C-Suite Strategies

S2E25: No Creative, No Data: Why Your Marketing Metrics Are Lying to You

In this episode, Stacie Sussman — Founder and CRO of RevUp Advisory — sits down with Drew Brucker, AI Creative Consultant and founder of Brain Child, to dig into the layer most CMOs are skipping in their AI strategy: creative. Every CMO is being asked the same question — what's your AI strategy? — and most of them answer with a stack. Attribution platforms. Orchestration tools. Agents. Dashboards. What no one's saying out loud: your data is only as smart as the assets flowing through it. And most teams don't have the assets — or the system to produce them at the speed AI now demands. Drew has been deep in the AI creative trenches since 2022, after spending 11+ years leading marketing at SaaS startups. In this conversation, he breaks down why creative was one of the first functions AI massively disrupted, walks through what an on-demand AI photo shoot actually looks like, and shows how to start building this into your org without a six-figure budget or a 10-person creative team. Why Creative Got Disrupted First * Why AI hitting creative this hard surprised even the people building in it * The democratization of creative production — and why specialized skills are getting flatter, faster * Why photorealism and "AI people" are the most polarizing piece, but creative is so much more than that (icons, illustrations, animations, product shots, environment shots) Building Your Brand's Visual DNA * What "visual DNA" actually means — colors, aesthetic, personality, locations, objects, the things that make you, you * How to build a visual library that marketing, sales, CS, and product can all pull from * Why this works just as well for a Series A startup with no budget as it does for the biggest brands in the market The On-Demand AI Photo Shoot (Walked Through Live) * How Drew combined three sourced images — a model, an outfit, and a backdrop — into 20 distinct camera angles in minutes * Why generating around the model in 360° prevents AI hallucinations when you turn stills into video * Why this isn't replacing photo shoots — it's filling the gaps (the angle you forgot, the colorway you didn't shoot, the model you don't want to fly back in) System-Style Thinking Is the Real Unlock * Why training your team on prompt engineering is yesterday's playbook — building the infrastructure is the new one * How brand guidelines + a campaign brief + an LLM = 10 optimized prompts your team can copy-paste straight into any image model * The Magic Spoon example — synthesizing a brand's entire visual identity from a handful of images and generating social assets in one click Why Creative Is the Missing Layer in Your Marketing Metrics * Why your data is only as good as the creative flowing through it * How AI creative changes the math on A/B testing — more variants, more learning, less spend * The 80–90% sweet spot — what AI handles, where humans still curate, and why that combo wins Where to Start When You're Drowning in AI * Why X (not LinkedIn) is the upstream channel for creative AI builders, and how to filter the noise * Drew's filter: feed the post into an LLM and ask, "how relevant is this to me, scale 1–10, be objective" * Why MD (markdown) files are the single highest-leverage thing you can build for any LLM workflow — and how Stacie uses one for RevUp built off the MKT1 framework You can also connect with our guest, Drew Brucker.  * Website: drewcbrucker.com * LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drewbru Stacie is Teaching a LIVE AI Workshop. Find out more: Claude Code for Real Business Workshop - Thursday, May 28th [https://staciesussmanteachesai.com/] https://calendly.com/revupadvisory/consult-call-from-c-suite-strategies-w-stacie-sussman

