Ben Smith, Marketing Director at Reachdesk, on an unusual route into marketing via Disney on Ice, the 70/30 pipeline-and-revenue compensation model, the unreasonable-hospitality event playbook, and why pattern interrupt earns the right to the next conversation in the B2B attention economy.
"The buyer journey looks like a plate of spaghetti."
Five years on ice with Disney. Six promotions in six years at Reachdesk. Now leading a global marketing team compensated seventy percent on pipeline. Ben Smith on what pattern interrupt earns in B2B, why the funnel is a plate of spaghetti, and why unreasonable hospitality is the playbook for the attention economy.
Ben Smith toured for five years as a professional ice skater with Disney on Ice before moving into PR in London. He joined Reachdesk in July 2019 as a Business Development Representative when the company had no platform and no customers, and rose through six consecutive promotions to become Marketing Director in early 2024, leading a global team of fifteen across content, demand generation, performance marketing, partnerships and business development.
In this conversation with host John Horsley, Smith argues marketing leaders should be paid on the same things sales leaders are paid on, walks through the pre-during-post event playbook that booked twenty meetings before a recent event began, and describes the plate-of-spaghetti reality of a six-to-eight-person B2B buying committee. He also provides the current reality check on AI: no marketer he has spoken to can show it has multiplied pipeline tenfold. Yet.
"Fall down. Get up. Keep going. The mindset transferred straight into startups."
Ben Smith spent five years as a professional ice skater before moving into PR and then joining Reachdesk at zero revenue. The discipline of falling, recovering and continuing is, he says, the mental model that made early-stage startup life feel familiar. He actively encourages his team to fail on experiments, because the biggest growth moments in his experience sit on the other side of failure.
"Inbound, outbound, partnerships and marketing, all working together to generate revenue. One engine."
Reachdesk runs a unified revenue motion they call All Bound. The point is to dissolve the usual functional borders: inbound and outbound sit inside the same pipeline targets, partnerships are tightly coupled with marketing calendars, and the marketing team is accountable for the number the sales leader is accountable for. The practical consequence, Smith argues, is a lower-volume, higher-quality pipeline that closes at a meaningfully better rate.
"70 percent of my comp is pipeline. 30 percent is revenue. Controversial on LinkedIn, but it works."
Smith made the case publicly that marketing leaders should be paid on the same things sales leaders are paid on, because shared incentives produce shared behaviour. When both functions sign the same compensation agreement, the sales-marketing pantomime ends. The comment sections remain divided, but the model at Reachdesk has survived multiple macro phases, including the transition from growth-at-all-costs into efficiency.
"Six to eight people in the buying committee. The journey looks like a plate of spaghetti."
The linear funnel has been retired at Reachdesk. A typical deal involves six to eight stakeholders: a champion, end users (often the sales team, BDRs and customer success), the budget holder in marketing, plus finance and procurement. Smith’s content team ungates everything because trust compounds faster through giving than through gating. Each stakeholder gets content engineered for their specific pain point.
"Pattern interrupt. A hundred-pound spa day buys a booked meeting."
Smith’s marketing thesis is that every B2B brand at an event looks the same from a distance, and the differentiator is unreasonable hospitality. Reachdesk sends spa-day gift vouchers to attendees who book a meeting before the event, ships swag from an e-commerce store to attendees’ homes, and follows up with a gift already on the doormat. Twenty pre-booked meetings on the first day of a typical event.
"Unreasonable hospitality earns the right to the conversation."
Host What attracted you into marketing?
Smith My background is ice skating. Five years with Disney on Ice. Then PR in London, working on B2C brands with a lot of corporate gifting and direct mail to journalists. That’s where I found Reachdesk. When I joined, Reachdesk had no platform and zero customers.
Host Six years, six promotions. What’s the mindset that came from the rink?
Smith It’s okay to fail. You fall over, you pick yourself up, you keep going. Startups feel familiar because of it. I encourage my team to fail on experiments. The biggest growth moments sit on the other side of the failure.
Host How should marketing leaders be compensated?
Smith Seventy percent of my comp is pipeline. Thirty percent is revenue. When marketing and sales are paid on the same things, everyone is in it for the same reasons. I’ve posted about it on LinkedIn. The comment sections are always divided. It works.
Host What does the buyer journey look like now?
Smith A plate of spaghetti. Six to eight people in the buying committee. You have the champion, the end users, the budget holder, finance, procurement. Each needs different content. We ungate everything because trust compounds faster through giving.
Host Events. Pre-during-post. Tell me the playbook.
Smith Old way: a table, a tablecloth, a banner. Now: pre-event gifting, during-event engagement, post-event follow-up. A hundred-pound spa day voucher for booking a meeting in advance. Twenty meetings in the diary before we arrive. Swag goes to their home via an e-commerce store so they’re not carrying a tote around all day. The follow-up arrives with the gift. Unreasonable hospitality earns the right to the conversation.
Host What makes a high-performing BDR team?
Smith Accountability first. I ask the team at the start what they want to be accountable for. Data second: the data doesn’t lie, and leaders have to read between the lines. Creativity third. The old playbook of twelve-step cadences with no personalisation burns the target account list in a week.
Host AI and pipeline.
Smith I’ve yet to meet a marketer who can show that AI multiplied their pipeline by ten. We’re in the busy-work loop. What I see is Dream Data’s number: 88 percent of the journey is complete before the buyer speaks to sales. AI’s job is to help us be more present in the room before that point.
Host Underhyped B2B trend?
Smith Thought leadership on LinkedIn. Digital advertising is getting more expensive. Leverage internal thought leaders, customers and external influencers. Gift them, invite them to post, boost the post. That’s where the growth hack lives right now.
Host A brand doing great marketing?
Smith Dream Data. Their sales leader got her face on a billboard in New York, amplified through social, kept it popping up in their ebooks. They take what’s already working and distribute it at greater speed and volume. That’s the playbook.
Host Advice to someone starting out?
Smith Early on, there’s a lot of yes work. Do it, get the foundations. But get your voice in the room. Present new ideas. The biggest career shifts happen when you stop waiting your turn.
New guests and insights. No noise.