Brewing Success with Ben Henson: Reimagining the Buying Journey with AI

Can AI make B2B buying more human? Ben Henson, Co-Founder and CRO of Peel AI, thinks so. On this episode of Pipeline Brew, he shares how his team is using AI to flip outdated sales motions on their head and create genuinely helpful, buyer-first experiences.

Matt and Ben talk about what’s broken in the traditional buying journey, and where sales and marketing teams can look to fix it. Drawing from decades of experience leading revenue teams, Ben sheds light on the rise of offline buying behavior, the limits of content formats such as PDFs and white papers, and why the phrase “nobody wants to be sold to” has never rang more true.

You’ll hear why Ben believes that Voice Experience (VX) is the next step in leveraging AI to create real connection throughout a buyer’s journey alongside the lessons he’s learning as a founder operating in today’s rapidly changing climate. If you’re under pressure to do more with less or rethinking how your team actually helps buyers buy, this conversation is packed with smart, tactical insights you can apply today.

Ben Henson is a seasoned B2B revenue leader and entrepreneur, having co-founded Peel AI in 2024. Serving as CRO, Ben is helping to redefine how buyers engage with brands by bringing AI-driven conversational experiences to static content and sales motions.

Prior to Peel, Ben spent over two decades leading sales, marketing, and GTM strategies to drive growth in B2B. Throughout his career, he has focused on creating more effective ways to connect and communicate, blending practical GTM experience with consistent innovation. 

“Nobody wants to be sold to. I think that in our consumer lives, I think that in our professional lives, I think if you feel like you’re being sold to, your antennae pick up and you’re like, wait a second, what’s happening? Conversely, everybody wants help buying. So if they know that they want to do the thing, then it’s like, okay, well let’s figure this thing out.”

“If you don’t know the answer to a question, ask your customer. You want to adjust your pricing? Ask your customer. You want to add a new product? Ask your customer. The basics, the fundamentals, still come into play here in a very meaningful way.”

“Go try [AI]. Go get better at it. Have fun with it. Don’t get rigid. We’re in a brave new world, and marketers have the flexibility and the ability to try new things and figure out how we can communicate well to somebody else. How can we give them good customers, and this is the place that you really get to play, that you really get to stretch your legs.”

00:00 Episode start

01:25 Icebreaker

04:05 Ben’s background

06:20 What inspired Peel

10:00 Enabling buyers at the moment of curiosity

13:35 Asynchronous research and content clarity

16:20 Rethinking content hubs and deal rooms

19:45 Building a GTM engine with limited budget

23:50 The power of real thought leadership

25:15 UX to CX to VX

28:45 AI, voice, and the rise of interactive selling

33:00 What success looks like at Peel

34:45 What’s on Tap for Ben Henson

[00:00:00] Matt: Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Pipeline Brew, the podcast that meets at the intersection of people and pipeline. We’re bringing you fun yet insightful conversations where you’ll not only hear from marketing experts, but also get to know them as well.

[00:00:21] Matt: Hey everyone. Today I’m super excited to be joined by Ben Henson. Ben is the co-founder in CRO of Peel ai, a discovery platform helping businesses engage better through AI driven conversations. I’ve known Ben for a while now and he’s got a ton of knowledge to share. Today’s conversation, we’re gonna focus on the problem Ben identified and built Peel to solve keys to successfully building a go-to-market engine from scratch, and the future of market trends.

[00:00:48] Matt: Now that AI’s pretty much taken over everything.

[00:00:51] Ben: So with that, Ben, welcome to the show, Matt. Thank you, man. I’m so happy to be here. It truly am. It feels like a real homecoming in a lot of ways.

[00:00:59] Matt: I feel the [00:01:00] same way. So it’s awesome to have you. Excited for our conversation ahead. So as you know, we like to kick off each episode with a little bit of an icebreaker.

[00:01:08] Matt: So Ben, what is your go-to beverage when you need a little pick me up.

[00:01:12] Ben: So I’ve been thinking about that question ’cause I’ve listened to a bunch of your podcasts and I, I know you’re gonna ask, and I was gonna say coffee ’cause I do love coffee, but I’m actually gonna switch that. I was feeling a little dehydrated this morning and I don’t know if you’ve gotten into the.

[00:01:27] Ben: LMNT, the element, electrolyte element. Yeah. Those things just change my entire trajectory. So I’m gonna say, what’s your go-to

[00:01:36] Matt: flavor?

[00:01:37] Ben: Always citrus. Okay. I, I made the mistake of like getting the variety pack and trying the chocolate and the jalapeno and brutal. Ooh, they have a jalapeno, no, brutal. No. Yeah.

[00:01:48] Ben: It’s like mango chili, jalapeno, or, I don’t know, citrus. Hydrated. Feel great. Sleep well.

[00:01:56] Matt: Now are you a full packet at a time person or do you go and have these full on? [00:02:00]

[00:02:00] Ben: Yeah, full on

[00:02:01] Matt: all thousand milligrams of that sodium.

[00:02:04] Ben: I’m like a horse with a salt lake. Yeah, just, just lay it on me,

[00:02:08] Matt: coach. That’s awesome.

