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The Transaction: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Craig Rosenberg & Matt Amundson | B2B Sales & Marketing Experts - Hosts of The Transaction
Welcome to The Transaction. Hosts Craig Rosenberg and Matt Amundson, two go-to-market leaders, talk weekly with the best sales, marketing, operations, and product leaders in the B2B SaaS world to understand what's working in the new playbook of the post-ZIRP market. Craig, Matt, and their guests share the stories and actionable tips, tactics, and strategies behind what's driving revenue growth that you can take and implement in your own go-to-market roles. Whether you're a Chief Revenue Officer leading a B2B SaaS sales and marketing organization, a marketing leader trying to drive bigger outcomes with your demand gen team, or a new sales rep, you'll learn and laugh every episode. From ABM to PLG, from MEDDIC to MEDDPICC, the world of business is constantly evolving. We’ll cover the who, what, where, when, why and most importantly how you get… The Transaction.
Latest Episodes
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- Yesterday43 min
How to Show Up in AI Search Results & Shortlists with Mike Nierengarten, Founder of Obility - Ep 87
Mike Nierengarten is the Founder of Obility, and is here to unveil their brand new research report called The AI Search Footprint: What it Takes to Get on Claude’s B2B SaaS Shortlist. Mike joins Matt to break down why you need to approach Generative Engine Optimization differently for each LLM, why listicles and directories are fully back in vogue for the age of AI-search, and the customer proof and 3rd-party validation that matters when Claude starts comparing vendors.Plus, Mike shares which LLMs B2B buyers use and how small changes to their prompts drastically change how the LLMs go about crafting responses.Also, Matt humble brags about playing for a college football coaching staff with both Matt Rhule and Kyle Shanahan.Critical TakeawaysThe AI models are not a monolith, especially when it comes to how they search and answer queries. Choose which LLM matters most for your ideal customers and optimize for that answer engine. For example, Claude is preferred by people in B2B, whereas ChatGPT is the go to for B2C.The shortlist forms before most of the buyer research is finished. As reported in Obility’s Claude study, companies saw roughly 89% shortlist inclusion when Claude read a vendor’s content, versus about 18% when it did not. After the first three or four searches, the model typically shifted toward researching the vendors already identified, making early discovery critical to getting considered at all.A listicle can open the door; customer proof helps a vendor survive the next round. Once Claude starts comparing a shortlist, it looks for evidence that vendors actually serve the buyer’s industry. By creating a content pillar that combines a vertical-specific listicle, customer success pages, and ROI analysis, you can feed the model evidence that it’s looking for beyond a claim of industry expertise.Claude actively searches for pricing and will pull it from other sources when a vendor does not publish it. A useful pricing page gives the model a first-party reference during the comparison rather than leaving that information entirely to third parties.Chapters00:00 - Introducing Mike Nierengarten, Founder of Obility11:34 - Every AI Search Model is Very Different 13:55 - Selecting Which LLM to Optimize for Based on Your ICP18:53 - Making the AI-Created Shortlist for Customers 24:10 - Does AI-authored Content Impact Your Company's Ranking in AI Search 32:36 - The Return of Longtail-Keyword-Focused Ghost Pages and ListiclesJoin our Newsletter to never miss an episode & get bonus content: https://thetransaction.substack.com/Connect with MikeLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nierengarten/ Obility Website: https://www.obilityb2b.com/ Get the Report: https://www.obilityb2b.com/resources-library/the-ai-search-footprint/ Love the show? Give us a shoutout on LinkedIn and tell us what you loved!
