Call Prep — Geri Markey, SPHR

• Who: Serial HR/People executive & startup advisor, 20+ yrs, Silicon Valley. Has built HR from scratch for ~15 high-growth startups (employee #11 at Data Domain → EMC; Head of People/VP HR at TheGuarantors; Director of HR & Talent at Punchh → PAR). Now advisor/coach/mentor across a portfolio of startups.
• Vibe (from 30+ recommendations): high-energy, "incorrigibly optimistic," warm, generous, goes the extra mile, a natural connector and coach. People love working with her.
• Why she matters to you: She sits on top of a huge, warm network of founders, ops/finance/HR leaders, and — critically — marketing/growth execs & CMOs. She's exactly the kind of person who can hand you a warm intro. And she already invited you to stay in touch.
• Warm hooks: LMU graduation (her daughter graduated); she's Filipino / native Tagalog (so are you — genuine common ground); dog-rescue foster; career coach who loves helping people win.

• May 2025: Met in person at the LMU graduation (her daughter's). Great conversation; she met your girlfriend, was warm and gracious, and invited you to reach out with questions.
• 2026-06-30: You sent a ~60s Loom reconnecting + explaining the pivot to an AI automation agency, and asked for intros to marketing-agency owners. Two light follow-ups (07-06, 07-14).
• 2026-07-21 (today): She replied — "I saw your video. Let's connect by phone, Zoom, or Google Meets" — shared her Calendly. You booked this call. She watched the video and said yes. That's a strong buying signal for her attention, not for a sale.

What she already knows going in: you left [prior work] to build an AI automation agency for B2B marketing agencies; you help them automate manual/repetitive work; you open with a free audit; you're looking for intros to agency owners. So you don't have to re-pitch cold — you're picking up a thread.

Current roles (she wears many hats simultaneously): - Advisor — liso.xyz (artist-first creator tech platform), since Mar 2026 - HR Leader / Advisor / Mentor / Coach — StartupExperts (4+ yrs) — an invite-only community of experienced HR, Finance & Ops leaders who are usually "teams of one." ← huge network node - HR & Talent Consultant — Acorn Finance (embedded home-improvement lending marketplace) - Career Development Coach — Santa Clara University, Leavey School of Business (11+ yrs; co-founded the Graduate Business Career Management program). She coaches people for a living. - Strategic advisor to a venture-backed "stealth AI startup"; board treasurer of a local water co.

Track record (selected): - Employee #11 at Data Domain (→ acquired by EMC), grew 11 → 50+ in a year - Head of People (VP HR) at TheGuarantors (proptech; BuiltIn Best Places to Work 2022) - Director of HR & Talent at Punchh (→ acquired by PAR Technology) - Talent leadership at Shape Security (→ F5), Renovo.auto (→ Toyota Woven Planet), A10 Networks - Deep recruiting / talent-acquisition roots before moving into full HR leadership

Domains she plays in: AI, fintech, proptech, SaaS, CRM, eCommerce, marketing technology, mobile/web/network security, data protection, autonomous vehicles.

Personal / rapport: - Filipino — native/bilingual Tagalog (also native English, elementary Italian). Shared heritage. - Education: BA French Literature, UC Irvine; Texas Tech. - Volunteering: POD Leader on her local CERT (emergency response) team; long-time foster parent & rep for Golden Gate Lab Rescue (dogs). She's a giver. - SPHR certified (renewed Jan 2024). Based Los Gatos / SF Bay Area → this is remote. - ~2,900 LinkedIn connections; not a "creator" but very networked and well-recommended.

Tell she cares about: integrity, company culture, developing people, "doing the right things and growing." She repeatedly gets praised for lifting other people up — lean into that; she'll respond to being asked to help someone (you) in a way that's easy and feels good.

Geri has public LinkedIn recommendations from marketing/growth leaders she worked with (mostly at Punchh, ~2019–2022) — several of whom now run their own marketing agencies/consultancies, i.e. your exact ICP. That's the evidence base. Caveat (be honest with yourself): a recommendation proves a real past working relationship, not a warm 2026 tie or that she'll intro you — so ask, don't assume. Verify any of these on her recommendations page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerimarkey/details/recommendations/

Plus StartupExperts = a room full of Ops/Finance/HR "teams of one" who personally feel the exact manual-work pain you remove.