[00:02:10] Matt: Well, I appreciate you not saying coffee, although I did have a coffee follow up question for you. Because you live in a great city. You’re in Bend, Oregon. Yeah, and I feel like when I travel to cities like Bend, I find the local coffee shop and I don’t know if it’s real or perception, but the coffee always tastes better when I’m traveling and it’s in this really cool little, especially mountain town.

[00:02:30] Matt: Is that true? Like is the coffee better in Bend or is the grass always greener on the other side?

[00:02:35] Ben: You know, my wife and I, my wife and I have this joke that there’s so much hipster coffee here that like we just can’t handle because it’s like too strong for us. So yeah, I’m kind of basic. I don’t know, I just, you know, we have these Nespresso pods.

[00:02:51] Ben: Yeah, I think that’s the potential ideal cup of coffee. I don’t drink, so I have gotten really deep into coffee. Yeah. [00:03:00] So we had a super automatic, like embarrassingly expensive coffee machine that would always. Kind of get all oiled up and it wouldn’t work properly. We switched over those Nespresso pods and I can feel a little bit better my hippie self because you can send the package back and ostensibly they compost the, the grinds and right recycle the aluminum tin.

[00:03:24] Ben: But I, I don’t know, man, all of the like beautiful, like great to hang out in coffee shops and we have ’em by the plenty. No doubt about it. I always have to like milk that thing down because it’s, it’s too strong for my wimpy constitution, I suppose. Well,

[00:03:43] Matt: maybe there’s a business idea. Maybe it’s the anti coffee, coffee shop.

[00:03:46] Ben: Yeah, exactly. Just the regular, like better than Folgers, not so Right. Bespoke. Exactly for all those east coast transplants. Yeah, exactly. Gimme, where’s my donkeys?

[00:03:58] Matt: Awesome. Well, Ben, before we talk [00:04:00] about what you’re up to today, I’d love for you to tell the audience a little bit more about yourself, your passions and your background.

[00:04:06] Ben: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, I’m, I’m a dad of two kids and I started that path later in life. And I always thought I was gonna be such an individual and sort of pursue my outdoor passions and kind of do all that stuff and I do do that. But I would say that the thing I’m most passionate about is those little ankle biters and just kinda like hang in time doing fun stuff.

[00:04:29] Ben: My daughter Goldie, is super into crafting and like she’s also very money motivated. So we recently were working building with AI and lovable on creating this website for her. Which is this product, it’s riffing off of the pet rock. So this is called Teeny Wish, big Heart, and it’s these little rocks and you can buy ’em for 10 bucks and then two of those dollars go to indigenous kids, native kids here in Central Oregon for different programs for them.

[00:04:59] Ben: The [00:05:00] rest goes to Goldie. But her idea was this rock is going to be imbued with one small wish, not a big wish, a little wish. And once it comes true, you need to pass that rock on. So that was like a really fun project that she and I did recently that I just absolutely loved doing stuff like that. And then my, my son, Jesse.

[00:05:20] Ben: Just this past weekend learned to ride a bike womb, WOOM, bikes for any parents who are kind of trying to figure this thing out, the geometry, the weight, everything works just perfect. But I just love hanging with those guys and my wife and you know, shredding and doing cool outdoor stuff. But mostly it’s just hang time with those guys.

[00:05:39] Ben: I

[00:05:39] Matt: love that. I love that. Are, now you say shredding. Are you in a snowboarder or a skier

[00:05:44] Ben: snow? Well, I, I’m, I say shredding because I’m a bro, but I’m a snowboarder, mountain biker, surfer. Skateboarder. I skateboarded to work today. Oh, no way. So any, anything that moves horizontally fast, I’m into it.

[00:05:58] Matt: Love it.

[00:05:59] Matt: And [00:06:00] that’s great perspective on the, the ankle biters as you call them. I mean, I know you and I are both passionate about work, but. There’s a reason we are, and it’s, yeah, it’s for our family, so that’s super cool. Yeah. Well, we’ll talk shortly about what led you to start Peel AI and your experience as a founder, but I also don’t wanna miss highlighting your background in building sales orgs.

[00:06:19] Matt: So how do you think that element of your career plays now into your day to day?

[00:06:24] Ben: I’m a passionate person and I’m an empathetic person, and I think the whole thing that we as an industry have been talking about for so long that sales and marketing is freaking hard. Yeah, it is hard. It’s hard to do our jobs.

[00:06:38] Ben: It’s hard to create connections. It’s hard to throw parties all the time and hope people show up and hope that they’re the right people and sort of all those different things. My life, my career, and my work today appeal are so intertwined. Like a DN, a helix. I couldn’t even untether any of those strands.

[00:06:57] Ben: Yeah.

[00:06:58] Matt: Well, I know from chatting with you [00:07:00] before that you believe somewhere in the last few years there’s been a growing disconnect between sales and marketing. You know, you just spoke to it in part just how difficult our lives are, but also in turn that disconnect between, you know, sales, marketing, and ultimately customers and prospects.

[00:07:15] Matt: What have you seen as one of the largest contributors to the divide we’re seeing?