- Oct 3, 202655 min
The GTM Plays AI Can’t Replace with David Politis, Host of Not Another CEO Podcast - Ep 86
David Politis is the Host of the Not Another CEO Podcast, and previously led three industry-leading companies to successful acquisitions, including Vocalocity, Cloud Sherpas, and BetterCloud. David joins Co-Hosts Craig Rosenberg and Matt Amundson to discuss the business value of providing customers with truly unique experiences, why micro-segmenting your ICP can lead to better growth, and why the GTM Engineer is the highest-ROI individual hire in demand generation.Plus, David outlines why the “we'll build it ourselves” objection is a market signal, not a dead end.Also, Craig reveals he lost his wedding ring, Matt recounts watching a UFC from inside a 7/Eleven in the San Fernando Valley, and Producer Sam shares his feelings on the performance of the New York Rangers and San Jose Sharks. Critical TakeawaysTruly memorable in-person experiences earn access that ordinary campaigns cannot. A World Cup match, intimate chef-led dinner, or genuinely rare experience creates an unrivaled direct relationship with decision-makers. Remember, the relationship comes first; turning the event into a captive sales presentation kills that bond.The “we'll build it ourselves” objection is a market signal, not a dead end. One AI-native company serving sales engineers answered it with a microsite offering 14 free Claude skills behind a registration form. That move helps buyers experiment on their own while creating a natural path back to the vendor when security, complexity, and operational support become real requirements.Microsegmentation makes every downstream motion more relevant. Shrinking a 1,500-account ICP to a 200–300-account slice sharpens the outreach, content, demo, trial, and sales conversation at the same time. It also lets sellers master a small number of repeatable use cases instead of improvising across a hundred variations.A small roundtable can become a repeatable acquisition loop. Bring together a few leaders from the same microsegment, such as bank CIOs, extract the best anonymized insights, and use those findings to recruit the next cohort. Attendees gain peer intelligence they can take back to their companies, while SDRs and AEs gain outreach that sounds like it belongs in the buyer's world.Original data is one of the few content advantages AI cannot commoditize. For example, BetterCloud surveyed thousands of targeted business leaders each year and turned the results into a full year of content. Repeating a core set of questions for five or six years created trend data that appeared far beyond the original report.Talented, AI-first GTM engineers can build microsegmentation, data enrichment, customized decks, and supporting workflows at a pace traditional RevOps and marketing operations teams struggle to match. Leadership's job is to set the ICP and business objective, give the builder freedom to test, and move the winning experiments into the operating machinery.Chapters00:00 - Episode Preview02:02 - Introducing David Politis, Co-Founder, Not Another CEO05:17 - Selling SaaS to Companies Trying to Rip & Replace with Vibe-Coded Tools14:57 - The Business Impact of In-Person Events for B2B SaaS 22:25 - Microsegmenting Your ICP Improves Long-Term Growth30:32 - Matt Finally Decides To Show Up31:55 - How to Build Valuable Research Content that AI Can’t Replicate45:07 - Why GTM Engineers are the Highest ROI Roles to Hire ForJoin our Newsletter to never miss an episode & get bonus content: https://thetransaction.substack.com/Epic Quotes“ When you get people in the room, you can build relationships in a way that you cannot do virtually, you cannot do through automation.” - David PolitisConnect with DavidLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpolitis/ Not Another CEO Podcast: https://podcast.notanotherceo.com/ Not Another CEO Substack: https://notanotherceo.substack.com The StartUp Founder Survival Guide: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davidpolitis_startup-founder-survival-guide-david-politis-activity-7158455968194875393-QVdh David’s Previous Episode: https://thetransaction.substack.com/p/narrow-down-your-damn-icp-with-david ShoutoutsScott AlbroRobe
- Sep 9, 202651 min
Win the AI Answer, Not Just the Citations with Tim Sanders, Chief Innovation Officer at G2 - Ep 85
Tim Sanders is the Chief Innovation Officer at G2 and a New York Times best-selling author of five books, including Love is the Killer App and Dealstorming.Tim joins Co-Host Craig Rosenberg to discuss why "being cited" by ChatGPT and other LLMs means almost nothing compared to "winning the answer", which self-inflicted AI visibility mistakes that B2B marketers are making, and how to overcome the “Prompt Problem” by better understanding your customers.Also, Craig discusses his children’s taste in music, Matt is strangely absent, and Producer Sam briefly steers things down an extremely tactical rabbit hole for his own edification. Critical TakeawaysAudit every place you block AI crawlers, immediately. G2 blocked robot crawling for years before realizing the "big check" they thought they were protecting was worth less than the AI visibility they were sacrificing. Check every robots.txt block to see if the crawl-blocking upside actually outweighs the lost AI citation and recommendation value.Being cited by AI isn't the same as being recommended. In one example of asking an LLM for a product