Discover What Really Drives B2B Marketing Success in 2026 | Live With CMI

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hey.

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Heat. Heat.

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Hello. Hello everyone. Welcome to

another awesome episode of Live with

CMI. Thank you so much for joining us

this afternoon. We are back. It's our

first episode back since content

marketing world and I'm as always joined

by my colleague JK. JK, have you

recovered yet?

>> H I've recovered, but I I have the

blues. I miss everybody so much.

>> That was such a great time and I still,

you know, I still am loving going to

LinkedIn and seeing people are still

posting photos and still talking about

the event and I, you know, I just love

it. I'm reliving it every day when I,

you know, pop through my socials. So,

>> but I'm a little sad.

>> Yeah, that video was a um a good

reminder of all the fun we had at

Content Marketing World. So, uh we will

have more on that a little bit later,

but first today we're going to be

talking about our brand new uh B2B

content marketing research with our very

own Robert Rose today. So, we have so

much uh coming up on that and hopefully

it will help you prepare for 2026.

Robert is great as always. But before we

get to all of that, we want you to know

that this live stream, as always, is

brought to you by the Content Marketing

Institute. And if you don't know by now,

we are the leading training and

education organization for, you guessed

it, all things content and marketing. So

you can head over to

contentmarketinginstitute.com

for all kinds of great resources

including the research that we are going

to be talking about with Robert today.

And as always as you join us let's see

give us a virtual wave. Andy's already

here from Indiana saying hello. Lisa

from So let us know. Say hello and let

us know where you're joining us from. We

love to see where everyone is. And of

course, as we go along today, if you

have a question for Robert or a comment,

uh, drop it into the comment section and

I will try to get to it as best I can as

we go along. It always makes for a more

engaging live stream, of course, when we

hear from all of you. So, we're excited

to get started.

>> Absolutely.

>> Let me pull it up here today. So, here

at CMI, we just released our 16th year

of our B2B content marketing research.

And this year, we took a little bit of a

risk and we changed our approach to the

research. Instead of slicing marketers

by budgets or reporting lines, we

segmented them by how well they're

aligning to the trends shaping the next

few years. So, and we had an overall

sort of headline or or topline to the

research, right, JK? Oh, we sure did.

Um, you know, like teams winning in 2026

aren't playing with prompts, churning

out more content or managing the

algorithms to the algorithm. They're

building stronger muscles in marketing

fundamentals and letting AI breathe more

creative life into those efforts. And,

you know, just going through the

research, it it was so prevalent. Um, if

you know, I'm excited to talk to Robert

about this because this is like the hot

topic right now, of course.

>> Yes. and we had nine key takeaways. And

of course, we we don't have time to get

to all nine of them today, but we will

try hard to um touch on a lot of

different topics. So, let's bring in our

own Robert Rose here, the chief strategy

advisor of the Content Marketing

Institute, and he's one of the folks who

really got us hands dirty with all of

this research. Welcome, Robert.

>> That's a great way to put it, too. Hands

dirty. That I am I am very glad to be

back. It's lovely to see both of you.

>> Yes. And let's start with this. Why do

we make these, you know, why did we

decide to make the changes to this

research this year?

>> Uh

because it's like something interesting

to talk about. I mean, so I mean in all

seriousness, no, it's because you know

what we noticed was so content marketing

as a practice is very mature right at

this point, right? You know, as you

said, we're 16 years into the research

and it's a well understood practice. And

what we've noticed over the last five,

six, seven years is that as a mature

practice, things change, things go up,

things come down a little bit, but

there's nothing really identifying where

the disruptive practices or the pace

setters as we ended up calling them in

this research really are making waves.

And what we wanted to do was really look

at all of the disruptions. Yes, AI, but

even things like account-based marketing

and personalization and firstparty data

and a lot of the things that are sort of

fundamentals now in the background, but

are also causing big disruptions and

find out what's really working, like

what's really working in B2B marketing.