🎯 Named intros to ask Geri for directly (walk in with these)

Go in with specific names — a named ask ("could you introduce me to Eric?") converts far better than "anyone come to mind?". These four are agency owners / GTM consultants = ideal clients. She has a real, documented relationship with each (they recommended her).

Deliberately NOT asking for (know why, so you don't waste the ask): - Olivia Neacsu — SVP Marketing at GUIDE (by Workspot), runguide.ai. She's an in-house marketing exec, not an agency owner → not a referral target. But GUIDE is an AI workflow-automation product with slick demos worth studying (tracked as a competitor — see docs/niche-research/competitors.md). If it comes up naturally, a light "I've been impressed by what GUIDE's building" is fine; don't make it the ask. - Melissa Teger — marketing ops at a pharma company, not an agency → not a fit. Skip.

How to run the named ask

Lead with the strongest (Eric), then offer the list: "A few people you've worked with actually run the exact kind of marketing agency I help — Eric Sharpe at Digital Envy, Neil at NextBound, Felicia at Distinct Marketing. Would you feel comfortable introducing me to any of them?" Then go quiet. - If she hesitates on a name, don't push that one — pivot to the others. - Offer to make it frictionless: "I can send you a 2-line blurb you can just forward." - Secondary lane (only if she asks "who else?"): startup founders/ops leaders drowning in manual back-office work (e.g. from her StartupExperts world). Don't lead with it — broad asks get no names.

Your #1 rule (per your own sales-coaching notes): talk less, let her run. She's a coach and a talker — that's perfect. Ask, listen, make it about her. You only need ~5 clean minutes of airtime.

Objective (pick ONE win): leave with at least one specific name + a warm intro path, OR a concrete "let me think about who fits and I'll send you a couple names this week" commitment. Secondary win: she becomes a champion who keeps you top-of-mind.

Loose agenda: 1. (0–5) Reconnect, genuinely. Congratulate her again on her daughter; ask how the family / summer is. Acknowledge she's clearly busy juggling advisor roles — thank her for making time. 2. (5–12) Let her ask about you / the business. She watched the video, so she'll likely lead with "tell me more about what you're building." Give the crisp version (below), then turn it back to her: "You've built HR for ~15 startups and you're in the StartupExperts world — you've seen how much manual work eats teams alive. Where do you see it worst right now?" 3. (12–22) Mine her world + make the ask. Ask about her portfolio / community (questions below). When it's warm, make the specific, low-pressure referral ask. 4. (22–28) Give value back. Offer something useful to her (options below) — reciprocity, not just taking. 5. (28–30) Clear next step. Confirm exactly what happens next and who does what. Thank her.

"I build AI automations for B2B marketing agencies — the repetitive, manual stuff that eats their team's hours: reporting, client onboarding, data entry, QA. I start with a free 30-minute audit to find where the hours are actually going, then build agents that take that work off their plate so the team can do the work they're actually good at. I'm heads-down landing the first couple of agency clients right now."

(Grounded in the real offer: free 30-min intro call → $500 audit credited toward the build → managed retainer. Don't quote prices unless she asks — she's not buying.)

• "How's [daughter] doing since graduation? And how's the family?"
• "You're advising liso and a bunch of startups now — what's got most of your energy these days?"
• "Tell me about StartupExperts — what kinds of leaders are in it, and what do they keep bumping into?" (opens the door to ops-pain + intros)
• "Across the startups you advise, where do you see teams still doing painful manual work by hand?"
• "You've worked closely with a lot of marketing and growth leaders over the years — is anyone in that world running or building an agency right now?" (natural bridge to the ask)
• "When you meet someone worth connecting, what makes an intro easy for you to make?" (tells you how to make yourself referable)
• AI in the community (live hook — she'll know this): "I noticed StartupExperts is running a Claude Buildathon this week and that AI keeps coming up in your Leadership Circles — how is the community thinking about AI right now? Where are members getting stuck between just having access to AI and actually getting reliable, repeatable workflows running?" → then bridge to the give: "That gap is basically what I do all day — is there a way I could be genuinely useful to the community on it? A hands-on session, office hours, something with zero pitch?"