recommendation, Adobe was cited by the AI 13 times, but it did not make the final shortlist. Marketers should track whether their brand appears in the final "these are the three vendors" recommendation, not just whether they show up somewhere in the response.Unblock and re-platform gated content that models can't read. G2 learned models don't read PDFs or JavaScript-rendered pages during retrieval, only flat HTML. Audit your highest-value content (reports, comparison guides) and republish it in crawlable HTML instead of gated PDFs if AI visibility matters more than the lead-gen capture.Treat LLM relations as a new function, not a subset of SEO or PR. LLMs are now bigger influencers than traditional analysts. Because of this, G2, for example, explicitly unblocked Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp after acquiring them from Gartner to capture this. GTM leaders should assign explicit ownership of "AI visibility" the way they already own analyst relations.Write answer-shaped content, not message-shaped content. Content structured as problem-solution-feature-benefit-CTA reads as "vendor speak" and lowers model confidence, while FAQ-style, conversational content that mirrors real Reddit-thread discussions earns more citations. Marketing teams should rewrite cornerstone content to directly resolve open questions in a natural, human tone rather than a sales pitch structure.Stop relying on web traffic as a north-star metric. With chat-driven buyers compressing research into a single prompt, overall website traffic will fall even as pipeline quality rises. Shift dashboards from sessions/pageviews to revenue attribution and closing ratio by traffic source.Chapters00:00 - Episode Preview03:11 - Introducing Tim Sanders, Chief Innovation Officer at G210:00 - Two Stories about Marketing Stunts and The World Series of Poker Finals19:01 - Answer Engine Optimization & Content Strategy in the AI Age26:32 - Optimizing Your YouTube Videos for AI LLMs to Index & Cite Your Content28:51 - Seeding Branded Content into Reddit to Influence the Outputs of LLMs36:59 - Does Your Company Website Still Matter in the AI Age? 43:58 - The Misaligned Prompt Problem Hurting Your Understanding of Customers & ProspectsJoin our Newsletter to never miss an episode & get bonus content: https://thetransaction.substack.com/Epic Quotes“You have to get away from the addiction that traffic is a meaningful metric. It's not. Pipeline is the only metric that matters.” - Tim SandersConnect with TimLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanderssays/ G2 Website: https://www.g2.com/ Love Is the Killer App by Tim Sanders: https://timsanders.com/love-is-the-killer-app/ Website: https://timsanders.com/ ShoutoutsOn The Edge by Nate Silver: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/529280/on-the-edge-by-nate-silver/ Josh Blyskal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-blyskal/ JH Scherck: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhtscherck/ Love the show? Give us a
- Jul 21, 202655 min
How Founder POV Helps Sales Build Buyer Confidence with Jim Wilson, Partner at Costanoa Ventures - Ep 84
Jim Wilson is an Operating Partner at Costanoa Ventures and cut his teeth leading global sales teams for decades at major companies including SumoLogic, Microsoft, Merced Systems, PTC, and NICE Systems. Jim joined Co-Hosts Craig Rosenberg and Matt Amundson to discuss the impact that strong Founder vision has on the sales team’s narrative, why paid POCs (Proof of Concepts) are making a comeback in B2B sales, and what truly sets B2B events apart for buyers.Plus, Jim examines why corporate gifting swag has gotten so bland while also providing some great examples from B2B brands that are doing it well.Also, Craig reads verbatim from the article of a past guest, Matt extolls the virtues of the loop-swoop-pull technique, and Producer Sam shouts out a fellow Sam.Critical TakeawaysDevelop and weaponize a strong founder point of view, and then cascade it to sales. The single biggest differentiator in a crowded market is a bold, opinionated narrative that challenges the status quo. Train sales reps to lead with a prescriptive point of view on how to evaluate your product. Rather than asking prospects "what do you want to do next?", top reps proactively outline a logical, step-by-step evaluation process. Top B2B sellers consistently become trusted advisors by doing this, which ultimately means they are invited to help prospects draft the RFP and frame competitors.B2B events are producing outsized pipeline, especially intimate dinners of 10–12 people. The key rule: no structured pitches, no selling at the event itself. Rather, use the event to learn where prospects went to school, what their kids are up to, and what makes them laugh; then follow up the next day with a warm, specific outreach.Implement paid, time-boxed POCs with both technical and business validation built in to validate not just technical fit but business ROI. Stop running open-ended "kick the tires" evaluations with no end date; set a timeline, assign a kickoff call, schedule the readout with decision-makers, and build a report that champions can use to get internal approvals.When it comes to effectively planning events and corporate gifting, GTM teams should ask: what does our buyer persona find genuinely interesting, and how do we build an experience around that?Chapters00:00 - Episode Preview02:25 - Introducing Jim Wilson, Partner at Costanoa