B4B: A New Perspective on B2B Strategies with Leslie Galbreath

Topics discussed in this episode with time stamps

00:00 – 00:40 “It’s very tempting and it’s very easy to allow just the loudest voices inside an organization. Sometimes that’s in the sales group, sometimes it’s in other areas. But if we don’t take the time to do deliberate research and really apply a professional approach, then companies market to the loudest internal voice, not the actual customer. In the B2B world, in my view, mistakes are so expensive. A lack of research and a lack of a clear foundation is an expensive risk to take.” — Leslie Galbreath

00:41 – 00:58 Welcome to Peppershock Media’s Marketing Expedition Podcast

00:59 – 02:20 About Leslie Galbreath

02:21 – 17:17 Marketing Essentials Moment: B2B Marketing Agency

17:18 – 20:22 Welcome to the show, Leslie!

20:23 – 23:05 Agency’s full-service approach

23:04 – 25:24 Brand identity development process

25:25 – 28:08 Hybrid model culture

28:09 – 30:20 B4B environment

30:21 – 33:34 Strategic alignment in B2B

33:35 – 34:11 Poderific, baby! Whether you’re looking for a podcast studio to rent or need help with the entire production and distribution of your podcast, we gotcha covered. 

34:12 – 36:52 Decision-making in B2B sales.

36:53 – 39:45 Multi-layered decision-making models

39:46 – 41:57 Intelliquest process

41:58 – 44:14 Voice of the customer insights

44:15 – 48:40 Building trust in marketing

48:41 – 51:23 B4B versus B2B marketing

51:24 – 53:20 dgs Marketing Engineers

53:21 – 53:40 Reach out to Leslie

53:41 – 54:08 Thank you so much, Leslie! Share this podcast, give us a review, and enjoy your marketing journey!

54:09 – 54:55 Join the Marketing Expedition Community today!

Like what you hear, but need more information?

Meet with Rhea Allen

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Read the full transcript

Podcast Intro

Welcome to the Marketing Expedition podcast, an auditory journey through the latest in marketing, branding, and advertising. Now, here’s your Marketing Expedition guide, Rhea Allen.

Rhea Allen: On this episode of the Marketing Expedition podcast, I get to speak with Leslie Galbreath. She is the President and CEO of DGS Marketing Engineers, a strategic marketing communications firm serving some of the most respected industrial and manufacturing brands in the world.

For over 25 years, she’s helped B2B organizations turn complex value propositions into clear, compelling positioning that drives measurable results. Her leadership blends rigorous research, market insight, and a proven framework for scaling brand influence in technical sectors.

Leslie is a sought-after speaker and advisor, known for her straightforward approach to marketing strategy—especially within advanced manufacturing, automation, and industrial spaces. She and her team have built enduring client relationships by developing not just ideas, but sustained marketing impact.

As a woman leading in a heavily male-dominated industry, she’s also passionate about mentoring the next generation of marketing professionals in STEM-related fields. She has spoken on stages across major industrial marketing events and is regularly sought out by global B2B brands for strategic counsel.

We’re also going to talk about B4B—what that means to them and how they use it as part of their strategy. So let’s get into the interview. But first, it’s time for the Marketing Essentials Moment: the basics you need to build your brand and your bottom line.

Marketing Essentials Moment

Rhea Allen: Today I want to dig into B2B. We’ll talk with our guest, who does a lot of B2B—or B4B, as she calls it.

First, here are some questions people often ask when they’re considering hiring a B2B marketing agency instead of doing everything in-house.

Rhea Allen: “Why hire an agency instead of building an internal team?”
When you hire an agency, you get senior strategy and execution without the cost and time of building a full team. The best agencies bring proven playbooks, specialized talent, and measurable outcomes.

Rhea Allen: “How do we know a B2B marketing plan will drive sales, not just awareness?”
B2B marketing drives sales when it’s tied to a clear ICP, buying-committee messaging, and tracked conversion points—meetings booked, opportunities created, and revenue influenced. Not just vanity metrics.

Rhea Allen: “We tried marketing before and it didn’t work. What would be different?”
The difference is focus and measurement: a tighter ICP, a stronger offer, proof-led content, and a follow-up system that converts interest into booked conversations.

