From Marketing Automation to AI: Andre Yee's Vision for the Future

By Dan Sanchez · Episode published April 19, 2024

I recently had a fascinating conversation with Andre Yee, founder of Tiga AI and former CEO of Triblio, about where AI is heading in the marketing and sales space. Having built and sold multiple successful marketing technology companies, Andre has a unique…

What stood out most was his insight on something many marketers are overlooking in the AI conversation: the power of custom buyer interest signals.

The Conflation of Demand Creation and Demand Capture

One of Andre’s most compelling observations is how marketers have conflated demand creation and demand capture for the past 15 years. He explains:

“I think what’s becoming more apparent now is that you actually have to think differently about each of those. What I see in the market is that the idea of this really long nurture is over. People don’t need to be nurtured for a long time because when they’re ready to buy, they look up whatever they need and they just get on with it.”

This distinction is crucial for understanding where AI can provide the most value:

Demand creation encompasses building your brand, creating content like podcasts, and helping people understand your proposition
Demand capture focuses on finding people already in market, reaching them effectively, and doing so as efficiently as possible

The challenge is that most companies invest heavily in demand capture (up to 80% of marketing resources by some estimates) while underinvesting in demand creation – largely because the latter is harder to measure and attribute.

The Problem with Generic Buyer Intent Signals

When it comes to demand capture, most companies rely on what the industry calls “intent data” – signals that supposedly indicate a prospect is ready to buy. But Andre points out a fundamental problem with this approach:

“There’s been so much hype around intent data in the last few years, but I’ve noticed people are getting disillusioned. It’s overpromised and under-delivered.”

The issue? Most intent signals are too generic to be truly valuable. Consider this example Andre shared:

“A very common signal is when a company receives funding. They then get reached out to by every single company trying to sell them something. That’s a legitimate signal, but it’s not particular to your business.

Now let’s say you’re a managed security services company. A more meaningful signal might be that one of your prospects is hiring security professionals. That’s a good signal because they clearly have a need, and they might choose to outsource security management to your firm instead of hiring.”

The most valuable buyer signals are custom signals – ones specific to your business and your buyers’ unique behaviors. And until now, finding these signals has been entirely manual, with salespeople and marketers combing through websites, social profiles, and news sources.

How AI Is Changing the Signal Discovery Process

This is where Andre sees the most transformative potential for AI in marketing. Rather than just automating content creation (which everyone’s focusing on), he’s built Tiga AI to autonomously discover custom buyer interest signals and execute outbound motions based on those signals.

Some examples of these custom signals include:

Champion movement: When your sponsor or power user moves from a current client to a new company
Project announcements: If you sell project management tools, new project announcements from target accounts
Expansion signals: For retailers, new store openings that indicate growth
Technical investments: Implementation of complementary technologies that pair with your solution

The breakthrough is using AI to find these signals in unstructured content – not just structured data points from platforms like ZoomInfo or Crunchbase. This allows for real-time signal identification from announcements, social posts, and even long-form content like SEC filings, analyst reports, and podcast interviews.

The Enterprise AI Adoption Challenge

Despite the potential, Andre acknowledges that AI adoption among marketers remains low. “Most marketers are only just now signing up for ChatGPT Plus,” he noted. The reason? Many lack the technical background or time to become prompt engineers.

“I think you have this rare blend of technical ability and marketing know-how,” Andre told me. “Most mainstream marketers cannot be prompt engineers to get the best out of AI.”

This is driving the next wave of AI tools – purpose-built applications for specific roles rather than general-purpose AI like ChatGPT. Andre likens ChatGPT to “the Excel of generative AI” – incredibly powerful but not optimized for any specific workflow.

“Eventually, there will be purpose-built AIs that don’t require you to be a prompt engineer. They’ll be built for a day in the life of your workflow,” he explained.

What This Means for Your Career

Andre’s perspective on the future job landscape is both optimistic and sobering:

“I think of it as a pyramid. AI just pushes automation up the pyramid a lot more aggressively. The unique part that humans fill starts to become the very apex of the pyramid and getting smaller all the time.”

However, he sees tremendous opportunity for those who adapt:

“In the future, a 10-person company will operate like a 50-100 person company today. This opens the door for entrepreneurship in a massive way. One of the biggest hurdles to being an entrepreneur is raising capital. If you can truly run with a much smaller footprint of full-time employees, more people can pursue their dreams.”

When I asked about Sam Altman’s prediction that 95% of marketing jobs could be eliminated, Andre was measured: “I don’t know if he’s right, but even if he’s half right, that’s a lot of people. I think it causes an issue that we have to deal with as a society.”

Where to Focus Your AI Learning

Based on my conversation with Andre and my own experiences with AI, here’s where I recommend focusing your attention:

Start with what you know: Look for repetitive tasks in your daily workflow that follow clear patterns – these are prime candidates for AI automation
Build your signal intelligence: Identify the custom buyer signals that matter most for your business
Think strategically about demand creation: As demand capture becomes increasingly automated, your ability to create demand through brand building becomes more valuable
Embrace AI as an assistant: Rather than viewing AI as a replacement, see it as an assistant that handles lower-value work while you focus on strategy

The marketers who will thrive in this new landscape won’t be those who bury their heads in the sand or who blindly automate everything. They’ll be the ones who understand what signals truly matter to their business and use AI to discover and act on those signals at scale.

