Welcome to the Conquer Local podcast, hosted by chief revenue officer and international sales educator George Leith. Get insider content geared toward helping you better serve local businesses, from interviews with sales & marketing experts to exciting new ideas that will improve your digital revenue dramatically. Subscribe now to start conquering. Presented by Vendasta.
In this episode, we sit down with Ashley, AI operator and founder of AI workforce Alliance, who cut her workweek from an unsustainable 80 hours to 25 hours, by systematizing the exact workflows that quietly drain most modern businesses.
It’s a real breakdown of the 5 workflows Ashley automated first, and the 11 AI-agent “workforce” she built next.
If your team is:
• Drowning in inbox + follow-ups
• Spending hours repurposing content
• Doing the same research before every call
• Losing deals after hours (and weekends)
• Struggling to define what “sales-ready” actually means
This episode will give you a clear playbook for what to automate first and what to protect as human-only work.
• The 5 workflows Ashley automated.
• 11 agents that act as 80% of her operational muscle
• How to build a content engine that only costs $75
• How to automate your inbox without automating relationships
• How to build an after-hours AI agent that qualifies, enriches, and books meetings
• How to use an AI CFO persona to stress-test pitch, offer, and closing hook
• A simple 3-question filter for deciding what to automate first
• Why 2026 will be messy and how to build foundations before you build agents
AI workflow automation
Content repurposing systems
Inbox triage + drafted responses
Lead qualification + CRM enrichment
After-hours AI agents (chat + voice)
SOPs, SLAs, and knowledge bases
Renewal prep + relationship intelligence
Client sentiment tracking (“happiness meter”)
AI CFO roleplay for sales enablement
The automation-to-agents autonomy spectrum
2026 readiness: foundations → automations → agents
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/theashleygross/
🌐 aiworkforcealliance.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/
X: https://x.com/vendasta
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/
Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode 💜
💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn
Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team.
We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort.
👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo
https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/
In this episode, we sit down with Chris Long — AI search researcher, co-founder of Nectiv, and one of the leading analysts studying how LLMs actually read, search, and cite the web — to unpack why traditional SEO playbooks are quietly failing in the age of AI.
This isn’t about better keywords. It’s not about ranking higher. And it’s definitely not about writing longer content.
If your team is:
• Ranking well in Google but not getting mentioned by AI
• Watching traffic decline while visibility feels unpredictable
• Confused by contradictory SEO advice around AI search
• Still treating AI like “Google with a chatbot interface”
This conversation will finally make AI search make sense.
• Why AI engines don’t read pages top-to-bottom like Google
• How AI uses context windows and “chunking” to extract answers
• Why most of your web page may be invisible to AI
• How one search can fan out into dozens of unseen queries
• Why keyword lists collapse in AI-driven search
• What AI engines actually look for when choosing sources
• Why tables, bullets, and structure outperform “great writing”
• How citations influence ChatGPT and AI Overviews
• Why traffic is becoming a vanity metric in a zero-click world
• What KPIs actually matter as we move toward 2026
• How to rethink SEO strategy for a world where AI is the reader
AI search Behavior
Context windows and content chunking
Fan-out queries and query expansion
AI vs Google search mechanics
Zero-click search and declining CTR
Brand mentions vs traffic
AI citations and third-party influence
Content structure for LLMs
Search visibility in 2026
The future of SEO and GEO
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-long-marketing/
🌐 https://nectivdigital.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/
X: https://x.com/vendasta
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/
Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast… 💜
💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn
ABOUT VENDASTA
Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team.
We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort.
👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo
https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/
In this episode, we sit down with Robert Patin — agency advisor and growth strategist who’s helped firms scale by 800%+ — to unpack where real agency growth actually comes from (and why chasing new logos is usually the slowest, riskiest path).