So, that was really the idea to sort of

turn the ship upside down, so to speak,

and say and and really see what's making

marketing float.

>> Yeah. And it's um I know that I'm a

we're a little biased, but it was a

really really well done report. So um

people can check it over check it out

over at content marketing institute.com.

But let's dive into into it here. So uh

as our research showed, uh marketers

plan to invest heavily in AI tools. That

was like 45%

>> and I don't know why this surprised me,

but only 9% uh were going to invest in

staff development. even though many

credit their teams and their team skills

for their success. So, you know, what

should marketers understand about this

disconnect we're seeing between

investing in the tools versus investing

in our talent?

Yeah. I mean, I think so there's there's

two things at play here. One is the you

know somebody pointed out in a comment

on LinkedIn and and it there may be

something to this although it might be a

bit cynical um to say that you know ask

a bunch of marketers what the best thing

is happening in their strategy is going

to be and of course they're going to say

themselves right you know so so

take that with a grain of salt in terms

of you know but the other things that

really scored high were a shift in

strategy right a shift and and and

having an actual strategy

um sort of was coupled with this idea of

the people behind things really making

the needle move in the last year. And so

then you come back to okay well what's

your priority in investment and I think

this speaks to the pressure that we're

seeing right now at the top for

efficiency and this is especially true

in the world of AI invest in AI get more

efficient get more efficient that seems

to be the narrative running today in

most B2B organizations which is how do

we do more with less well we do more

with less by letting AI do the more

while we let people do less and and in

many ways and perhaps also a bit too

cynical. What we see is B2B

organizations sort of transforming

marketing humans into glorified spell

checkers, AI spell checkers, right?

We're we're there to be the human in the

loop um and sort of make sure that AI is

doing the right thing instead of the

other way around. And it's a fascinating

time for sure. It's dispiriting to see

that the budget priorities are and when

we say human resources by the way is the

last one. It doesn't mean just new

headcount. It also means training and

development etc.

But I do believe that this is the

opportunity, as I point out in the in

the report, this is the opportunity that

B2B marketers have right now, which is

to sort of zag while everybody else is

zigging, which is double down on team

skills, human skills, new development of

talent. And that will ultimately be the

long-term value play here where

everybody else is relying on efficiency

and technology and more button pushers.

And if you haven't heard Robert talking

about it, he's been leaning hard into

that, which is which is um super

important

>> for sure. Well, Robert, just going off

of what you said, um 95% of B2B markers

marketers use AI mostly to crank out

content, but 12% say quality has

declined. Um, how can teams move beyond

chasing shiny tech and actually use AI

to improve the results?

>> Yeah. Well, they can they can flip that

switch, right? which is you know and we

saw that and this was I don't know

unsurprising for sure as a result but

perhaps uh you know again inspiring for

a way to sort of take a different

approach which is where we're seeing the

pace setters really uh really you know

sort of lead the way if you will is in

this idea of using AI as you know

thought partner to test ideas to be more

to actually slow down actually slow down

the iterative creative process and

ultimately get to a better result. And

so it's so funny to me AI is the perfect

in it's a literal invitation for us to

slow down and get better at our work.

And what but we're not listening. Most

businesses and marketing teams are not

listening. what they're doing is ah it's

an invitation to go even faster to go

even you know to iterate quicker to be

more efficient and crank out more drafts

and crank out more content to somehow

get beyond the average of the and the

mediocre and and so that's the way to

actually differentiate today is to say

how can we use AI because yes it can

help us express ideas even faster but

how do we start to use AI to pressure

test the things that we are humanly

creating

and ultimately get us to deeper, more

valuable work. I mean, my one of my

favorite quotes that I've been quoting

so often these days comes from Rick

Rubin, um, of course, the music producer

and the writer of an amazing book on

creativity. And what he says is like,

you know, when you're creating a thing,

you know, when it has five mistakes,

it's probably not ready to ship, but

when it has eight mistakes, it might be.

and that's the human thumbrint that we

can start to put on content and the

creativity that we're doing and AI can

help us get there, but it's about

slowing down and being more

differentiating and more human in our

work rather than the LA than the former.

