Think you control the buyer journey? Think again... | Why LLMs and influencers are in the driving seat, with John Rockhold of Spotlight — Trust & Influence in B2B

The winning vendor is usually already on the buyer's shortlist before a single sales conversation happens, and increasingly, it isn't a salesperson or a website that put them there. It's a large language model, quietly checking what real people are already saying about you.

John Rockhold, VP of Market Engagement at Spotlight, joins Joel Harrison to unpack Influence Orchestration, Spotlight's new research into how buying preference now forms in AI answer engines, peer communities and analyst conversations, long before a deal ever reaches a pipeline. John's team interviewed 23 leaders who build and measure B2B influence, reviewed 27 published studies of buyer behaviour, and analysed millions of AI engine answers and citations across B2B technology categories. The conversation also draws on Spotlight Summit, the event John's team ran in Kansas City the week this episode was recorded, where Joel spoke alongside Bijou Barry, Megan Burns and other voices shaping this shift.

What you'll learn

Why buyer preference now largely forms out of sight, in AI prompt windows, peer conversations and communities, before a vendor even knows a deal exists
What separates the vendors AI answer engines actually recommend from the ones they ignore
Why earned trust compounds over time, while paid attention resets the moment you stop paying for it
Who should really own influence inside a B2B company, and why almost nobody does today
What to check in your own AI visibility on Monday morning, and what to do if you don't like what you find

If you find this conversation valuable, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast and leave a rating or review. It really helps other B2B marketers discover the show.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction: the shortlist is already written

01:47 Welcome, John Rockhold

02:08 Inside Spotlight Summit

04:22 What Spotlight does, and where the report began

08:25 Why “Influence Orchestration”

11:22 The day one shortlist: 95% and what it means for the buyer journey

15:05 Robots, humans, and the return of intermediaries

16:55 The verification loop: how buyers check what the machine tells them

19:20 Earned versus owned: the quote, the sidebar, and the flip

22:13 Megan Burns and the internal trust problem

25:28 Why nobody owns influence, and why that has to change

26:42 The 50% ceiling: when owned content collapses your visibility

28:20 Three predictions for 2027 and 2028

33:48 What to check on Monday morning

35:15 Does compounding influence favour challengers or incumbents?

38:33 What John learned at Spotlight Summit

Chapter times are taken from the pre-edit transcript. Re-time against the published cut once the final edit is locked.

Follow John Rockhold

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrockhold/

Spotlight: https://spotlight-io.com/