Robert has helped agencies fire up to $2M worth of misaligned clients, not because they weren’t big enough, but because they were quietly killing profitability, morale, and momentum.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
• The early warning signs that a client is misaligned
• Why clients who nickel-and-dime upfront are the most expensive later
• How to calculate effective bill rate per client (and why it’s eye-opening)
• Why your lowest-paying clients often drain the most energy
• How one agency discovered they were losing $4 per hour on a “top” client
• When firing a client is the most profitable decision you can make
• How to set and communicate boundaries without damaging relationships
• Why retention — not acquisition — drives 70%+ of agency growth
• How a 5% increase in retention can unlock massive revenue upside
• The simple framework for quarterly business reviews that surface expansion
• How to turn one-off projects into 3–4 year retainers
• Why agencies already have the clients they need to hit their next revenue milestone
• How a single outreach email uncovered $1–2M in revenue in 90 days
• Why value articulation — not more work — keeps clients longer
If you’re an agency owner, founder, or operator who feels stuck on the growth treadmill — selling more just to stand still — this episode shows you how to stabilize revenue, increase profitability, and grow without burning out.
👉 Hit play to learn how the fastest way to grow your agency might be doing less — with the right clients.
CONNECT WITH ROBERT PATIN
💼 LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/creative-agency-success/
CONNECT WITH US
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/
X: https://x.com/vendasta
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/
Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode 💜
💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn
About Vendasta
Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team.
We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort.
👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo
https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/
In this episode, we sit down with Dajana Achelpohl — former Google and PayPal leader, founder of AI Changemaker, and one of the most trusted voices in human-first AI adoption — to unpack the real reasons AI initiatives stall inside organizations.
If your company has:
• Rolled out AI tools that barely get touched
• A small group of power users and a large group of skeptics
• Teams quietly using their own AI tools behind the scenes
• Leaders saying “we need to do AI” without a clear outcome
This conversation will fundamentally change how you think about AI adoption.
• Why most AI rollouts fail after launch — not before
• The hidden danger of “silent non-use” and fake adoption metrics
• Why fear of job loss leads teams to actively sabotage AI
• What “Shadow AI” is — and why it’s already inside your organization
• How to align non-technical teams around AI without overwhelming them
• Dajana’s AI Building Blocks Framework for practical adoption
• Why small, boring wins beat ambitious AI moonshots
• How to create guardrails that enable innovation instead of blocking it
• What an AI Team Charter is — and why it works better than policy docs
• Why AI adoption only succeeds when teams co-create the rules
• How agencies and service-based businesses are uniquely positioned to win with AI
AI adoption barriers
Silent non-use of AI tools
Shadow AI risks
Human-first AI strategy
AI change management
AI literacy for non-technical teams
AI guardrails and governance
AI ethics and data security
AI team charters
Bottom-up vs top-down AI adoption
AI in agencies and service businesses
Agentic AI and workflows
AI implementation frameworks
Practical AI use cases
AI culture and trust
From AI hype to real value
If you’re a CMO, agency leader, founder, or operator who’s frustrated by low AI adoption, unclear strategy, or teams that feel anxious instead of empowered — this episode gives you a practical, human-centered path forward.
👉 Hit play to learn how to turn AI from a mandate into momentum.
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dajana-achelpohl/
🌐 https://www.aichangemaker.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/
X: https://x.com/vendasta
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/
Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode 💜
💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn
ABOUT VENDASTA
Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team.
We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort.
👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo
https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/
Your Martech stack isn’t broken — your mental model is.
In this episode, we sit down with Scott Brinker, Godfather of Martech, editor of Chief Marketing Technologist and VP of Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, to unpack a reality most marketers miss:
The Martech explosion isn’t chaos — it’s the early stage of an AI-orchestrated system that’s about to collapse thousands of tools into workflows.
If you’re feeling crushed by:
An exploding Martech landscape, AI tools launching daily, integration hell, unused software, and pressure to “simplify”… this episode flips the narrative and shows why the winners won’t have fewer tools, they’ll have better orchestration.
