Tom Hunt

$3.6m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Jan 2014.

I'm walking home from a depressing New Year's trip to Oslo with an ex. girlfriend.

It's raining in East London.

I made a decision:

I would replace my management consulting salary (£42,000) by the end of the year.

I had no idea from where, but that was the goal...

I just about hit it and left the corporate world.

And I haven't been back since.

Fast forward a decade and I've:

- Tried and failed with 17 businesses
- Invested in 11
- Learnt a LOT

The one that is finally working is called Fame:

- We have a weird culture (in a good way)
- We start and grow podcasts for B2B businesses
- We are fully remote and have 75 full-time team members

I live for our awesome team at Fame, building businesses and great marketing.

I post about them here 🤗

Founder & CEO

We start and grow the world's most profitable B2B podcasts.

Clients include:

👉 IDEO
👉 Workday
👉 HighRadius
👉 People.ai
👉 Zendesk
👉 Bevy
👉 Circle
👉 Suzy
👉 Mazars
👉 LeanData
👉 CXL
👉 Ramp
👉 Alibaba
👉 Signify
👉 eToro

We don't review CVs.

We don't use an ATS.

We don't ask for cover letters.

And we barely spend money on job ads.


Here's our hiring process:

1. Candidates come inbound
2. We review their LinkedIn profile
3. They do a short test task
4. First interview: competency-based
5. Final interview: values-based

That's it.


No six-round marathons
No "upload your resume then retype it"
No AI scanning for keywords


Just people looking at real work and having conversations.

HR SaaS businesses told everyone that hiring needs to be complex.

It doesn't.


You don't need expensive software to find good people.

Agree?

$4.5m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I’m doing.

No alternative text description for this image

I cancelled a 1-1 with someone on my team.


Why?

- They were thriving
- Their OKRs were progressing well
- I had nothing meaningful to contribute

So why have the meeting?

Why waste their time because I'm insecure about doing my job?


It's called macro-management.

HINT: the opposite of micro-management.


Here’s how it works:

- They work where they want
- You provide the insight, tools and resources
- You remove barriers, blockers and distractions
- They decide the "how"
- You trust them

Put simply:

You enable.
You assist.

Then you stay in your lane...

Not theirs.

Agree?

We hired a project manager for $7 per hour in 2022.

Now he's earning $40K a year.

That's higher than 98% of earners in the Philippines.


We made him a deal:

"Where you are right now limits what we can pay you because you don't generate enough value. But the more problems you can solve for us, the more we can pay you."

E.g. we hired him for what he could become, not what he was.


He got a payrise in year 2, then in year 3, he takes on another role.

Now he's:

- Project manager
- Video editor

Maybe more in the future.


The best hires have the right attitude toward growth.

Skill gaps close with time and effort.

Character gaps rarely close.

No one is clapping when you get the second resignation email of the day.

No one is clapping at 6:37am on a Saturday as you’re combing through the P&L.

No one is clapping when it’s your 17th decision of the day.

No one is clapping when you're the only person around to reply to the angry customer.

No one is clapping when payroll looms and the bank balance isn’t where it should be.

No one is clapping when you can’t think of anything else on a Sunday afternoon.



There’s a lot of hype around starting a business these days…

I’m not sure it’s for everyone.

Most people chase salaries and titles.
Smart people choose who they work with.

Specifically: their manager.

Here's why:

A bad manager...
- Drains your energy
- Protects their position
- Watches your every move

A great manager...
- Explains why things work
- Protects you from politics
- Supports your development


The truth?

You may spend more time with your manager than your spouse.

Choose wisely.

Fame bootstrapped to $4.5M ARR by charging LESS.

Plus we:

- Spend less than 2% of revenue on ads
- Have a 1 person sales team
- Raised $0

How?

By focusing on the one metric everyone ignores...

Retention.


1️⃣ Strong inbound engine

Outbound and ads cost more, both to book a sales call, but also in the skill (and therefore cost) of the person who needs to run the call.

