Ep.120 - AI-Driven Buyer Behavior, Trust, and the New Sales Playbook with Sabrina Parsons - Part 1

General Episode Description:

In this episode of Selling Intelligence, Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson sit down with Sabrina Parsons, CEO of Palo Alto Software, to explore how AI is rapidly reshaping buyer behavior and forcing a complete rethink of how companies sell, market, and build trust.

Sabrina shares how search behavior has fundamentally shifted toward AI-generated answers, reducing click-throughs and changing how buyers consume information. She explains why this creates new challenges in clarity, especially around the “build vs buy” decision, and why sales teams must now work harder to guide buyers through uncertainty.

The conversation also dives into the growing importance of trust, the evolving relationship between sales and marketing, and how organizations can use AI effectively without losing the human connection that ultimately drives decisions. 

What You’ll Learn:

• The New Buyer Behavior: How AI-driven search and LLMs are reducing clicks and changing how buyers gather information.
• The “Muddy Middle” Problem: Why AI has blurred clarity around what buyers actually need and whether they should build or buy.
• Selling in an AI World: How sales teams must adapt when buyers are more informed but also more uncertain.
• Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why tighter collaboration is critical to address buyer confusion and build trust earlier.
• Using AI Without Losing Trust: Where AI enhances the sales process and where it can damage credibility.

Key Topics:

• Shift from keyword search to question-based search behavior
• AI-generated answers reducing traditional website traffic
• AEO vs SEO: optimizing for AI engines, not just search engines
• Buyers arriving more educated but with incomplete or misleading context
• The disruption of the “why change” conversation in sales
• Build vs buy vs AI: a more complex decision landscape for buyers
• Marketing’s role in answering buyer questions upfront and building trust
• The risk of poor AI experiences damaging brand perception
• Using AI for preparation versus customer-facing interactions
• Turning AI efficiency into better personalization and human engagement

Guest Spotlight: Sabrina Parsons

Sabrina Parsons is the CEO of Palo Alto Software, makers of LivePlan, a leading business planning and financial forecasting platform. With experience leading both sales and marketing, she brings a unique perspective on how companies build sustainable revenue engines. Sabrina is also a strong advocate for women in leadership and technology, and has guided her company through multiple waves of technological change. 

Resources & Mentions:

• Palo Alto Software
• LivePlan
• Concept: AEO (AI Engine Optimization) vs traditional SEO
• Concept: Build vs Buy vs AI decision-making
• Concept: Trust equation in modern sales
• Example: Customer experience with AI chatbots (Oura Ring case)

🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more insights on AI, modern buyer behavior, and building high-performing revenue teams.

Mark Petruzzi (00:31)

Welcome to Selling Intelligence. Our guest today is Sabrina Parsons, CEO of Palo Alto Software, makers of LivePlan, one of the world's leading business planning and financial forecasting platforms. Sabrina has been the helm at the company, this company that has over four decades of history leading through multiple waves of technology disruption.

Before stepping into the CEO role, she ran both sales and marketing, giving her a uniquely integrated view of how companies grow, how buyers decide, and what it really takes to build a revenue engine that lasts. She is a passionate advocate for women in leadership and technology, a thread we'll weave in throughout today's conversation as well. So three topics we'd like to cover with you and with Sabrina today.

how AI is reshaping buyer behavior and what that means for how you sell. We've covered that many times on our podcasts already, but we really are excited about Sabrina's perspective and her experiences in that area as well. The second one is why the human element, why trust, story building and storytelling.

And relationships are the only sustainable differentiators that we really can build in today's business climate. And third and finally, what sales and marketing leaders must do differently today and how that integrates into the CEO role and also the board of directors. What can the boards be doing to help their sales and marketing leaders evolve in the way that they need to?

Sabrina, welcome to Selling Intelligence.

Sabrina Parsons (02:13)

Great, thanks Mark, I'm really happy to be here.

Mark Petruzzi (02:15)

All right, let's dive right into topic one. ⁓ Topic one, AI and the changing buyer. So Sabrina, you've described the buyer behavior online as having shifted more dramatically in the last 18 months than in the prior decade. What are you actually seeing? Why does it matter so much for how we sell and how we need to sell in the future?

Sabrina Parsons (02:35)

that's a great question. And I'm pretty sure as soon as I start talking, all the listeners are going to say, because we've all experienced, I think, a very similar change in how we interact online. In the last 18 months and even more so in the last 12 months, we have all seen the way our interaction on search has changed.

particularly with these new AI synopsis that you see at the top of the page.

And while there will be articles and sites that are cited in this AI, what's happened is that fewer people are clicking through because they go, they have a question, they type it into Google, and they're typing questions now into Google. used to be that we would type keywords, right? And then you'd see what happened. And now people are typing questions into Google and then the or whatever search engine, but, Google

still probably the most used. And then what they're getting back, it scratches the itch for the most part. And so they're getting this information and then maybe they're moving on, right? So that's one huge change in behavior and we're all seeing it, right? You have interacted and chosen not to go forward because your question is answered or you found what you need. ⁓ So that new way that we're getting...

all of this information displayed, it means fewer click-throughs, and so companies that are selling have to deal with that. The other thing is that search engines are really leaning on and preferring

when you can put content out there that actually gives answers, because that's what people are looking for, right? It's how do I, those types of questions, how do I do this? How do I sell? How do I market? How do I, all of these how do I's, that's what people are doing. ⁓ And then the other thing that I think we all know is that people are for the most part, very familiar with LLMs, right? With all these AI chat box. And many people

are using them instead of search engines, which I will say if you are, think about it because it's a very expensive search engine. It uses a lot of energy to do an AI query. And every time we're using

AI when you could just use a search engine, we're wasting energy. So it's something that, you know, not everybody always knows, but there's an appropriate use for AI, but it doesn't matter, right? Behavior has changed, and we're all trained now in this new behavior. And it feels like it's just been like instant, like in the last 12 months, because changing behavior used to be a huge thing, right?

From a sales perspective, people like you would teach salespeople how to help change behavior. And like we have seen behavior change just so quickly this time around.

KK Anderson (05:23)

overnight. so how does that change how we sell?

Sabrina Parsons (05:27)

So that's a great question. I mean, it has to, right? Because when you're selling, used to be that your marketing team could just make sure like, are search results going to come up on first page versus second page? And if not, let's just buy pay-per-click ads and make sure that they come up.

in those results. And it's like that doesn't work anymore. So a lot of what you have to do in terms of how to change how you're selling is address this new way that content is consumed. So you really have to think through, am I providing answers? And it's not just content that fits keywords, right? It's content that's actually giving answers. And then in the way you format your content, if you want

to be AEO forward, right? It used to be just SEO, search engine optimized. Now we're AI chat bot optimized. If you want to be AEO forward, you really have to rethink how you're putting your content together, what kind of sort of synopsis you have that's easy for AEO to grab.

Do you have the right FAQ schema? It's just a, you know, it's a different way that the LLMs are crawling through information. And so you just have to make those changes.

KK Anderson (06:46)

Right. And I'll just add to that. It's all about that trust equation. Right. And so that's what our prospects for all of us, you who are running businesses and running sales organizations, they're all looking to, they're looking for value and that value is what's driving trust. And that trust equation ⁓ is going to what finally converts. And so when your buyers do get on the phone with you finally,

They're going to be so much more educated. going to know so much more. They will probably have an LLM, create a table stack ranking, the three top options to solve their problem. And so they're going to be so much more educa