Rhea Allen: “Your pricing is higher than other options. Why?”
Higher pricing often reflects senior expertise, stronger creative, tighter project management, better accountability, and less wasted spend. If the work produces qualified opportunities, it’s often cheaper in the long run.

Rhea Allen: “We don’t have the budget right now.”
If budget is tight, start with a smaller pilot that proves ROI—like a mini audit or a 90-day sprint—then scale what works.

Rhea Allen: “We need results quickly. How fast can B2B marketing work?”
You can often see early signals in two to four weeks—retargeting engagement, booked meetings, and stronger pipeline activity. But depending on your sales cycle, a realistic expectation is often 60 to 120 days for meaningful traction.

Rhea Allen: “If our sales cycle is long, does marketing still help?”
Absolutely. In long B2B sales cycles, marketing builds trust, educates the buying committee, and keeps you top of mind so deals move forward instead of stalling.

Rhea Allen: “We already get referrals. Why invest in B2B marketing?”
Referrals are great—but unpredictable. Marketing turns growth into repeatable systems so you’re not relying on timing and luck.

Rhea Allen: “How do we measure ROI in B2B marketing?”
Measure what you treasure, dump what you don’t, automate what you hate, and delegate to elevate. Track leading and lagging indicators: target account engagement, meetings booked, decision-makers reached, opportunities created, win rate, revenue influenced, cost per opportunity, and cost per acquisition.

Rhea Allen: “We don’t want to be locked into a long contract.”
A smart approach is a three- to six-month engagement tied to clear deliverables and success metrics. Then you can shift to month-to-month once performance is proven.

Rhea Allen: “We tried ads and they were a waste.”
Ads fail when targeting is vague and offers are too broad. B2B ads work best with a defined audience, proof and case studies, and tight sales follow-up. Follow-up is everything.

Rhea Allen: “Our industry is too niche. Will this still work?”
Niche industries often perform better because the audience is clearer. The key is precise positioning, industry-specific proof, and content that answers real buyer questions.

Rhea Allen: “We need more leads, not branding.”
In B2B, branding and lead gen aren’t separate. Trust is the conversion factor. Proof-led creative—case studies, video, outcomes, testimonials—improves response rates and lead quality over time.

Rhea Allen: “We don’t have time to create content.”
You don’t need endless content. You need the right assets: two to three strong case studies, a strong offer page, and sales enablement pieces that answer objections and book meetings.

Rhea Allen: “How do we know you understand our business?”
We start with a marketing audit and discovery process—diagnostics, due diligence, and aligning success metrics. We identify buyer triggers, objections, decision-making dynamics, and we do the research.

Rhea Allen: Now let’s get into the interview. Welcome to the Marketing Expedition podcast. I’m your host, Rhea Allen. I’m the President and CEO of Peppershock Media and the founder of the Marketing Expedition community. Today’s guest is Leslie Galbreath. Welcome to the show, Leslie.

Interview

Leslie Galbreath: Thanks for having me, Rhea. I’m happy to be here.

Rhea Allen: I’d love for you to share more about your history and what led you to where you are now.

Leslie Galbreath: I’m happy to share. It’s an interesting path. I think of myself as an accidental entrepreneur. If you had asked me before joining the agency whether I’d be a business owner—or working in advanced manufacturing, automation, and industrial marketing—I would have said no. That wasn’t my intended path.

Early in my career, I worked in women’s healthcare. I also worked in investor relations in the food franchising industry. Eventually, I moved back to my hometown in the Indianapolis area because my father was ill and my mom needed support.

At the time, I was living in Austin, Texas, working for Schlotzsky’s Incorporated doing public and investor relations. Through that work, I had the opportunity to work with a local advertising agency. That was my first agency experience.

When I needed to relocate, I also needed a job. I was searching online and found an opening for a public relations associate at an agency in Indianapolis. I thought, “I can do that.” I did the interview while driving a U-Haul back to Indianapolis with my two Siberian Huskies. Now I own the agency. It’s been an interesting and rewarding journey.

Rhea Allen: I love that. Things happen for a reason. Share more about what you’re doing now, who you serve, and what your agency looks like today.