If you’re interested in learning more about implementing AI marketing strategies in your business, I’d love to hear about your experiences with custom buyer signals and how you’re using AI to identify them.

[Music]

welcome back to the aid driven marketer

where we're helping marketers Master AI

to do more do better and overcome the

overwhelm that is AI right now um today

I'm talking to Andre ye the founder of

TGA Ai and formerly the CEO of triblio

and was an executive ated eloqua Andre

has been dealing a lot with AI and we

had a fascinating conversation before

this call where we were discovering it

like I was just sharing some things that

I've been learning about Ai and he's

like oh yeah we were dealing with that

back in August or back in September and

with his marketing automation background

I'm excited to explore what he thinks

the future of aiso Andre welcome to the

show hey Dan thanks so much for having

me I look forward to the conversation

should be fun to kind of kick it off and

to introduce you to the audience tell me

a little bit more about your background

with the loqua and then Trio I've been

in sales and marketing tech for about

roughly about 17 years uh it started

with my time at eloqua uh I was not a

Founder but I was reasonably early in

into the company we grew the company and

uh had a it was it was really successful

company a great team and we ended up um

you know growing really fast uh did an

IPO uh and then we were um acquired by

Oracle for just under a billion dollar

great exit um and then a lot of my um

fellow Executives they were trying to

find the next eloqua I had the uh

audacity I guess you you would call it

to try to build the next eloqua I set

off to uh start a company called

Trio um and uh it it it's an

account-based marketing platform and we

had a great run and actually reasonably

successful we exited to a company called

idg international data group uh in June

of 2020 and then I stayed with idg for

about two and a half years and uh around

this the beginning of last year I left

to start uh TGA tigga AI what were some

of the big big breakthroughs you saw in

between those two that were like big

milestones for you and those

companies uh you mean between eloqua and

and uh Tri yeah yeah so I think you know

the the biggest thing during the time

you know when I was at ELO I think the

idea of marking automation was still new

uh everyone was still trying to figure

out you know how to um actually uh do a

nurture campaign how to do lead scoring

I mean we're we're talking you know

things that are very basic and and

common place now were were new right I

think the difference when I started at

when I started um Trio was you know the

the idea of marketing automation was was

set having a sort of system of record

for your uh leads that was that was you

know in contact that was clear but you

know

maybe what was still missing was this

idea of how do you um Target an account

how do you actually uh reach the buyers

in those accounts

specifically right I remember those the

days of early early days of marketing

automation I even started in B Toc and I

was using mail chimps marketing

automation back in the day May was like

2010 and they had they could you could

do drip sequences and there but they had

some Integrations that allowed me to

like do sequences that were based on

people's ZIP code interestingly and time

it based on that to events we were doing

and then B kick off automated text

messaging and it was a crazy system and

it was like way kind of ahead of its

time before it was like easy to do that

stuff now it's like easy to set up text

messaging and base it off zip codes if

they're in a pro proximity of events but

man it was hard to rig those things back

then and it it did take a long time for

the mark the market to catch up because

people were thinking drip sequences

honestly I find that at least half the

companies I ever work with on marketing

automation stuff they still think of

marketing automation as just email drip

sequences yeah that's about it I'm like

we could do more than that you know we

can automate like way more like yeah put

people down campaigns with these more

complex if thens and there's also

segments a lot more data out there today

and you know arguably the challenge

today is how do you make sense of that

data and and actually reach the bu so

the ABM front's hard is a hard one

though I I always handled it a little

bit more B Toc where it's like based on

a contact record you start talking about

account records and it's it's hard to

think about like how you automate it for

the account level right like that's I

mean that's why the ABM software was so

important because you could at least

like Auto advertise the people at an

account level based on what maybe one or

two people had been doing within a

campaign and what they were downloading

and all of a sudden you could activate

ads across the account or whole IP

address or something like that so

remember those were exciting times too

yeah I think the big idea in ABM is is

really this that um in B2B um it's not a

single buyer it's a buying group and the

question is how do you U Market to the

buying group how do you personalize

messaging to each member of the buying

group and and I think that's the big

idea that if if you want to think of the

shift between marketing automation with

Alo maretto and then the ABM players

that's I think that's the primary sort

of um difference what are some of the

lessons you learned from those two

companies that you're bringing with you

to TGA yeah I think um that's really

interesting I I would say this I think

the the if you look at what's happened

in the market right I I I always think

at at eloqua it was and and

even certainly at alqua the idea of

demand creation and demand capture was

sort of conflated so I think that's been

happening for the last 15 years like as

marketers um you know marketing

Community often conflates demand

creation and demand capture and I think

what's becoming more apparent now is

that you actually have to think

differently about each of those because

what I see in the market is that the

idea of this really long

nurture is is is over right people don't

need to be nurtured for a long time

because when they're ready to buy they

look up whatever they need and they just

get on with it so I think the when when

I say there's this conflation of demand

creation demand capture what I mean is

that I think demand creation is all the

stuff you're doing with the podcast and

content and that kind of thing building