Why the Martech Landscape Keeps Growing (and Why That’s Not the Real Problem)
The Shift From Tool Accumulation to Stack Orchestration
How AI Is Changing the Role of Marketers — Not Replacing Them
Why Integration Matters More Than Ever in an AI-Driven World
The Hidden Cost of Unused Software and Fragmented Data
How Smart Teams Are Simplifying Without Losing Capability
Where Agencies Can Create Massive Value as AI Integrators
What “Composable Martech” Really Means (Without the Buzzwords)
Martech landscape explained
AI in marketing operations
Marketing automation vs. orchestration
Composable Martech stacks
Platform ecosystems and integrations
AI agents and copilots in marketing
Tool sprawl and software waste
Operational efficiency in marketing teams
Future of Martech and AI
Marketing technology strategy for agencies
Data fragmentation and system silos
Human-in-the-loop AI workflows
How agencies can monetize AI implementation
The evolving role of the CMO
From execution to orchestration in marketing
If you’re a CMO, agency leader, or marketing operator struggling with an overcomplicated stack, unclear AI strategy, and tools that promise everything but deliver little — this episode will help you rethink Martech as a system, not a shopping list.
👉 Hit play to learn how to simplify your stack, use AI intelligently, and turn Martech complexity into a competitive advantage.
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjbrinker/
🌐 https://chiefmartec.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/
X: https://x.com/vendasta
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/
Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast… 💜
💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast
...
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn
...
ABOUT VENDASTA
Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team.
We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort.
👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo
https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/
In this episode, we sit down with Jeff Greenfield, CEO and co-founder of Provolytics, to rethink how we measure marketing in a world where clicks, last-touch, and GA4 can’t see the full picture.
If you’re tired of:
Google saying one thing, Meta saying another, numbers that never add up, and CFOs who don’t believe in branding or CTV... this episode will show you a new, impression-first, AI-powered way to measure what actually works.
Why Your Clicks and Dashboards Don’t Add Up
Impression-Based Measurement: The Metric That Actually Matches Reality
Why marketing doesn’t buy clicks
How AI Finally Solves Multi-Touch Attribution (Without Tracking Every User)
Finding the “Hidden Experiments” in Your Media Plan
Exactly Where to Scale—and Where to Cut Spend
How to use impression-level data and AI
A DIY Framework If You Don’t Have an Enterprise Measurement Stack
AI marketing measurement
Marketing attribution without cookies
Impression-based attribution vs. click-based attribution
Multi-touch attribution is broken
Incrementality & lift measurement
CTV advertising measurement (Connected TV)
Digital out-of-home & podcast ad measurement
Upper-funnel vs. lower-funnel budgeting
Branding ROI and financial impact
How to prove marketing to your CFO
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) limitations
Full-funnel marketing mix optimization
Micro-experiments in your media plan
AI for media mix modeling & budget allocation
How to measure brand campaigns and awareness
Performance marketing vs. brand marketing
Future of marketing analytics in a privacy-first world
If you’re a CMO, performance marketer, or agency leader who’s drowning in conflicting dashboards, over-spending on bottom-of-funnel clicks, and struggling to prove the value of brand and CTV, this episode will show you a practical, AI-powered path out of the chaos.
👉 Hit play to learn how to move beyond clicks, unify your metrics, and get more revenue from the same marketing budget.
CONNECT WITH JEFF GREENFIELD (Provolytics)
💼 linkedin.com/in/jeffgreenfield
🌐 provalytics.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/
X: https://x.com/vendasta
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/
Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast… 💜
💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast
...
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn
...
About Vendasta
Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform that helps businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our platform unifies fragmented tools across marketing, sales, and operations, and uses AI assistants plus proprietary SMB data to automate busywork, streamline workflows, and amplify the humans on your team.
We help digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs scale profitably, deliver better outcomes for local businesses, and grow long-term revenue with less manual effort.
👉 Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Book a Demo
https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/
In this episode, we sit down with Frans Riemersma, Martech legend, co-author of the Martech Landscape, and one of the sharpest thinkers on AI, composability, and the future of services to break down the new AI Agency Model that is quietly redefining how agencies build, deliver, and scale their work.