[00:07:19] Ben: So I’ve been workshopping this, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna use it live here with you and you can tell me what you think. All right. But this is fundamentally what I believe, and fundamentally how Peel solves it, sort of all, all in one full swoop.

[00:07:32] Ben: So the problem statement, nobody wants to be sold to. I just think nobody wants to be sold to. I think that in our consumer lives, I think that in our professional lives, I think if you feel like you’re being sold to. Your antenna pickup and you’re like, wait a second, what’s happening? Am I, do I really want to do that?

[00:07:51] Ben: But I would say conversely, everybody wants help buying. Yep. So if they know that they wanna do the [00:08:00] thing, then it’s like, okay, well let’s figure this thing out. Let’s understand what all of the optionality is that I should be considering. How can I, this is now me thinking about that broad scope, but like, how can I actually enable buyers?

[00:08:14] Ben: So they feel equipped that they’re gonna go make the best decision possible, because a lot of times for them, if it’s a big, heavy decision, that can be what, what we used to call a revenue producing act or a resume producing activity. Meaning, right, like you could lose your job, right? Yep, yep. The old joke, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.

[00:08:35] Ben: That stuff’s true. So how can we create that innovation? How can we create. That sort of iv, that funness, that spirit of experimentation, that spirit of playfulness in this like very hard, complex, rigorous, structured thing that we do that really is a blend of art and craft, arts and science, arts and love, arts and expression.

[00:08:58] Ben: You know, it, [00:09:00] it’s tough. And it’s only getting tougher.

[00:09:02] Matt: Well, to hear a sales guy, a bro sales guy at that say nobody wants to be sold to and use French and talk about art and science in one sentence, spin. This may be the greatest podcast I’ve had to date.

[00:09:17] Ben: Or, or you’re like, sales guys know how to talk around a subject, one of those T days.

[00:09:21] Ben: Yeah. Touche, touche. Yeah. Well, no,

[00:09:24] Matt: it’s, it’s spot on and I mean, you’re, you’re so right. You get LinkedIn connections from people and you’re like. What do you want? You walk into a store and depending on the person who comes up to you, are they gonna, you know, fall right behind you? What do you think of that?

[00:09:39] Matt: What do you think it’s like, yeah, chill out. But yeah, at, you’re right, people need to buy things and people need help making decisions. At the same time, people wanna be able to do that stuff more or less on their own. The, the research shows that, talking to people shows that, so I love that. Yeah. And that’s really what led you to start Peel, correct.

[00:09:58] Ben: Because, you know, peel, I mean, we’ll, I’m, [00:10:00] I’m sure we’ll talk about it at least anecdotally, but it’s this idea that can we make that happen? The moment that they’re curious, can we make, if they’re in an asynchronous way, if they’re by themselves engaging with our stuff, how do we flip that lever? How do we take that leverage of, okay, now they’re actually interested.

[00:10:21] Ben: Let’s drill down. Let’s go dig into this. Let’s go help you understand what’s next.

[00:10:29] Matt: Yep. A hundred percent. Well, I’m sure most marketers can relate to this, but you know, you put tremendous amount of work into a piece of content. Prospect engages with it, but then ultimately they just shove it into chat, PT or whatever program they’re using, and it spits out a two sentence conclusion.

[00:10:46] Matt: If the answer might be to actually create less content, where should the focus be?

[00:10:51] Ben: That’s a really good question and I think that your biggest, your marketer who’s listening today, your biggest competitor today, or your biggest [00:11:00] threat is that off-brand research that exists. And you know, the reason that we attack the PDF so strongly and we said, listen, this has to be interactive.

[00:11:11] Ben: You have to be able to give and get within this document itself supports that asynchronous nature. But it also does this thing, which is. How can we give a user clarity without feeling overbearing? And then how can we work within our marketing organization to say like, guys, we’re not gonna do the spam cannon of either content creation or content distribution, but instead we’re gonna prescriptively try and create content that represents our brand well, that is good at storytelling, that is good at putting.

[00:11:50] Ben: The prospect in situ, let ’em sort of feel that experience and then move forward. So I, I wouldn’t actually argue that it’s a content [00:12:00] creation issue. If it’s not this sort of like proliferation of low quality content for, because of ai and you’re saying, Hey listen, like our brand guidelines are met, are, are stories tight?

[00:12:12] Ben: Then it becomes a question of how can we distribute that content in a meaningful way so that the user not only. Engages with it, like they actually read it. First thing. We don’t know if it’s off property, if it’s a file download. And then secondly, where did they go within it and sort of were they able to find the kernels of information that they were really looking for.

[00:12:36] Ben: I would say this about content. I would say this about demo. I would say this about any sort of revenue motion content experience is very, very few people. Very few if, if any, wanna start at the beginning, go to the middle, and end at the end. Yep. People want to go to the thing they care about, they wanna have that one question answered, and if we can answer that one question effectively for [00:13:00] them.