S2E24: Stop Hiding Behind Jargon: The Art of B2B Brand Storytelling That Wins

In this episode, Stacie Sussman — Founder and CRO of RevUp Advisory — sits down with Lauryn Warnick, CEO of Villain Branding, to dig into one of the most underestimated levers in B2B growth: brand storytelling. Most B2B leaders think storytelling is a nice-to-have. Lauryn’s here to prove it’s a revenue driver. When your story is murky, your sales cycles stretch. When your messaging is inconsistent, deals go quiet. When your team can’t agree on what you do, neither can your buyers. This is the conversation that changes how you think about brand — from a marketing expense to a business asset with a measurable ROI. Want Stacie’s hot take first? This is Part 2 of a two-part series on B2B brand storytelling. In Part 1, Stacie breaks down brand debt — what it is, why it’s costing you deals, and what to do about it before you ever bring in outside help. Listen to Part 1 here → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s2e23-youve-got-brand-debt-heres-what-its-actually/id1766582344?i=1000758388118 What We Cover Why B2B Leaders Hide Behind Jargon The real cost of a complicated message — and who’s paying it Why complex portfolios make the storytelling problem worse, not better How a confused brand story shows up in your sales cycle before it ever shows up in your pipeline data Verbal Strategy: The Foundation You’re Skipping What a “verbal strategy consultancy” actually does — and why visuals without words first is backwards How to build a message that travels coherently from the CEO’s keynote to the SDR’s cold email The three pillars every B2B brand story needs: differentiation, credibility, and relevancy The Villain Framework in Practice What “raising the bar” actually means when you’re a mid-enterprise B2B company Why category creation is usually a trap — and what to do instead How to close the gap between what your business does and what the market thinks you do Measuring Brand ROI (Yes, You Can) The three levers that define brand value: choice, premium, and loyalty What Interbrand and Kantar actually track — and why your CFO should care Why brand-led organizations capture up to 70% of their value through the brand itself — and what the band-aid companies are leaving on the table Brand Storytelling in the Age of AI Why your buyers are researching in ChatGPT and Perplexity before they ever fill out a form How to make sure bots and humans alike can find you — and understand you Why jumping into AI execution without a clear verbal foundation just scales your confusion faster When Leaders Get It Right — and When They Don’t What Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Coca-Cola are doing that most companies aren’t Why CEOs going rogue on keynotes is a brand debt problem, not a communications problem The moment when you know the work landed — and the moment you know it didn’t 3 Things to Do Before the Next Episode Ask five people at your company what you do — cross-functional, no briefing. Count how many different answers you get. That gap is your brand debt. Look at your last three sales cycles that went dark — was your story clear enough that the buyer could explain your value internally without you in the room? Search your category in ChatGPT or Perplexity — see if your company shows up the way you think it does. If it doesn’t, your verbal foundation needs work. Connect with Lauryn Warnick Website: villainbranding.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/laurynwarnick Email: lauryn@villainbranding.com Connect with Stacie Sussman Subscribe to the RevUp Advisory newsletter on Substack: https://staci Stacie is Teaching a LIVE AI Workshop. Find out more: Claude Code for Real Business Workshop - Thursday, May 28th [https://staciesussmanteachesai.com/] https://calendly.com/revupadvisory/consult-call-from-c-suite-strategies-w-stacie-sussman

S2E23: You've Got Brand Debt. Here's What It's Actually Costing You.

In this solo episode, Stacie Sussman — Founder and CRO of RevUp Advisory — breaks down one of the most expensive problems hiding in plain sight across mid-market B2B companies: brand debt. This isn't just about having weak messaging or a tagline that needs a refresh. Brand debt is what happens when your story doesn't keep up with your business — and your buyers feel the disconnect long before you do. It shows up in longer sales cycles, deals that go dark after the second call, and a pipeline that's colder than it should be. The fix isn't better copy. It's building a system. What We Cover The Brand Debt Diagnosis Why asking five people at your company "what do you do?" will get you six different answers How brand debt compounds over time — just like financial debt The warning signs hiding across your org right now Why This Is a Revenue Problem, Not a Marketing Problem What the Interbrand research actually says about brand value (your CFO will care) Why unclear storytelling is costing you deals you don't even know you're losing How buyers experience the disconnect — even when they can't name it The System Behind the Story Why a great brand story sitting in a Google Doc does nothing for revenue How to build messaging that travels coherently from first touch to signed contract Why every channel has its own funnel logic — and what happens when you measure them all the same way Brand Debt in the Age of AI Your buyers are researching in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude before they ever fill out a form Why a broken brand story doesn't just cost you human attention — it makes you invisible to AI What AI tools actually surface (and what they ignore completely) 3 Things to Do Before the Next Episode Run the five-person experiment — cross-functional, no briefing, just ask Map your content by channel and be honest about what role each one is actually playing AI yourself — search your category and see if your company shows up the way you think it does Up Next Stacie sits down with Lauryn Warnick, CEO of Villain Branding, to go deep on solving the brand story problem at the mid-to-enterprise level. Lauren's working with billion-dollar companies and has a methodology that is equal parts clever and genius. You won't want to miss it. Connect with Stacie Sussman Subscribe to the RevUp Advisory newsletter on Substack: https://staciesussman.substack.com/subscribe Stacie is Teaching a LIVE AI Workshop. Find out more: Claude Code for Real Business Workshop - Thursday, May 28th [https://staciesussmanteachesai.com/] https://calendly.com/revupadvisory/consult-call-from-c-suite-strategies-w-stacie-sussman

