Mark Choueke - Boring2Brave: The ‘bravery-as-a-strategy’ mindset that’s transforming B2B marketing

This is an engaging and vital read for any modern B2B marketer who wants to make their mark. This book is a practical, hands-on guide with top tips for success embedded in real-world case studies and experience to inspire and shape our industry for the better. This book is for every marketer who wants to step beyond boring work into truly brave and original thinking. If youre going to read one great book this year, make it this one.

Pete Markey, Chief Marketing Officer, Boots

I love this book! As B2B marketers, weve all had the experience of having our wings clipped, our creativity stifled. Choueke asks the hard questions, confronts traditional B2B principles, and pushes us to do better. This book should be required reading for all B2B marketers.

Desiree Motamedi, Senior Global Marketing Director, Workplace at Facebook

In Boring2Brave Mark takes a broadsword to the tyranny of mediocrity and perceived inferiority that pervades B2B marketing. An impassioned manifesto encouraging us to challenge our institutionalised timidity and take the power of bravery very seriously indeed.

Adam Morgan, partner, eatbigfish and author of Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders

A joyous reminder that B2B marketing doesnt need to be the ugly sister of B2C. Boring2Brave is packed with thought-starters, real examples and anecdotes to empower marketing leaders and teams to deliver bigger and braver brand strategies and its the perfect guide for every CEO or founder trying to understand the role marketing can play in growth.

Laura Pleasants, VP, Global Marketing, Captify

With the help of some hard-earned wisdom, Choueke seeks to liberate B2B marketing from the shackles of caution, dull convention and uber-rationalism. Boring2Brave offers a manifesto for restlessness, creativity, storytelling and fun. Whether youre up-and-coming or an established B2B marketer, if you aspire to be better or dare to be different, read this book.

Marc Nohr, Group CEO, Miroma Group Agencies, Honorary Fellow IPA and IDM

A rowdy but charming hoodlum of a business book, Boring2Brave ripples with a seething anger, cloaked in easy-going humour and companionable storytelling. Its a style that makes for a monstrously effective weapon as Choueke takes swing after swing at the reprehensible mediocrity he sees across his beloved B2B marketing arena.

Sam Conniff, author of Be More Pirate

Mark writes with clarity, imagination and authority. Taking a category in which the default has been a lazy approach to brand and marketing, we now have a new operating system for B2B brilliant!

Amelia Torode, Co-Founder, The Fawnbrake Collective

MarTech vendors all look and talk exactly the same; and in a language thats completely unrecognizable to that spoken by the brands theyre trying to win as customers. This book captures something thats immediately apparent, yet completely unrealized: if a B2B company competed purely on the dimension of not coming off like every other boring-ass B2B, theyd immediately differentiate themselves in ways product, sales or service teams typically cant. Boring2Brave shows you the treasure map, its up to you to take the journey.

Reilly Dunn, Senior Enterprise Account Executive, Slack

Few business books are this funny and engaging. Choueke knows how to tell the sort of stories you might share with friends on a night out while losing none of the inspiration and practical tips to make Boring2Brave a high-value read. A smart, vital and galvanising tool for B2B marketers everywhere.

Anthony Eskinazi, Founder and CEO, JustPark

A fast-paced and very readable call-to-arms full of wisdom, stories and quotable lines. Choueke puts into words a lot of things that many B2B marketers feel in their bones, and lays out clearly what ails the B2B marketing discipline, what can be done about it, and why it should be done. The case he builds, for creativity through bravery, is needed.

Jason Patterson, Content Strategy Director and Co-Founder, IGNITE Global Marketing

A practical but passionate polemic that provides a roadmap for B2B marketers to realise untapped potential.

Russell Parsons, Editor-in-chief, Marketing Week and the Festival of Marketing at Centaur Media Plc

Through The Marketing Academy Ive worked with emerging marketing leaders and CMOs from the UK, the US and APAC for more than a decade and I can guarantee that Boring2Brave will provide a vital shot in the arm for anyone in B2B marketing who wishes to forge greater commercial success. In his book, Choueke shows how to harness one of the key things that exceptional marketers have in common: the raw bravery required to make impact and create change.

Sherilyn Shackell, Founder and CEO, The Marketing Academy

Mark captures perfectly the apathy that infects so much B2B marketing: the low levels of ambition, a lack of bold creative thinking and faltering self-belief. Boring2Brave is a much-needed rally cry to B2B marketers everywhere to stop being the brochure design department, stick their head above the parapet and have a go at REAL marketing. I intend to give this book to every client I work with.

Simon McEvoy, UK Head of Strategy and UX at Omobono

First published in Great Britain by Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2021

Mark Choueke, 2021

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

ISBN 9781788602211 (print)

9781788602204 (epub)

9781788602198 (mobi)

All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the author.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Contents

Authors note

My excellent publisher Alison Jones of Practical Inspiration Publishing warned me not to date the book I hope youre about to enjoy.

However, when youre encouraging business people to be braver in a book you wrote in the midst of a global pandemic one that sadly saw many of us lose loved ones while in the foothills of a potentially crushing recession I feel compelled to mention it.

Not because Covid-19 informed a great deal of the content, but because the crisis it set in motion gave everybody the same platform and opportunity to be brave.

Indeed, every ounce of bravery one can conjure up during such exacting times stands to differentiate you from competitors, raise your profile and inspire others around you.