your brand so I think there's a return

in marketing to focus on pure demand

creation how do we go about really

creating demand getting our brand out

there helping people understand who we

are and and and our proposition and then

the demand captures part is how do you

find the people that are in market for

what you want as efficiently as possible

reach them as effectively as possible

and then do it you know as as cheaply as

possible right so I think there's this

there's this clear definition I think

we're entering in an age where there's

clear definition between uh demand

creation demand capture I find companies

love demand capture but I it's it's a

struggle to find companies that want to

invest in true demand creation because

it's just harder to measure like how do

you know you're influencing people how

do you know you're creating demand

because on what you can find in the the

best way I know how is like are you

putting out content are your ideal

buyers showing up in the comment every

once in a while and asking interesting

questions based on ideas that aren't

directly related to your product maybe

because you're teaching them how to

think about a problem more than just

tell them about Your solution it's like

it's it's more of a broader approach or

framework or method or something like

that yeah of course if you're reaching

more and you're getting more

conversation going it's it's safe to

assume you're generating more command

but more de demand but it's not always

easy to measure exactly how much yeah I

I think that's true and and I think your

your spot on when you say it's hard to

get companies to sort of pay attention

and invest in it I just listen to

something by uh Chris Walker uh refined

labs and he was saying how he you know

80% of the spend as especially when you

think of headcount spend as well as

program spend together 80% of the spend

is all about demand capture right so I I

think there's there's more money there

um that's not to say demand creation is

not important but there's a lot of

attention being paid to how do you find

people that that are in Market or have

the potential show the potential for

being currently in market and then um

and then actually um you know uh

reaching them effectively and that's

actually part of what um really a big

part of what we do with TGA AI so we're

using Jour AI to autonomously discover

those signals of buyer interest and then

uh execute an outbound motion okay so

let's let's transition to talking about

TGA like tell me exactly what you're

doing what the play is there how it's

working yeah you know as I was saying I

I think the the opportunity as I saw it

and the reason I'm in this you know we

we chose to f focus on this is that I

think there's a big big challenge in

demand capture of sort of

finding true buyer interest signals

right I I I sometimes hesitate to call

it buyer intent because I think we over

index on that phrase like y I think it's

really buyer interest right and and what

I noticed was a lot of the most

meaningful buyer interest signals are um

are signals that accustomed to your

business not necessarily unique to your

business but they accustomed to your

business here's what I mean by that uh

here's a signal that everyone you know a

very commonplace signal right like for

instance company receives funding they

then get reached out to by every single

company that's that's trying to sell

them something that's a signal it's a

legitimate signal it's a very common

signal it's not one that that's

particular to your business now let's

say you're a managed Security Services

Company right a more meaningful signal

is not that one of your prospects

receive funding a more meaningful signal

might be they're hiring for Security

Professionals and that's a good signal

because you know they they they have a

need and you want to hit them up because

they might actually choose to not

actually hire them but actually use your

outs actually Outsource the uh security

uh management to to your firm right so

that's that's a custom buying signal

that's particular to your business if

you're a managed Service uh security

service provider that what I've

discovered is that most of

the really meaningful buyer interest

signals are Uh custom and uh they are

manually derived meaning

today uh until this point I think humans

go and peruse the web they research

documents they look for these signals

they look for who's hiring and then they

um execute an outbound motion to those

companies right so part of what we're

doing is we're using generative AI to

help discover those signals and to Auto

sort autonomously execute the outbound

motion yeah what are some of the other

signals common signals so hiring signals

I I've seen that before like I'm like

even on crunch base you can filter based

on key hires as a to find companies who

have hired a CMO or CTO or something

like that recently what are some other

signals you're looking at well to to

that point if I can just I jump in with

more signals if I can just make a point

one of the interesting things about like

as you said you see on crunch base you

can do that um I think one of the great

powers of generative AI is the ability

to uh decipher and derive signals from

unstructured content right when you're

looking at crunch base or Zoom info and

they say hey here's a new executive

higher that's a structured data element

what you can do with generative Ai and

and what TGA can do is we can identify

signals um through unstructured data

just through content and what that means

is you can get a signal in a more timely

way it's it's real time based on an

announcement and you can also Now find

all kinds of signals now so to your

point what are the signals um would be

custom signals or interesting signals um

certainly when one that people have

started to do more

of is when your Champion or a power user

user or sponsor moves from the current

company um you know to to a to a new

company right so if you have an existing

client and they have users moving to a

new company um that's always that's an

extremely strong signal assuming that

you've served them well um and then um

yeah a few others based on announcements

of uh What uh you you know if you're a

uh selling say a project management tool

um you might want to to um reach out to

someone when they have a new product uh

announcement or project uh announcement

one in particular I was talking to a

prospect and he said you know we sell

crms to small retailers and he said I

like to know when small retailers uh