Instead:

- SEO
- Personal brand
- Bottom of the funnel Google Ads


2️⃣ Charge less

E.g. the Amazon model.

The more you charge, the more likely you will be cut when the CFO and CEO review the monthly P&L.


3️⃣ Objective performance metrics

We used to track client happiness, now we track client objectives.

Happy clients churn, successful clients don't.


4️⃣ Build a retention culture

The team laugh everytime I say "retention is the foundation of growth" because I say it so much.

Hire, fire and promote based on retention.



The formula:

1️⃣ Strong inbound engine
2️⃣ Charge less
3️⃣ Track objective performance metrics
4️⃣ Build a culture of retention

And please, say it after me:

Retention is the foundation of growth.

As soon as I met Cristian and Alexandru in person, I knew I had to go.

They are the first reason I'm hosting a panel at Tekpon AI Summit 2025 in Bucharest.


The second reason is that I've spent the last 5 years working in my bedroom (pretty much).

$4.5m ARR from behind a screen.

It's working.

But now it's time to crawl out of the cave, and into real life.


So if you're in Bucharest on November 25th, come say hi.

Let's talk AI.
Let's talk marketing.
Let's talk LinkedIn.

Just let's actually talk.

Be like Taylor Swift...


At least that's what I told the awesome people at the Turing x SYSTM Growth Summit yesterday.


Why?

She nailed The Fame Formula:

1. Make really good content in a specific niche
2. Be seen around other famous people in the niche

First she did it with country, and now she does it with pop music.


It's also what we need to do in B2B.

B2B buyers are only in the market 3% of the time. We need to get them to know, like and trust us during the other 97% of the time.

How?

Two steps:

1. Content Format
2. Content Positioning


1. Content Format

You've got three options:

Social: Easiest to grow, lowest influence. Great for reach, but people scroll past quickly.

Email/Written: Middle ground. More intimate than social, easier to produce than podcasts.

Podcast: Hardest to grow, highest influence, best for repurposing. One episode can become 20 pieces of content.

If I was to start again, I would pick the social platform that I liked best, and start there.


2. Content Positioning

Two parts:

- The Niche

Be as narrow as possible.

If you sell email marketing software, don't start a marketing podcast, don't event start a email marketing podcast, start the open-rate podcast.

- The Edge

The thing a customer would tell their friends. What makes you different? What's your unique opinion?


That's The Fame Formula:

Pick your format.
Nail your positioning...

And be like Taylor.

If you can’t share an agenda for the meeting, we shouldn’t be meeting.

When Taplio was acquired by lemlist, they got:

- $2m upfront
- Another $6m for hitting growth targets


I asked him if it was time for beach and cocktails...

"Absolutely not."

Tibo starting sourcing young, hungry founders to build more products.

He now runs 5 products, each with difference technical founders, whilst he focuses on their growth and building his personal brand.

Now $6m ARR.


The next exit will be much bigger.

Find out how in this episode of Confessions of a B2B Entrepreneur below 👇

One of our team members' machines was compromised.

And a client found out about it.

Somehow their Slack log in was posted in a data dump, which was flagged to a client's security team.

We immediately took the compromised machine offline for deep cleaning and changed a load of other passwords.

In the end, no breach occurred, but it was a scare.

This would likely not have happened if we were using Keeper Security, Inc. 

It’s the highest-rated password manager in the world for a reason. 

It solves both the security and the productivity problem:

- Zero-Trust Security: Keeper built its entire platform on a zero-trust, zero-knowledge architecture so your business data is encrypted on your device before it ever reaches their servers

- Instant Access: The KeeperFill feature automatically enters usernames and complex passwords for you

Keeper is built to scale with your business (securely) from day one.

Check out their Cyber Week offer linked in the first comment 👇

#ad #keepersecurity #cyberweek

Brand partnership • $4.5m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Spear Growth

We’re a marketing agency that helps B2B SaaS companies generate pipeline.