Frans explains why we’re entering the golden age for agencies, not because of more tools, but because AI is turning services into software, unlocking product-level margins for businesses that previously sold labor.
Why Agencies Are Entering a Golden Age
How AI shifts work from human execution → human orchestration, and why agencies with standardized knowledge stand to benefit the most.
Service-as-a-Software: The Model Behind 80% Margins
Why AI is unleashing a new category next to SaaS and how agencies can package expertise into repeatable, scalable, automatable outcomes.
Where a 10-Person Agency Should Start
How to find your highest-value, most-repeatable outcomes, follow the money, and turn them into automations and AI-powered products.
The Biggest Pitfall: Building Tools Before Testing
Why most agencies create tech they never use and Frans’ “Hack → Pack → Stack” method for validating before investing.
Composability, Atomization & The New Martech Stack
Why the future isn’t mega-suites or tool sprawl, it’s small, composable “Lego block” tools that integrate cleanly and keep your stack lean.
The 12% Rule
How top performers identify the tiny percentage of features and tools that drive 80% of customer value and cut everything else.
The Skills That Matter in the AI Era
Why the differentiator isn’t technical mastery anymore, it’s customer obsession, storytelling, distribution, and discovering viable ideas.
AI Agency Model
Service-as-a-Software
80% Margin Framework
AI-Powered Delivery Systems
Standardizing Agency Knowledge
Hack → Pack → Stack Method
Composability & Martech Architecture
Atomization of Tools & Labor
AI Agents & Autonomous Workflows
Productized Services for Agencies
Lead Mining & Lead Intelligence Automation
Customer-Centric Innovation
Feature Bloat & Decommissioning Strategy
Future-Proof Agency Skills
AI + Services Convergence
Distribution & Community Moats
If you want your agency to escape the 20% margin trap, and build AI-powered services that scale like software, hit play.
🌐 https://www.martechtribe.com/
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/fransriemersma/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCooW1kDrMUb1EORhDbmciOw
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vendasta/
X: https://x.com/vendasta
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vendasta/
Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast… 💜
💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast...
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn...
Vendasta
Vendasta is the leading AI software company for customer acquisition and engagement, helping businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our AI-powered platform unifies marketing, sales, and operational workflows, eliminating the need for fragmented tools and streamlining every stage of the customer journey. Powered by proprietary SMB data, intelligent automation, and AI assistants that handle repetitive tasks, Vendasta helps businesses attract, engage, and retain customers with unmatched efficiency.
Our solutions empower digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs to scale operations, optimize campaigns, and drive long-term growth.
Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Demo Available
https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/
In this episode, we sit down with Jason Kramer, founder of Cultivize and one of the leading voices on CRM-powered sales systems, to break down why most agencies and businesses bleed pipeline revenue and how AI + CRM automation can rescue lost deals you didn’t even know you had.
If your team is still manually taking notes, chasing cold leads, or keeping the pipeline in the owner’s head, you’re leaving massive revenue on the table.
Why Most businesses Lose Deals After the Discovery Call: The #1 place where good prospects disappear and why speed-to-lead still wins deals.
The Follow-Up Math That Changes Everything: Why 60%+ of prospects aren’t ready today but will buy and how 7–10 personalized steps increase conversions by 30%+
How to Use AI to Rescue “Dead” Leads: Using AI signals to see who’s re-engaging, and how Jason closed deals from year-old prospects.
The exact “good news or bad news?” email that gets same-day replies.
Why your CRM Is Your Sales Brain: The data you must track, how to automate discovery-to-close workflows and why follow-up without a CRM is basically impossible today.
Event & Trade Show Follow-Up (Done Right): How one business generated $1M from an event using his follow-up automation.
