Customer
Needs, behaviour and lived experience
B2B marketing operating model
Marketing connects
an organisation
with its markets.
Signals is a B2B marketing operating model for smaller teams. It organises work around evidence, decisions and measurable commercial progress while preserving the capabilities the organisation needs.
Signal-ledAI-enabledHuman-governed
Concept and model by Michelle Pontes
The operating loop
Five stages.
One learning system.
A signal enters the loop. Click or swipe through the five stages that capture it, interpret its meaning, decide what to do, assign the work and record what happened.
- 01A signal enters
A meaningful change is noticed and recorded with its source.
- 02The team works through five stages
Sense, Interpret, Decide, Mobilise and Learn turn the signal into a response.
- 03Four shared foundations support the work
Shared intelligence, system-wide rules, organisational capabilities and work allocation remain available throughout.
- 04Learning returns to the system
Results and decisions improve the evidence available next time.
Sense
Capture the signal.
A signal enters when meaningful change is noticed across customers, accounts, markets or the organisation. Sense gives that change a source and enough context to examine it.
Customer · sales · market · competitor · partner · product · behaviourThe questionWhat has changed, and why might it matter?The resultAn incoming signal with its source, evidence and immediate context intact.
Stage 01Sense
Choose an incoming signal
Capture the signal and its source.
Signal received
Sales hear the same objection in three live deals.
Captured asCustomer and sales evidence that is ready to be interpreted.
Before Sense moves forward
- Source identified
The team knows where the signal came from.
- Evidence attached
The observation includes something that can be examined.
- Context recorded
The change is described before it becomes a request.
The intelligence layer
Shared context makes
better decisions possible.
The layer beneath the model gives people and machines access to the same evidence, history and organisational knowledge.
What Sense reads
Customer behaviour, account activity, sales evidence, market change, competitor activity and product use.
What Sense adds
A signal with its source, evidence, date and immediate context.
Account
Relationships, activity and commercial context
Market
Demand, change and emerging conditions
Competitor
Positioning, actions and points of difference
Sales evidence
Questions, objections and deal experience
Brand knowledge
Meaning, memory and distinctive value
Performance
What improved, what stalled and what converted
Organisational memory
Decisions, results and accumulated learning
System-wide rules
Three rules apply across
the whole model.
People across the organisation can contribute. Review matches the level of risk. Marketing has a clear agreement about what it owns, enables, advises on and declines.
Contribution across the organisation
People across the organisation can contribute their expertise. Marketing provides the process, standards and editorial judgement.
Everyone can contribute. Marketing governs what represents the organisation.Review based on risk
The level of review and approval matches the level of risk. One named person remains accountable wherever possible.
Owner · contributors · approver · visibilityClear marketing responsibilities
The organisation agrees what marketing owns, enables, advises on and declines, and how work earns priority.
Requests enter through agreed evidence and priority criteria.Organisational capability
Keep the capabilities
the organisation needs.
Stage 01 | Sense
Sense relies most on market intelligence, customer insight, sales enablement and organisational learning.
Sense | Capability 01
Market intelligence
- What it does at Sense
- Detects meaningful change in markets, competitors, regulation and demand.
- Evidence it uses
- Current market evidence, competitor activity, policy changes and demand patterns.
- What it contributes
- A sourced market signal that is ready for interpretation.
Work allocation
Assign each task to people,
AI or automation.
People lead work that depends on judgement, trust and accountability. AI supports research, analysis and creation. Automation handles routine, repeatable and low-risk tasks.
Work allocation at Sense
Monitoring can be automated. People decide whether a change is meaningful enough to enter the loop.
Human
Judgement, relationships, originality and accountability.
Human + AI
Research, analysis, creation, personalisation and optimisation.
Automated
Monitoring, routing, classification, reporting and routine production.
A marketing team creates value through the quality of what the organisation notices.
Stage 01 | SenseSignals | B2B Marketing Operating ModelConcept and model by Michelle Pontes
Work with me
Bring me the market change
your team needs to understand.
I work with teams on marketing operating models, decision systems, workshops and practical ways to use AI without losing human judgement.