Master B2B Friday 15

Hosted by Master B2B

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Episodes

100

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Each Friday Master B2B founders Andy Hoar and Brian Beck take a quick 15 minute spin around the world of B2B eCommerce, with their take on breaking news and lively conversations about the most pressing topics facing manufacturers, distributors and brands selling online.

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60 recent

October 23, 2026Episode 15122 min

How Composites One Rebuilt Its B2B eCommerce Site

Andy Hoar and Master B2B's Jared Blank are joined by Christina Chatfield, Head of Growth at materials distributor Composites One, to talk about lessons learned from a digital transformation undertaking at the company. Christina talks about the importance of communicating with different departments BEFORE tech is fully built, how she got the sales team on board, and how a company knows when it's time to undertake a huge endeavor like this.

October 16, 2026Episode 15021 min

Does B2B eCommerce success depend on middle management

McKinsey reports that 88 percent of companies use AI in at least one function, and only 7 percent have scaled it. Andy and Brian dig into a Harvard Business Review article that names middle managers as the most common failure point in generative AI adoption, what the article recommends, and why Andy argues companies also need to rethink the work itself. Along the way: Amazon's flatter organization, Microsoft's internal AI lessons, and what the West Coast offense can teach B2B leaders.

October 9, 2026Episode 14924 min

Previewing the 2027 Master B2B Mindshare Summit

Andy and Brian preview the 2027 Master B2B Mindshare Summit - our 5th annual! - taking place in Chicago on March 16-17, 2027. This year's event moves to a bigger venue (Convene Willis Tower), but features the small group conversations attendees rave about. In the podcast, the guys talk through some of the new sessions and improvements we're making for the event. Tickets available at summit.masterb2b.com

October 2, 2026Episode 14828 min

A recap of the B2B Exchange at Shoptalk Fall event

Andy and Brian are back from Nashville with a full recap of the B2B Exchange at Shoptalk Fall, where roughly 4,000 attendees watched B2C giants like Abercrombie & Fitch and Ralph Lauren share a room with B2B companies like Uline and Schneider Electric. They break down the sessions that packed the room, what two CIOs told a room full of vendors about cold outreach and pilots, and why nearly every question all week came back to one thing: data.

September 25, 2026Episode 14721 min

Turning Data into Dollars in Agentic Commerce

Andy Didyk, CEO of Ntara, joins Andy and Brian to preview an upcoming Shoptalk Fall session on turning data into dollars in the age of agentic commerce. Only 44% of B2B marketers have the data infrastructure to support AI, and new research from Ntara found that while 79% of manufacturers have a C-suite mandate to implement AI, only 7% say their systems are actually ready. Andy Didyk breaks down why the real gap is organizational, and what it takes to give AI engines the structured product data they need to actually recommend you.

September 24, 2026Episode 14622 min

What new payment types are B2B companies using?

Credit terms are the default way B2B companies buy, and 72% of buyers prefer them, but the process behind them is still stuck in manual invoicing. John Jakobe, VP of Commercial Strategy at TreviPay, joins Andy and Brian to preview an upcoming discovery stage session at Shoptalk Fall on new payment types in B2B.

September 18, 2026Episode 14522 min

Where AI Agents Are Working in B2B eCommerce...and Why

Jon Feldman, Product Marketing Director at Salesforce Agentforce Commerce, joins Andy and Brian to discuss where are AI agents actually working in B2B commerce, and why? Andy makes the case, drawn from his book Bot to Bot , that the real B2B AI opportunity isn't the flashy front end everyone talks about, it's the "middle miles": pricing, quoting, availability, and order management happening behind the scenes. Jon breaks down how Salesforce's AgentForce is already being used for catalog merchandising and weather-aware order routing, and where agent-to-agent negotiation is headed next.

September 11, 2026Episode 14420 min

See It, Order It, Deliver It: Earning Repeat Business in B2B

Andrej Maihorn, Head of B2B Product Marketing at Kibo Commerce, joins Andy and Brian to dig into a real gap in B2B: buyers say they want to stick with their existing suppliers, but a lot of them don't. Andrej breaks down what it actually takes to close that gap, from inventory visibility before checkout to order routing to holding your promised delivery date, and why unifying order management with your eCommerce platform matters more than most companies realize.

August 28, 2026Episode 14326 min

A GEO Deep Dive - Are LLMs Recommending Your Brand?

This week Andy and Brian bring on Michael Schenck the Senior Product Manager at luxury rug company Jaipur Living to talk about how to get found by LLMs. This conversation goes deep - it's perfect if you want to learn concrete, practical ways to improve how your brand shows up in LLMs. Michael also wrote a paper about this topic that everyone should read - you can download it here .

August 21, 2026Episode 14226 min

Has the Intent Box Replaced the Search Box?

Andrea Polonioli, product marketer at Coveo and a former cognitive science researcher, joins Andy Brian to dig into one of the most consequential parts of B2B ecommerce: search. Is the search box quietly becoming an intent box? Why does B2B search still break on a missing dash, even at digitally mature companies? And what happens to search when bots start buying from bots? Before that, the breaking news: Home Depot's Q2 earnings show its Pro segment and SRS Distribution outperforming DIY yet again, more proof that B2C giants keep pushing deeper into B2B.