AI-Powered Follow-Up Systems
CRM Automation for Agencies
Pipeline Leakage & Lost Deals
Follow-Up Email Templates That Convert
Lead Nurturing & Intent Signals
Speed to Lead (and Why It Matters)
Personalized Multi-Step Sequences
LinkedIn Automation for Sales
Event Follow-Up Strategy
Sales Process Playbooks
Data-Driven Sales Prioritization
AI + CRM Integration
How to Keep Leads Warm for 12+ Months
Agency Sales Operations & Systems
If your business is tired of losing deals that should have closed… hit play.
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonleighkramer/
📹 Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@Vendasta
💼 Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/vendasta
🐦 Connect on X: x.com/vendasta
📸 Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/vendasta
Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast… 💜
💬 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast...
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn...
Vendasta
Vendasta is the leading AI software company for customer acquisition and engagement, helping businesses get more customers—and keep them. Our AI-powered platform unifies marketing, sales, and operational workflows, eliminating the need for fragmented tools and streamlining every stage of the customer journey. Powered by proprietary SMB data, intelligent automation, and AI assistants that handle repetitive tasks, Vendasta helps businesses attract, engage, and retain customers with unmatched efficiency.
Our solutions empower digital agencies, franchisors, and MSPs to scale operations, optimize campaigns, and drive long-term growth.
Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Demo Available
https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/
Transcript
In this episode, we sit down with Andrew Holland, Director of SEO and one of the world’s leading voices on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), to unpack why traditional SEO is collapsing and how local agencies are uniquely positioned to win in the age of AI search.
Learn why keywords are dead, why AI is becoming the real “reader” of your website, and how agencies can rebuild their SEO services around revenue, positioning, and problem-space optimization instead of traffic and blog posts.
The Collapse of Traditional SEO
Keywords Are Dead. Problem Spaces Are the Future.
Why Local Agencies Will Win in AI Search
How to Identify Problem Spaces for Local Businesses
Prompt-Ready Content vs. SEO Content
The New Rules of Authority: Brand, Mentions & Mutual Information
How AI Reads Your Website (and What It Looks For)
Category Entry Points (CEPs)
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Future of SEO in AI search
Problem-Space Optimization
Category Entry Points (CEPs)
AI Search Behaviour
Local SEO & Revenue-Driven SEO
Brand Positioning for AI Search
Authority Building (mentions, citations, PR)
Search Without Keywords
AI-First Organic Strategy
Mutual Information Signals
Content Strategy for Agencies
User Intent in AI Search
Collapse of Top-of-Funnel SEO
If you want your agency to survive (and thrive) as AI takes over search… hit play.
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🌐 https://www. zoogly.co.uk
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📹 Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@Vendasta
💼 Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/vendasta
🐦 Connect on X: x.com/vendasta
📸 Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/vendasta
Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast... 💜
Leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast...
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn...
Vendasta is the leading AI software company for customer acquisition and engagement, helping businesses get more customers. And keep them. Our AI-powered platform unifies marketing, sales, and operational workflows—eliminating the need for fragmented tools and streamlining every stage of the customer journey. With proprietary SMB data, intelligent automation, and AI assistants that handle repetitive tasks, Vendasta helps businesses attract, engage, and retain customers with unmatched efficiency. Our solutions empower partners like digital marketing agencies, franchisors, and MSPs to scale operations seamlessly, optimize campaigns, and drive long-term growth.
Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Demo Available https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/
2026 is the year AI stops being optional. It’s the year your competitors’ AI advantage becomes your business problem.
In this episode, AI adoption strategist Brett Schklar reveals the new CEO playbook for AI transformation, showing exactly how leaders can set the tone, accelerate efficiency, and prepare their organizations for what’s coming next.
🚀 AI-ifying the Pain: How to identify the daily tasks that waste your time and automate them with real AI tools you can deploy today.
📈 Return on AI (ROAI): The six lenses to measure AI’s real impact
🏗️ Creating a Safe AI Sandbox: How to set up a private AI playground for your team to experiment, fail safely, and innovate faster before going live.
🧠 Prompting as the New Leadership Skill: How the best leaders are moving beyond “prompt engineering” to “AI conversation design” and training their teams to do the same.