Leslie Galbreath: I’m President and CEO of DGS Marketing Engineers. We’re in our 40th year, which is a long lifetime for an agency—especially one as specialized as we are. We focus almost entirely on advanced manufacturing, industrials, and automation. That’s our sweet spot.

We’re a B2B agency, but we refer to it as B4B. That’s our positioning: built for business. We’re full service, and we mean it. We don’t function like many agencies do. We have long-term client relationships—some spanning decades—and we operate as an extension of our clients’ marketing departments. We’re immersed in their business and culture, and we have a seat at the table. That creates accountability for results.

We cover everything across marketing communications: primary research design and deployment, strategic planning, crisis communications, design, advertising, social media, digital, website development. Public relations is a core competency, and we also do event management. We do some fractional work inside client organizations because of the depth of our relationships.

Rhea Allen: Can you share a client journey you’re proud of—something that produced results everyone could smile about?

Leslie Galbreath: One of the most satisfying journeys is when we’re engaged to develop an organization’s identity from the start. We earn a lot of business through referral, and clients who move companies often bring us with them.

We’ve had the opportunity to develop names, visual identities, and brand identities. It’s extremely gratifying to define what the brand will be, what position it will own in the marketplace, and how it will connect with customers. Often, we’re kept on board to help build the business over time—either as an agency partner or through fractional work. Being part of value creation is rewarding for the whole team.

Rhea Allen: Tell me about your team and structure.

Leslie Galbreath: We’re small by design—15 people. That’s our sweet spot culturally. I have a business partner, Alcus. We have different skill sets, so we complement each other well. We’re both hands-on leaders.

We have core functions on staff—writing, strategy, video development, social media—and we flex resources as needed with a staffing model that helps control overhead and deliver better costing to clients.

We’re located in Indianapolis, but most of our clients are across North America and around the world. We go where the best industrial and advanced manufacturing brands are. We also have employees in California, Ohio, and South Carolina.

Rhea Allen: I love that. It really doesn’t matter where you are as long as the work gets done.

Leslie Galbreath: Exactly. We have a hybrid model—three days in the office and two days at home. Our remote team works differently, but it helps with focus time. We also value in-person collaboration because it feeds the creative process. We were already strong in digital meetings before COVID because we work across time zones.

Rhea Allen: Let’s talk B2B strategy. When you work with clients, how do you ensure marketing aligns with sales, leadership, and the rest of the organization?

Leslie Galbreath: In manufacturing, industrials, and automation, we deal with complex information and complex organizations. Marketing strategy has to start with sound business objectives. From those business objectives, you build marketing objectives.

I believe in a research–planning–implementation–evaluation approach. We added a fifth step called “drive,” which allows evaluation to fund the next planning cycle. That brings the rigor of consumer marketing into B2B, which is essential today. The lines between B2B and consumer marketing have blurred with the “Amazonification” of the world. It’s forced everyone to raise the strategic bar.

Strategy is an operating system—not a campaign. Alignment is non-negotiable. B2B also has unique challenges: organizational structure, sales and marketing alignment, and the temptation to measure outputs instead of outcomes. It’s easy to confuse motion with momentum.

Rhea Allen: What tactics have you seen work well when companies are aligned and the strategy is solid?

Leslie Galbreath: In capital equipment environments, these are expensive, high-tech purchases with long consideration cycles and many decision makers. These aren’t impulse buys.

During COVID, events weren’t possible, so we had to find ways for customers to “kick the tires” virtually. We got very good at virtual events that made the technology feel real and kept pipelines healthy. That success has carried into the post-COVID era with live virtual events in different formats.

We think of objectives as the “why,” strategy as the “how,” and tactics come last. If tactics don’t ladder up to business and marketing objectives, they’re noise.

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Back to Interview

Rhea Allen: You mentioned there are a lot of decision makers. Do you find that the buyers aren’t always the ones using the equipment?

Leslie Galbreath: One hundred percent. It’s often a layered decision-making model. In smaller job shops, the owner might also be a machinist, so it’s flatter. In enterprise organizations, procurement may be global. Engineering teams, product specialists, and multiple stakeholders are involved.

Businesses don’t make buying decisions—people do. In multi-layered models, we have to meet the needs of different people, and that’s not easy.

Rhea Allen: Right. You have to craft messaging for the decision maker, the influencer, the end user, and the people controlling the money.