S2E22: From SEO to AEO: The Four Pillars of AI Search Strategy

In this episode, Stacie sits down with Jenna Hannon—first marketing hire at Uber Eats and founder of GetHatter.ai [http://gethatter.ai]—to break down the shift from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), and what it means for your attribution model, your pipeline, and your competitive position. This isn’t just about “showing up in AI search.” It’s about making sure your company, your founders, and your thought leaders are the ones being cited when your buyers are doing that invisible dark funnel research. Guest: Jenna Hannon Founder of GetHatter.ai [http://gethatter.ai] and former first marketing hire at Uber Eats What We Cover SEO Fundamentals (And Why They’re Not Enough Anymore) * How SEO has worked for the past 20 years * The constant chase of Google’s algorithm changes * Why keyword strategies and backlink volume dominated the game The Rise of AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) * What AEO actually is and how it differs from SEO * Why 97% of searches still happen on Google—but summaries are changing everything * How LLMs decide whose content to cite (spoiler: it’s not about hacks) * Why AEO actually rewards good marketing better than Google ever did The Attribution Blind Spot * Your buyers are researching for weeks before filling out forms * AI-assisted research makes the dark funnel even darker * How to influence research you can’t see or measure * Why this is a revenue strategy conversation, not just a marketing tactic The Four Pillars of AEO Strategy Jenna breaks down the four key areas where you can move the needle in AEO—and why most companies are starting from 1% visibility (or 0%). She explains which pillar matters most, where to start if you’re overwhelmed, and why this isn’t about abandoning your SEO investment. The Truth About “AEO Hacks” * There is no magic button (Jenna tried to build one—Google shut it down overnight) * LinkedIn influencers selling shortcuts? Jenna’s tested them. They don’t work. * What actually works instead (and why it’s better than you think) Why You Shouldn’t Be Intimidated * The fundamentals haven’t changed—you’re just extending your strategy * AEO rewards strong marketing better than Google’s algorithm ever did * This isn’t a complete rework of your marketing priorities * Where to focus your energy for maximum impact Key Takeaways * SEO isn’t dead—97% of searches still happen on Google * But AI summaries are changing how buyers consume information * Most B2B brands show up 1% of the time (or less) in AI search results * There are no shortcuts—AEO rewards good marketing fundamentals Connect with Jenna Hannon * Email: jenna@gethatter.ai * LinkedIn: Jenna Hannon [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennahannon/] (book a 15-minute call directly from her profile and ask about her free AI visibility tracker) * Company: https://www.gethatter.ai/ [https://www.gethatter.ai/] Please note: The audio quality in the opening minutes of this episode is not up to our usual standard. Rather than delay sharing this important conversation, we chose to release it as-is because the insights are too valuable to wait. We appreciate your understanding and hope you enjoy the episode! Stacie is Teaching a LIVE AI Workshop. Find out more: Claude Code for Real Business Workshop - Thursday, May 28th [https://staciesussmanteachesai.com/] https://calendly.com/revupadvisory/consult-call-from-c-suite-strategies-w-stacie-sussman

S2E21: SEO is Dead. Long Live AEO. (What B2B Leaders Need to Know Before It's Too Late)

What We Cover What SEO is — and why it’s no longer the whole game What AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is and how it fundamentally differs from SEO How your buyers are already using AI tools (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude) to research before ever visiting your website Why you can have great SEO scores and still be completely invisible to an AI answer engine The “dark funnel” problem — and how AI makes it even harder to track buyer intent Why this is a revenue strategy conversation, not just a marketing or technical SEO conversation Three immediate actions B2B leaders can take right now Key Concepts Explained SEO — Search Engine Optimization The practice of making your website content discoverable by search engines like Google and Bing. The playbook centers on keywords, backlinks, site speed, technical structure, and domain authority — all with the goal of getting a human to click through to your website from a search results page. AEO — Answer Engine Optimization Optimizing your content so that AI-powered tools — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and others — pull from your content to generate direct, synthesized answers. There’s no click, no scroll, no website visit. If your brand isn’t showing up in those answers, you don’t exist in that buyer’s world. What Answer Engines Look For Clarity — Is your content answering questions directly and in a structured way? Authority & Trust — Are credible sources referencing your content? Is your brand seen as a subject matter expert? Schema Markup & Structured Data — Is your content technically formatted so AI can parse it? Freshness — Is your content current and regularly updated? Key Takeaways for B2B Leaders Your buyers are already using AI to research. Your ICP is typing questions into LLMs before they ever book a demo. If you’re not showing up there, you’re not in the consideration set. This is an attribution problem you need to get ahead of. The dark funnel is already hard to track. AI-assisted research makes it darker. If you’re not monitoring AI-driven brand mentions and traffic, you’re flying blind on a critical part of the buyer journey. SEO and AEO are not either/or — they’re both/and. Don’t abandon your SEO strategy. Build a content ecosystem that works for search engines and answer engines simultaneously. This is a strategy conversation, not just a technical one. AEO requires thinking about what questions your buyers are asking and whether your content answers them directly and authoritatively. A disconnected content strategy will not cut it in an AI-first research environment. 3 Things You Can Do Right Now 1. Audit your existing content for answer readiness. Review your top content pieces. Are they answering specific questions directly? Do they have clear headers that map to what someone would actually ask an AI? Can an AI pull a clean, accurate answer from them? If not — that’s your starting point. 2. Test AI research behavior in your category. Use ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Gemini to ask the questions your buyers ask. See who’s showing up, what language is being used, and where you stand. This is free competitive intelligence that will change how you think about content. 3. Get your technical foundation in order. If your website has messy structure, outdated schema markup, or poorly organized content — fix it. Don’t scale chaos. Fix the foundation first. Stacie is Teaching a LIVE AI Workshop. Find out more: Claude Code for Real Business Workshop - Thursday, May 28th [https://staciesussmanteachesai.com/] https://calendly.com/revupadvisory/consult-call-from-c-suite-strategies-w-stacie-sussman