announce new store openings well you

can't you can't buy that data anyway you

literally have to go and read an look

for and read announcements and derive

that right so that's what I mean when I

say some of the most meaningful signals

for your business are really signals

that are custom they're particular to

your business right and I think that

that's a real opportunity that I think

we haven't explored as as a market so

that's what T does is essentially like

scraping the Net Daily for the signals

that you that are important for your

business let's let's use your last

example is that what it would be it

could be trained to look for that well

the net is a big place so it doesn't

scrape the entire net randomly right

what it does is you know you you

instruct it uh specific uh the kind of

signals you want you give the um you

define a Target account list you know it

can the target account list can be in

the thousands it can be in hundreds it

can be thousands and it looks for

signals within that pool interesting so

it's it finds their website their blog

their social feeds and it's just paying

attention to those so that you don't

have to be manually checking them

because that's what you would have had

to do yeah exactly you would have had to

pull up all your if you're sales rep you

would have had to pull up all your

accounts every day on LinkedIn sales

Navigator and I mean that's probably the

best way to do it now is sales Navigator

and just creating a custom feed of your

account to see what the heck your

accounts are talking about but that's

dirty it was messy yeah exactly not bad

for social selling but as far as looking

for

intent yeah that that's exactly it yeah

that's a big challenge that you know I I

use Navigator I love na sales Navigator

but it's not necessarily focused on that

it it's you know and so yeah that's what

we do and we do it autonomously meaning

you you tell it the kind of signals

it'll keep looking so you don't have to

worry it's almost like that's why I say

it's an AI assistant to help you with

this idea of signal-based prospecting

because it will autonomously do that

once you've instructed to do that you

don't have to check back if something

happens it'll let you know te will let

you know and and prepare a response or

prepare an outbound motion for you so

it's kind of interesting so you take

every you're you're pulling

you have to make some kind of web

scraper that automatically creates your

own internal feed for your teas database

and then every time it updates you have

to run it through Ai and to be like hey

check this update does this fit one of

the criteria we're looking for yes or no

and then if it's a yes it Flags it sends

it to a human you're you're saying how

do we work yeah yeah so we yeah we we

basically uh will uh you know

intelligently mine information across

and I don't use the word scrape only

because it's I the the thing we do is we

we look on the web we look on social

channels but we also look on long form

content right so it's not exactly

scripting we can go into a PDF um like

an SEC document um we can go into

analyst research do uh you know

Financial analy uh documents um so long

as they're public and accessible really

we can go anywhere and look at long form

documents of any type we we it's coming

not yet but you can even um actually um

you know go do deep research on podcast

conversations so for instance if you

know an executive is on a podcast you

might want to just m it for some

keywords or or interesting um uh you

know comments on on something that's

relevant to to what you're selling yeah

that's

huge I've certainly done that for key

accounts before trying to usually just

try to bring in into something like cast

magic and Pull It in there to see if I

can unearth anything

interesting I think people don't do it

enough because it's hard to I mean

podcast content it's a lot of content to

M through so that's that's really

helpful because they're out there

talking all the time saying all kinds of

stuff and that's honestly where a lot of

the real content comes from because they

get more vulnerable in podcasts and

interviews and stuff that's on YouTube

too yeah um versus the the Twitter press

release exactly exactly I I I think

there's a lot of potential there yeah

for sure what are you looking forward to

coming so your your product is it in is

it in beta or is it out and currently

usable it's out it's it's in what we

call Commercial beta right and um yeah

we have about a dozen clients uh looking

for more we're we're selective but we uh

want to work with people who um want to

work with us right and I know that

sounds sort of obvious but what I mean

by that is we do the with when it comes

to Ai and sales there are a lot of Tire

kickers and right now we we're not in a

position to sort of like entertain Tire

kickers so we do want to work with

people that want to commit at least some

amount of time to it and um and work

with us um but we're we're excited

because I think fundamentally you know I

think generative AI is a game Cher for

sales you know a lot of people talk

about uh chat GPT being the iPhone

moment for AI um that's true you know it

came sort of came into mainstream

everyone's sort of like wow I can't

believe that you know you and AI can do

this but I think of genf AI uh more

generally as sort of this um impact

event for sales teams and I think the

dust is still settling on how sales

teams will use um AI to um effectively

but I think what you're going to find

and it'll take it'll take In fairness

I'd like to say the dust will settle

quickly but it'll probably take three

plus years for the dust to settle uh on

how to leverage AI effectively I think

there'll be a lot of players we want to

be one of those but when the dust

settles I'm telling you Dan I think

there are only going to be two types of

organizations they're going to be those

that invested time and actually like

figured it out and they they won't just

be 30% better they'll be 3x better you

know and then they'll be those that

don't and they'll be lagging behind and

some of them will may go extinct right I

think that's that's why me and I say

it's a defining impact event for for

sales teams it will take time for the

dust to settle but to me it's almost

inevitable

yeah that's happened to me in December

when I was like okay like the writing is

so clear on the wall to me that this is

going to take over everything yeah that

I have to do everything I can to learn

everything I I possibly can about this