[00:13:00] Ben: Nine outta 10 times. My supposition is that it’s gonna expand the aperture. Now they’re gonna go, well, okay, that does do that. What else does it do? How else can I help? What else could be interesting? Et cetera. So it’s finding that needle within the haystack that they actually care about and that actually answers it in the way that they want, in the language that they use.

[00:13:21] Ben: And then it, it just broadens these things. How? Because now we’ve moved from, nobody wants to be sold to. Buyers do want to be enabled as they move through the process. We’ve flipped a lever there.

[00:13:34] Matt: I love that perspective. It’s funny, for the longest time it seems that content was created to educate, to inform and it, and you’ve, you’ve used the word enable twice and I had a, a guest recently talk about, you know, the purpose of content is to enable.

[00:13:48] Matt: And I think what you’re helping to solve is really that it’s the enablement piece. ’cause what’s a buyer supposed to do after reading a piece of content? You know, how do, it’s not necessarily clear what is the next step? You put ’em into a nurture, [00:14:00] continue to, you know, download content, read content, how are you moving them along?

[00:14:04] Matt: Yeah. With intentionality and in the way that they want to. And I think about this as kind of the chicken or the egg. Did gen ai, you know, change the way that buyers want to engage and consume information or. Was the world already changing in a way that Gen AI was really the answer to that? And I don’t know the answer, but I think mm-hmm.

[00:14:24] Matt: Those who are doing it right, understand that that shift has occurred. Buyers have continued to shift to be more self-sufficient, and now with the proliferation of information coming at them, you’ve got to make it distillable and keep moving them forward.

[00:14:38] Ben: Totally. The way that I think about it is actually kind of like a dovetail where.

[00:14:43] Ben: These things were happening, they ended up happening at the same time. So the buyer latched onto that, okay, here’s now my solution of how I can take that control. Yeah. One of the most interesting dynamics over the last 20 years that is now gone, [00:15:00] and I think this is sort of like chicken or the egg thing, I think I, I think as well, is that the buyer at large woke up a couple years ago and goes, wait a second.

[00:15:10] Ben: I’m the one with the checkbook. Why are you dictating? I’m dictating. Yeah. I’m the one, I’m the one that’s gonna figure this out, and if I can do that. Okay, great. So now we, as the revenue leaders, the sellers and the marketers, the partners, this customer success people who are now owning so much of the revenue motion now, they all, we all had to go.

[00:15:37] Ben: Well, yeah, you, you do. But, but let me just, you know, and they’re going, hang on a sec. No, I don’t wanna do that. You know, I don’t wanna do that. Yeah. And that’s why I think what you’re seeing this, this dramatic increase in the want for asynchronous experiences, right? A hundred percent. I think chatbots were sort of like a start at that, but it didn’t work very [00:16:00] well, and that was like a pretty thinly veiled sales transaction.

[00:16:04] Ben: So then how do we continue to improve that? How do we mature ourselves to reflect what the buyer’s actually not asking, but telling us that they want?

[00:16:13] Matt: Yep. Spot on. You mentioned chatbots. Where do you think things like content binging tools fit into all of this?

[00:16:20] Ben: I don’t have a great answer. I think that’s a really good question, and it’s like content hubs make a lot of sense to me.

[00:16:27] Ben: I think having a place. That people can access the information makes a lot of sense to me. I think those are smart resources. The thing that I would poke on with content binging is really like the deal room concept. We have our own flavor. It’s called a peel room, pun intended, but it’s just a version more intentionally for the prospect to be able to share within her.

[00:16:54] Ben: Team and be able to sort of like move through that process. I don’t think that we’ve nailed [00:17:00] that one. I don’t think deal rooms, I don’t think peel in peel rooms have like nailed that one. Yeah. But there needs to be some sort of social sharing component of content. ’cause I don’t want one person to have read five assets.

[00:17:13] Ben: I want five people to have read one asset or more. Yep. And I think that that’s the flip and the continuity that we kind of want to have. Because if they’re reading five assets, they’re thinking about 15 or 20 different things. They read one asset, they’re thinking about one to three things, and that’s kind of how humans can make decisions.

[00:17:33] Matt: Yeah. It feels much more fluid, what you’re describing than a one piece next piece. Next piece.

[00:17:38] Ben: Yeah. And that stuff just gets tough, right? I mean, if we don’t have zero party data, if we don’t have personalized. Intent information. We’re making our best guess, which is better than, no guess. It’s better than sort of being uninformed, but I think that, that those are where the friction points still exist today is one size doesn’t fit [00:18:00] all.

[00:18:01] Ben: And a lot of times, like we’re looking, we now putting my prospect hat on. We’re looking for things that we’re trying to solve for our unique instance. That may be 80% true with you and sort of the next guy and the next gal, but I don’t know that that stuff jives as well as if we can really understand and hone in on the language that the prospect’s, using, how they’re thinking about things, how they’re moving through it, and then be able to tell that story well to them specifically and to their colleagues.

[00:18:34] Ben: You know, so on and so forth. I think the, the advent of hyper-personalization because of these tools, peel included, is part of our future of actually giving a better experience, giving better customer as the great town Click says. It’s like that kind of concept that’ll ultimately win the day.

[00:18:54] Matt: Love it.

