Callum Kennard, Head of Sales, ClickSlice
| Episode Type | Expert Insight Interview |
| Guest | Callum Kennard, Head of Sales, ClickSlice |
| Guest Website | https://www.clickslice.co.uk/ |
| Listen | View on Sales POP! Podcast Page |
Key Takeaways
- Callum Kennard of ClickSlice argues that overplanning can be worse than bad execution, because perfecting a plan for a year delays real revenue and learning.
- ClickSlice’s Callum Kennard urges teams to bake in iteration, stay data-led, and ship — then optimize based on real results rather than chase perfection.
- Callum Kennard stresses citation quality over quantity in AI search: fewer, more powerful citations beat high volume that large language models eventually ignore.
- Callum Kennard of ClickSlice warns that confusing activity with progress wastes a team’s hours on volume that doesn’t move the business.
Episode Overview
Overplanning can stall growth more than bad execution, and Callum Kennard, Head of Sales at ClickSlice, sees it cripple funded startups that perfect a go-to-market plan for a year before earning a pound.
Callum’s answer is disciplined iteration: define a narrow customer, ship, and let real results — not endless opinions — guide the next move.
Key Insights
Why is overplanning worse than bad execution?
Callum Kennard says overplanning stalls growth because teams chase a perfect plan instead of shipping one. He sees it most in funded startups, where a founder’s vision and industry hype pull energy into analysis, extra consultants, and new hires before the company earns a pound. His fix: bake in an iteration process, stay agile with a plan B, and learn by doing rather than reading.
How do you tell activity apart from progress?
Callum Kennard separates activity from progress by measuring results rather than output. He warns that more content, more ads, and more backlinks feel like momentum but often just burn hours — a team or agency can spend sixty hours a month producing high-volume content that doesn’t perform. ClickSlice wins clients precisely because it rejects box-ticking contracts and puts strategic effort where it actually moves revenue.
Does citation quality beat quantity in AI search?
Citation quality beats quantity, and Callum Kennard proves it with a Profound audit where a brand ranked second in the UK by citation volume still lost to a competitor doing a fraction of the work. He explains that large language models eventually ignore low-quality content, and that Reddit, though widely cited, rarely stays evergreen outside developer audiences. Fewer, more powerful citations win.
How narrowly should you define your ideal customer?
Callum Kennard urges teams to define their ideal customer as narrowly as the data allows. He notes that overplanning often skips this basic step while obsessing over broad segments, when five minutes with real buyer demographics paints a clear picture. ClickSlice sees startups insist everyone is a customer — but the more granular the target, the more successful the go-to-market becomes.
Should you invest in AEO before your SEO is ready?
Callum Kennard generally recommends building SEO to a solid baseline before pushing hard on AEO, though he calls it a balancing act. He cites a recent Ahrefs study showing 34% of top AI-cited pages have no SEO value, proving you don’t need massive SEO to rank in LLMs — but enough traction avoids wasted effort. He also stresses honest timelines.
Pull Quotes
“Reddit, across most industries, is brilliant at being the most cited, but you might get one or two prompts reference it.” — Callum Kennard, Head of Sales at ClickSlice
“You’re never gonna have the complete data set at all times.” — Callum Kennard, Head of Sales at ClickSlice
“Paying lots of different consultants, getting lots of different people’s inputs, hiring a load of people, and getting their input into this plan before you’re even making money.” — Callum Kennard, Head of Sales at ClickSlice
“There’s a difference between quantity of citations and how many times a citation is referenced again and again.” — Callum Kennard, Head of Sales at ClickSlice
Overplanning & AI Search: Key Statistics from ClickSlice
| Statistic | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 34% | Share of top AI-cited pages with no SEO value (no backlinks, no keywords), yet still used as citations. | Ahrefs study (cited by Callum Kennard, Sales POP! interview, 2026) |
| 2nd in the UK | A brand audited ranked second nationally by citation volume, yet lost to a competitor doing a fraction of the work. | Callum Kennard, Sales POP! interview, 2026 (Profound audit) |
| 60 hours/month | Time a team or agency can spend producing high-volume content that doesn’t perform — wasted effort. | Callum Kennard, Sales POP! interview, 2026 |
| 6–12 months | Typical time a new website needs before meaningful SEO traction or ROI appears. | Callum Kennard, Sales POP! interview, 2026 |
| 2 months | The unrealistic “page one” timeline some reps promise; too short to fairly judge an SEO agency. | Callum Kennard, Sales POP! interview, 2026 |
| 10+ years | Callum Kennard’s experience building sales and marketing strategies for brands. | Callum Kennard, Sales POP! interview, 2026 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Resources
- Book a free consultation with ClickSlice
- Sales POP! Podcast: salespop.net/media/podcast/
- Coevera: coevera.com
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Coevera. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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