>> Right. I mean just a a little bit adding

on to what you're saying I you and I

have had personal conversations where

you you have talked to me like your

>> your process in how you use AI to deepen

your thought like you have you have AI

inter your AI interview you about a

topic so you can really get yourself it

helps you uh to provoke a little bit

more thought on a topic like we were

talking about blogs or whatever or maybe

an article or something that you wanted

to write and you feed your AI that

you've created, uh, correct me if I'm

wrong, like some of the questions that

you think it should ask you, and then

you have your AI interview you where it

makes you think a little bit more

instead of just sitting down and, you

know, firing away your thoughts.

>> Exactly. It's the It's the what AI is

really good, as I've as I've said many

times, it's too bumper stickery, but I

but I've but I've said it many times

before, creating content is the least

interesting thing that AI does. Yeah. Um

and so the what I do is I as I look at

it as what the thing that it does the

best which is identify patterns which

are hard for humans to find. And so

having it look at a set of data or

having it look at a you know a you know

a a big book or an article or a patterns

in you know on searching the internet

and coming back and asking questions of

me make me wrestle with it harder. Make

me wrestle with the idea and interview

me. And so what I have it do is

basically whether it's an article or a

book or an idea or whatever, go out

there, identify all the patterns, the

zeitgeist, what's happening, what's

being talked about, what's not being

talked about, what's being searched for,

all those things, and ask me what I

think about all those things so that I

have to answer those things. That

becomes for me a much more interesting

outline for something that I might want

to create, which is getting me to deeper

work. I you know I've said it before the

the my average time to write my weekly

article used to be a couple to three

hours and now it's probably double that

but I'm getting hopefully I mean the

audience will be the the ultimate judge

of that I'm getting it at least to work

that I'm much more proud of because I'm

actually taking that time to use the

tool to make me better

>> right

>> yeah but I don't think most people are

using it like that right like like most

I think are probably just trying to like

check a box and get through their day

and do their, you know, and

>> it's the pressure though, you know,

that's the it's the pressure that

they're that they're feeling right now

because the narrative from senior

leadership in most organizations is ah,

here's a magic wand that you can just

create, you know, good enough content to

ship, right? And so that's the that's

the that's the you know that's that's

the windmill we have to tilt at, right?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Andy says, "AI can prove our

strategies, but most people are using it

to replace what we're already doing

instead of enhancing our work, which is

exactly what what Robert was talking

about."

Uh, so AI was definitely prevalent in

the report. Uh, but there was some other

stuff we talked about as well. Um,

what do we have here? Strategy. We

talked a lot about this. So this year

61% of marketers marketers say their

content strategy became more effective

largely thanks to strategy refinement

not just new technology though that was

a big part of it. So how often Robert

should marketers revisit their strategy

and how can they tell when it's time to

make those little refinements or those

little changes? Yeah, it's a great

question and the answer is really it's

it's you know it there's no pat answer.