Why this lands: their own post today says "Access to AI is not a hard problem to solve. Where organizations struggle is in taking that access and implementing reliable, repeatable, and useful workflows that align with how your team works." — that is almost word-for-word your thesis. You're not selling into it; you're agreeing with a belief they already hold and offering to help. It also signals the community actively wants AI expertise, which makes both give-value offers below far more likely to land.

Primary = the named ask (Eric Sharpe / Digital Envy first, then Neil / NextBound, Felicia / Distinct Marketing, Jeff / Cybersecurity Marketing Consulting). Say it plainly, then go quiet. Script + fallbacks are in the "How to run the named ask" block above.

Only if the named asks stall, fall back to the generic version so you still leave with something:

"More broadly — if anyone else comes to mind who owns or runs a marketing or creative agency, I'd love a warm intro. The kind of person I help is an agency owner with maybe 10–50 people whose team is buried in reporting and manual busywork. No pressure at all — even 'let me think on it' is great."

If she offers a name: get specifics — who, what agency, how she knows them — and agree the mechanism ("Want me to send you a short blurb you can forward?" ← makes it frictionless for her). If she blanks on everyone: don't push. Ask if you can send her a one-liner she can keep handy for when someone comes up.

The StartupExperts AI moment makes these much stronger — the community is actively leaning into AI right now, so an offer to help isn't random, it's timely.

• Be the community's go-to AI/automation resource. Offer a short, no-pitch, hands-on session for her StartupExperts peers or coaching students — "how ops/finance/HR teams-of-one can automate recurring work with AI." This is exactly the content they're already programming (their Buildathon, their AI Leadership Circles).
• Angle for the Expert in Residence (EiR) program. StartupExperts just launched a quarterly EiR initiative — outside experts who lead educational events and act as trusted resources, explicitly "not about sales." That's a tailor-made platform for you. Don't ask her to get you in on this call — plant the seed by being useful first, then: "If the community ever wants someone hands-on on AI automation, I'd love to contribute — who runs that?"
• Go to the LA event. StartupExperts is hosting a Happy Hour + Speed Networking on July 29 at Father's Office, LA — open to non-members. You're local. Mention you're planning to come; it turns an online intro into an in-person one and shows you're serious about the community.
• Offer to help one of her portfolio startups (liso, Acorn, etc.) with a free ops audit as a favor to her — low-stakes way for her to see your work and refer with confidence.
• She's a career coach — genuinely ask how you can support her or send business her way.
• Simple: send a thoughtful follow-up + anything useful you mentioned (an article, a tool).

Note (don't overreach): these are give-first, culture-fit moves — StartupExperts' stated core value is being a "Go-Giver." Lead with contribution, not access. Pitching the community or Geri as a channel too hard will read as extractive and backfire.

• Don't hard-sell her. She's a connector, not a prospect. If you pitch her like a buyer, you lose the relationship and the referrals.
• Don't over-talk. Your instinct under nerves is to fill space — let her lead; silence after the ask is good.
• Don't broaden the ask into mush ("anyone who might need AI?"). Narrow asks get names.
• Don't lean on "I run my own studio on this stack" as proof (per offer doc — weak proof; let the product/free-audit speak instead).
• Don't quote prices unless she asks; this isn't a pricing conversation.
• Heritage/LMU/dog-rescue rapport should be genuine, not a checklist — weave it in naturally.

• Confirm the channel at the top (she offered phone / Zoom / Meet — check the Calendly confirmation).
• Right after the call: log outcome + any names/commitments in GHL (contact ti9TBSzN88tJXMGk2N7F), move the opportunity to Intro Made if she gives a name, and send a same-day thank-you note that includes anything you promised (blurb to forward, resource, etc.).