Ventures05:57 - Why Creativity is Key to Effective Corporate Swag13:27 - A Disastrous First Encounter with a Bidet & Other Sleepy Sales Stories22:42 - How a Strong Founder POV Helps Sales Teams Build a Narrative33:36 - Events are Back as a Major GTM Channel 45:09 - Why Paid Proof of Concepts are Comin Back in B2B Sales CyclesJoin our Newsletter to never miss an episode & get bonus content: https://thetransaction.substack.com/Epic Quotes“ I love sales teams that have a strong point of view on how you should evaluate our product.” - Jim WilsonConnect with JimLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimwilsonbayarea/ Costanoa Ventures Website: https://www.costanoa.vc/ ShoutoutsCarilu Dietrich: https://open.substack.com/pub/thetransaction/p/advisor-avengers-assembling-your Business Bricks: https://businessbricks.com/ Maria Boulden: https://open.substack.com/pub/thetransaction/p/steak-dinners-dont-close-deals-withSam McKenna: https://open.substack.com/pub/thetransaction/p/social-selling-secrets-to-supercharge Brian Halligan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianhalligan/ Chris Orlob: https://open.substack.com/pub/thetransaction/p/solving-the-go-to-market-skills-crisis Scott Albro: https://open.substack.com/pub/thetransaction/p/founder-led-gtm-growth-bets-and-why David DMo Morse: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yodavidmorse/ Topline: <a href="https://substack.com/@topli
- Jun 24, 202641 min
Building Brand Momentum in Market with Carilu Dietrich & Maya Spivak - Live Session - Ep 83
Carilu Dietrich & Maya Spivak joined Craig, Matt, and our amazing audience of GTM leaders at our GTM Tailwinds event this spring for a live recording where they shared insights on building founder and executive organic social media as a primary demand channel, why startups need to develop speed as a marketing skill, and why going viral on social doesn’t amount to what it seem for B2B companies.Carilu is the author of the Hypergrowth Leadership SubStack and is an all-star advisor and startup marketing leader.Maya is the Founder & Chief Marketer of Marketing.fan, a brand and creative marketing agency, and former VP of Marketing at Gretel.ai and Mux. Critical TakeawaysInvest in taste, or find someone who has it, before spending on out-of-home ad campaigns. Out-of-home advertising in major markets is constrained supply with non-trivial costs, and a mediocre creative execution wastes every dollar and actively damages brand perception at scale. Before committing budget to OOH, have someone with genuine creative discernment review the work, and if that person doesn't exist in-house, find them in your network before the media buy clears.Consistency beats virality for pipeline generation. Marketing teams should resist chasing one-off viral brand moments and instead build sustainable content cadences. Allocate budget and headcount to rhythm, not lottery tickets.Real differentiation for brands is about timing and originality, not just quality. The frameworks your competitors are copying right now are already losing their edge, and the window to do something genuinely surprising is always narrower than it seems.The pace of AI innovation and product development means that GTM leaders need to operationalize speed as a marketing capability. GTM teams need pre-built rapid-response playbooks for product launches, because the window to capitalize on a launch is now measured in hours, not weeks. For example, Carilu's product marketing team had 32 hours notice from OpenAI before a major LLM launch and shipped a full campaign within that window. Teams that don't have templates, approval chains, and asset libraries ready in advance will consistently miss the moment when momentum is highest.Edutainment is the new table stakes for B2B events, content, and advertising. Marketing teams should interrogate every content format and event experience against the question: is this entertaining enough to earn attention before it earns trust?Chapters00:00 Episode Preview00:50 Introducing Carilu Dietrich & Maya Spivak03:04 Are Viral Moments Worth Chasing for B2B Brands12:02 Real Market Momentum Starts with Product13:48 Edutainment Marketing Wins14:12 Building Out Bold Billboards Campaigns for B2B Brands16:29 Copycats and What Not to Do17:52 Examples of Marketing Creativity Beyond Billboards20:12 Startup Founder Social Media Playbook for B2B23:19 LinkedIn Organic Content Marketing Drives Enterprise Revenue27:29 Amplifying Customer Stories That Work31:26 Zig When Others Zag33:50 When B2B Brands Should Involve Influencers & The Need for Fast Launches37:49 Out Of Home Advertising Taste is CriticalJoin our Newsletter to never miss an episode & get bonus content: https://thetransaction.substack.com/Epic Quotes“The real problem that earlier stage companies have is they don't need advice. They need be able to do the work.” - Carilu Dietrich“If you're gonna spend the money, do it right. Make sure you have some taste.” - Maya SpivakConnect with CariluLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cariludietrich/ Carilu’s SubStack: https://www.carilu.com/ Carilu’s Past Episode: https://open.substack.com/pub/thetransaction/p/advisor-avengers-assembling-your Connect with MayaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayagrinbergspivak/ Marketing.fan Website: https://www.marketing.fan/ ShoutoutsGTMshift: https://gtmshift.com/ Love the show? Give us a shoutout on LinkedIn and tell us what you loved!
