A New Take on the Insights of Kerry Cunningham
My thoughts on Kerry"s recent article “The Mental Models B2B Marketing Doesn’t Know It’s Using”
Every day, B2B marketers walk into meetings, set KPIs, and launch campaigns governed by a set of rules they didn’t write
As Kerry Cunningham famously argues, we are operating within "mental models" that have become so ingrained they are now invisible
Like the air we breathe, we don’t notice them, until we realize they might be suffocating our growth
To move forward, we must first unmask the models that are currently holding the steering wheel
1. The Myth of the Individual "Lead"
Perhaps the most pervasive model Cunningham identifies is the belief that we sell to individuals
Our CRMs are built around "Leads," and our success is measured by how many of them fill out a form
Kerry’s Insight: Businesses don’t buy things; buying groups do
By focusing on the "Marketing Qualified Lead" (MQL), we ignore the other five or six people at that same company who are also researching
Cunningham suggests that when we treat a lead as a solo actor, we miss the "signal" of the account-level intent
We are looking at a single tree and missing the forest fire
2. The Fallacy of the Linear Journey
The traditional "Demand Waterfall" suggests a neat, orderly flow:
Awareness
Interest
Consideration
Purchase
It’s a comfortable model because it implies control
Kerry’s Insight: The reality is "the dark social" and "the messy middle."
Buyers are researching on LinkedIn, Reddit, and Slack channels long before they ever hit your website
As Cunningham points out, the "MQL Industrial Complex" forces us to wait for a hand-raiser, but by then, the buyer is often 70% through their journey
We aren't creating the journey; we are merely trying to intercept a moving target
3. The Attribution Trap
We love to ask, "Which channel did this come from?" This is the mental model of Direct Causality, the idea that the last whitepaper someone downloaded is what caused the $100k sale
Kerry’s Insight: Attribution is often just a "pat on the back" for marketing rather than a map of reality
Cunningham argues that marketing’s job isn't to "source" a lead, but to influence the environment so that when a buying group is ready, your brand is the obvious choice
We need to shift from "Who gets the credit?" to "Is the account moving toward us?"
4. From "Mining" Data to "Sensing" Signals
Most marketing departments operate as “data miners”, digging through old databases to find someone to cold-call
Kerry’s Insight: We should be "Signal Sensors." In Cunningham’s view, the modern B2B marketer acts more like a weather forecaster
We shouldn't be looking for a needle in a haystack; we should be looking for the heat signature of a company that is currently experiencing the problem we solve
The Path Forward: Breaking the Model
As Kerry Cunningham identifies, the first step toward better marketing isn't a new tool or a bigger budget, it’s a change in the mental model
We must stop being "Lead Gen" machines and start being "Market Educators" and "Demand Sensors."
When we stop measuring our worth by the volume of MQLs and start measuring it by our ability to identify and influence the entire buying group, we finally align our marketing with how people actually buy
Original concepts and terminology (including the "MQL Industrial Complex" and the critique of the Demand Waterfall) are attributed to Kerry Cunningham, Head of Research and Thought Leadership at 6sense.
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