There's no templated answer here, but

it's really you know iterative based on

what it is you do, your team, your

context of your business, what economic

environments it, you know, you find

yourself in. All all those things feed

into how often. The easiest way to say

it is is that is that what I'm noticing

in the clients that I'm working with are

those that are really again setting that

pace. And it this was by the way one of

the more heartening results that I saw

was which was for years what we saw was

the biggest challenge was actually

developing a content strategy or develop

you know having a content strategy and

and actually seeing that as not not and

not by a little bit by by a lot. the

strategy refinement was was there is

basically businesses and marketing teams

finally going okay let's get real about

this let's figure out what the iterative

process here is and that's the key is

that it isn't you know strategy is a

process it's not a project and so

keeping it iterative and keeping the

small you know doing things in a small

incremental way and constantly you know

sort of looking at it refining it

looking at it refining it looking at it

course correction right all of those

things are super important

And then once a quarter, twice a year,

once a year doing major sort of, you

know, deep dive surgical precision sort

of into where you want to change

directions or pivot or, you know,

whatever it is. All of those are sort of

part of an ongoing strategy, but it it

it it requires that there be bandwidth

and time for that, right? I I still hear

companies, you know, people like that

are, you know, going for jobs in social

media content or marketing content or

even marketing director jobs where

they're going into interviews and

they're saying, "Your job as a marketing

director or your job as a social media

manager is to produce more and more

content across our channels and get

distribution going and go all those

things." And when they say, "Well, what

I want to do is set us up with a

strategy," the leadership saying, "We

don't have time for that. We just have

to react. We have to react, react,

react, react." And it's like that's just

a recipe for for ultimate failure. And

so requisite in the sort of strategy

refinement is that we constantly make

that time to allot for that strategy

refinement. Sitting down with the team,

collaborating, getting crossf functional

groups together, all those things and

making the space for it, making an

actual, you know, mental, energetic, and

physical space for it.

>> Yeah, I guess I should have led with

that. We were very happy for the first

time we could say people have a content

strategy or they're reporting having a

content strategy because every year it's

like they don't have a content strategy.

They haven't written it down.

>> That's right. That's right. That's

right.

>> I was very happy to see that.

>> Seriously. Well, okay. Let's let's shift

just a little bit, Robert. Let's talk

about personal personalization.

Um, we talked a little bit about it in

the report this year. So most marketers

say 89% of them say they personalize

content, but nearly half of them, 60% do

it only for one or two channels. Like

why do so many fall short on personaliz

personalization? And why like what does

it what do you have to do to get it

truly right?

>> Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, it it's

still the case that personalization is

the sexiest thing that nobody does. Um

and and so, you know, and we've been

talking about it for 25 years. We've

been talking about it since the early

2000s, right? About personalization and

how it was going to change the nature of

marketing. We were finally going to be

able to deliver the right message to the

right person at the right time. And you

know, jazz hands, we we did it all. And

and what has happened is is that new

automation certainly AI is a big driver

of this has started to make targeted

content, right? that which is targeted,

not necessarily personalized, but

targeted in a way that changes the

nature of the content to be to feed off

of what the intent might be of that

personal. So there may be it may be that

we're finally getting there with a

technology that can help us do that

through through the use of AI. Most of

it that 89%

that's really just sort of people going,

"Yeah, they're doing the Mad Libs sort

of personalization." Hello JK, I see

that you saw this content on this day.

Can we offer you a this offer because

you like this, you know, and it's

basically fill in the blanks with

personalization on your email or perhaps

on your e-commerce journey and that's

kind of the only things that we're we're

we're doing at the moment because that's

what we have the sort of headsp space

and bandwidth to be able to do. Now that

AI is coming into it, we, you know,

you're starting to see more and more

organizations begin to like truly

realize that the targeting of content

may not have anything to do with

fill-in- thelank of personally

identifiable information. In other

words, knowing my name, knowing my email

address, knowing my, you know, the last

product that I purchased is kind of

irrelevant. What's really relevant is

understanding my intent in that moment

and the context and being able to serve

up the right content to me when in in

that intent moment and and we may be

starting to get there but it's still I

would say it's still very early days for

most.

>> So how do they start start working on

that?

>> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a tough it's a

tough one to know how to how to how to

tackle because you you ultimately sort

of wind up and this is especially true

in B2B where

>> you know B2B classically much fewer you

know customers much fewer transactions

much fewer

levels of data to be able to use to

target content. So statistical relevance

is a very hard thing to get over because

you know you're dealing with long sales

cycles that are measured in dozens and

hundreds not millions right like BTOC

transactions are and so

>> it can be very difficult to get enough

data to do that then more importantly

and this is challenging because that

data tends to be siloed into sales CRM

systems digital asset management systems

content management systems analytic

systems are all sort of islanded from

one another pulling all that together in

a meaningful way to do that in real time

is just a big job. It's a big job. And

you know, and I hate this term, but it's

an appropriate one here is like

businesses are rightly going, is the

juice worth the squeeze? Is doing a

project of that size worth what we're

going to get out of it? And the answer

is, I don't know. And so it just becomes

easier to go, okay, well then let's just

do more ads.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh Eigor says, hello, Eigor. AI has

helped us achieve true personalization.