Our services include SEO Enablement and Performance Marketing.
We've structured our services to best suit growth-stage businesses.

We've worked with:
1. Unicorns like Hasura & Darwinbox.
2. Series B funded companies like: Facilio
3. Series A companies like: Sprinto, Zluri & XOPA AI
4. Seed funded companies like DhiWise
5. YC companies like SuperTokens

We've brought results like these:
1. 13x SQLs from Paid ads in 6 months (While maintaining CPA)
2. 0-10k+ users in 10 months
3. 3x SQLs from Organic search in 1 year

Some testimonials:

"Spear Growth takes an in-depth approach to SEO. They suggest strategic SEO plays that are aligned to marketing objectives."
Digital Marketing Manager at a B2B Enterprise Company

"We have been able to make our advertising efforts efficient, double down on critical experiments, and have higher visibility into performance."
Head of Demand Gen at a B2B HRM Software Company

Rated 5★ on Cutch
Rated 5★ ​ on Glassdoor

Hello, Is it us who you're looking for?
(Yes, that was a Lionel Richie reference)

Let's talk Growth.
https://speargrowth.com/schedule-30-min-call

Founder

Exit Five

Member

Peak Community

AstroLabs

Marketing Trainer

Self Employed

I help Startups start their digital marketing journey in a scaleable and sustainable way.

I've worked with, helped and ultimately built relationships with over 15 startups and companies.
I've also, taken multiple live training sessions on personality development, digital marketing, and personal branding for over 1500 people.

Let's talk over e-coffee:
https://www.calendar.com/ishaanshakunt/consulting-call/

Digital Marketing Consultant

HighRadius

I led all the Search Engine Optimization(SEO) initiatives at HighRadius.

I also worked on setting up all the marketing analytics and Conversion Rate Optimization(CRO) activities at HighRadius as a part of the Online Marketing team.

I coordinated with the Web Development team, the Graphic Design team and the Content Marketing team to get the work done.

For a while, I also worked on Paid marketing channels i.e. Social Media, Search & Display.

During my stay at HighRaidius, I helped train 800+ people on SEO.

⚫ Achieved 200%+ KPI targets 
⚫ Received the RnR(Rewards and Recognition) Award for my work.
⚫ Received the Fresher of the year Award
⚫ Received the Deep Thinker Award
⚫ Made amazing friends

"Ishaan is always driving new initiatives with the Fast Fail, Fix Fast way and is always Bold & Blunt in team discussions. He made sure that the visits from organic search increases by 100%"
~ Sreecharan Yadati
Director, Digital Marketing,
HighRadius

Digital Marketing Executive

Nexus - Personality Development

Nexus is a personality development group.

I first created a core team of 6 people including me and trained them on how to mentor groups.
Then at a time, we recruit 20 people whom we train to take sessions on Personality Development.

Then 4 teams are made with 5 members and a mentor(from the core team). The teams and the coordinators take open weekly sessions on topics related to personality development.(so 5 sessions per round)

Co Founder and Head Co-ordinator 

TITAN COMPANY LIMITED

Joined Titan Company Ltd. as an E-commerce Intern for Summer 2018.

Current Project: Tracking price of Titan products sold by all official partners across the different online platforms.
Also, helping with tracking unofficial sellers(illegal) on these platforms.

The biggest upside is being able to work with such amazing self-driven people.

Also, the new Titan campus is not a building but an exquisite piece of art. It is definitely the best campus I've seen yet.

E-commerce Intern

Chestnuts Social Group

"Instead of making a hundred people smile for a day every month, we'd prefer creating a real difference in the life a single person per month."

My vision for Chestnuts is to help provide opportunities for constant livelihood by teaching unemployed workers vocational skills or helping set up small ventures. 
We raise money for the same ourselves first via things social events with entry fees or selling old books or via a sale of recycled handcrafted products which can again be made by some people we help. 

