This week, Ian and Cathy McKnight discuss a recent piece of research from Cathy on her Bear Essentials series on the Seventh Bear blog - The Funnel Isn’t Dead, Your Version of It Is.  They discuss:  The funnel is not dead, but it needs a refresh  The impact on marketing when this foundational work is broken. What a modern funnel looks like (and it’s not about attribution) Mapping to the customer journey, and thinking beyond the buying journey  Focusing on solving the customer's problems, not showcasing features Metrics to focus on  Ian then joins Robert Rose in the virtual bar, The Rose & Rockstar, for a classic cocktail and a chat.  This week, Ian and Robert discuss a phrase Robert has been using in his writing, “The Pointy Bits”, as he encourages B2B writers to stand out and show their pointy bits, instead of smoothing all their content with AI, but include the slightly uncomfortable, but differentiated things about you, your company, and brand.  Enjoy! — The Links The people: Ian Truscott on LinkedIn  Cathy McKnight on LinkedIn Robert Rose on LinkedIn Mentioned this week: Bear Essentials: The Funnel Isn’t Dead, Your Version of It Is Robert’s YouTube Channel Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com Rockstar CMO: The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM. Track List: We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices