By Amanda Leon, founder of OilMoney.io. Houston-raised, came up in the Houston marketing team of Vallourec, and has run Unrth, a brand and growth studio for oil and gas and industrial companies, since 2017, with her boots on client locations in Midland and Odessa. Last reviewed October 20, 2026.
Maybe, and you don't have to wait to find out. However an operator's people build a shortlist, it gets ranked before anyone calls you, so your job is to be on it first.
I believe the one thing AI can't replace is the lived-in story, the real "come with us on this journey." (My neuroscience degree from Occidental College included artificial intelligence coursework starting in 2009, years before it was a buzzword, applied to how buyers decide and trust.) We don't know how long we have on this earth, but let's do it together, because it's more fun if we go together. A tool can sort a list of vendor names. It can't ride along on your jobs. Whatever builds the list, make sure the name on it has a story behind it, told by the person who lived it.
The Shortlist Gets Made Before Anyone Calls
In 6sense's 2025 study of B2B buyers, 94% of buying groups ranked their shortlist before engaging sellers (the rest of that research is in where to find oil and gas sales leads). By the time a buyer reaches out, the ranking is mostly done. Be known before the RFP goes out, and if you're already in the bid, see how to win an oil and gas RFP without being the cheapest bid.
The Gates Still Come First
Ovintiv and ConocoPhillips, for two, publish firm rules for getting set up, from tax numbers and proof of insurance to OpenInvoice, GEP, and ISNetworld, and the full rundown is in how to get on an operator's approved vendor list. Those gates keep you eligible. They won't put you on a shortlist, but a lapsed registration or a slipped grade can keep you off one, and no amount of visibility fixes that. Keep the registrations current before you spend a dime on being known.
If your customer just got bought, you may be starting over with new people. See how to get in front of a new operator after an acquisition.
What Nobody Has Counted Yet
As of October 2026, we haven't found a dated study on how many oil and gas buyers, or B2B buyers in general, use generative AI tools to build a vendor shortlist. Maybe some operators already ask a chatbot who to call. Nobody we can cite has counted them. If someone pitches you an AI visibility package with a number about oil and gas buyers attached, ask for the study, the date, and who was asked.
AI Already Decides What Buyers See on LinkedIn
One AI change does have a date on it. On March 12, 2026, LinkedIn announced a feed ranking system powered by large language models that reads more than a thousand of a member's past interactions to decide what he sees, including posts from experts outside his network.
So a model already picks what a production engineer or a supply chain manager sees when he opens the feed, and an expert he isn't connected to can be in the mix. What you control is whether there's a real expert behind the name, posting about real work, in his own voice. On the AI-writing side of that, see whether AI-written LinkedIn posts work for oil and gas reps.
What a Person Can Fix and What the Company Site Has to Fix
Split the work by who owns it.
What You and Your Reps Can Fix
- A profile that tells a buyer who clicks the name what that person knows, where he works, and what he has solved.
- Posts from his own jobs on a steady calendar, three to five a week and never more than one a day, each one approved by him before it goes out.
- Being a known name to the engineers and supply chain people before the shortlist gets ranked.
If you buy this for your reps, know the deal up front. Each rep owns everything we build with him, including his profile, his posts, and his voice guide, and he approves every post on his own profile. If he leaves, it goes with him. The name being built is his.
What the Company Has to Fix
- Supplier registrations and grades with each operator you work for.
- Company-wide visibility in search and AI answers. That's website and content work, and a site and SEO program handles it better than any personal profile can.
The Warm Walk-In™ builds the person's side, a rep's own name known to buyers before the list gets made, and every client starts with The Rig-Up. The company-site work is what Unrth, OilMoney's sister shop, does. If the company side is your bigger gap, fix that first. For the wider view, see how to market an oil and gas company and growing a Permian service company without betting on one customer.
His Name, Not His Company's
What we built for a Permian founder we work with was his own name, not a company page. Of the people who saw his posts, 56% work in oil and gas, the same industry whose shortlists you want to be on. Read the full story.
Get Your Bison Walk-Around
Start with the part you own: your own name.
Send us your LinkedIn. We'll send back the Bison Walk-Around: five minutes of plain English on what's costing you callbacks and what we'd build. No call. No invoice. We give first.
Owners buying for a crew will find the rest on our page for oilfield service company owners.
Sources and As-Of Dates
- 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report (6sense), published late 2025. Ranked shortlists before sellers engage; cross-industry, not specific to oil and gas.
- Ovintiv, Prospective supplier, checked October 17, 2026. Supplier requirements, OpenInvoice, and ISNetworld.
- ConocoPhillips Supplier Relations, checked October 17, 2026. GEP purchase orders.
- Engineering the next generation of LinkedIn's Feed (LinkedIn Engineering, Hristo Danchev), March 12, 2026. The new feed ranking system.
- LinkedIn analytics for the founder's personal profile. Details in the full proof story.
The Warm Walk-In™ is an original method created by Amanda Leon and owned by The Valours Creative Innovation LLC.