The deal is won before you're in the room | Why the recommended choice now beats the visible one, with Lottie O'Donoghue from Velo — Trust & Influence in B2B

Most of the conversations that decide a B2B deal happen in a room you'll never be in. Buyers swap recommendations, compare notes and build their shortlists in spaces marketers can neither see nor measure – and by the time you're in contention, the decision is often half made.

In this episode of Trust & Influence in B2B, Joel Harrison is joined by Lottie O'Donoghue, strategy director at Velo, a specialist B2B agency built on recommendation. Lottie has led marketing client-side in scale-up SaaS and run ABM at Accenture, and now shapes recommendation strategies for Velo's clients across technology, industrial and professional services.

Together they unpack why becoming the recommended choice has shifted from a nice-to-have to a commercial imperative, the real difference between being known and being recommended, and the trust signals that quietly compound into advocacy.

In this episode:

Why the recommended choice now matters more than the visible one
The trust signals that accumulate into recommendation, and the ones marketers most underestimate
How to make the case for investing in influence that conventional attribution can't capture
Where to start if you suspect you're not being talked about in the right rooms
Velo's six Rs of Recommendation Marketing framework

Download Velo's report here: https://www.velo-b2b.com/ebooks/?utm_source=Joel+Harrison&utm_campaign=Recommendation+Marketing

This is a sponsored episode, produced in partnership with Velo.