How to Keep the Trust Crisis From Killing Your Pipeline

Dawn Werry, Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer & Partner at Chief Outsiders, and Jamie Gier, Chief Marketing Officer at DexCare, dissect the top challenges B2B C-suite leaders face. They reveal why internal alignment, customer understanding, and balancing short- and long-term goals matter most. They share hard-won insights on building plans to restore trust in selling. Their practical advice equips executives to drive sustainable growth.

In today’s competitive B2B environment, leaders face a growing trust crisis, persistent internal misalignment, and the challenge of balancing short-term results with long-term brand health. In a recent discussion, Dawn Werry and Jamie Gier shared proven approaches to tackle these issues head-on. Drawing from their Fortune 500 backgrounds and current work guiding mid-market companies, they offered actionable strategies that unite go-to-market teams, deepen customer understanding, and embed trust as a measurable business driver.

“Having a trust-building program and seeing and embracing it as an imperative, not just a value that sits on the shelf, is strategic for the organization.” – Jamie Gier

The interactive podbook below contains:

Dawn Werry and Jamie Gier’s introduction video
Full Episode video, audio, transcript, and article
12 Summary Videos + 1 Summary Article
2 YouTube Short Posts

Article: “How to Keep the Trust Crisis From Killing Your Pipeline”

This article is based on an interview with Dawn Werry, Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer & Partner at Chief Outsiders, and Jamie Gier, Chief Marketing Officer at DexCare

Unifying Teams Through Alignment and Accountability

Internal misalignment topped the list of challenges in their B2B growth survey, with more than 70% of executives citing it as their most significant obstacle. Jamie noted, “It’s more challenging to align across the organization on who owns what aspect of the execution against those priorities. You walk out of the room thinking you have alignment, and then progress isn’t made.”

Dawn highlighted the impact of wasted time, explaining, “If you could recapture that 20 to 65% of time firefighting internal things and focus on engaging the customer, you make more impact with the team you’ve got.” Both emphasized the value of service-level agreements (SLAs) and shared KPIs, with Jamie adding, “If there is a shared number, we’ll check in with each other to make sure everyone is marching toward that goal.”

For companies seeking practical change, that means clearly defining roles, keeping KPIs focused, and checking progress regularly. Dawn advised, “The simpler, the better on those KPIs. If you’ve got too many things you’re measuring, everybody’s looking at a different one.”

Letting the Customer Voice Lead

Another major challenge was a lack of deep customer understanding. Jamie shared a core philosophy: “Our campaigns always perform better when the voice of the customer precedes ours.” She explained that credibility and authenticity grow when feedback and results are delivered directly from customers rather than filtered through the company’s messaging.

Dawn underscored the mindset shift required, referencing the trust equation from The Trusted Advisor: “Be more interested than interesting. It’s about customer orientation over self-orientation.” Both urged leaders to increase spontaneous customer touchpoints beyond quarterly business reviews. As Jamie put it, “Don’t necessarily wait for that QBR. Make sure you’re getting very close.”

The goal is to integrate customer stories into all go-to-market assets, ensuring campaigns, sales conversations, and brand narratives start with proof points from the most trusted source, the customer.

Embedding Trust as a Strategic Imperative

Trust emerged as the hidden driver of pipeline performance, with Jamie stating, “Trust takes time to build and to earn. It starts from the first moment that they start having a conversation with you or hear about you.” She stressed that every department, from engineering to customer support, must define how it builds and maintains trust.

Dawn offered a simple but powerful framework: “It’s a trust bank. Every time they have a good experience, it adds a little bit to the trust bank. Every time they have a bad experience, it takes a little bit away.” She also shared examples where proactive communication during service delays built loyalty instead of frustration.

Both agreed that trust-building needs the same level of planning and accountability as sales or marketing strategies. Jamie’s advice was clear: “Having a trust-building program and seeing and embracing it as an imperative, not just a value, it’s strategic for the organization.”

Conclusion

As Dawn Werry and Jamie Gier made clear, sustainable B2B growth requires operational alignment, customer-first communication, and trust as a company-wide mandate. By reducing internal firefighting, amplifying customer voices, and mapping every trust-impacting touchpoint, leaders can create momentum that drives both immediate wins and long-term loyalty. The message is simple: trust is not a soft metric; it is the currency of growth.

ELEVATING CONTENT MARKETING STANDARDS RAISES A CRUCIAL QUESTION:
Why shouldn’t the very act of creating thought leadership content also spark new conversations with in-pipeline deals, top prospects, and high-priority customers for revenue expansion? Or serve as the cornerstone for learning and applying voice-of-customer strategies? That’s the power of ABM Podcasting—engaging B2B buyers and customers in meaningful conversations that uncover essential go-to-market insights, support long sales cycles, reinforce your market perspective, build peer-level trust, and dismantle objections that kill deals.

Steven MacDonald

Steven MacDonald is the founder of Content Strategies, CEO of a MarTech SaaS Company, fractional CMO consulting with leading B2B companies and former Director of Strategy and Client Service at top ten digital marketing agencies.

Follow Steve on LinkedIn.

Steven MacDonald

Follow Steve on LinkedIn.