My experience in marketing, leading teams, organizing events and staring small ventures along with an awesome team of creative and motivated people who believe in the vision has made this group possible.

Founder and President

Grozip

I'm currently pursuing my internship at Grozip as a marketing/business development intern.

Till now I love the number of things I'm getting to learn and the trust the company has shown in my abilities.

Marketing Intern

On my last day of work, the Sr. director of marketing told me that I "was a pain in the ass"

Why? I did things differently. I challenged the norm. I found my ways to do things.

And he really appreciated it.


I've worked with all kinds of companies and even built my own-

Early-stage bootstrapped startups, well-funded startups,  Unicorns, Enterprise companies


➖


I started my B2B SaaS inbound marketing agency in 2021.

It was... strange.

Getting clients was too easy.

At first, I was proud.

Then as I fell in love with the industry, I got concerned.

To put it lightly... we hardly have any good B2B SaaS marketers.

My team and I will change this by 2030.

You'll see B2C marketers learning from B2B SaaS much more commonly.

Watch us do it. (Or join the cause?)


➖


Spear Growth helps B2B SaaS companies with Ads & SEO.


📈For Ads,
we go deep into every aspect that can drive pipeline & SQLs.

▪️Tested 12+ paid channels
▪️Optimize the entire funnel
▪️Built the most advanced Demand Gen framework in the world
(and more)


📈For SEO,
we've built the most sustainable SEO service model in the world.

▪️Focus on SQLs, not vanity metrics
▪️No retainers - Only 3 month projects
▪️No BS audits, only actionable roadmaps.


Let's talk B2B growth 💬

https://speargrowth.com/30-min-call


➖


Here is me bragging about myself:

🎓 I've trained 2500+ marketers so I understand my stuff - but more importantly, I know how to communicate it.

🚀 I led SEO & analytics for a Unicorn startup.

📖 I've contributed to 2 internationally best-selling marketing books

💻 I've helped amazing B2B SaaS companies: Seed, Series A-E, Unicorns.

➖

My agency: speargrowth.com

My email: ishaan [@] speargrowth [dot] com

Ishaan Shakunt

Bootstrapping my first company was 100% the right decision

When I started Spear Growth, I had no idea how many things I’d learn the hard way.

There's just so much that I didn't know. Like, basic stuff.

I had to learn how to collect payments from the US.
Figure out taxes.
Find a CA, lawyers, investment managers.

The thing about taking VC money early is you don't really have time for all of this. You still have to do it, obviously. You can't just skip learning how to hire or how money works.

But you're trying to do it while also building to a $100M valuation. I personally think I would not have been able to do both at the same time.

Another challenging part was learning about myself. Hiring for the first time, firing for the first time, not taking criticism personally. All of this.

And figuring out how to manage your personal and professional life, that's hard af.

But now, building Chosenly.com? Every single one of those lessons is paying off. Now I can confidently

– make calls I couldn't have made before.
– take long-term bets that hurt in the short term.
– say no when everyone else is going a different direction.

You don't get that from raising funds and moving fast. You get it from moving slow, making mistakes, and doing it again.

P.S. This was my HQ in the early Spear Growth days.

– Ishaan “still working weekends” Shakunt

Ads, SEO & AI Search Optimisation for B2B SaaS | Founder @ SpearGrowth.com & Chosenly.com | Let’s talk Growth 💬

We have been using ZenABM for a while now, and it quietly solved one of our biggest ABM headaches.

It turned our engagement data into a live map of buyer interest, which made marketing and sales work together SO MUCH BETTER.

Now the ZenABM team has shipped something new: ZenaAI.

ZenaAI is a LinkedIn ads AI analyst that sits on top of your LinkedIn Ads and CRM data.

It lets you:

1. Ask questions about your campaigns, creatives, and audiences
2. See which companies and job titles are actually engaging with which messages
3. Generate reports that normally take hours, in a few minutes, just by chatting with it

If you run LinkedIn ads for B2B, this is the kind of thing that can save you a lot of “download CSV, build pivot, pray” time.

