Motive's Shiva Manjunath on CRO as a mindset, not a role

**Summary** Shiva Manjunath, Lead Web Strategist at Motive and host of the From A to B podcast, joins Ashley Stirrup to explain why CRO works best as a mindset every team carries rather than a role one team owns. He shares how building bridges to sales and customer service turns everyday complaints into test ideas. The conversation covers why customers who ask for price are often asking for value, how emotional context earns a CRO credibility, how to make an impact without an executive sponsor, and why experimentation needs the kind of marketing AI gets. For CROs, product managers and growth leaders building an experimentation culture.     **Chapters** 00:00 Cold open: gifts under $50 01:18 What a true culture of experimentation looks like 04:43 CRO as a mindset across every function 11:27 Become the sales team's best advocate 15:29 Fear, uncertainty and doubt: the window shade story 21:51 Customers ask for price when they want value 24:17 GTA 6 and why button colors cost CROs trust 29:14 Making an impact without an executive sponsor 34:27 Making experimentation as exciting as AI     **Takeaways** \- CRO works best as a mindset shared by design, marketing and product, not as one team's job. \- Sales and customer service teams hold free qualitative data that makes strong test ideas. \- When customers ask for price, test value messaging such as benefits, ROI and time saved. \- Understanding the emotional context around a purchase earns a CRO more trust than tactical button tests. \- A culture of experimentation needs data-driven decision making first and a safe space to lose.     **Connect with the Guest** Shiva Manjunath LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shiva-manjunath/ From A to B podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5xDlubE3GZwUDDen64hefz Newsletter: https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/     **Sponsor** GrowthBook is the warehouse-native platform for experimentation, feature flags, and product analytics trusted by AI-native product teams at 3,000+ companies worldwide. Go to growthbook.io