spend even more on discounts to make up for the lack of awareness.

Most of what grows brands happens before the browsing moment, especially when the good being sold requires some consideration. 

It's not enough to occupy a shelf space - you also have to occupy a market presence and usually at a much larger ratio.

The truth about promotion is that it's not efficient. 

We have to get the creative in front of as many people as we can, the majority of whom aren't actively buying, and we have to keep pushing the message to overcome the reality that most won't get seen. 

To quote Les Binet, "If I had to choose between having a great ad with no money behind it and a good ad with a massive budget – I’d probably go for the good ad with a really big budget because media spending and share of voice really matter."

And because it's inefficient, it's often unpalatable to much of leadership, and so marketers get pushed towards things that feel much direct response - and we find ourselves in the advertising "Doom Loop" that David Tiltman and WARC have so eloquently described.

So here we are, where getting placed in an AI overview is taking up massive attention and effort in tech companies, while the underlying problem of being known and remembered is still neglected.

We might end up much better at being found when people are looking, but no better at being sought out by whose who aren't.

Michael Pedersen

Revenue Growth | Emotion-Based Brand Messaging To 3x Your Revenues | Bridging the gap between sales and marketing

High call-volume teams don’t fail from lack of skill.They lose performance across the shift when rough calls stack and recovery lags the next dial.Morning numbers are strong.Afternoons drift.DecideFast™ runs in the seconds after a call so performance holds from first block to last.No integration.No coaching.No training.No workflow changes.No IT involvement.Training happens before the shift.Coaching happens after the shift.Dashboards explain the drop once it already hit the numbers.Nothing protects the transition between one call and the next.That is the gap DecideFast™ fills.DecideFast™ shortens after-call transition so the day doesn’t slide as it progresses.Used in seconds.No management overhead.See after-call recovery live.No slides. No pitch.

CEO & Founder

Does your website convert? When was the last time you gave it a refresh? How does it compare to your competitors?

Your company website is your brand on the Internet. An under-performing and outdated website will cost you revenues. 

Let’s jump on a discovery call to see if we are good fit to work together 

Visit: www.AZNetmarketing.com or 
Email: mike@aznetmarketing.com

Most phone sales “burnout” isn’t burnout.

It’s compounding.

A rough call ends.
The rep logs it.
The dialer fires the next one in seconds.

➡️ Nothing clears what just happened.

By the third or fourth tough call in a row, tone tightens. Close attempts lose edge. Response speed slows just enough to matter.

Morning block looks strong.
Afternoon block drops.
Same script. Same leads. Same rep.

What changed?

Not energy.
Not motivation.
How fast they bounce back after a rough call.

If it takes 3-4 calls to get back to normal, the afternoon is gone.
If it takes 1, the day holds.

➡️ Training builds skill.
➡️ Coaching fixes patterns.
➡️ Dashboards show the drop.

But the real break point lives between calls, or more specifically after a rough one.

That’s where the afternoon is won or lost.

The gap is the 5-8 seconds after a rough call when the next dial starts and they're still carrying the last one. 

You don't need to make them better salespeople. You need to help them start the next call without dragging the last one into it.

➡️ 14-day, 25 rep contained pilot. 
➡️  Does afternoon output hold.
➡️  Email me: mike@decidefastbusiness.com

#insidesales #phonesales #salesmanagement

Mike Pedersen

High-Volume Phone Teams See Afternoon Performance Drop | Between-Calls Reset Software Prevents It | No Training. No IT. No Workflow Changes.

If your sales reps make 60 to 100 calls a day, read this. ⬇️ 

If you run a phone sales team, you already know this.

Mornings feel steady.
By mid-afternoon, you are pulling reps aside, calming people down, resetting tone.

You are not coaching skill.
You are managing carryover.

You've already invested in training and coaching. That's not the gap.

The gap is the 5-8 seconds after a rough call when the next dial starts and they're still carrying the last one. 

You don't need to make them better salespeople. You need to help them start the next call without dragging the last one into it.

➡️ 14-day, 25 rep contained pilot. 
➡️  Does afternoon output hold.
➡️  Email me: mike@decidefastbusiness.com

How much is a rough call costing your phone team?

Most leaders look at call volume, close rate, and revenue.

Almost nobody looks at what happens right after a rough call.

Over the past few months, we interviewed three dozen reps and agents working in high-call-volume environments.

We asked one simple question.

What actually happens after a bad call?

The answers were consistent.

“That last call threw me off.”
“I was still thinking about that one.”
“I’m not ready for the next call.”
“I need a reset before the next dial.”
"I don't need more coaching, I need to get out of my head."

That moment is short.

The cost compounds across the day.
One rough call can affect the next call.
Then the next one after that.

Across a team, the numbers add up fast.

So we built a simple Rough Call Carryover Calculator where leaders can plug in their own numbers and see the real impact across a team.
No assumptions.
Just your numbers.

If you lead a high-volume phone team and want the calculator, comment below, and I’ll send it.

What is rough call carryover.

Most leaders call it burnout.

Morning block looks sharp.
Afternoon block widens.
Same reps. Same leads. Same scripts.

What changed?

After a stretch of tough calls, hesitation between dials stretches.
Five seconds becomes eight.
Eight becomes twelve.
Across a team, that compounds fast.

That’s not exhaustion.
It’s rough calls accumulating.

Definition of Rough Call Recovery: The ability of a phone sales rep to return to normal pace and tone before the next dial after a rough call.

I wrote a breakdown on what it is and how to spot it in your numbers.
https://lnkd.in/gycdm6eq

If you are a phone sales leader and you want to stop your afternoons from crashing, there is a way. And it's not in your current tech stack.

➡️ 14-day, 25 rep contained pilot. 
➡️  Measure: Does afternoon output hold.
➡️  Email me: mike@decidefastbusiness.com

How a phone sales rep recovers from a rough call

Listen to how recovery is being explained right now:
➡️ Take a minute.
➡️ Extend ACW.
➡️ Build in a buffer.
➡️ AI agent assist.

That all sounds reasonable.

It doesn’t match how these environments actually run.
✅ Calls are back-to-back.
✅ Queues don’t wait.
✅ Reps are already into the next conversation.

So recovery never happens the way it’s described.
A rough call ends.
The next call hits.
The last one comes with it.

You can hear it in the opener.
You can see it in the close.

And by the afternoon, the numbers show it.
That’s the miss.

Recovery isn’t about adding time.
It’s about what happens in the seconds right after a rough call, before the next one connects.

That moment decides the next call.

DecideFast™ delivers a real-time reset right after a rough call, clearing the carryover before the next call connects, so bad calls don’t stack, the afternoon doesn’t fall apart, and managers stop watching the numbers drop with no way to stop it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Test It With A Small Team
14-days
25-reps
We measure whether afternoon output holds without additional manager intervention. 

For more information, feel free to reach out via email: mike@decidefastbusiness.com.

taplio

The Battle

Liam Moroney

Michael Pedersen

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreLiam Moroney's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMichael Pedersen's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Liam Moroney

Michael Pedersen

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Liam Moroney's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMichael Pedersen's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreLiam Moroney's LinkedIn Performance