They are live on Product Hunt today. So if you want to support a genuinely useful product, go shower them with some love.


Personal note: I got to know about the tool before it ever launched when Emilia came on the TLDR podcast. 

It was amazing to see how the exact playbook we followed at Spear Growth was what Emilia described on the podcast.

And it's even more impressive to see how well Michal brought it to life as a product!


– Ishaan “Rooting for the ZenABM team” Shakunt

A founder just shut down their GEO tool this week. Called the whole category bullshit.

His conclusion? "There's no secret formula. It's just quality content, authoritative publications, and thought leadership. The same stuff that's always worked for SEO and brand building.”

And honestly? He's not wrong.

A lot of it does fall under "it's just good marketing."
(though it's very different from what we did for SEO)

But here's what that take misses:

Like most other channels(including ABM), focusing on GEO/AEO forces you to optimize for things you wouldn't otherwise prioritize. And those specific optimizations create real competitive advantages.

Here are 3 differences I've seen with our customers:

1. For content strategy:
Pre-GEO: Most teams focus on SEO, i.e., keyword difficulty and search volumes.

With GEO: You need to look at the lack of information density. Say if there are 10 articles by high DA websites but they all say the same thing, the information density is still low and you can create content that influences AI answers.

2. For 3rd party mentions (say listicles):
Pre-GEO: I have not seen a single B2B company have a dedicated strategy to get listed in these. The closest would be a few companies that dabbled in affiliate marketing or if you had a backlink program where you also considered intent/traffic to the page.

With GEO: I've seen our customers actually care about this. Most of our customers didn't have the right team who could work on this outreach and negotiation so we had to build most of it as automations into @chosenly, provide specific playbooks and even help with the execution very often.

3. Positioning:
Pre-GEO: Most positioning discussions happened just around the sexy part where we finalize narrative and our positioning in the market.

GEO: Now teams focus a lot more on the checklist part of positioning. i.e. make a list of criteria that users use to evaluate the product. For eg, features, compliances, integrations, and then make sure we have them clearly mentioned on our website.

So yeah, the question isn't whether the principles are new. It's whether you're actually executing on them.

Be honest- Are you optimizing for how AI models discover and recommend you? Or just hoping your existing SEO carries over? (Spoiler: it doesn't.)


– Ishaan "here to ruin your old playbooks" Shakunt

P.S. Post inspired by a conversation with Luke Stevens

I haven't posted in a month, in that time:
1. We crossed 10k MRR
2. Had our first 0 churn month
3. Increased ACV 3x
4. Got 3 official testimonials
5. Proved 2 marketing channels.

The amount of progress we've made at Chosenly.com in 4 weeks is crazy!

Help me plan my LI content calendar. I'll start posting again from tomorrow.


About me:

- I'm a second time founder. Built one of the best B2B SaaS agencies before this: Spear Growth.
- We have the best data on what works for B2B companies for AI search.
- Throughout my career, I've helped other B2B SaaS companies grow. Now I have the chance to do it for ourselves.
- We're trying to build in public this time. So we can afford to be a lot more transparent this time.

Ads, SEO & AI Search Optimisation for B2B SaaS | Founder @ SpearGrowth.com & Chosenly.com | Let's talk Growth 💬

I'm planning my LinkedIn content calendar. What would you want to read/see?

The author can see how you vote. Learn more

Ouch.. imagine losing $100k+ because you forgot to add a page to your nav bar.

Double ouch.. Imagine finding out about this on a sales call with a potential vendor (us).

So a large IAM software company booked a demo with Chosenly.com. I walked them through their sampler report’s positioning tab and pointed out something.

Me:
“X integration seems really important to your audience, and based on your web presence, it feels like you don’t have it so, competitor Y is being recommended over you.”