[00:18:55] Matt: You’ve been through a lot in the early days of Peel. And you know, now you’re focused on [00:19:00] building out that go-to-market strategy and engine. I’ve been talking to a lot of marketers who, you know, they’re all facing the same challenges, right? Doing more with less, smaller budgets, bigger targets, a lot of pressure.

[00:19:14] Matt: One thing that’s come out of it is though this idea of putting the customer back at the center of everything you do. You’ve been part of bigger organizations where you’ve had go to market engines to work within. Now that you’re at Peel, you guys are still in that, those early days, you’ve got some momentum going, but what lessons have you learned in terms of really understanding every dollar that you spend matters and how you’re thinking about, do we have the right product market fit?

[00:19:39] Matt: How do I build out my engine? How do I scale this thing? Yeah. What, what have you learned through the journey so far?

[00:19:44] Ben: It’s so annoying. It’s like all it’s, it’s all the lessons that you know, you know what I mean? It’s like, it’s like, it’s so. Brutal. But it’s hard work, right? I mean, it’s like creating brand storytelling, [00:20:00] creating process are really difficult things.

[00:20:04] Ben: And we’ve been trying to stay as modern and fresh, and not just AI centric, but 2025 now back half of 2025 centric, and we’re really thinking about. What’s moving the needle for brands today? And it’s authenticity. It’s regular communication with our customer on what they want. We went through the Techstars program a year ago this time as we were really starting out our commercial work and selling, and the biggest takeaway I took from that is if you don’t know the answer to a question, ask your customer.

[00:20:48] Ben: For everything. You want to adjust your pricing, ask your customer, you want to add a new product, ask your customer. You wanna sort of like wrap up and roll up how things have gone, ask your customer. [00:21:00] So I think that the basics, the fundamentals still come into play here in a very meaningful way, but creating these repeatable processes, I have the luxury of being a founder.

[00:21:11] Ben: Deeply, deeply passionate about what we do, deeply passionate about what we do, but how can I create that same feeling and culture and experience in storytelling as I add 3, 5, 10 AEs? That’ll go and start evangelizing this message out. And you’re right, man. We’re not spending money on events, we’re not spending money on paid media.

[00:21:35] Ben: You know, certainly not like CPL type campaigns and other things that would just like move the needle very quickly. So it’s how can we effectively earn engagement versus chasing attention? Yeah, yeah. It’s a challenge. You know, it’s a challenge, but I think, and like, here’s the boring part, but it’s like create the plan.

[00:21:56] Ben: Plan the plan, execute the plan.

[00:21:59] Matt: Yep. [00:22:00] Discipline. It just, it evolved the plan. It’s the X’s and Os. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:03] Ben: It’s the X’s and O’s. It’s the pushups and sort of like not eating sugar, you know? I mean, it’s like that stuff works. It’s really annoying, but it works.

[00:22:11] Matt: We do tend to overcomplicate things and marketers have been guilty of that for years, so that’s why I’m a marketer.

[00:22:18] Matt: Part of what we’re going through is extremely painful to the point you made, but part of it is it’s like the good marketers will rise to the top. Mm-hmm. They know how to think creatively and put the customer at the center. It’s funny, you know, now that you’re a founder and you’ve been through this experience, it’ll be, it’ll be interesting to look back in a couple years.

[00:22:38] Matt: And say, am I still doing the things that I was doing when I didn’t have the money to spend maybe that I wanted? Yeah. Am I still asking customers if I can increase the price or add a new product, or have we gotten so big that we’ve just lost sight of those things that really matter? I think so many companies have, and now they’re being forced to get back to ’em.

[00:22:58] Ben: It’s, it’s good. It’s so [00:23:00] true. It’s so, so true. You know where we see the most uptick today? Is executives of brands writing on LinkedIn, a real post, and then putting the message out and using our Talk Wills product as a anecdote. So Talk Wills is an interactive PDF, so it’s your standard white paper ebook, it’s analyst report, et cetera, and you wrap it in this talkable, so it’s interactive.

[00:23:27] Ben: But the catalyst still is the same thing. In your business, the catalyst is still an outbound mechanism. What are you gonna do to get the message to the people? Right? The Ferrari’s in the garage, it’s not very fast, you know? Yeah. So how do you get that thing out there? And the place where we’ve seen virality is when an executive goes in, tells a little story, puts this thing out there and says, here you go.

[00:23:51] Ben: Like, take this. You know, in use this and maybe it’s not even gated. Maybe. Maybe it’s a formless experience. So like, Hey, we’re never gonna [00:24:00] know. We’re just giving first.

[00:24:01] Matt: Yeah.

[00:24:02] Ben: And I think, I think that those will continue. And when you, conversely, like you and I both live on LinkedIn, as do most of your audience, when you’re out there and you see some bullshit.

[00:24:16] Ben: French intended. Like you see it right away and you’re like, either the GL honors are gonna be the one in the comments section. Yeah, what a great idea. You know, like, gimme a break. So it’s either the echo chamber or it’s this like actual like, whoa, that’s like really interesting. Thanks. Asking questions, engagement, moving back and forth.