Leslie Galbreath: Exactly. They have different buying criteria. That’s why research must fund messaging strategy.

A red flag for me is when leadership says, “Trust me, I’ve been doing this a long time. I know how they think.” That removes the independence of the buyer. It’s our responsibility to understand who these people are, what matters to them, and what messages connect to their pain points and opportunities.

Rhea Allen: Yes. Famous last words: “Just trust me.” They’re usually not their own target audience.

Leslie Galbreath: Right. If we don’t do thoughtful research and apply a professional approach, companies market to the loudest internal voice—not the customer. In B2B, mistakes are expensive. A lack of research and a clear foundation is an expensive risk when the price tag is high.

Rhea Allen: I can picture that meeting with the loudest person in the room. I’ve been there. You mentioned a process called IntelliQuest. Is that proprietary?

Leslie Galbreath: Yes—IntelliQuest is a trademark process we’ve used and evolved over the 26 years I’ve been here. It’s a structured discovery process using quantitative and qualitative measures to pull out what we need to develop strategic plans.

We tailor it based on the challenge. Discovery is multifaceted—it’s not one meeting. It includes secondary research, competitive landscape profiling, stakeholder interviews, sometimes quantitative research, and voice-of-the-customer research. The way a client sells affects how we approach discovery—sometimes we’re talking to channel partners, sometimes directly to customers.

Research guides everything that follows. If we do that well, we can set measurable objectives that support business objectives and value creation.

Rhea Allen: Voice of the customer is so critical, but customers are busy. Any advice for getting them to participate?

Leslie Galbreath: It helps to underline the risk of not doing it. The cost of uncertainty is too high. Markets change, the global economy is volatile, and manufacturing is evolving.

If decision makers won’t commit to discovery, it’s probably not the right fit for our agency. It’s a prerequisite for us.

Rhea Allen: When you do voice of the customer, what works best—interviews, surveys, focus groups?

Leslie Galbreath: We use all of those. Qualitative research first, then quantitative. Focus groups and stakeholder calls give cues for what to explore more deeply in quantitative research.

Choosing customers is essential. We work hard to avoid only talking to the happiest customers. That can be uncomfortable, and it requires trust. You need a cross section. If clients sell through distributors or channel partners, those partners often have strong insight into challenges and opportunities.

We start with qualitative interviews—individual or group—and then build statistical significance with quantitative research across customers, partners, and sometimes internal stakeholders. Internal alignment matters too.

Marketing shouldn’t be about getting people to agree with us. It should be about listening to what they need and reflecting it back in a way that helps them. That’s the foundation of good communication.

Rhea Allen: That can uncover information the client hasn’t heard before.

Leslie Galbreath: It can. Sometimes it’s surprising. Sometimes it’s not what they want to hear. But if they’re committed to improving and growing, they can use it.

Rhea Allen: Anything else you want to share with our audience?

Leslie Galbreath: I’ll elaborate on why we call it B4B instead of B2B. Our positioning is “built for business” and “engineered for impact.”

B2B can sound transactional. B4B keeps us focused on long-term enterprise impact. In industrial sectors, the stakes are high: capital investment is expensive, safety is critical, and operational continuity matters. Understanding downstream impact is essential.

B4B thinking shifts the conversation from features to business transformation. It elevates clients from vendor to strategic partner.

Rhea Allen: Business before the business. I like that. Why “DGS Marketing Engineers”? What does DGS stand for?

Leslie Galbreath: DGS comes from the initials and last names of the three founders. The running joke is I needed a partner with a last name starting with D, G, or S—and I found one.

We used to be DGS Group. In the early 2000s, we leaned into our connection to manufacturing and the fact that many of our audiences are engineers. We liked the idea that marketing requires scientific thinking and strategy, so we created the concept of “marketing engineers.” It came out of a brainstorming session at a retreat and was suggested by our media buyer at the time. It stuck.

Rhea Allen: I love it. It says what you do in a simple, clear way. How can people reach you?

Leslie Galbreath: I’m on LinkedIn, and you can find us at dgsmarketing.com.

Rhea Allen: Thank you so much, Leslie. I appreciate your time.

Leslie Galbreath: Thank you, Rhea. It’s been a pleasure.