Them:
“But we do”

They tried showing it to me on their website, only to realise they forgot to link their integrations page from their Nav bar.

They'd done a rebrand 2 months ago and just forgot to link it back.

And in IAM? Integrations are everything.

For two whole months, every prospect who tried understanding whether the product fit their stack would have assumed they didn’t support this integration.

Hence… ouch.

Missing an entire page is rare.
But missing important information is extremely common. I see it very often that companies:

➡️ Know exactly what their prospects want
➡️ Highlight it in every sales pitch
➡️ But completely forget to mention it in their marketing or positioning

From a positioning and CRO standpoint, it's something you MUST optimize for.
And now, AI search is giving you an excuse to actually focus on this.

Because just like a human will move on if they cannot find something important, AI will too.

If it thinks something matters and cannot find it on your site, it will confidently recommend a competitor instead.

By the way, Chosenly is the only tool in the market with multiple features built specifically to help you catch things like this.

P.S. 3 out of 5 core pages on our website have been built because of insights from our own Chosenly dashboard.

— Ishaan “takes orders from his own dashboard” Shakunt

Most marketers think “positioning” only means:
- Creating the perfect narrative
- Finding the right messaging angle
- Building a compelling story

You know, the sexy stuff, but we ignore the boring parts (which are just as important):

1. How do your users decide which product/vendor to use?
(Criteria like: features, integrations, compliances, support, something else?)

2. Is it easy to find that information on your website?

Here’s the fun part:

This “checklist” side of positioning is what actually gets you recommended in AI search too!


Once LLMs know you and your competitors exist, they actually research who’s a better fit.

I.e. they go through their checklist and see who ticks most boxes.

If they cannot find this information about you, you’re out of the game.

— Ishaan “secretly enjoys the sexy parts of positioning more”Shakunt

LLMs don’t read your LI posts. But they’ll read mine. Steal my playbook.

Based on Chosenly.com data, only 0.1% of all links being referenced by LLMs are LI posts.

But I write a lot of posts. I can’t just let them go to waste.

Most people will give you advice like:
😅 Re-post everything on your website as blogs!
😅 Repurpose everything into YT videos!
😅 Re-post them as Reddit & Quora threads!

Don't follow this advice blindly. Because bulk repurposing doesn't work well.

– If you have 1,000 posts and try to turn each into a blog, quality suffers. The content will never be as good as a few focused, well thought out pieces.
– You'll need additional resources (writers, editors, designers).

Here’s what I am doing instead:

Step 1: Create an LLM & SEO content strategy
Ignore your LinkedIn strategy for now. Start by mapping what you want to show up for in LLMs and in SEO.

Step 2: Track what you post on LinkedIn
Even if you don't have a set strategy to post on LinkedIn, just track your posts in a spreadsheet.

Step 3: Map LI posts to your SEO/GEO topics
Eg: This post could be part of a larger blog on “How to create a content strategy for GEO".

I could combine it with other posts about:
• How I do keyword research
• X ways to structure your content
• My step-by-step approach to use AI for these pieces

I could then use those 4 posts to write ONE high-quality blog on GEO content strategy.

Step 4: Identify topic/content gaps
List topics you’d want in your SEO/GEO blogs that your LinkedIn posts don't cover yet. Add them to your LinkedIn strategy.

Step 5: Turn grouped posts into blogs
Once you have all the posts you need, consolidate them into higher-quality blogs or LinkedIn articles.

So next time, don't race to repurpose every post into 10 formats. Use your best ideas and create assets that are impossible for LLMs to ignore.

Want the spreadsheet template we’re using?

– Ishaan “Doesn’t enjoy creating content” Shakunt

FTE SEOs almost never become CMOs. And I partially blame the tools.

When I started doing SEO, I had to juggle 10+ different tools just to do my job.

Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz. Screaming Frog, Surfer, WordPress Plugins, Google Search Console..….

Buying each of these tools, then learning to use each one of them, then orchestrating them is slow. Like really really slow.