📞 Voice AI and ChatGPT for Business: Why customer-facing AI assistants are the new front line for customer experience and revenue.
💬 The Trust-But-Verify Rule: Why CEOs should never delegate AI blindly and how to build systems that draft, learn, and improve alongside your team.
🔥 Culture Before Code: The #1 mistake CEOs make when adopting AI, and how to unlock innovation across the company.
AI transformation strategy for CEOs
AI readiness audit
Return on AI (ROAI) metrics
AI adoption roadmap 2026
ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot integration
AI sandbox for business leaders
AI change management
Voice AI and customer experience
AI automation in daily operations
Leadership in the age of AI
How to build trust and safety in AI systems
How CEOs can lead AI innovation
Generative AI in business strategy
AI productivity and automation tools
If you’re a CEO preparing for 2026, this episode is your wake-up call.
The leaders who win next year will be the ones who make AI a cultural movement, not just a technical upgrade.
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🌐 https://www.growpowered.com/
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/bschklar/
📹 Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@Vendasta
💼 Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/vendasta
🐦 Connect on X: x.com/vendasta
📸 Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/vendasta
Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast... 💜
Leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast...
Leave a rating on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0KWXAOn...
Vendasta is the leading AI software company for customer acquisition and engagement, helping businesses get more customers. And keep them. Our AI-powered platform unifies marketing, sales, and operational workflows—eliminating the need for fragmented tools and streamlining every stage of the customer journey. With proprietary SMB data, intelligent automation, and AI assistants that handle repetitive tasks, Vendasta helps businesses attract, engage, and retain customers with unmatched efficiency. Our solutions empower partners like digital marketing agencies, franchisors, and MSPs to scale operations seamlessly, optimize campaigns, and drive long-term growth.
Transform Your Agency with Vendasta – Demo Available https://www.vendasta.com/request-demo/
If LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) are where buyers now begin, your job isn’t to just “rank in Google”. It is to be the #1 brand AI recommends. In this episode, SEO expert Steve Toth from the Notebook Agency, shows exactly how to win with AEO and make AI engines accurately represent and recommend your business, using his unique Framework and a practical playbook you can implement this week.
👉 Why LLMs are lying about your brand: Why AI Gets Your Business Wrong, why it misrepresents you, and what you can do about it.
👉 The truth Pack: How to compare what LLMs say about you vs. your sales-grade answers, then close the gaps so AI gives the right recommendation.
👉 Reverse-Interrogation Audit: The exact prompts to ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Google AI overview, to reveal your pricing, feature, fit, proof, and support gaps—and how to fix them.
👉 Deal-Breaker Coverage: Use “Deal Breaker Detector” style prompts to surface ICP-critical questions (budget, team size, integrations, timelines) and ensure LLMs can cite accurate answers.
👉 Create “Recommendation-Ready” Content: Build hyper-specific AI content fuels so AI can confidently match you to buyer constraints and get a canonical, up-to-date source.
👉 Narrative Cleanup: Identify and retire outdated content sources that keep AI stuck in the past; consolidate and redirect to your current offer.
👉 Off-page Reality Check: Monitor and update off-site assets to correct misinformation LLMs may retrieve.
👉 From Volume to Velocity: Why smaller but highly qualified AI-assisted traffic converts better and how to message that shift to clients and stakeholders.
Key Concepts covered:
ChatGPT AEO strategy
Gemini AI and Google AI Overviews
Perplexity search and buyer decision-making
Truth Alignment Framework by Notebook Agency
LLM brand representation audit
HACK: The "LLM Info" Page to Feed AI Correct Information
AI SEO vs. traditional SEO
Deal Breaker Detector (AI Notebook)
Hyper-specific comparison content for LLMs
How to fix outdated reviews and Reddit narratives
High-quality traffic vs. high-volume traffic
📈 If you want your brand to be confidently recommended by AI — not casually mentioned — this episode is your roadmap.
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Thanks for listening!