right now and now that I've put in some

reps I'm like this isn't that hard to

learn it's way easier to learn how to

optimize AI than it is to code and I've

learned how I know how to do I know how

to program websites at least or at least

HTML CSS and I familiar Which object

oriented code but still

like AI you almost have to approach it

the same way with that engineering

mindset I posted about it this morning

on LinkedIn I'm like you guys you all

you're all saying prompt engineering but

there's a big difference between

prompting and prompt engineering the

difference between them is like you

almost have to look at it like a like a

software engineer looks at it what are

the inputs and what do we want the

outputs to be and what are how do we

engineer the process in order to get a

certain type of input to give us clear

and consistent outputs which that

process is much different than just

throwing a few prompts at AI yeah but

this is the skill set that's emerging

for those who know have been playing

with it is learning how to

really engineer it to really essentially

automate more complex tasks that weren't

possible before yeah and I think Dan

you're uh probably uh two clicks ahead

of most of the marketing you know uh

sort of like mainstream and beyond that

I think you are two or three clicks

easily ahead in terms of technical

ability right and so I I think you have

this rare uh blend of technical ability

and marketing know how I think that most

to bring most marketers into this world

of generative AI for sales they cannot

be prompt Engineers right they they they

cannot be to get the best out of it um

and and so you're you're you're an

exception in a lot of ways like the

mainstream you think you don't think

most people can learn it or just most

people maybe just don't have the hunger

to want to learn

it yeah if you're asking do they have

the aptitude to learn it it's different

from whether or not desire right well

the desire and also you know people are

busy right like you know they they're

they're busy they're under pressure they

do do you know they've got targets to

hit it's not Mo it's not foremost in

their their minds right I mean that's

that's the conviction that you asked

like what led us to T that was part of

the conviction we think that we think of

chat GPT very powerful by the way huge

respect for what chat GPT is but uh we

think of it as sort of I I think I've

said this before even in our last call I

I've talked about it in terms of like

it's the Excel of generative AI you can

do anything with it right you can do a

ton of different things but if you think

about Excel like and I I think it's a

really good uh analogy because if you

think of excel eventually analogy

eventually right like when when Excel

first came out people used it to manage

their home budget they used it for

financial planning in their companies

they used it to plan their

vacation right but guess what uh

eventually there was a new crop of

purpose-built

applications for you to manage your home

finances which is a different

application from what you use to run

your business from what you know so I

think that's going to happen um and and

when I say not everyone's going to be a

prompt engineer what I mean by that is I

don't think that's the only quote

unquote barrier I think um it's not just

about prompt engineering we don't we

think that there there will be a second

crop and and an emerging crop of um

purpose-built AIS we we like to think

we're one of them uh that that's getting

it right and in this next crop it'll you

don't have to be a prompt engineer but

the other thing is it will be

purpose-built for your for sort of a day

in the life of your workflow right what

do you do in your particular role so

that's why I mean when I say chat GPD is

kind of like the Excel of generative AI

you can use it for anything right and

which is very very powerful but but not

optimized for your role so so challenge

me on this the reason why I think people

need to learn how to essentially do this

prompt engineering is because Sam Altman

predicts that like 95% of marketers were

replaced by AI in some some time period

I don't know when but it it a big number

I mean there's 400,000 marketers in the

us alone so you're talking about like a

mass like this is a huge employer of

people we're gonna lose a ton of jobs

I'm like okay maybe he's wrong maybe

it's only 60% lose their jobs and

there'll be new jobs created let's say

it's

20% we're still going to lose

40% and the new jobs are created will be

the people who know how to engineer

because they're going to be Frontline

all the Frontline people are going to be

managing their AI teams all these agents

but that's managing it's going to look a

lot like prompt engineering that's why

I'm like the writing to me on the wall

is like well it's kind of like that

wonderful movie hidden figures where all

these computer computers you know before

they were machines were people doing the

math for the NASA launch uh bunch of

African-American women if you haven't

seen the movie it's it's wonderful and

then they in this IBM machine and the

head like the supervisor of the

computers is like what is this well I

guess I'm going to have to learn how to

run the machine and she teaches all the

computers how to run the machine so when

they finally learn how to turn the

machine on well her and her team are the

ones who know how to use it so it's kind

of like that next thing I'm like well AI

is the next thing we got to learn it

otherwise we're gonna be replaced by it

I I think that's a very fair uh

statement I think though when you look

at how that'll play out I think it'll

probably mean it it the greatest effect

is is in the area of um um sort of

marketing Ops so so I think if you're in

marketing Ops you need to know this

stuff because then there's going to be a

set of tools and and you're in the

opsite if you're a

salesperson you know you're probably not

going to be doing prompt engineering

you're probably going to have an AI

light tiger that is set up to do stuff

for you right that's the whole idea of

having an assistant it's already been

prein instructed and it knows but the

there there will be a team of Ops folks

or or a Ops person behind tigga that

setting it up for the entire

organization right and so um and and you

know depending on the different roles

some people think sdrs are vulnerable

you know as as a role I I think that

there's a lot of SDR work that can be

automated um so it's not I don't think

about the I don't think of it as the

