Juliana brings a rare perspective, having worked across both sides of the marketing divide at companies including Ralph Lauren, The Met Store at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smartling, and Ziff Davis before joining Flow Commerce post-Series A and helping drive its $500M acquisition in just three and a half years. She now works as a consultant and fractional CMO for startups and established businesses across the U.S. and Europe. She shares why B2B brands cling too tightly to features and descriptions while missing the emotional connection that actually drives decisions, and how removing friction from the buying process can be a game-changer for complex sales cycles. From her parallel-path approach to walking into a new client engagement, to her dream of spending her first months at a company actually selling the product, this is a practical and refreshingly jargon-free conversation about what it really takes to build a brand that connects.

• B2B brands can learn a great deal from B2C by focusing on the individual buyer rather than treating companies as faceless decision-making entities
• Emotional connection does not mean sentimental – it means making your audience feel something, whether that is confidence, ease, or trust
• Removing friction from the B2B buying process, through pilots, guarantees, or try-before-you-buy models, is an underutilized competitive advantage
• Walking into a new engagement with deep preparation allows you to start solving problems on day one rather than spending weeks just assessing
• Authenticity has to run through every touchpoint – if your campaign promises warmth and humor but your sales team is stiff and technical, the disconnect will cost you
• The best marketing is clear, simple, and direct – buzzwords and industry jargon get in the way of connection every time

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at razorbranding.org

In this episode of the He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™ Podcast, Jaci and Michael sit down with Michelle Herl, Vice President of Marketing at SOR Controls Group, to talk about what it really takes to build a marketing function from the ground up inside a mid-size industrial manufacturer – and keep it growing for more than 25 years. Michelle shares how she started with no office, no budget, and catalogs hanging from wires, and turned it into a seat at the leadership table. She also breaks down how SOR manages a house of brands across three distinct product lines – SOR, SSi, and SENSOR – and why educating your internal team on brand structure matters just as much as reaching customers. From building a strategic planning system that keeps the one pager club at bay, to winning over the CFO by watching the bottom line like a marketer who actually cares about money, this conversation is full of real-world lessons for anyone trying to make marketing matter in a complex B2B environment.

• Getting the house in order before going to market is essential, especially in manufacturing and industrial B2B
• Earning a seat at the leadership table takes time, but it starts with proving that marketing drives strategy, not just tactics
• Managing a house of brands requires consistent internal education across sales teams, partners, and leadership
• A structured planning system with clear priorities keeps marketing focused and protects the team from reactive one-off requests
• Building trust with finance means watching expenses, questioning invoices, and showing that marketing is accountable to the bottom line
• Differentiating through people, not just products, creates authentic brand moments that competitors cannot replicate

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at razorbranding.org

William shares how corporate law firms require a level of intentionality that goes far beyond billboards and TV spots, and why legal marketers often find themselves acting as translators, culture builders, and change managers all at once. He also explains how his experience building legal market strategy across 12 Asia-Pacific jurisdictions shaped the way he approaches audience, context, and differentiation today. From passing warm lead data to the BD team to studying the competitor client experience, this conversation is a practical look at how strategic marketing can cut through the noise and actually move a firm forward.

• Corporate legal marketing requires a tailored, intentional approach for every practice group, audience, and geography
• Marketers in professional services firms are often translators, helping attorneys turn complex ideas into content clients actually want to read
• Passing warm lead data from the marketing team to the BD team is one of the highest-value moves a legal marketer can make
• Studying the competitor client experience, including RFP response times and follow-up, is a powerful and underutilized research tool
• AI can streamline workflow and improve consistency, but it cannot replace the human storytelling and authentic voice that truly differentiates a firm
• Alumni are some of a firm’s most valuable brand ambassadors and should be actively cultivated

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at razorbranding.org