- Jun 23, 202655 min
An Honest Reappraisal of Marketing Attribution with Dan Kimball, GTM Advisor - Ep 82
Dan Kimball is a GTM Advisor, AI Architect, and independent consultant at The Operating Partnership LLC. Dan’s a marketing expert with a bevy of amazing experiences to draw on, from serving as CMO of Spectrum Equity and ThisMoment, to VP of Marketing at Yelp, and SVP of Global Marketing at Eventbrite.Dan joins co-hosts Craig Rosenberg and Matt Amundson to dive into what sets great B2B brands apart and why marketers need to look at some of their metrics with a lot more scrutiny.Plus, Dan shares what happened when he unknowingly offended half of Cape Cod with a radio ad.Also, Craig pitches his idea for a nautically themed vape shop, Matt compares to Dan to M. Night Shyamalan, and Producer Sam slightly misquotes an iconic Steve Buscemi line. Critical TakeawaysICP clarity is the single highest-leverage activity a GTM team can do this year. The amount of focus a company has on its Ideal Customer Profile is "highly correlated with success at driving bookings goals." GTM leaders should run a formal ICP project at the start of every year, not treat it as a one-time setup task. The tools and AI capabilities now exist to make this faster and more rigorous than ever.Look at marginal ROAS (the return on the last incremental dollar spent in the Google auction) rather than blended ROAS.Mixed media modeling (MMM) is now accessible to mid-market companies, and B2B marketers should deploy it before their next budget cycle. Mid-size B2B companies can access credible MMM vendors and get marketing attribution sophistication that far exceeds what Google Analytics or any last-touch model can provide. Marketing leaders should bring a vendor comparison to their next QBR and frame it as risk mitigation: the current attribution model is actively misleading budget allocation decisions.As ChatGPT eats into Google organic traffic, brands increase paid search spend to compensate, which inflates CPCs for everyone, which degrades LTV-to-CAC ratios across the board. B2B marketing leaders should model what their blended CAC looks like if CPCs increase 20-30% and build the case for upper-funnel diversification (EG: YouTube, CTV, LinkedIn, organic community) before the CFO forces the conversation.Chapters00:00 - Episode Preview02:41 - Introducing Dan Kimball, GTM Advisor and Consultant at The Operating Partnership LLC08:38 - The Unintended Consequences of Naming a Company Or, Dan Gives Us The Skinny on a Boneheaded Brand Name17:44 - What's in a Name (Of a Company, Brand, or Product)? 25:59 - Why Your Degree of ICP Focus is Directly Correlated to Business Success41:39 - B2B Marketers Need to Scrutinize Their Marketing Attribution More Thoroughly48:05 - Diversify Paid Channel Spending Beyond Just Google or Facebook Owned ChannelsJoin our Newsletter to never miss an episode & get bonus content: https://thetransaction.substack.com/Epic Quotes“People aren't putting as much scrutiny on marketing attribution as they should. And this is nothing new, but people are giving way too much credit to Google” - Dan Kimball“ Look, I listen to it. I'm down.” - Craig Rosenberg, 2026“You're not down. You're not down if you said you're down.” - Dan Kimball“You might be up.” - Matt AmundsonConnect with DanLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielkimball/ ShoutoutsKara SwisherLove the show? Give us a shoutout on LinkedIn and tell us what you loved!