demise of SDR I think of it as elevating

the role of the SDR uh to to a more

meaningful role and and it may turn out

that we will need fewer of them but the

ones that are are going to be better and

more effective and and simply it'll

simply be a better sort of um role

better job for the ones the folks that

want to pursue being

anr my one hope against s Sam alman's

prediction that 95% of marketers are

going to lose their job is that

marketing and sales to to a large degree

too are black holes like you can always

invest more staff more and throw more

time and effort and talent into

marketing and they'll you'll never

you'll never fill

it I had my boss tell me that one day

because I was the marketing guy asking

for more budget he's like look I could

give the whole company budget to

marketing and you guys would spend

it yeah because it's a black hole you'll

never fill it so I'm like if that's true

then maybe we all keep our job and uh it

just changes dramatically over the next

year but who knows it it's kind of

interesting right because Sam Alman

saying that I I think it's interesting

because there is a difference

between you know like I have a product

engineering background so I would say if

that's true of marketing it's probably

also doubly true of uh software

developers but I think actually in sales

and marketing there's one dimension that

makes it not as easy to to replace I'm

not saying there won't be um need for

fewer but it's not easy to replace and

part of it is

that on the other side you're trying to

reach humans and and you know it's

really difficult to understand what a

human will respond to because it's not

just one thing it changes over time

right um you know it it it changes over

time and so

we you know I think um it's it's not

maybe quite as easy as Sam Alman is is

making it out to be but maybe I'm even

just some of the stuff I'm working on

like replaced a lot of people already

like even three years ago I was working

for sweet fish a podcast agency and we

were just doing we looking at the

innovators dilemma because like sweet

fish was the B2B podcast agency ever and

we're like well who's going to put us

out of business and we looked at the

competition we looked at a number of

different factors and we realized I'm

like oh you know who's going to put us

out of business is going to be SAS SAS

is going to put us out of business

because we're taking the time to edit

the episode and turn it into all the

different kinds of written content other

mixed media and I'm like eventually it's

it's not going to be another service

provider that's going to replace this

provided we don't screw up somewhere

royally yeah it's going we're going to

be undercut by Tech and that's exactly I

mean sweet fish has had to go up Market

which is again their the innovator

dilemma will eventually catch up to that

too but that's the right move for them

to make I decided to leave and go in

straight into the tech I'm like well

then I'm just going to master the tech

so I'm looking at this AI stuff that's

going on now because it's it's clearly

like as a team of one I can do what took

like a team of three or four or five at

Sweet fish used to take them two weeks I

can do in about 90 minutes now with just

current AI Tech maybe it's not quite to

the degree that they were doing it but

it's it's pretty dang close no you're

you're absolutely right I think uh in

that respect um that is that that is an

you know almost undeniable effect of AI

right it's like the thing that you were

talking about when you said SAS that's I

guess you almost have to think of like

it's like a pyramid right and so at the

bottom the low value work so to speak

you know some of that got automated by

just regular SAS applications and then

but I think gener of AI just pushes it

up the pyramid a lot more aggressively

and so the the unique part that humans

fill starts to become the the very apex

of the of the pyramid and getting

smaller all the time so I I think some

of that is INE inevitable but I also

think of the opportunities it opens up

then like for really creative motivated

people like yourself like think about it

I think the future is is a future where

a 10 person company will operate like

you know a 50 100 person company today

right that that's what it it's going to

look like in the

future that's another Sam Al prediction

that I'm I'm probably going to start a

whole new segment to this show

on he because he predicts it and I'm

like you know if that's true it's an

interesting concept to at least talk

about is the the coming of a billion

billion dollar a unicorn company that's

a solopreneur with maybe like an

assistant yeah AI will make it possible

because there's already like companies

in the tens of millions that are just

one person right because they can

leverage content and code which is very

scalable AI will make it possible to get

hit a billion

yeah I don't know if he specified

whether it was in revenue or value r

value would be easier not that's not too

far off already but it's an interesting

idea yeah yeah I I yeah I think it's

exciting times I think it actually if

you think about it it opens the door for

entrepreneurship in a massive way right

one of the biggest hurdles being an

entrepreneur myself having started

companies and sold them one of the

biggest challenges is is Raising Capital

right like you need Capital to grow um

you know some people certainly have done

it by bootstrapping and but a lot of

companies in in the space you know

especially if you're building a product

you you need Capital to grow as when

you're scaling the company and I think

we've just come through an era of really

really cheap capital and that era seems

to be at least in the near and Midterm

over so but I think this you know the

emergence of generative Ai and just AI

in general I think will just open the

doors for Entre entrepreneurship where

you if you can truly run with a much

much smaller footprint of so human

full-time

employees I mean now a lot of a lot of

more companies people can a lot more

people can pursue their dreams without

having to be like raise you know $10

million in in a seat round or series a

round so I think which is a great thing

because once you raise that money

expectations yeah cause you to over

invest in ways that aren't necessarily

healthy

yeah hence the the

companies's like de like just striving

for that demand capture versus demand

creation right is kind of driven by this

we need more leads this quarter and we

can't afford to put it off till next