[00:24:36] Ben: And we’ve seen some of these blow up into the thousands of comments and thousands of likes. And I, I wish it was because it was a talkable experience, but it’s not. They didn’t know it was talkable until they went into it. The reason that hook the catalyst was just somebody being real and sort of trying to give first in their way to their audience because they’re [00:25:00] SMEs and they were passionate about that thing that they do

[00:25:03] Matt: love it.

[00:25:04] Matt: A previous conversation you and I had, we talked about this idea of how we’ve moved from UX to cx and now we’re in this new age of vx. Explain that to the audience. What are your thoughts on this and around this evolution?

[00:25:17] Ben: Yeah, so ux, we all know, right? I mean, we were going in, we were logging in, we were starting sort of work in the system, and then CX came along and it was, you know, primarily for the sales led.

[00:25:29] Ben: Enterprise. We’re gonna have success teams, we’re gonna have support teams, we’re gonna have solutions consultants, we’re gonna have this full corpus that is gonna be your bench that’s gonna help you go out and do that. And that was okay. But you and I both know, because you and I have both bought and sold technologies that have that CX experience that.

[00:25:51] Ben: It oftentimes is at the availability of that CX team. They’re not available at 10 o’clock at night when I may be [00:26:00] working, or eight in the morning on a Saturday before my family wake up or whatever it is.

[00:26:04] Matt: Yep.

[00:26:05] Ben: And it feels a little stale and it feels a little old, and it kind of had its day, but I think that day is largely done.

[00:26:13] Ben: So now this voice experience angle. This is the concept that in a few years, whether you have Salesforce as a CRM or not, you’re not gonna be logging into Salesforce looking at all these different tabs and trying to figure out where the heck X, Y, or Z is. There’s simply gonna be. A search bar and a microphone, and you’re just gonna talk to Salesforce and say, Hey, what’s the forecaster?

[00:26:39] Ben: I need to adjust this. It’s gonna pull in notes from your gong call. It’s gonna pull in your email, it’s gonna pipe your deals. It’s gonna move those deals down Funnel. It’s gonna create iOS for you and even ship those out. And that experience is where we will be the driver, we’ll be the [00:27:00] pilot, and we’ll have all of these agents that were instructing and they’re working autonomously for us because they understand what that is.

[00:27:08] Ben: That’s gonna be a voice experience and the voice experience. Just like this podcast right now. It’s so much easier to consume, right? It’s so much easier to be malleable and move. Like if we want to talk about Japan right now, we can simply by doing that. But if we switch that context in any other way, it just feels cumbersome and unintentional.

[00:27:30] Matt: Yeah.

[00:27:31] Ben: And that’s just the way the world’s going. So the question that we’re trying to answer is if that’s true, and if VX truly is the next thing, which, which I believe at my core that it is. How then can we keep that attention within the experience that our brands wanna own versus what we were talking about earlier on, which is like you go, you find the thing, you download it, you put it into your own [00:28:00] GPT, it fits out your own answer.

[00:28:02] Ben: The brand never knows any of that information. And then we’re kind of like, we’re in this stuck place, right? Because our Salesforce isn’t gonna get updated to that. Our future messaging won’t be updated based on how they thought about. Topic X, Y, or Z, maybe they disqualified themselves. Like think about the value of a dq.

[00:28:22] Ben: Yeah. Hey, this is not a good fit for me. Terrific. Let me move on. I, I got 2000 hours. Like, that’s it. That’s what I got. Yep. So I’m gonna move myself into the more productive opportunities. And I think that thinking through that, that experience is vx, that experience, that sort of fluidity, those skids being oil, that’s our future.

[00:28:45] Ben: We get to go create that ourselves.

[00:28:47] Matt: Makes a lot of sense. Practically speaking, how should marketers start thinking about vx? Because you think about gen AI and the impact it’s had, and I always looked at it from two angles to, companies need to be responding [00:29:00] authentically. How do we infuse the power of AI into what we’re doing?

[00:29:03] Matt: At the same time, mark, there’s a lot of pressure on marketers to figure out how to leverage gen AI and various tools to accelerate to stay ahead of the curve. Any advice for marketers on how to start thinking about vx?

[00:29:16] Ben: There’s two pieces of advice I’d give. The first one is have a playful experimentation centric viewpoint.

[00:29:26] Ben: Don’t think that you’re just gonna fix this. Don’t think that you’re just gonna solve this. Like there’s a hundred different ways to do things. Yeah. And if you have. The lean in that you should, which is like, what’s probably the coolest thing about AI is how fast it can respond, how fast you can do whatever you wanna do.

[00:29:49] Ben: Where does AI really work? Anyone that knows it’s in the prompt, right? It’s how much time do I actually spend instructing the output that I [00:30:00] want? So if we’re gonna do that time and time again, we’re gonna get better at certain things. But the, these are all muscle memory and neural pathways that we need to exercise.

[00:30:11] Ben: And if we can create them in a meaningful way, if we can have a spirit of experimentation, a spirit of playfulness, a spirit of let’s try it and see if it works. Yeah. And if it doesn’t work, let’s try something else. Like, right. You know, like selling and marketing. We got the brass ring. We got the cool one, like the accountants didn’t get the cool one.

