How do you actually get executives to care about GEO? My boss thinks SEO is enough

I’ve gotten GEO budgets approved at two companies. Here’s what actually works:

Mistake most people make:

They lead with “AI is the future” and technology talk. Executives don’t care. They care about revenue, risk, and competitive advantage.

What worked for me:

1. Lead with competitive intelligence (not AI hype)

“Our competitor [Name] appears in 40% of ChatGPT responses about [our category]. We appear in 0%. Here are screenshots.”

This is concrete, competitive, and creates urgency.

2. Frame it as risk mitigation

“If 20% of our target audience uses AI search next year (conservative), and we’re invisible, that’s $X million in missed pipeline.”

Loss aversion > opportunity excitement for executives.

3. Start small with clear metrics

“I need $X for a 90-day pilot. Success metrics: appear in Y% of AI answers for our category. If we hit that, we expand.”

Low risk, clear accountability, easy decision.

4. Show the attribution path

“We’ll track AI referral traffic specifically with UTM parameters. I can show you exactly what this investment generates.”

Data-driven executives love measurable programs.

What didn’t work:

• “AI is changing everything” (too vague)
• “Our competitors are doing it” (need specifics)
• “We should be early adopters” (risk-averse execs hate this)

Make it about business outcomes, not technology.

I got $150K approved for GEO last quarter. Here’s the exact approach:

Step 1: Quantify the opportunity

I calculated: “If ChatGPT has 400M weekly users, and 3% are in our target market, and 10% are researching our category, that’s 1.2M potential customers asking AI about solutions like ours every week.”

Big numbers get attention.

Step 2: Show competitive gap with specifics

I tested 25 category-relevant queries and documented:

• Competitor A: mentioned in 60% of responses
• Competitor B: mentioned in 45%
• Us: mentioned in 8%

The visual gap was shocking to leadership.

Step 3: Connect to existing priorities

Our company was already focused on “brand authority” as a strategic initiative. I positioned GEO as: “How we extend our brand authority to the places where customers are increasingly discovering solutions.”

Tie new initiatives to existing executive priorities.

Step 4: Propose a phased approach

• Phase 1 (Q1): Foundation - $40K
• Phase 2 (Q2): Expansion - $50K
• Phase 3 (Q3-Q4): Scale - $60K

With clear go/no-go criteria between phases. Low initial commitment with path to scale.

The result:

Got full budget approved. Now 6 months in, we’ve gone from 8% to 35% mention rate.

I work in finance before marketing. Here’s how CFOs think about new investments:

What CFOs want to see:

1. Clear ROI model - Not “this might help,” but “if X, then Y revenue”

2. Downside protection - What’s the worst case? Small pilot = limited downside

3. Competitive risk - “If competitors capture this and we don’t, here’s the impact”

4. Measurable milestones - How will you prove this is working?

The magic framing:

“This is a $X investment to determine if a $Y opportunity is real. If the pilot succeeds, we have first-mover advantage. If it fails, we’ve learned cheaply.”

Numbers that resonate:

• Customer acquisition cost comparison (AI-referred vs other channels)
• Pipeline attribution (how much revenue touched AI channels)
• Conversion rate differential (AI visitors typically convert 3-6x better)

What kills proposals:

• “Everyone is doing it” (so what?)
• “It’s the future” (how do you know?)
• “We should experiment” (with my budget?)

Speak their language: risk, return, competitive positioning.

At my startup, I got GEO prioritized by making it visceral:

The “board meeting demo” approach:

I asked our CEO to search ChatGPT for “[our category] solutions” during a board meeting. When three competitors were mentioned and we weren’t, the board asked “Why?”

CEO became my champion instantly.

Making it personal:

I asked executives to try asking AI about their own products or our industry. When they saw themselves invisible, the urgency became personal.

The “Vercel moment”:

I shared the stat about Vercel getting 10% of new signups from ChatGPT referrals. That’s real, measurable revenue from AI visibility.

Executives think: “Could that be us?”

What worked at the startup level:

• Small experiments (minimal budget needed)
• Fast results (AI visibility can improve in weeks, not months)
• Clear attribution (tag AI referral traffic separately)

Startups can move faster. Use that advantage.

Enterprise reality: Getting budget is about navigating politics, not just logic.

Find your internal champion:

Someone senior who “gets it” and can advocate in rooms you’re not in. For me, it was a VP who personally uses AI daily.

Build a coalition:

Get product, sales, and customer success aligned. When multiple departments want the same thing, budget magically appears.

Use pilot data from free tools:

Before asking for budget, I used free monitoring to collect 30 days of baseline data. Came to the conversation with evidence, not theory.

The enterprise-specific framing:

“Our competitors are building AI visibility as a moat. If we wait 12-18 months, the cost to catch up will be 3-5x what it costs to start now.”

Enterprise execs fear being leapfrogged by competitors.

Timeline expectations:

Enterprise budget cycles are slow. I started conversations in Q1, got pilot budget in Q3, and full budget for the following year.

Plan accordingly.

Simple ROI framework I use:

The calculation:

1. Estimate AI search volume for your category (use market data)
2. Estimate your potential share (based on market position)
3. Apply conversion rate (AI traffic converts 3-6x better)
4. Calculate potential revenue
5. Compare to investment required

Example:

• 1M monthly AI queries about our category
• If we capture 10% = 100K exposures
• 5% click through = 5,000 visitors
• 3% convert = 150 leads
• 20% close rate = 30 customers
• Average deal size $10K = $300K/month potential

Investment: $50K for pilot

Even with conservative assumptions, the math works.

Present ranges, not single numbers:

“Conservative: $X, Moderate: $Y, Optimistic: $Z”

This shows you’ve thought through scenarios and aren’t overselling.

This thread completely reframed my approach. Key insights:

What I was doing wrong:

• Leading with AI hype instead of competitive gaps
• Presenting opportunity instead of risk
• Asking for big budget instead of small pilot
• Speaking technology instead of business outcomes

My new pitch:

Opening: Competitive intelligence showing we’re invisible where competitors appear

Middle: Market data on AI search adoption + risk of inaction

Close: Small pilot with clear success metrics and go/no-go criteria

Specific changes:

1. Testing 20 relevant queries across ChatGPT/Perplexity this week
2. Documenting competitive gaps with screenshots
3. Proposing $30K pilot (not $150K program)
4. Clear success metric: Go from 5% to 25% mention rate in 90 days

Key insight:

Executives don’t buy “AI is the future.” They buy “competitors are winning, and here’s how we catch up.”

Thanks everyone for the reality check on executive psychology!