next year when you know the people that

aren't in market now could be in market

then cheap Capital you know ultimately

in the market leads to inefficiency

right because you you can deploy Capital

to capture clients even when it they

don't break even for 2 or 3 years like

it it's still because capital is cheap

when when we said earlier that that era

is over at least in the near and Midterm

I think it's it's healthier for the

economy and it's healthier for the

startup world and um and I think what's

interesting about that is you know it it

really it's less about

just how it's less about how good are

you in raising money and more about how

good is your product how good is your

service right and and are you actually

delivering value you know hyper being in

a hyper growth Market isn't always good

when there's Che Capital because you

know like I said it'll be growth at all

costs and people are spending um money

to acquire customers that actually don't

break even for two or three years and so

that's not a good model for for for um

for a

business what do you think some of the

essential qualities are

skills marketers and salespeople need to

have in this this upcoming era of AI if

not prompt engineering what are some of

the skills you're looking at yeah I

think um I think each of those are are a

little bit different I think marketing

will in fact earlier when you asked me

what's the big difference between the

days of elu and say you know even

now in the days of eloqua and and let's

say that that first decade of marking

automation the people that were in

demand what what was in demand for

marketing was did you know how to build

this demand engine you know using

markting automation right now that's

common knowledge on you know in terms of

how to actually um you know execute a

drip campaign how to build you know a

demand engine you know obviously there

are different people who different uh

folks that can do it better versus most

everyone but I think in marketing

there's going to be a return back more

focused on demand

creation the part that you you were

talking about that you were lamenting

people don't spend enough attention I

think marketing will start to focus more

around demand creation more around brand

building and and why because everyone

has the same set of tools now right like

everyone's running Aloo Market you know

or Marto hub spot right uh everyone's uh

you know knows how you know has some

basic handle on marketing Ops or they

can Outsource it to to an expert so

that's not the differentiator anymore so

differentiators around your brand so

that demand creation piece I think

marketing will move more towards that

and then I think on the sales side it's

do you know how to leverage the tools

that are available so that because one

of the things I see is increasingly more

and more companies moving to what they

call full cycle AES so doing without

sdrs right and so because the cheap

error of cheap Capital was over is is

over you know you can't just hire a an

army of sdrs just pumping out um leads

for your sales team your AES to to take

on most companies have done the analysis

during the pandemic and post pandemic

and said that Ro the ROI doesn't make

sense anymore a lot of them are either

reducing the number of sdrs or they are

um going uh completely eliminating them

and going having their AES um Prospect

for themselves which is you know what

they call full cycle AES well you you

better know how to uh Prospect or

leverage tools that can help you do that

that's where actually part of our thesis

around TGA AI rest is that you're going

to need to do that you're going to need

help and you you need essentially an AI

assistant that can take the place of an

SDR and help what's your favorite model

for demand

creation Oh you mean what what uh

different approaches and that kind of

thing yeah yeah oh I I think demand

creation I think is fascinating because

I think it's it's more art than than

science um there's signs to it for sure

but it's more art than science I think

the best way I can say is you know it's

it's not one thing it's it's a portfolio

of approaches right I think and and I

think it depends on the market that

you're in you know know one of our

clients is you know they sell to um

they're selling a tech solution to a

non-tech audience so they they they are

brokering um transportation services for

right and so for

them they have to build their brand in

this non-tech environment right so how

the challenge is how do they do that uh

they have to find where their buyers

congregate they have to be able to reach

them they have to get the right write

messaging to them and all that kind of

stuff so that's why I mean when I say

it's more Art and Science I I suppose

there's science in that too but my my

point is that it it greatly varies from

business to business and I think it

requires a portfolio of approaches not

just a single thread like you cannot

just be like podcast is all we're doing

or ebooks are all we're doing right what

are you what are you planning on for

TAA right now we're in early stages uh

but uh going into the future I think um

uh we are uh in terms of demand creation

I think podcasts uh right now it's me

appearing as guest in part podcast like

yours which is thank you for having me

absolutely is part of our um strategy um

I think uh tapping into um sort of uh

you know education is I think a big

piece of that um so people are curious

about how to actually make AI

work for them in sales so I think we're

going to lean into that the exact format

I'm not sure yet you know ebooks do

people even read that now I I'm I'm not

sure right like so that's what I mean

when I say we have to figure it out but

I think for us it's a lot of it revolves

around education um and um if you look

at what I'm posting then even on uh so

even in this early stage what am I

really doing I'm you know someone gave

me some really good advice they said you

know if you're entering a new market

Market you know evangelize the problem

right and so if you look at a lot of

what I'm posting about it's not always

but I would say half of everything I

post about is how I see the world in in

terms of the go to market motion and

some of the problems there like last

week I posted about uh intent data which

is a you know there's been so much hype

around intent data in the last few years

but I noticed recently that people are

getting this illusion and one of the

issues is that it's over promised that's

certainly one of the issue to deliver it

but the other problem is that it's