[00:30:33] Ben: The lawyers didn’t get the cool one. So many people didn’t get the cool one. We have the flexibility and the ability to try new things and figure out how can we communicate well to somebody else. How can we give them good customer, and this is. The place that you really get to play, that you really get to stretch your legs, whether that’s image creation, video creation, content creation, [00:31:00] storylining, how we follow up with people, how we think about them, the questions that we ask, the language that we speak, all of those different things, like we don’t know the answer.

[00:31:09] Ben: And if you know you don’t know the answer, but you’re willing to try and you’re willing to try again, and you’re willing to be flexible and you’re willing to get a little mud on your face, like. That’s how you get through it. That don’t get uptight. Don’t get rigid. Don’t try it once. Not figure it out and throw the bike on the ground like Jesse did a couple times before he peddled away.

[00:31:33] Ben: Don’t do that. Yeah. You know, be a grown ass adult. Have some fun with it. Go crack a beer. Go, go put an element in your water bottle, but like, go enjoy the process because we’re, it’s a brave new world right now. I mean, a AI is here. Yeah. Super intelligent, but quantum, like all that stuff’s in the future.

[00:31:56] Ben: Okay, fine. But guys, we can do something today that we couldn’t do 18 [00:32:00] months ago at all. Yeah. All. Now it’s here. Go do it. Go get into it. Go do it at home with your family. Go do it at work. Go do it all over the place, and you’re gonna get better and better and better at it. And then you get to sort of like tweak.

[00:32:16] Ben: You get to tweak a little. All right. Yeah. And that, that’s the, the, the number one lesson for me who lives in this world is just like, don’t take yourself too seriously. Yeah. Don’t take whatever you’re doing too seriously. Just give it a shout.

[00:32:30] Matt: Yeah. Nobody knows. Love it. One of my kids is really wanting to get into mountain biking and he’s like, I’m just so scared.

[00:32:37] Matt: He also wants to be great. The second he stand, you know, gets on his bike and I’m like, you just gotta start. Just put yourself out there. Yeah, go have fun. Crash, which he’s done twice in broken bones, both times fine. But he wants to get back on and I love it. And I’m like, yeah, you will get better. Go try new stuff every time.

[00:32:56] Matt: Yes. Yeah. Go have fun. I love that. Well, most of us [00:33:00] arguably are in business to make money. No one can argue with that. I do like money. Beyond that though, what’s your hope for Peel? What impact do you hope that peel and ultimately your involvement, of course, leave behind on this space that we all live in?

[00:33:13] Ben: Yeah. You know, my co-founder, Brandon and I are both career sellers and we’ve both supported marketers throughout our career as well. And you guys are our people. You’re just our people. And when we create. Experience that makes your job a little bit easier and a little bit cooler and a little bit more fun, then that feels like a job well done to us.

[00:33:40] Ben: Yeah. And to create a product that will have extension beyond us. That was the thing that I never really even gave a moment’s thought to until recently. And, and then it was just like, geez, wow. That, that’s actually like, like I’ve actually brought something into the world, you know? And, and it’s of use.[00:34:00]

[00:34:00] Ben: It’s not just this sort of empty hat that, Hey, look at this thing. This is ai. This is ai. It’s not that. It’s, this is actually tangibly real and cool and meaningful, and I’m just tremendously proud of that and I, I want that legacy of peel and that that spirit of place fullness and experimentation to continue in ways that I couldn’t even imagine.

[00:34:25] Matt: Totally. I love that. Well, Ben, as you know, I always like to talk to each of my guests a little bit more than just their work. So it’s time to jump into our final segment, which we call What’s on tap. So what’s on tap for Ben Henson at the top of the show, we talked about your favorite pick me up beverage, which is citrus element, all thousand milligrams of it.

[00:34:48] Matt: Now, are you only one a day or will you, will you do two a days? Depends on the

[00:34:52] Ben: workout, but

[00:34:52] Matt: yeah, usually one a day. Sorry, too. That’s impressive. So I know you said you don’t drink. Do you have a [00:35:00] wind down beverage of choice?

[00:35:02] Ben: I do really like the NA beers. Like I really, yeah, I, I haven’t drank now for six years.

[00:35:09] Ben: That’s awesome. I just was drinking soda, water that whole time because I was like, well, I’m not going to drink any beers as like stupid calories. But then I, maybe six months ago, I tried one and it felt like a homecoming. Like I really love the taste of beer IPAs specifically, and the whole world over the last few years just kind of opened up, not just with athletic brewing, but there’s, geez, I think there’s 25 or 30 breweries here in town, Deschutes and 10 Barrel and Crocs, and so on and so forth.

[00:35:42] Ben: Good life. So now I can kind of like go back to the bars and the breweries and have some of these nas and it’s just like, it’s so delicious. Especially after a big mountain just drinking a beer. It, it’s exactly the same. Exactly, so That’s awesome. It’s so good. [00:36:00] It’s so good. And ski season’s coming, you know, so now it’s, I pray at the deck sort of overlooking Mount Bachelor or in the back country.

