Fiat Growth Newsletter #14

Gifting, Agents & SEO

Hey, it’s Fiat!

We’re back in your inbox with three drops we’re fired up about—tools, tactics, agents and events designed to help you grow smarter, move faster, and build stronger.

This issue takes just 7 minutes to read—but it’s packed with three things we’re genuinely excited about:

• The Gift Department: Our newest AI agent, designed to help sales teams turn cold outreach into real connection through thoughtful, perfectly timed gifting.

• SEO in the Age of AI: What modern search really looks like now that Google and Bing are thinking like people, not crawling like robots—and how top fintech brands are adapting fast.

• The FinTech Summit 2025: June 17th in San Francisco. 200 of the most impactful founders, operators, and investors in fintech. One day. One room. Applications are open now.

Let’s get into it.

- Team Fiat 🚀

This issue is brought to you by The Fintech Summit.

Your AI-Powered Gifting Agent for Sales Teams

Turn pipeline moments into memorable touchpoints—at scale.

At Fiat, we’ve always believed in the power of creating meaningful, human moments in business. That belief deepened two years ago when we read Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. It flipped a switch.

It reminded us that the best relationships—personal or professional—are built not on grand gestures, but on thoughtful, deeply human ones. And that hospitality, when done right, can be your strongest differentiator.

We’ve carried that mindset ever since.

Most gifting strategies fail because they’re generic, reactive, and manual. Whether it’s prospecting, onboarding, or customer retention — the message you send with a gift matters more than the gift itself.

We built an AI agent called “The Gift Department” as our answer to that challenge.

A smart AI-powered gifting agent designed to help business development teams build, nurture, and close long-term client relationships through highly personalized, occasion-specific gifts.

We’ve learned that it’s never about the gift. It’s about the relationship, and when done right, a well-timed, thoughtful gift can cut a 12-month sales cycle in half. It builds trust, shows you’re listening, and keeps your name top of mind—long after the Zoom call ends.

At Fiat, we’ve seen this first-hand.

• Sometimes it’s a college sweater for a client’s kid who just got accepted.

• Sometimes it’s booking a tee time at their favorite course.

• It’s never about the price tag.

• It’s about making people feel seen. Understood. Remembered.

That’s unreasonable hospitality—and it scales when done right.

Here’s how it works:

1️⃣ Lead Input

Start with something simple — a LinkedIn URL, email, or a form submission.

2️⃣ Insight Extraction

Gift Department scrapes relevant information about the person and their company, then uses an AI agent to analyze their background, role, and industry.

3️⃣ Gift Recommendation

You choose a price range. The system returns curated, thoughtful gift ideas tailored to who they are — not just what they do.

4️⃣ Relationship Tracking

Log interactions and gifting history to build a long-term relationship map that scales with your pipeline.

This system plugs into multiple touch points – lead collection, client onboarding, customer milestones, and follow-up sequence – to make gifting feel timely, personal, and useful. 

It’s the exact tool we use at Fiat to surprise and delight prospects, re-engage cold leads, and deepen relationships with our most valuable partners.

Because the best sales teams don’t just close deals, they open relationships that last years, even decades.

Sign up and get 100% FREE access to the full gifting agent HERE - we’ll follow up with instructions on how to use it shortly. 

Never forget:  Real relationships > cold follow-ups.

And real follow-ups should feel special.

SEO in the Age of AI

SEO Rankings in a World That Thinks for Itself

Let’s be real: traditional SEO playbooks are on life support. Keyword stuffing, backlink bloat, and blog posts written like they’re optimized for robots—not real humans? That stuff just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Because AI search is here—and it’s rewriting the rules.

Search engines like Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) and Bing AI aren’t just matching phrases anymore. They’re reading between the lines. They’re interpreting intent. They’re synthesizing context. That means if your content doesn’t answer real questions, reflect real expertise, and speak in a natural, human tone… it’s getting skipped. Fast.

And honestly? We’re here for it.

AI-powered search is forcing a much-needed cleanup in the content world. The winners? Brands that actually know what their audience wants—and can deliver it without sounding like a 2007 FAQ page.

Here’s what works (and why it hits):

• Intent-First Content: If you’re still writing “What is Fintech?” blog posts, stop. Your content should solve real problems for real people. Start with pain points, not keywords.

• Structured Data: Schema markup = more context for AI. Help the machines help you.

• Natural Language, Always – Talk like a human. Write like someone’s reading. Because they are.

• EEAT or Die: Experience. Expertise. Authoritativeness. Trustworthiness. If your content doesn’t reflect all four, you’re not just being ignored—you’re being buried.

• Use AI to Win at AI: Tools like ChatGPT, Clearscope, and SurferSEO aren’t crutches—they’re fuel. Use them to map intent, fill gaps, and pressure-test your content before it goes live.

This new era of search isn’t about optimizing for algorithms—it’s about optimizing for relevance. AI is getting smarter. The question is: are you?

If your SEO strategy still lives in a spreadsheet full of keywords and a calendar of uninspired blog titles, it’s time to evolve. Write with clarity. Speak with authority. Build with purpose.

Because the future of search won’t reward those who publish the most—it’ll reward those who say something worth ranking.

Top 4 Fintech Brands Winning in the AI-First SEO Era

Some brands aren’t just surviving the shift to AI-powered search—they’re thriving in it. These are the ones playing offense, not defense. They’ve ditched the keyword-stuffing playbooks and leaned into clarity, structure, and human-first content that AI can understand and elevate.

1. HubSpot

Why they’re winning:

• Every blog post has a clear audience and job to do

• Huge focus on topical authority with pillar pages and content clusters

• Schema markup, FAQs, and AI-friendly formatting baked into everything

• Content sounds human and helpful—not like it’s chasing an algorithm

2. Zapier

Why they’re winning:

• Every piece of content solves a specific workflow or automation pain point

• Extremely clear, structured writing and visuals—perfect for AI summarization and featured snippets

• Constant updates to match evolving tools, APIs, and user needs

• “How-to” content reads like product marketing meets onboarding
  

3. Shopify

Why they’re winning:

• Deep, actionable content for entrepreneurs—guides that are both expert and relatable

• Smart use of structured data across product, blog, and help center pages

• Their blog blends education with inspiration and hits multiple formats (video, case study, how-to)

• Consistent tone that’s human and brand-forward, even at scale

These brands are leading in AI-powered search because they:

• Create clarity in chaos

• Serve real user needs

• Publish less often, but with more intent

• Let AI assist—not dictate—their content strategy

• Big signal. No fluff. That’s how you win now.

That’s all for this edition. Cheers!

Fiat Growth Team