opaque you can't you can't you you you

don't actually know how you that that

intent signal is derived and then the

last thing is is the thing I said

earlier most of the most

meaningful um buyer interest signals are

actually specific to your business right

they're they're actually and and a lot

of intent data is is far too generalized

so yeah you're crushing it on LinkedIn I

just pulled open your profile and that

last post you I got 20 39 comments I did

really good over the past two to three

years I've noticed an increasing

disillusionment around intendo that post

you're just talking about so yeah

exactly so so a lot of it yeah so a lot

of it is and and I I'm so busy I I you

know I I eventually W my AI to be able

to do this is actually create posts for

me but but to be all kidding is I'm so

busy I can't I I'd like to post every

week but I post every other week but I

try to make it here's the thing I try to

make it meaningful so I I I'd rather

post every other week but something I

really believe in and and something that

sort of like emanates out of my heart I

know it sounds strange to say that when

you're talking about B2B marketing and

Tech but like what I post about intent I

really have thought about it for a long

time I just haven't expressed it

publicly right and then I have other

thoughts related to that and so I'd

rather spend do it every other week but

make it meaningful from the heart and

and you know some of them are not are

not going to you know register that kind

of interest and then will right so yeah

mean there's always this like quantity

versus quality debate where it comes to

posting on any kind of platform I do

find that a big part of learning to fix

learning to build an audience is posting

enough that you kind of know it

resonates yeah and then figuring out how

to say how to stay on target and still

post as much as you can but that's hard

that's why I mean is why people hire

social media managers and all that kind

of stuff or these days it seems like

companies just hire creators that have

gotten good at coming up with consistent

new ways to say the same thing but in

relevant ways so yeah I think you know

what's interesting also is that this

this is less about directly about

marketing more about the entrepreneur

Journey which you're on as well

obviously is you also have to know

yourself and you have to be authentic to

yourself right like I could force

posting three times a week and one it's

just not me like I I when I I post

something I really have to like really

believe in it I know it sounds so now

I'm not knocking some people can do it

more often and they are prolific but

also you know they're not as bothered by

you know some of it is they just want to

you know post more regular it's not

judgment on them but I when I say you

need to know yourself you need to be

authentic and and I I guess I think in

this era of with all the AI I think

human authenticity is is going to be

really um appreciate

it I think I don't know there's

different formats I think you could get

to to post more often I think you'd have

a lot of good things to say I think one

one format in particular that's helpful

is just reacting to other people's

things there's enough going on in the

industry that giving your two cents on

it would be helpful for a lot of people

and then you have a never like not a

never ending but you like you'd have a

stream to be able to post every day

because yeah there's well over seven

things posted around ABM intent Ai and

Tech being leveraged in sales

in good ways and in bad ways and some

things in the middle that need some

commentary it's a popular format to be

able to sustain the Long Haul yep but of

course then you got to Source it then

you got to record yourself reacting to

it then you got to post it so it's still

a lot of

work

yeah but it brings that authenticity

back without you having to like figure

out how to six ways to regurgitate the

same message too yeah that is true

that's is true I do some of that as well

that that is that is true yeah

oh cool so using LinkedIn as a thought

leadership platform potentially moving

in if you're doing if you're finding

success with guest guesting on podcasts

like you should probably start your own

podcast would be good too a good good

mix there I find really helps so I I uh

you know you you know more about this

than I do I've always felt like there's

a it's a heavy lift you know to do a

podcast sourcing the the guests as well

as um you know actually executing on it

right like this is this is your one of

your superpowers obviously because

that's you know I guess it doesn't seem

like a heavy lift to me anymore but I

remember being on the outside thinking

it looked like a heavy lift that's for

sure exactly exactly tools these days

too have made it so much easier just

kind of like just show up into the room

talk record publish solo episodes make

them dirty don't don't edit them just

post them yeah it's kind of how I've

gone even with some of my solo episodes

I I just kind of outline what I want to

talk about I talk through it I publish

I think um you know kind of this is not

necessarily in the space that of B2B

marketing but I think Joe Rogan has made

this long form podcast sort of free form

long form unedited podcast sort of

invoke it's okay now to just be like

we're just talking yeah yeah yeah well

and his trick too is actually just

taking clips of it too he records for

three hours but what goes Gang Busters

are the like five minute Clips he pulls

out of and then post it on YouTube um

but he wouldn't have those Clips if he

didn't record three hours of material to

find the five to 10 minute like super

clip with you know yeah yeah that's

true so and then you know he's he's the

he's the leader so once you're King it's

easy to M maintain the position as long

as you don't mess up royally so let let

me ask you let me ask you a question

like you've you know you started this

podcast on AI uh Mark mastering AI

marketing what have you seen

in terms of um sort of the challenges

that go to market professionals face in

adopting AI is it just you you made a I

don't say a big deal but you made made a

point about prompt engineering is that

really the challenge or you know where

where do you see the challenge in it

being sort of broadly used or or is it

maybe I'm mistaken maybe it is broadly

used and I'm not just tracking that I'm

speaking more to direct directly to

marketers in the show less than

companies themselves which takes on a

different flavor so I'm talking about it