[00:36:09] Ben: Yeah, sort of like in the van, you know, in the parking lot. After it’s just a lot of that rituals come back to me, which is really cool.

[00:36:16] Matt: The ritual, that’s what it’s all about. It’s the ritual. It’s, yeah, you know, you, it’s hard to replicate that with. A glass of water. Even with Element. Yeah. Like

[00:36:24] Ben: yeah, exactly.

[00:36:25] Ben: Spin drifts can only go so far. Right,

[00:36:27] Matt: exactly. I know I’ve been on a similar journey, albeit with, um, I gave up caffeine probably six months ago and. Little did I know Decaf coffee sucks. The beans are completely different. It goes through the whole process where it makes some brittle and loses flavor. So I found a brewer actually at a northwest Arkansas who specializes in decaf blend.

[00:36:50] Matt: So I just got my first bag. I significantly upgraded my grinder, which my wife doesn’t know how much I spent. Good thing she doesn’t listen to my podcast.

[00:36:58] Ben: Yeah.

[00:36:59] Matt: And I’ve got [00:37:00] the whole system. It’s really just about the routine. Yeah. I just. Do I miss the caffeine? Honestly, I don’t. What I missed was waking up, making a good cup of coffee.

[00:37:10] Matt: Yeah. Sitting down while my kids running around getting ready for school and I just, you know, you feel like that Folgers commercial? Yeah. I was never a Folgers guy, but that’s me. I’m like, I just need my sips of coffee. Incredible marketers. Exactly. Incredible marketers. Last thing for you, you just got back from a trip, uh, to Japan, correct?

[00:37:29] Matt: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:29] Ben: Yeah. What

[00:37:30] Matt: was that like?

[00:37:31] Ben: I had never been to Asia, so that was a new one for me. And I’ve been to places that the culture feels completely different than anything I’ve ever experienced, but never in that way. Yeah, and I fell deeply, deeply in love with Japan. I think that’s where the original hipster came from.

[00:37:49] Ben: Like every single person in Japan seems. 10 x cooler than me. So I’m just like, I, you know, their precision and their minimalism [00:38:00] and the elegance with which they display beauty always feels very paired down in the most perfect way. I just loved that, but probably the greatest gift Japan gave me was SEN culture.

[00:38:17] Ben: So there’s now a sauna in my house and a cold plunge in my house. And you know, if I, if I could figure out the way to bring a hot spring and minerals into my house, I would do that as well. Uh, that, that, you know, speaking of ritual, that sort of wind down.

[00:38:32] Matt: Yeah.

[00:38:32] Ben: It’s just other worldly and a lot of times after we get the kids down, my wife and I all gets ready of getting in the sauna and just kick it.

[00:38:39] Ben: Sometimes we watch a show, sometimes we talk like it doesn’t have to be. The sacred space. It’s more of just like a, a good, comfortable space and you get the sweat in and you, you know? Yep. Good things happen. When you’re having a schitz,

[00:38:52] Matt: you gotta sweat all that sodium out too, so

[00:38:55] Ben: I need the sodium so I can do that.

[00:38:57] Ben: Yeah, that’s

[00:38:58] Matt: true. Now are [00:39:00] you, is it a, do you have a true sauna, like Woodburn sauna, or is this a red It’s an infrared.

[00:39:04] Ben: It’s in the garage. Yeah, it’s inside. I have aspirational dreams. Let’s everybody come by peel so I can fulfill these. But I, I have dreams of having, you know, a, a cabin Yeah. Next to a lake or a river.

[00:39:18] Ben: Some sort of water. Yeah. And then I’ll have a hot sauna in there. But I, I really do like the infrared. It was a big, like, which one should we go with? And I’m glad we chose the one we did. ’cause you can stay in much longer. You can stay in for 45 or 60 minutes. Oh, that’s cool. Verse 15 to 20.

[00:39:36] Matt: Yeah. Now did you take your kids with you to Japan?

[00:39:39] Ben: No, it was a, it was a shredding trip. It was, uh, snowboarding. Oh,

[00:39:43] Matt: that’s

[00:39:43] Ben: awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So good. Cool.

[00:39:46] Matt: Well, Ben, this has been an awesome conversation. I really appreciate the time you’ve taken today. I know I got a ton out of it and I know our audience will as, as well. So, Ben, thank you again. Always great catching up with you.

[00:39:57] Ben: Yeah, Matt, thank, thanks for the invite. I’m just, I’m [00:40:00] tremendously proud of the way that you guys are. Shaping and evolving your business. So it’s been fun to play along and, you know, I really, truly value this podcast. I I love listening to it, so I’m, I’m honored to have been on it. Thank you, sir. Talk soon.

[00:40:13] Ben: All right, pal. Thanks again.

[00:40:18] Matt: Thanks again to Ben for joining us on today’s episode of The Pipeline Brew. I hope y’all enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. Please leave me a comment with your thoughts and make sure you subscribe to the show so you’ll never miss an episode. Once again, I’m Matt Hummel, and I’ll see you next time.