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About our guest — Brendan Short
Brendan Short is the creator of The Signal, a popular Substack newsletter that separates the signal from the noise in GTM tech. He is a respected voice in the GTM engineering community, known for his insightful essays on the evolving role of the GTM engineer and the future of AI-driven sales. Brendan also runs a GTME consultancy, where he provides custom Clay implementations for B2B SaaS companies.
Before The Signal, Brendan has gained a deep understanding of the GTM landscape, having held roles as an SDR, AE, sales leader, and Rev Ops professional at companies like Zoom and Apollo. His experience has given him a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities in the modern GTM world. Brendan is a strong advocate for leveraging AI and automation to create more efficient and effective GTM motions.
Core takeaways
GTM Engineering as Leverage: A GTM engineer provides leverage to the entire go-to-market team, from top-of-funnel marketing to post-sale customer retention.
The Old Playbook is Broken: The traditional approach of hiring more SDRs and increasing activity volume is no longer effective. The modern GTM landscape requires a more strategic and technology-driven approach.
AI is the New Playbook: AI is a transformative technology that is reshaping the GTM landscape. Companies that fail to adopt AI will be left behind.
The Rise of the Prompt Engineer: As AI becomes more prevalent, every GTM team will need a full-time prompt engineer to effectively leverage the power of large language models.
Vibe Coding and GTM Engineering: The worlds of GTM engineering and “vibe coding” (rapidly building and shipping simple applications) are converging. This will enable GTM teams to be more agile and experimental.
Top quotes
On the GTM engineer’s role: “I see a GTM engineer as somebody that gives a go-to-market team leverage.”
On the changing GTM landscape: “The old playbook of go to market wasn’t working like it used to. I don’t think it’s completely dead, but I think that the playbook doesn’t work like it used to.”
On the importance of AI: “People that don’t adopt this stuff, they just won’t have a job to the degree that they do in a couple of years. It’s a hard truth to swallow, but I believe it and I’m seeing it firsthand.”
On the future of GTM teams: “My prediction is they will become very close buddies in the coming months.” (referring to GTM engineering and vibe coding)
Referenced tools and resources
CRM: HubSpot, Salesforce, Atio, Clarify, Coffee.ai, Day.ai
LLM: ChatGPT (specifically GPT-4o), Claude (Sonnet 4)
Enrichment: Custom AI workflows, Surfer.dev, Sumble
Vibe Coding: Lovable
Dictation: Superwhisper
Want to learn GTM Engineering strategy and execution? Ticket for GTM Engineer School cohort 2 are now out (less than 20 out 75 seats available!)
Timestamps
(02:19) Brendan’s definition of GTM engineering
(04:44) The moment Brendan realized the GTM playbook had changed
(06:10) The old playbook: hiring SDRs, high activity, predictable revenue
(07:06) The new playbook: GTM engineering and AI
(09:45) Lightning Round: Favorite CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, Atio)
(11:39) Lightning Round: Top LLM (ChatGPT-4o, Claude Sonnet 4)
(13:16) Lightning Round: Top enrichment tool (Custom AI workflows, Surfer.dev, Sumble)
(14:59) Brendan’s top overall GTM engineering tool (Clay)
(15:30) The convergence of GTM engineering and “vibe coding” (Lovable)
(17:15) The most underrated tool in GTM (Sumble, LLMs as thought partners)
(19:22) Brendan’s approach to building GTM stacks for clients
(20:21) Solving problems first, then finding the tools
(24:01) The importance of scoping projects and managing client expectations
(26:25) The mindset shift to being an “AI native” worker
(29:03) A deep dive into a project with Bravado: building a signal-based selling system
(32:33) The power of foundational data work and “rich data points”
(34:44) Enriching data and pushing the synthesis to the CRM
How to connect with Brendan
Where to connect with Jared & Matteo
Jared Waxman, GTM Engineer School Co-founder: LinkedIn
Matteo Tittarelli, GTM Engineer School Co-founder: LinkedIn, X, Website, Newsletter
