This week: AI’s impact on GTM speed, why positioning isn’t about conversions, the messy reality of the B2B buyer journey, the rise of the $200k AI-powered SDR, and the shift from SEO to AEO.
AI Accelerates Building, But Not Trust
The speed of AI development is creating a strategic paradox for B2B leaders. While engineering teams can now build and iterate on products at an unprecedented rate, the human side of go-to-market isn’t getting any faster.
As Box CEO Aaron Levie highlights, the architecture for AI agents requires constant rethinking, with what worked six months ago already becoming obsolete. However, this acceleration in product development doesn’t translate to faster growth. Brian Balfour points out that core GTM functions still operate at human speed—B2B buyers still require multiple touchpoints, trust-building takes time, and enterprise budget cycles remain unchanged.
This disconnect means that as building gets easier, distribution gets harder. According to Ravi Mehta, "AI gets you to the hard part faster." For CMOs, the primary challenge is no longer just about having a competitive product; it’s about building a GTM motion that can effectively build trust and drive adoption in a market where product velocity has outpaced human decision-making.
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BIG IDEA: Your product team is in a rocket ship, but your buyers are still taking the scenic route.
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WHY IT MATTERS: The bottleneck for growth has shifted decisively from product development to GTM execution and trust-building.
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The New Rules of B2B Positioning: Quality Over Quantity
In a crowded market, many marketers chase conversions and total leads as their north-star metrics. But this is a flawed approach to positioning.
As Fletch Co-founder Robert Kaminski argues, effective positioning isn’t about maximizing conversions; it’s about attracting good-fit prospects and repelling bad-fit ones. Kaminski shares a compelling example: after sharpening its positioning, one startup saw monthly leads decrease from 72 to 50. While this might seem like a failure, the number of qualified leads increased by over 40%, ultimately generating more quality pipeline and closed deals.
This strategy requires courage, especially when leadership is fixated on top-of-funnel volume. Peep Laja, CEO of Wynter, suggests a practical way to de-risk this approach: test riskier messaging on landing pages first. Landing pages are less political than the homepage, providing a safe space to experiment before getting buy-in for broader changes.
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BIG IDEA: Great positioning is a filter, not a magnet; its job is to repel bad-fit customers as much as it attracts good-fit ones.
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WHY IT MATTERS: Focusing on qualified pipeline over raw lead volume improves efficiency across the entire GTM organization and leads to healthier, more sustainable revenue growth.
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The End of the Linear Buyer Journey
The classic B2B buyer journey that marketers have relied on for years is officially broken. Buyers are no longer following a predictable path from awareness to consideration to purchase.
As marketing strategist Deven Bhatti explains, instead of starting with a Google search, buyers are now in niche Slack communities, listening to specialized podcasts, and getting peer recommendations through direct messages. This shift is compounded by the rise of AI-generated content, which is flooding the web and eroding trust. According to a 2024 B2B buyer journey study, peers and independent research are the most trusted sources, while vendor-created content is viewed with skepticism.
In a recent webinar, Funnel Fuel’s Mike Hardy argued that this new reality demands a complete overhaul of marketing measurement. Vanity metrics like clicks and impressions are misleading because they don’t correlate with quality or intent. Instead, leaders must focus on "value metrics" that track actual account progression—like time spent on a pricing page or engagement with technical documentation.
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BIG IDEA: Your buyers are no longer following your funnel; they're on a self-guided tour, and your job is to provide helpful signs along their way.
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WHY IT MATTERS: To succeed in 2025, marketing and sales teams must abandon the linear funnel model and adopt strategies and measurement frameworks that reflect the messy, trust-based reality of how B2B buyers make decisions.
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The $200k AI-Powered SDR is Coming
The role of the Sales Development Representative is on the verge of a radical transformation. According to SaaStr founder Jason M. Lemkin, we’re heading toward a future with a "$200k SDR" role, but it will look nothing like the SDR of the past decade.
This new breed of SDR won’t be making hundreds of cold calls; instead, they will manage a team of 10 or more AI agents. Lemkin estimates these AI-powered SDRs will be responsible for $5 million or more in closed-won revenue and will need skills ranging from prompt engineering and data analysis to workflow automation and GTM strategy. While we won’t need many of these roles, the individuals who can fill them will be invaluable.
This evolution is part of a broader trend of AI revolutionizing B2B outbound sales. As AI takes over repetitive tasks like lead qualification and initial outreach, the human role shifts to oversight, strategy, and handling complex, high-value interactions. For marketing and sales leaders, this means it’s time to start rethinking team structure, hiring profiles, and the very definition of sales development.
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BIG IDEA: The future of sales development isn't about more reps; it's about fewer, more strategic reps managing teams of AI agents.
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WHY IT MATTERS: Companies must start planning for a new kind of SDR role that requires technical acumen and strategic oversight, fundamentally changing how pipeline is generated and managed.
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SEO is Dead, Long Live AEO
The game of search is undergoing its most significant transformation in a decade, and the old rules no longer apply. The challenge in 2025 isn’t just about ranking on Google; it’s about appearing in AI Overviews, LLM responses, and other sources of influence.
As SparkToro cofounder Rand Fishkin notes, this requires a shift from technical keyword optimization to a more creative, brand-focused approach. The goal is no longer just to rank, but to be cited. This shift is driven by the rise of "zero-click" searches, where AI engines provide direct answers, often preventing users from ever clicking through to a website. According to a HubSpot analysis, this trend is forcing brands to adopt AI Engine Optimization (AEO)—creating content designed to be easily understood and referenced by AI models.
Data from a 2025 ChatGPT citation study reveals that AI models heavily favor branded content, referencing competitor websites and a company’s own site far more than Google does. This means that building a strong brand and creating authoritative content on your owned properties is more critical than ever. The future of discoverability lies not in chasing fleeting algorithm changes, but in becoming the trusted authority that both humans and AI turn to for answers.
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BIG IDEA: The new goal of SEO is not just to rank, but to be the source that AI models cite.
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WHY IT MATTERS: As AI becomes the primary interface for information discovery, marketing leaders must shift their content strategy from keyword optimization to building brand authority that AI will recognize and reference.
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Sound Bites
- 🎙️ Finding Growth in B2B Fintech: In this episode of In the Grill, Ned Phillips argues that no wealth tech has product-led growth. He contends that all B2B enterprise solutions are sales-led and that founders must solve the discovery problem before they can solve the sales problem.
- 🎥 Building a One-Person Business with AI: This video from Grace Leung provides a playbook for building a profitable solo business by leveraging AI for strategy, growth, and operations. It covers everything from niche selection and ICP research to crafting an offer and automating daily workflows.
- 🎙️ The Ultimate Reddit Marketing Strategy: Sam Dunning and Olena Bomko break down how B2B and SaaS companies can leverage Reddit for research, reputation management, and lead generation. They emphasize the importance of understanding subreddit rules and providing value over self-promotion.
Thanks for reading. The common thread this week is the widening gap between the speed of technology and the pace of human trust. AI is accelerating what’s possible, but it’s also making the foundational elements of marketing—clarity, positioning, and genuine connection—more critical than ever.
What’s one "human speed" marketing activity you’re doubling down on to cut through the AI noise?