Every prospect now receives content

specifically irrelevant.

>> Ah, Eigor, I love it. I love I love

that. That is so And it's so true. It's

so true. It's perfect. H Igor always

with the great way to phrase things.

>> Oh my gosh.

>> Uh well, let's talk tackle another topic

here. We also asked about thought

leadership and found that nearly every

B2B marketer they have a a program for

thought leadership. Yet in most

companies fewer than 5%

of employees contribute. So how can

brands sort of build their thought

leadership program so they can be like a

real differentiator in the business?

>> Uh you know this the the irony of this

one was so delicious I have to say. um

which is we we know this is a we know

this is a challenge, right? We we we we

we're learning this. We're hearing about

zero click every day. We're hearing

about thought leadership every day.

We're we're hearing about the need to

not only use external influencers but to

use internal influencers, our

executives, our employees, you know, to

to sort of drive the the who is actually

talking about our brand. And it's such

an important thing. And then you sort of

go all right well what do we do to

basically bolster that I don't know one

idea might be to actually train and

develop the talent of your organization

and the humans in it to actually so that

they know a little bit about the

business right sort of actually you know

when we think of training and talent

development so often our brains go to ah

let's teach them how to use Salesforce

let's teach them how to use because you

know so they become Salesforce

whisperers or you know HubSpot magicians

or you know gurus of you know GA4

before, right? And and instead it's

like, no, no, why don't we teach them to

be experts in our industry? Why don't we

teach them and talent develop them so

that they're actually storytellers or so

that they're actually pulling in great

they become great researchers or thought

leaders and so that they can actually

talk with authority about our business

out there in the world and invest in our

employees knowing more about that. And

that to me is sort of the driving factor

here because and I'm actually writing

about this right now for my next uh my

next rosecolored glasses column which is

the the fast track of leadership these

days the you know the tenure of CMOs

along with the newest you know sort of

what's being called job hugging these

days of the practitioners in the

business. It sort of lends itself to

this idea of let's invest in our

employees and make them know more about

our business because most marketers

honestly these days especially in B2B

they don't know much about the industry.

They they're new, they're young, they're

metriculating quickly between companies

and so investing in the knowledge and

the influence they could have is such an

important piece of this and it's such a

huge opportunity.

>> Goes back to that budget investing in

the talent.

>> Yeah.

Shocker.

>> Shocker. Uh we have so I don't even know

how many we touched on. We had like uh

nine I think I said takeaways. We did

not touch on all of them here, but if

you head over to

contentmarketinginstitute.com,

you can see Robert wrote um very lengthy

reports. It's great

e well easy to read. I sure it was

enjoyable. I will say that. So, head on

over there, check it out. Lots of good

nuggets, lots of good insight in there

that we hope uh will help all of you.

And Robert, I mean, you do it all around

here. So, you've also been really busy

getting ready with our updated

curriculum for content marketing

university. So, can you tell us a little

bit about what we can expect from the

from the updated curriculum?

>> Sure. This is our second year to do this

in partnership with the American

Marketing Association. And so there is a

certification that is that is also

available to those who actually go

through the university and go through

and suffer through all 15 hours of me

which is trust me not easy. That itself

delivers its own certificate by the way.

