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/