- Jun 11, 202658 min
Organizing Unforgettable Events for B2B with Jen Igartua, CEO of Go Nimbly - Ep 81
Back for her second episode is the one and only Jen Igartua, the CEO of Go Nimbly and RevOps OG. Jen joins Co-Hosts Craig Rosenberg and Matt Amundson to break down what made Go Nimbly’s Rev Fest such an incredible event for everyone, from the GTM leaders attending to the speakers, and even the sponsor brands. Jen outlines why she picked a truly iconic venue for a business event, how she prepared the speakers to deliver insights entertainingly, and what B2B event sponsors should be doing instead of popping up another tired booth.Plus, Jen shares how business leaders should approach orchestrating workflows with new AI tools.Also, Craig plans his next tattoo, Matt earns a B-minus, and Producer Sam complains about ugly wood paneling. Critical TakeawaysThe secret to hosting an amazing B2B event is to stop copying tired event formats and instead build from your genuine passions. GTM leaders should audit their planned events and ask: "What would I genuinely love to attend?" If the honest answer doesn't match the event they're building, they should redesign it. Authenticity is the differentiator, and audiences can tell immediately when passion is faked.Treat your event like you’re putting on a show, not just another business conference. For example, Jen hired Doug Landis as a presentation coach, opened the venue a day early for speaker training, and had MCs introduce speakers so presenters could lead with their content immediately rather than wasting audience attention on bio slides. This "show vs. conference" framing forces event organizers to make logistical decisions to serve the audience experience rather than operational convenience.Rev Fest did not rely on “great speakers” and hope for the best. The 20-minute cap, speaker coaching, rehearsal time, MC intros, and topic curation all turned content into something attendees could actually stay locked into instead of politely enduring.To move your team from "random acts of AI" to orchestrated workflows, start by mapping out your current processes and identifying which steps are truly automatable versus which require judgment. Jen's framework is to define the end-to-end job-to-be-done first and then deploy AI as one component inside that designed workflow. When documenting your processes, clearly address who does what, where human judgment is needed, where full automation is possible. The companies that deployed technology last but got their strategy and process right first are consistently the most tech-forward (and successful) in practice. GTM leaders being pressured to "become AI-first" should resist the impulse to start with tools and instead start with their most important business outcomes, work backwards to the workflow changes required, and then identify where AI fits.Rather than vendor booths, Jen designed facilitated "table talks" where sponsors ran small-group discussions on topics the audience had already said they cared about. Critically, she required sponsors to bring senior operators (not AEs), trained them on facilitation techniques, and sent post-event notes with everyone's LinkedIn to all attendees.Chapters00:00 Episode Preview02:50 Introducing Jen Igartua, CEO of Go Nimbly06:50 What Made Go Nimbly’s RevFest One of the Best Go-To-Market Events11:53 A Dog-Leg about Ham Legs and Spanish Film Studies 20315:27 Thinking Bigger than a Business Conference To Create a Show19:54 Picking a Truly Unique Venue & Setting the Right Vibes for Your Event23:48 Actually Interesting Event Sponsor Table Talks System28:46 Forward Thinking Companies are Done with Random Acts Of AI32:07 Defining AI Orchestration & What Marketing Tasks to Automate First46:29 Business Processes First, AI Tool Implementation Second49:33 Rev Ops Workflows And EnrichmentJoin our Newsletter to never miss an episode & get bonus content: https://thetransaction.substack.com/Epic Quotes“The really great stuff doesn't scale. Stop trying to scale it.” - Jen Igartua“You’ve got to make the stuff you love. Like, why are you creating something that you are not into?” - Jen IgartuaConnect with JenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-igartua/ Go Nimbly Website: https://www.gonimbly.com/ ShoutoutsJamón Jamón (Dir. Bigas Luna, 1992)Javier Fesser: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0275250/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_0_nm_8_in_0_q_fes
- Jun 8, 202636 min
The AEO Playbook: Own the AI Shortlist - Live with Sydney Sloan at GTM Tailwinds - Ep 80