Um but the key is is that we're really

excited about this partnership because

of the certification in content

marketing that you can pull out of it

which is great for your career etc. And

the updated curriculum is really about

focusing in on

the changes, right? The changes that

we've seen across certainly AI, the

changes that we've seen in first-party

data, the changes that we've seen in

paid media, the media distribution mix,

zeroclick marketing and all those kinds

of things. So the topics themselves

remain relatively you know the backbone

of the course remains relatively similar

but there the difference is is like how

are we actually approaching content and

marketing in a way that actually drives

results for the business. And so that

backbone remains the same. It's the

backbone we've had for many years, but

the actual application of it is so

different these days because of all of

the disruptions that we've seen, you

know, with AI search engine optimization

and and you know, and AI content

generation as well as measurement,

distribution, social media, all of that

is u is different this year and and um

and I'm you know, I'm I'm super excited

for it.

>> Awesome.

>> And you did mention about the

partnership with the AMA. What's uh you

want to just touch on that one one last

time? Yeah, sure. It's it's it's been

something like I said, it's our two it's

our second year to do this. Yeah.

>> Um and partnership. Last year was our

our first year of of the of the program.

And so this is an update to that. And

and the key is is that

>> in previous years before we partnered

with the AMI AMA, much of our stuff was

really formulated around the content

marketing institute, you know, sort of,

you know, the backbone that we've been

working on for 16 years, right? as we'd

been, you know, doing so many things

>> really centered on the practice of

content marketing and what we were able

to bring in with the AMA piece of it was

a broader sense of the world of

marketing like full stop like you know

developing a market research and and an

audience you know development and and

all of the things that sort of focus in

on broader marketing skills that sort of

feed in through through that because as

we've seen content marketing has in many

ways become B2B marketing right it has

become the core focus of it. So, the

partnership with the AMA makes perfect

sense and it's and it's now even a

broader and better class because of it.

>> Fantastic.

>> Yeah. So, if you are interested in

checking that out, head over to

contentmarketinguniversity.com

and you can check it out and enroll

today and get uh Robert's what' you say

15 hours of Robert

one and only

as well as your very important AMA

certification. So, it's really a great

program. So, I highly recommend you go

check it out over there. And then,

Robert, um, one last thing because you

are you were in in between all of these

things, you were also writing a book, I

believe.

>> You're so sweet. You're so very nice.

Thank you for that. Yes. Um, it really

touches on you. Yeah, I mean you

probably heard the passion in my voice

um in the beginning of this when we

talked about the human aspects of this

and it was in a book that I was inspired

to write last year. So I spent the

better part of the first part of this

year writing the book. It's a small book

so it's easy it's an easy read um one

you can read on a plane ride or or you

know a couple of uh a couple of you know

Sundays or something like that. And it's

called Valuable Friction. And it's

really basically what I've noticed is

over the last 15 years we have become

obsessed as businesses, as families, as

individuals on speed. Speed is the

foundational part. And I and my the

question I kept wrestling with in my

head was how fast is fast enough? Like

how fast do we have to go before we've

reached peak speed? And I think my

hypothesis is we've reached it. And so

the interesting thing to me is where I

see value getting created these days is

where we're introducing the friction and

not necessarily in slowing down, but the

difference between speeds. In other

words, the pivot. The metaphor I often

use is it's the squeak of the shoe on

the basketball court to let you know

that a great game is being played.

That's the friction that we start to

introduce in our relationships, in our

uh strategy, in our creative en and and

basically in all the things that we're

doing as a business, as a family, as an

individual um to create more value in

our life. And so, it's a bit of a

treatise of that. It's, you know, sort

of a a bit of a, you know, a meditation,

if you will. So, it's I'm super excited

about it. It's and thank you for

mentioning it.

>> And you can get that

>> you can get it at valuablefriction.com.

of valuablefriction.com. Put that we'll

put that in the link in the comments for

that as well. Well, Robert, um, thank

you so much for taking the time today to

spend with us and chat about all these

things as always. We appreciate it. So,

>> absolutely. My pleasure. I'm pleasure.

>> All right. Until next time, we will see

you sir.

>> Thank you, buddy. Take care. Awesome.

As always, lots of great comments in the

um in the uh chat as well.

>> Very lively chat today.

