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Hello and welcome to the 189th edition of Fresh Salmon.

If you’re new here, swim back through past issues 👉 they’ll get you caught up.

Today we’ll unpack three ideas reshaping B2B growth:

1. Peer-to-Peer buying power

2. Ungating as a growth advantage

3. The Media-First Content Revolution

Meet our primary partner for today’s edition: HubSpot. Check them out 👇

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The Peer-Bound Shift

There’s a new current in B2B.

Once, the route from vendor to buyer was straight: a demo, a deck, a handshake.
Now the map is chaos.

Only 3% of B2B buyers still trust a sales rep as their primary guide, while 70 % of buyers self-educate before ever speaking to one. Nearly half already know exactly what they want before the first call.

That means the buying journey begins without you.

And yet, something remarkable is happening inside this sea of self-service: the rise of the peer.

When algorithms, ads, and analyst reports blur together, one voice cuts through - the trusted colleague, the Slack DM, the community post, the “we tried this vendor and it worked.”

Welcome to the Peer-Bound Era where reputation is traded hand-to-hand.

How to Win in a Peer-Bound World

In this age, buyers don’t want funnels; they want fellowship.

Your growth strategy must shift from attention capture to connection activation.
Here’s how to build for it:

1. Map the peer-influence network - find where your buyers actually talk: niche Slack communities, LinkedIn groups, WhatsApp threads, Reddit subs, private circles.

2. Seed the conversation - place stories, not slogans, into those ecosystems.

3. Equip your champions - create share-kits, short clips, or customer-led explainers they can post as their own.

4. Celebrate the advocates - feature their wins publicly; make advocacy feel like status, not obligation.

Think less “demand gen campaign” and more “movement architecture.”
Your job isn’t to push content; it’s to design a market that talks about you when you’re not in the room.

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Redefine the Game - Ungate Everything

Here’s the stat that should stop you mid-scroll:

That means your whitepaper form is a wall, not a funnel.

The new rule: if your buyer has to fill a form to learn, you’ve already lost them.

Ungating isn’t charity; it’s strategy.
The internet has made access the currency of trust.

Ungated assets = credibility.
Hidden PDFs = friction.

So:

• Publish your pricing, even ranges. Transparency beats “Contact Sales.”

• Turn your case studies into snackable, scrollable stories.

• Turn your product videos into public knowledge hubs.

The more value you give freely, the more buyers pre-qualify themselves.
By the time they reach you, they’re informed, aligned, and ready.

Meet our primary partner for today’s edition: HubSpot. Check them out 👇

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The Media-First Content Revolution

If peer influence is the ocean, media is the current that carries it.

Text-only content can’t keep up with how modern buyers consume information.
Your audience now lives across podcasts, YouTube, micro-video, livestreams, and newsletters like this one.

Every serious brand is turning into a media brand.

Why this shift is permanent

• Mobile first killed the static blog.

• Video and audio are native languages for discovery.

• Owned channels (podcast feeds, newsletters, private communities) create first-party engagement data - a moat no algorithm can throttle.

The smartest B2B companies have already caught this wave:

• HubSpot Media Network acquiring niche shows to own distribution.

• Salesforce + Tableau TV streaming original thought-leadership content.

• Niche SaaS brands launching in-house podcasts that outperform paid ads in ROI.

What to do next

1. Build an audience before you need it.
   You’re not producing content to sell next week; you’re building mindshare for next quarter.

2. Design for edutainment (education + entertainment).
   If you’re boring, you’re invisible. People remember how you make them feel, not how many bullet points you share.

3. Own your channels.
   Email, podcast RSS, video series — these are your modern distribution pipes. Algorithms can’t gate them; your audience can’t be “de-platformed.”

4. Integrate media with demand creation.
   Your media shouldn’t just entertain; it should spark curiosity loops that flow back into your pipeline.

Think Beyond Demand Gen

Traditional demand generation targets the 5 % of people in market.
Media-first marketing engages the 95 % who aren’t ready - yet.

Those 95 % aren’t leads; they’re your future.

By educating, inspiring, and entertaining them today, you build affinity that converts tomorrow.
That’s how you create latent demand - invisible now, inevitable later.

The Key Takeaways

Here’s the reality:
The buyer’s journey has gone peer-to-peer.
The gate is gone.
The medium is everything.

To thrive in this landscape:

• Design for peer trust instead of sales control.

• Ungate everything that builds credibility.

• Act like a media company that sells a product, not a product company that occasionally makes content.

In the Peer-Bound Era, attention is borrowed, but affinity is earned.

Those who master connection + content will own tomorrow’s demand.

Interesting Thing That I Wrote This Week

In business, it’s rare that everything works perfectly at once.

Sales, marketing, product, ops… they don’t all mature at the same pace.
And that’s okay.

What I’ve learned is this:

+ A great sales team can buy time for mediocre marketing.

+ A great marketing team can buy time for a not-quite-there product.

- But no team can save a broken product forever.
Eventually, customers always vote with their feet.

But here’s the deeper truth:

This isn’t about blame.
It’s about situations. It’s about phases.

Early-stage companies are always resource-constrained.

Sometimes sales is thriving but the brand is behind.

Sometimes marketing is flying, but the product’s still maturing.

That doesn’t mean your team is bad, it just means you’re still building.

The key is knowing which area is buying you time, and using that time wisely.

Eventually, you need all 3:
+ Sales that drives growth
+ Marketing that builds trust
+ A product or service that delivers and retains

Because in the end…
No matter how good your pitch is,
No matter how clever your marketing is,
If the product doesn’t deliver,
people won’t stay and never come back.

That’s not a failure.
That’s feedback.

And great teams listen.
Then level up.

Listen. Iterate. Deliver.
Repeat.

That’s it for this week! If you found this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend.

See you next time!

Do what is good for your soul ❤️

All the best,

Vivek

PS. Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways in which I can help you and your business:

#1: B2B Marketing Consulting and Go-To-Market Advisory for your business.

#2: 1-on-1 Personal Coaching and Mentoring on anything related to Marketing and Go-To-Market Strategies for you.

#3: Promoting you or your brand via this newsletter.

For any of these things just shoot me a reply, and we will arrange a time to chat.