Sydney Sloan, the CMO of G2, joined Craig, Matt, and our amazing audience of GTM leaders at our GTM Tailwinds event this spring for a live recording where she outlined the major shift in B2B buyer behavior, how to measure and track Answer Engine Optimization, and why the partnership and distribution layer is as important as content creation.Critical TakeawaysOver half of B2B buyers (51%, up from 24% just one year ago) now start their research in an LLM rather than Google. GTM leaders must treat AI answer engines as the new top-of-funnel, not a novelty. Waiting another year means your competitors get a 12-month head start on owning these answers.Stop writing for search crawlers, instead write for the person you're trying to influence. The old HubSpot model of casting a wide content net (writing for non-marketers to drive traffic) is losing effectiveness. Instead, teams should map out the specific jobs-to-be-done for each buyer persona, the product leader, the CFO, the practitioner, and write questions and answers directly for that person. This persona-centric content approach is what gets surfaced and cited in LLM responses.LLMs favor content that mirrors the structure of a question, such as FAQs, pro/con lists, pricing comparisons, and definitional formats. G2 proactively added pricing data and pro/con lists to every product profile after seeing those formats show up in prompt patterns six months earlier. GTM teams should audit their top-performing SEO pages and rewrite AEO versions with this structure immediately.Publications like Forbes and VentureBeat are now formal citation sources for LLMs. G2 counter-pitched a negative MIT AI study and earned significant coverage, which then got indexed and cited. Teams should re-engage PR agencies (if they have newsworthy content) and consider low-cost options like Forbes Council ($1,600/year) to establish founder brand as authenticated content on authoritative domains.Chapters00:00 Episode Preview00:42 Introducing Sydney Sloan, the CMO of G201:25 Focus Wins at SalesLoft03:01 AEO vs GEO Explained04:00 New Buyer Research Behavior05:18 Build Brand in LLMs06:44 AI Citations of Reddit and G209:30 Zero to One AEO Setup10:10 Content Engineering Playbook11:58 G2 Adapts to Prompt Trends13:50 Measuring AEO Impact17:29 Consensus Signals and Sentiment19:37 Bots vs Humans Traffic20:14 Own Citation Sources21:07 Reddit and Influencers22:32 Freshness vs Old Content23:51 Pruning Content for LLMs25:01 PR Is Cool Again in B2B Marketing27:02 Should Founders Hire PR28:57 Partnerships and Frenemies33:07 AEO and SEO Together34:40 LinkedIn Virality Tips35:43 Wrap Up and OutroJoin our Newsletter to never miss an episode & get bonus content: https://thetransaction.substack.com/Epic Quotes“AI's changed everything. Including where your buyers go to do their research, discovery, and shortlisting.” - Sydney SloanConnect with Sydney SloanLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/ G2 Website: https://www.g2.com/ ShoutoutsGTMshift: https://gtmshift.com/ Love the show? Give us a shoutout on LinkedIn and tell us what you loved!
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About The Transaction
Welcome to The Transaction. Hosts Craig Rosenberg and Matt Amundson, two go-to-market leaders, talk weekly with the best sales, marketing, operations, and product leaders in the B2B SaaS world to understand what's working in the new playbook of the post-ZIRP market. Craig, Matt, and their guests share the stories and actionable tips, tactics, and strategies behind what's driving revenue growth that you can take and implement in your own go-to-market roles. Whether you're a Chief Revenue Officer leading a B2B SaaS sales and marketing organization, a marketing leader trying to drive bigger outcomes with your demand gen team, or a new sales rep, you'll learn and laugh every episode. From ABM to PLG, from MEDDIC to MEDDPICC, the world of business is constantly evolving. We’ll cover the who, what, where, when, why and most importantly how you get… The Transaction.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is Podzilla's The Transaction daily summary?
It's a free AI-powered email that summarizes new episodes of The Transaction as soon as they're published. You get the key takeaways, notable quotes, and links & mentions — all in a quick read.
How does the The Transaction podcast summary work?
When a new episode drops, our AI transcribes and analyzes it, then generates a personalized summary tailored to your interests and profession. It's delivered to your inbox every morning.
Is this an official The Transaction product?
No. Podzilla is an independent service that summarizes publicly available podcast content. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by Craig Rosenberg & Matt Amundson | B2B Sales & Marketing Experts - Hosts of The Transaction.
Can I get summaries of other podcasts too?
Absolutely! The free plan covers up to 3 podcasts, any in the catalog. Basic raises that to 15, Pro to 40 and Max to 100. Browse our full catalog at /podcasts.
How often does The Transaction release new episodes?
The Transaction publishes biweekly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does The Transaction cover?
The Transaction covers topics including Technology, Business. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
Start getting The Transaction summaries tomorrow morning.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.