>> Very lively chat. So, continuing on

here, since this is our first episode

back since Content Marketing World in

San Diego, and if you didn't attend,

boy, did they miss out, right, JK?

>> Oh, that's right. We had we had a blast

this year. Um, let's take a look at some

of the highlights from the conference. I

think you have something to show us.

>> Yeah.

[Music]

>> What I love about Content Marketing

World is the community. Every single

person here shows up at this conference

with a base understanding of what makes

content great. I think that there are

very few conferences that have the depth

or the level of content. Having the hot

seat where people came up and shared

their questions, their concerns, their

uncertainties. To have that opportunity,

having the safe space to hear from

others was a beautiful thing.

>> I feel like I've gotten a lot of value

of actionable things that I can take

back to my team.

>> What I love most about content marketing

world is honestly it always feels like

homecoming. To visit with colleagues

that you've watched grow from intern to

CMO and have real community.

I feel so excited to be here. Like

everybody is so kind and approachable

and it just feels really welcoming. Kind

of just feels like a warm hug. Marketing

is getting to the heart and soul of a

product of a business, but getting to

the core of the human experience and

connecting with one another. The most

valuable thing is talking with the

speakers and the attendees. It takes a

certain kind of person and it tends to

be marketers that are real and tactical

and on the ground. It's the place to

figure out how to fix that thing that's

going to be on your desk Monday morning.

The vibe of content marketing world is

like no other business conference I have

been part of. It is high energy,

authentic, real, fun. I have been so

happy just to be surrounded by the

content marketing world family again.

>> What's one word to describe content

marketing world? Innovative, reunion,

energetic orange.

So yeah, we'll be in Denver next year.

So a new city. We're very excited about

that. And if you missed all the fun, uh

we hope you will join us next year, but

you can get all the great learnings

still. We have our digital passes are on

sale now. If you use live 100, you can

save an extra $100 off of your pass. So

head over to contentmarketingworld.com

and go ahead and and buy your digital

pass today and then hopefully you will

mark it down on your calendar and you

will join us next year. Right JK?

>> That's right. I you know you if you

didn't come this year, you missed out

and we don't want to have you miss out

again. We had a blast this year. I mean

every year Amanda you you know you and I

have been to pretty much every one of

these and we always say it was the best

year yet. It was the best year yet. But

this year, I just felt like there was

such a wonderful sense of community.

Everybody was so actively engaged and

everybody had a blast. And uh

>> we just want to share something fun with

the we have the dogs.

>> And

I just want to mention we had two the

amazing strays rescue comes uh into I

think it was the um

>> the binder booth.

>> Binder booth.

>> Our friends from binder.

>> Yes. Our friends from Binder had the

puppy love lounge and we had two of

those dogs were adopted. Isn't that so

cute?

>> Oh my gosh. And I was actually there. Uh

you see Mocha there. Um I was actually

there when her uh her owner came and

picked her up to take her home. And it

was so heartwarming. Everybody was like

getting misty. I mean it was just

wonderful to see the love. And I I

talked to the young lady and she's like

um was from West Monroe, Louisiana. So

she traveled all the way from San Diego

uh and came to our conference and came

back with a a lovely pet. So

>> she had him uh or her around. She was

carrying around the um around the rest

of the conference because she had had

puppy and then um she had her little

case and had the dog with her. So,

>> and if I'm not mistaken, I think I I'll

have to correct me if I'm wrong, anybody

in the chat, that I think Penny went to

Penny's owner is from uh the Boston

area. So, they across the United States,

it was just fantastic. And to to see

that happen and all the love and fun

that folks had and and thank you again,

Binder, for for doing that with Amazing

Strays because it was such a

heartwarming thing. Um, and just so much

fun.

>> Yep. So, that's all we have for today.

We have We covered a lot today in

today's episode. So, we will be back

again next month with another episode of

Live with CMI. And until then, we hope

you all have a great week. And, um, I

will see you soon. See you, JK.

>> Take care. Thank