Information has never been more abundant, and trust has never been harder to earn. That's the tension at the heart of LinkedIn's new research, "The Trust Advantage," and Catherine, who leads marketing for LinkedIn's Sales Solutions business (Sales Navigator), joins Sophie Buonassisi on GTMnow to unpack it. The headline gap: 86% of B2B buyers say expertise is what builds trust, but only 45% describe the sellers they meet as trustworthy.

Catherine has spent 25+ years in marketing, including 13 at Meta, and now runs a global team out of Singapore. She argues AI has made "spray and pray" easier than ever, which is exactly why the winning move is doing less, more relevant outreach. She breaks down the four behaviors that separate top sellers, why warm introductions convert so much better, what a seller's LinkedIn profile should actually say, and how putting your expertise out publicly now helps both you and your company rank in AI search.

What you'll learn:
- The trust gap: why 86% of buyers want expertise but only 45% find sellers trustworthy, and how to close it
- Why expertise in a first conversation means leading with their problem, not your product
- The case for less outreach: more signal means you can be far more selective
- The four top-seller behaviors: signal-based selling, early multithreading, timely engagement (hours not weeks), and genuinely personalized outreach
- Why warm intros win: ~3x higher email response and ~2x higher connection-acceptance than cold
- The most underrated entry point: executive sponsors and former customers who moved companies
- What a seller's LinkedIn profile should be (a point of view, not a resume), and why profile views are a top buying signal
- The algorithm and discoverability: how posting even once a week, and engaging on others' posts, compounds
- Why LinkedIn is now the most-cited domain for professional queries in AI search, and what that means for you
- Hiring in the AI era: adaptability and generalists over specialists, and "throw your hat over the wall"

Connect with Catherine:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherineflynn/

Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP at GTMnow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/
X: https://x.com/sophiebuona

About the guest: Catherine leads marketing for LinkedIn's Sales Solutions business, home of Sales Navigator. She has 25+ years in marketing, including consumer and agency roots and roughly 13 years at Meta/Facebook, and is based in Singapore, where much of the Sales Solutions business is being built across APAC.

About GTMnow: GTMnow is the media arm of GTMfund, sharing the strategies, tactics, and stories from the operators and investors building the next generation of go-to-market.

Visit us on: https://gtmnow.com
Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow
Follow us on X (Twitter): https://x.com/GTMnow_
Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GTM_now
Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gtmnow_
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gtmnow_/

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.