Inside The Pipeline: B2B Sales and GTM
00:20:06 · Tris Tusa, Nick Casale
[00:20:06] S0: We did it. Yeah. [00:20:07] S1: But you don't... You have no depth perception to one. Right? You don't know if it's, like, one call away, one feature away, or if it's forever away, and this isn't... And it's never gonna get there. Right? I think I have... So one, I think I I... It crystallized for me, like, give me something that's working even a little, and I wanna figure that out for sure for you. Like, I love that process. And working with founders that are way smarter than I am to, like, take something and help them really scale it massively, I learned that I loved that, and I built so much founder empathy too through it, which I think has been invaluable in this process. Because I definitely now thinking back didn't quite have that. Like, at Sendoso, was like, oh, like, founding AE. And it's like, you can call founding AE if you want, but, like, you're you're you're either a founder or you're Yeah. Yeah. Or you're just the first AE, my man. Yeah. There's a big difference because, like, you didn't go through that, know, the pit. Yeah. [00:21:04] S0: And then AirOps. I think it was late twenty twenty four when you joined? [00:21:10] S1: Two years ago. Yeah. [00:21:12] S0: Talk to us a bit about that because, like, in terms of the the SEO, GEO Mhmm. Well, the GEO, AEO space Yeah. Like, that was a pretty early move. I mean, you mentioned before where you guys were at in terms of revenue. What stage was the business at?
00:21:12 · Tris Tusa, Nick Casale
[00:21:12] S0: Talk to us a bit about that because, like, in terms of the the SEO, GEO Mhmm. Well, the GEO, AEO space Yeah. Like, that was a pretty early move. I mean, you mentioned before where you guys were at in terms of revenue. What stage was the business at? [00:21:27] S1: It was it was a series a business. There were two AEs here, but it was still... It was probably, I'm I'm gonna say eighty twenty SEO to AEO, and and even that's probably generous. It was probably ninety ten. [00:21:41] S0: Sorry. 90 SEO. Yeah. Okay. [00:21:44] S1: Yeah. Like, we were not Wow. I mean, not until well into the following year where people like... It it shifted. It went it went really quickly over the course of a year from SEO and people had curiosity around it. Like, it was it was not at the time immediately obvious that ChatGPT... In fact, I still remember there's a LinkedIn post I got ridiculed for. [00:22:05] S0: What was it? [00:22:06] S1: It was a shitty, shitty graphic of the ChatGPT traffic ticking up and Google traffic tipping down. And to be fair, it was a horrible, horrible visual that was like if trend... It was like, you know, sort of the trend line extended. [00:22:22] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:22:23] S1: Yeah. And it was like, oh, [00:22:24] S0: It's guys' era.
00:22:24 · Tris Tusa, Nick Casale
[00:22:24] S0: It's guys' era. [00:22:25] S1: It was like, ChatGPT could surpass Google by like... And it was like twenty thirty six. Wow. It was some like crazy faraway number and people still were like, that's not how this works. Like, that's total bullshit. But I'll find it. It's still... To be fair, it's still a dumb photo. But the premise... Like, even the premise is really cool, which is like, this can be as gig... As big as Google. I think in hindsight, the mistake... Like, Google's not going anywhere and I think that's the confusion. Think like in many ways, I don't think search is gonna be... I don't I don't think this next phase of search will be a monopoly. I think that to me is very clear. Search is gonna happen. If anything, think in the past couple we've realized that it's gonna play out on more surfaces than we imagined even. Like, instinct is gonna matter. Muse is gonna matter. Like, there's just... There's this proliferation of channels now from a search standpoint. And I think the good news is most of the core, like, you know, good behavior will be repaid across all of them to some degree, if that makes sense. [00:23:23] S0: It does. And ChatGPT now has almost like, what, 1,500,000,000 users or something. [00:23:29] S1: ChatGPT has reached in two years the... I forget the exact figure. The amount of users that it took Google, like fourteen years [00:23:38] S0: to reach Insane. [00:23:39] S1: In the daily active users. So what it, like, 1,400,000,000, you said? Yeah. I think
00:23:39 · Nick Casale, Tris Tusa
[00:23:39] S1: In the daily active users. So what it, like, 1,400,000,000, you said? Yeah. I think [00:23:42] S0: I think overall, I think it's maybe around a billion, like, actually. [00:23:45] S1: Yeah. I was gonna say, don't call [00:23:46] S0: me a bit too billion. No. [00:23:47] S1: No. And ChatGPT ads is already a billion dollar run rate business. [00:23:50] S0: Insane. Insane. If you could give the listeners, like, two... One one piece of advice when they're thinking about how to optimize their company for search in AI LLMs, what would that one piece of advice be? [00:24:05] S1: I think... I mean, perhaps cliche. I I gave I gave... We had this convo. Get off here. Yeah. Can I repeat it? [00:24:12] S0: Go for it. [00:24:13] S1: My advice is don't half ass it. Like, either do it and really invest and go for it. 80% of the investment will compound out to other to other things, and I'll and I'll give an example in a minute. But I think spending... I think trying to shortcut it as sort of like a growth lever is gonna get you nowhere. That's just what I've seen time and time again. It's just because it's many different problems that end up converging into this sort of how do I show up in search surfaces. Right? [00:24:46] S0: Yeah.
00:24:46 · Tris Tusa, Nick Casale
[00:24:46] S0: Yeah. [00:24:47] S1: We use ChatGPT as the example, so I don't have to keep saying search services because it sounds stupid. But if you're going... If you're gonna go and create great valuable content on your website, there's so many more reasons to do that than to show up in AI search. Right? Like, there's such a there's... That will benefit brand. Right? It can help with, you know, customer acquisition. It can help you tell the story that you want to tell to the market. People will share it. Like, it has an inherent benefit beyond just like it helps us show up. And and conversely, bad content was not only gonna hurt you on on your search, but it's just it's just not... It's not what you want on your website. [00:25:25] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:25:27] S1: And so I see companies make that mistake often and then, like, the, you know, the obvious, like, companies will try to just slop canon content on their site. That already doesn't work, and it's gonna keep not working. So I think that's my advice is, like, I would... I think don't half ass it if you're gonna do it. But I... I'm also, like, it it is hard to do correctly, and I think I think not doing it is better than half assing it is my advice, honestly.
00:25:27 · Nick Casale, Tris Tusa
[00:25:27] S1: And so I see companies make that mistake often and then, like, the, you know, the obvious, like, companies will try to just slop canon content on their site. That already doesn't work, and it's gonna keep not working. So I think that's my advice is, like, I would... I think don't half ass it if you're gonna do it. But I... I'm also, like, it it is hard to do correctly, and I think I think not doing it is better than half assing it is my advice, honestly. [00:25:52] S0: That's so interesting. VP of sales at AirOps coming on to say, don't don't do it. Obviously, given the context, I know what you're saying. And let's talk a bit about, like, your team here. Mhmm. What do you look for when you're hiring an SDR? What do you look for when you're hiring an AE? How do you know if you've got someone who's good? [00:26:11] S1: My cliche answer is... Which which I tell candidates when they ask is always attitude and aptitude. I can sort of bucket everything I'm looking for into one of those two categories. And then I'm looking for... STR is is an interesting one because there's less for them to... There's often less to go off Yeah. If it's a first job. Right? And I'm I'm a big fan of hiring SDRs out of college because I was hired out of college, and I was... Like, I loved that job. Yeah. I loved being an SDR at Talkdesk. And then I was, like, I was so excited to become an AE. And I wanted to be an AE so badly. I would, like, sit on the calls and, like, take notes for the AEs. [00:26:50] S0: Really?