Once you get used to it, it gets better but when you’re starting out it’s a real pain in the 🍑

And honestly, it held back the entire SEO industry for years.

Most SEOs are far too disjointed from strategy. They’re buried in the tools and best practices.

AI search is becoming just as big.

You need a tool for:
- Positioning
- PR
- Content
- Outreach
- Tracking your AISO activities/visibility.

The surface area keeps expanding.
And every time you buy a new tool, you’re just adding one more tab to your tech stack sprawl.

That's why we built Chosenly.com.
All the capabilities you need for AI search, in one place.

If you're doing AISO, you don't have to go through the same pain we did.

— Ishaan “spent half my twenties in GSC” Shakunt

SEO content is famous for one thing: being bad. 😭

If you read Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines (a 36-page document), you'll see that MORE THAN HALF of it talks about just two things:
- Quality
- Usefulness

The funny part is all the complaints people have about SEO content are exactly the opposite of what those docs ask for.

Google always wanted quality and usefulness, but couldn't measure it.

So it used technical things like:
- Backlinks
- Page structure
- Formatting
- Images
- Semantic keywords

Every time Google released an update, writers figured out how to game it.

The result: A decade+ of mediocre content ranking well, because it checked the right technical boxes. ✅

So SEO content ended up being created mainly “for SEO” instead of for the reader.

With LLMs, that is finally changing.

Search engines can FINALLY look at the two things they cared about from day one.

But the industry is not ready.
- SEO writers don’t write but summarise existing articles
- Practitioners who actually have insights feel like it's not their job to share them
- Companies are not ready to spend the amount of money required to create content that's actually helpful

This is going to be a bloodbath for people who have been gaming the system for years. That includes:
- Most SEOs
- Most content writers who only know how to do “SEO content” in this old way
At the same time, it’s one of the biggest opportunities:
- The best writers will start to shine
- Smaller companies can win
- Better quality content can win even if the brand is not huge, not old, not the most popular

We are finally getting to a stage where usefulness and quality actually matter, and the next couple of years are going to be very interesting for anyone working in content and SEO.

— Ishaan “watching the bloodbath from the first row” Shakunt

ABM and AI Search look different, but they force you to do the exact same thing.

Both make you prioritize things you should have been doing anyway.

ABM means one of three things to different companies:

Type A: We report at an account level now, so we’re doing ABM.
(Not really ABM, but people still call it that.)

Type B: We built a list of 3k to 8k accounts and run ads and cold emails to all of them.

Type C (the real ABM): We picked 50 accounts and we’ll do whatever it takes to close them.

Dinners. Games. Warm intros. Finding their alumni networks.
Basically doing everything humanly possible to win those logos.

Three different definitions. Same label.

Whatever your definition might be, it all pushes you toward the same thing:

1. Focus on the right accounts
2. Be where they are
3. Understand their problems
4. Give them what they want

These are things you should have been doing anyway. But having a framework around these helps you structure your efforts.

AI search works the same way.

It just forces you to focus on things you should have prioritized anyway:

1. Create content with a unique POV
2. Publish on websites like LI pulse or Medium if your website cannot “rank”
3. Make sure your company profiles across the web are aligned to your positioning
4. Have good reviews
5. Get featured on all listicles getting any visibility
6. Make sure there aren’t lies about you across the web
7. List all info buyers need to select you over competition

Or put another way: optimize your searchable web presence.
The same things that influence human buying decisions anyway.

ABM is a framework for demand gen. (That’s often tied to a few channels)
AI search is a framework for demand capture. (But also tied to a channel)

What other frameworks are your favourites?

— Ishaan “if only teams did the basics” Shakunt

taplio

The Battle

Tom Hunt

Ishaan Shakunt

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Performance ScoreTom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreIshaan Shakunt's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Tom Hunt

Ishaan Shakunt

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Tom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreIshaan Shakunt's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreTom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance