The Force & Friction Podcast: Recent Episodes
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth.
Today, we're talking about ecosystem-led growth and how to transform partnerships into your company's fastest-growing revenue engine. I'm joined by Juhi Saha, the CEO of Partner 1, a passionate, curious engineer who fell into partnerships and has now helped hundreds of companies, from high-growth startups to global giants like Microsoft, Intel, and Qualcomm scale through ecosystems.
Juhi's approach is powerful because she bridges deep technical expertise with real-world go-to-market execution. From holding three patents on the battery-extending technology inside every mobile phone to orchestrating the first-ever real-time payment on the cloud, her career is a testament to the power of a systems-thinking mindset.
She was also a key player as the VP of Partnerships at Clearbit during its acquisition by HubSpot, and she brings a battle-tested perspective on how to build partner programs with strategic intent.
We get into the nuts and bolts of ecosystem-led growth, how to overcome the common fears that hold companies back, the playbook for building a partner program designed for a strategic exit, and why trust is becoming the most valuable currency in a world saturated with AI-generated noise.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. Ecosystem-Led Growth: Beyond One-to-One Combat
2. Overcoming the Fear: Trust is the Foundation
3. The Acquisition Playbook: Building with the End in Mind
4. The Engineer's Mindset: A Systems Approach to Partnerships
5. The Future: Consultancy-Led Selling and Flexible Ecosystems
Final Thoughts:
Juhi provides a clear, actionable blueprint for leveraging partnerships as a primary growth engine. Her engineer's mindset, combined with her extensive experience in the trenches, demystifies the world of ecosystem-led growth and offers a practical path forward.
Her core message is a powerful one: in an increasingly noisy and commoditized world, the companies that win will be those that build on a foundation of trust, execute with strategic intent, and have the foresight to build flexible, resilient partner ecosystems.
It's not about finding an easy button; it's about applying a rigorous, systems-based approach to building a network that can withstand the inevitable shocks of the market and drive sustainable, long-term growth.
Learn more at www.forceandfrictionpodcast.com
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth.
Today, we're talking to a true serial entrepreneur who was fired by his father, started an agency in the middle of a recession, and grew it into a three-time Inc. 500 company.
I'm joined by Jon Tsourakis, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Ayova, to get his unconventional playbook for the agency world.
Jon is a seasoned strategist who has built, scaled, and sold multiple businesses. What makes his story stand out is his ability to organize chaos and simplify the complex, a skill forged in the fires of economic downturns and high-stakes business environments.
From navigating the brutal realities of the agency world, Jon's journey is a masterclass in resilience and straight-talking leadership. He cuts through the noise to deliver practical, battle-tested advice for agency owners who are tired of the same old playbook.
We get into the terrifying state of the agency market, why most agencies are set to fail, the uncomfortable truths about success, and Jon's no-nonsense approach to sales, mergers, and building a team of "solutionists."
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. The State of the Agency World: A Terrifying Convergence
2. The Uncomfortable Truth: Get Off Your Ass and Do Something
3. The "Solutionist" Mindset: Stop Pointing Out Problems
4. The Merger Playbook: A Strategy for Growth, Not a Magic Bullet
5. The Future of Agencies: Deep Specialization and Coaching
Final Thoughts:
Jon's story is a powerful reminder that there are no shortcuts to success. Forged in the crucible of a recession, his playbook is built on a foundation of hard work, uncomfortable truths, and a relentless focus on solving problems.
His advice for agency owners is simple but not easy: stop looking for a magic bullet, be honest with yourself, and do the work that others are unwilling to do.
Whether it's picking up the phone to make a cold call or having the courage to merge with a competitor, survival and growth in today's market demand a level of grit and resilience that can't be automated.
As Jon makes clear, the agencies that thrive will be the ones that stop being order-takers and start being indispensable partners—the solutionists who can navigate chaos, push their clients to be better, and deliver real, measurable results.
Learn more at www.forceandfrictionpodcast.com
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth.
Today, we're cutting through the noise on brand trust in the AI era and getting straight to why human creativity is more critical than ever. I'm joined by Shawn Perritt, the VP of Brand Strategy and Creative at Acquia, to break it down.
With over 20 years of experience building brands for giants like Microsoft, IBM, and Coca-Cola, Shawn brings a no-nonsense philosophy he calls the "human stack." He argues that as AI makes everything look the same, the real differentiator for B2B brands is the ability to turn raw imagination into tangible impact.
Shawn warns against the trap of "high-def sameness" and the brand trust erosion that comes from using AI as a simple cost-cutting tool. Instead, he advocates a "think first, prompt second" approach, where AI becomes a force multiplier for human curiosity and original thinking, not a replacement for it.
We get into the two types of companies emerging in the AI era, the 95% problem in brand marketing, the real power of unmeasurable human connection, and Shawn's take on how original thinkers will secure the last unfair advantage.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. The AI Double-Edged Sword: Brand Trust on the Line
2. Two Types of Companies: Cost-Cutter vs. Force Multiplier
3. The Human Stack: Think First, Prompt Second
4. The 95% Problem: What's Memorable Isn't Always Measurable
5. The Last Unfair Advantage: The Original Thinker
Final Thoughts:
Shawn Perritt's human stack philosophy provides a straightforward, no-fluff counter to the hype and fear around AI. He makes it clear: technology is a tool, not a substitute for human imagination.
The future of brand building won't be won by the most complex algorithms, but by the most curious and creative minds.
By adopting a "think first, prompt second" approach, B2B brands can cut through the noise and build real connections. As AI advances, the companies that invest in their human stack, the curious, the creative, the original thinkers are the ones that will not only survive but dominate.
The most disruptive thing a B2B brand can do right now is simple: be unapologetically human.
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth. Today, we are joined by Lindsay Tjepkema, founder of Human Brands Win and former VC-backed founder and CEO of Casted, the first B2B podcasting platform.
After raising $30 million and scaling Casted to a 50-plus person team, Lindsay had a powerful realization: the industry's obsession with growth hacks and playbooks is a trap.
She argues that the most sustainable path to growth is through authentic human connection, and she has developed a framework called the "Brave Mindset" to help brands do just that.
We discuss the challenges of being a visionary founder, the importance of a human-centric approach in an AI world, and the practical steps that brands can take to build a more human identity.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. The Trap of Pattern Recognition: Why You Shouldn't Follow the Playbook
2. The Brave Mindset: A Framework for Human-Centric Growth
3. The Visionary's Dilemma: How to Get Buy-In for a Brave New World
4. The Human Brand in an AI World: Don't Automate Who You Are
5. The Responsibility of Leadership: Sharing Your Story
Final Thoughts:
Lindsay's message is a breath of fresh air in a world that is often too focused on the numbers, the playbooks, and the growth hacks. She reminds us that the most sustainable path to growth is through authentic human connection, and that the bravest thing we can do is to be ourselves.
In an AI world, the human brand is not just a nice-to-have. It's a must-have. And it's the brands that embrace their humanity that will ultimately win.
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and especially in and around the SaaS growth models.
Today we continue our Revenue Architecture series and are joined by Kerry Curran, Chief Revenue Officer and founder of RBMA (Revenue-Based Marketing Advisors).
With over 20 years of experience in the digital marketing and agency world, Kerry has made it her mission to transform agencies from a state of referral dependency to one of revenue predictability.
She does this by applying proven B2B SaaS growth principles to the services sector, a space that has traditionally been stuck in a feast-or-famine cycle of client acquisition. We discuss the agency growth paradox, the challenges of applying SaaS frameworks to service-based businesses, and the critical role of a unified revenue architecture.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Agency Growth Paradox: Why Are Agencies the "Cobbler's Kids"?
2: The Revenue-Based Marketing Philosophy: Every Dollar Should Drive Revenue
3: Applying SaaS Frameworks to the Service World: The Bowtie and the ICP
4: The Challenge of Selling a "Squishy" Solution
5: The Unified Revenue Team: Breaking Down the Silos
Final Thoughts
Kerry Curran's insights are a powerful wake-up call for the agency world. For too long, agencies have been stuck in a reactive, referral-based growth model that is simply not sustainable in today's fast-moving business world.
By applying the principles of SaaS GTM and revenue architecture, agencies can create a more predictable, scalable, and profitable business. It's not an easy transition, but as Kerry argues, it's an essential one for any agency that wants to thrive in the years to come.
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth. Today, we're joined by Bruce Scheer, co-founder of ValuePros.io, a firm dedicated to helping revenue teams nail their story, prove their impact, and deliver buyer experiences that buyers love.
With a mission to "inspire others to inspire others," Bruce brings a wealth of experience from working with some of the biggest names in the world, including Microsoft, SAP, and Tableau.
We dive deep into the "value edge," the "charisma edge," and the "Brave" framework, and explore how to fix the value disconnect that is killing deals in today's fast-moving business world.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. The Value Disconnect: Why So Many Deals End in "No Deal"
2. The Charisma Edge: Showing Up On Purpose, With Presence, For Others
3. The BRAVE Framework: Five Levers for Building Your Charisma Edge
4. The First Four Seconds: The Power of the Halo Effect
5. The Future of Sales: The Buying Experience is Everything
Final Thoughts:
Bruce Scheer's insights are a powerful reminder that in the world of B2B sales, the human element is more important than ever. By focusing on value, charisma, and the buying experience, you can build stronger relationships with your customers, close more deals, and drive sustainable growth for your business. It's not about being the slickest salesperson or having the flashiest product. It's about showing up on purpose, with presence, for others. And that's a message that we can all take to heart.
Check out more at Value Pros Website
Connect with Bruce at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bscheer/
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth.
Today, we are joined by James Hornick, former Chief Growth Officer at HireWell, quantitative options trader, sci-fi author, podcast host, and self-proclaimed number three ranked sarcastic commenter on LinkedIn.
James brings a refreshingly honest and unconventional perspective to professional development.
With a 20+ year career built on deliberately acquiring seemingly unrelated skills, he shares his philosophy of "compound learning" and why he believes it is the key to long-term success in a rapidly changing world.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. The Generalist Advantage: Why Diverse Skills Beat Deep Specialization
2. The Power of an Authentic Voice: Building a Brand Through Sarcasm and Storytelling
3. The Unexpected Synergy of Unrelated Skills: How Options Trading Made Me a Better Business Leader
4. The Future of Work in an AI World: Why Soft Skills Matter More Than Ever
5. The Unsexy Truth About Success: It's All About the Process
Final Thoughts:
James Hornick's career is a powerful testament to the power of compound learning.
By embracing his curiosity, acquiring a diverse set of skills, and staying true to his authentic voice, he has built a career that is not only successful but also deeply fulfilling.
His story is an inspiration for anyone who has ever felt like they don't fit into a traditional career path. It's a reminder that the most interesting and rewarding careers are often the ones that we create for ourselves.
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth. Today, we're joined by Dinuka Wijesinghe, the GTM Doctor and founder of Serendum Strategies.
With a PhD in astrophysics and six years of experience mastering go-to-market at scale at Google, Dinuka brings a unique blend of academic rigor and practical, in-the-trenches experience.
He shares his core thesis: when it comes to go-to-market, execution matters even more than strategy.
We dive deep into why even the most brilliant strategies fail, the critical difference between companies that execute well and those that don't, and the lessons startups can learn from giants like Google.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. The Technical Founder's Dilemma: Building a Product vs. Building a Business
2. The Perils of Disconnecting from the Market: VCs vs. Customers
3. Strategy vs. Execution: Where the Go-to-Market Game is Won and Lost
4. The Power of ICP Profiling: A Data-Driven Approach to Go-to-Market
5. The Three Pillars of Entrepreneurial Survival: Pain, Uncertainty, and Failure
Final Thoughts:
Dinuka Wijesinghe's insights are a masterclass in the art and science of go-to-market. His emphasis on execution over strategy, his data-driven approach to ICP profiling, and his candid assessment of the realities of entrepreneurial life provide a powerful and practical guide for any founder or business leader looking to build a successful and sustainable company.
Where we are all faced with constant change and uncertainty, his message is clear: the companies that will win are those that can execute with clarity, consistency, and a relentless focus on the customer.
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In this episode of the Force & Friction podcast, we're joined by Lorenzo Serva, Senior Manager of Customer Success at Dynatrace and recognised as the APAC CSM of the Year. With over a decade of experience leading CS teams across Australia, New Zealand, ASEAN, and India, Lorenzo shares his expert insights on one of the most critical and often broken processes in SaaS: the handoff from sales to customer success. We explore why this handoff is so prone to failure, the unique challenges and opportunities in the APAC region, and the non-negotiables for building a high-performing, customer-centric CS team.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. The Broken Sales-to-CS Handoff: A Crisis of Fragmentation and Misalignment
2. The Partner Ecosystem: A Double-Edged Sword in the APAC Handoff
3. Beyond the Playbook: Adapting CS Strategies for the Diverse APAC Market
4. From Hope to Certainty: The Power of Data-Driven CS Leadership
5. The Blueprint for a High-Performing CS Team: Alignment and a Customer-Centric Journey
Final Thoughts:
Lorenzo Serva's insights provide a powerful roadmap for any organization looking to elevate its customer success function. His emphasis on fixing the foundational sales-to-CS handoff, adapting to diverse market dynamics, leveraging data for proactive engagement, and building a truly aligned and customer-centric team are essential principles for success in the modern SaaS landscape.
In a world of recurring revenue, the conversation doesn't end at the sale, it evolves. As Lorenzo makes clear, a high-performing CS team is the engine that drives that evolution, ensuring sustainable growth and long-term customer relationships.
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth. Today, we're diving deep into community-led growth and movement building with Jared Robin, the co-founder and CEO of RevGenius.
Jared has built something truly remarkable, growing RevGenius from zero to nearly 60,000 members over the past four and a half years, creating the largest and most influential GTM community in the world.
What makes Jared's story compelling isn't just the numbers, it's his philosophy of building something different, not better, and proving that community-first GTM strategies can drive real business outcomes.
From having negative money in his bank account during COVID to building the world's largest GTM community, Jared's journey embodies the raw reality of the founder experience. His insights on audience-led growth, movement building, and the importance of validation before building have shaped how modern founders approach GTM strategy.
We explore why being different beats being better, how to build an audience before a product, the unfiltered truth about the founder journey, and Jared's predictions for the future of GTM in an AI-native world.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. The Founder Journey: Fear, Failure, and Finding Your Path
2. Different vs. Better: The Category Creation Imperative
3. Audience-Led Growth: Validation Before Building
4. From Community to Movement: Building Something Bigger Than a Product
5. AI and the Human Soul: The Future of GTM
Final Thoughts:
Jared's journey from negative bank balance to building the world's largest GTM community offers a roadmap for modern founders. His philosophy can be distilled into a few core principles:
- Accept that you have no idea what you're doing, and embrace humility earlier.
- Build as little as possible and validate with real people before investing resources.
- Focus on being different, not better, and create your own category instead of fighting for scraps.
- Build your audience before your product, establishing trust and distribution as your unfair advantage.
- And remember that common sense and human connection come before tactics and scale.
The future of GTM belongs to founders who can build movements, not just products. Those who understand that audience-led growth isn't a tactic, it's a fundamental shift in how you approach building a business.
And those who recognize that in an increasingly AI-powered world, your ability to connect authentically with people's souls becomes your most valuable competitive advantage.
As Jared demonstrates through RevGenius, when you combine category creation, audience-led validation, and authentic movement building, you don't just build a successful business, you change an entire industry.
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Welcome to another episode in our Revenue Architecture series on the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth.
Today, we're diving deep into the SPICED model and how marketing ops can master this framework with David Howard, Head of Marketing at Agentic Partner Group.
David brings over 15 years of B2B SaaS marketing and demand generation expertise to our conversation, but what makes his perspective unique is his operational mindset. He describes himself as someone who brings "structure to order chaos", and in today's world of marketing complexity, that's exactly what we need.
Based in San Francisco and working with AI-centric startups, David has witnessed firsthand how the Silicon Valley landscape has evolved post COVID, from labor market changes to the integration of AI in go-to-market strategies. As a certified Winning by Design Revenue Architect, he's passionate about implementing frameworks like SPICED that create scalable, repeatable processes.
In this episode, we explore how SPICED transforms traditional marketing qualification, the power of the bowtie model over funnels, and how AI is revolutionizing the way we approach discovery and prospect research. David shares practical insights on instrumentation, sales and marketing alignment, and why GTM engineering is the future of revenue operations.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. From Chaos to Order: The Marketing Operations Philosophy
- The Bowtie Revolution: Why Funnels Are Dead for SaaS
3. SPICED as Universal Language: Beyond Sales into Marketing Ops
4. AI-Powered SPICED: Research Before the Call
- GTM Engineering: The Future of Revenue Operations
Final Thoughts
David leaves us with a vision of the future where GTM engineering becomes pervasive across organizations.
"We'll get wider and wider acceptance outside of you know, winning by design, savvy, demand gen people of the idea of go to, you know, go-to-market engineering. That's going to be more pervasive. It's going to broaden out of the marketing department, and we're just going to see organizations thinking more and more in terms of that, that framework."
His insight emphasizes that successful revenue generation requires the same systematic, engineering-minded approach that has transformed marketing operations, with frameworks like SPICED serving as the common language that enables this transformation across entire organizations.
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Welcome back to our Revenue Architecture series on the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth.
Today, we have an exceptionally special guest for a deep dive into the Mathematical Model and revenue architecture as a whole with Derek Sather.
What makes Derek's story compelling is his transformation from watching brilliant companies fail because revenue was treated like magic, not science, to becoming an MIT-educated systems thinker who co-created the framework that makes revenue predictable.
Derek's track record speaks for itself: helping companies scale from 25 million to a billion ARR, again and again, using mathematical precision instead of guesswork.
In our conversation, we explore why small changes create massive impacts while large investments yield minimal results, the counterintuitive nature of nonlinear systems, and how the Mathematical Model enables companies to engineer growth rather than hope for it.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: From Linear Thinking Addiction to Systems Engineering
2: The Compound Multiplication Magic: Why 10% Becomes 100%
3: The One-Round Game vs. Infinite Game Dynamic
4: The Segmentation Imperative: Why Averages Kill Insights
5: Beauty in Simplicity: Why Complex Systems Need Simple Visuals
Final Thoughts
Derek leaves us with a powerful insight about the resource allocation mistake that kills growth potential.
"Most software organizations, from a go-to-market standpoint, significantly overfund acquisition, and significantly underfund expansion... keeping your existing customer and expanding is so much more efficient. Of course it is, but let's actually get the right resources there... we really want to look at recurring revenue equals recurring impact."
His final message emphasizes that mathematical precision isn't just about optimization—it's about understanding where to invest for maximum return, recognizing that the infinite game of retention and expansion often delivers better ROI than the one-round game of acquisition.
The Mathematical Model transforms revenue from guesswork into engineering, from hoping for growth to systematically creating it. As Derek demonstrates, when you understand the nonlinear relationships that govern recurring revenue businesses, you can achieve exponential results through marginal gains rather than massive investments.
The future belongs to leaders who can think in systems, optimize for compound effects, and engineer growth with mathematical precision rather than linear intuition.
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Welcome to Season 6 of the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth. Today, we're exploring international market expansion and building revenue teams across continents with Andrea Maurieres.
Her origin story begins with an incredible opportunity: convincing US tech companies to open offices in France while stationed in New York during the city's transformation into a tech hub.
This diplomatic background gave her a unique perspective on international business development, but the transition to tech executive required strategic reinvention through an MBA and hands-on experience across diverse markets.
We explore her 80-20 framework for international expansion, why you should start with "playground" markets, the critical importance of local presence versus remote operations, and her insights on building revenue teams across different company stages and cultural contexts.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Diplomat's Advantage: From Embassies to Startups
2: The 80-20 International Expansion Framework
3. Playground Markets: The Strategic Advantage of Starting Small
4. Stage-Appropriate Strategies: Why One Size Doesn't Fit All
5. The Future of Sales: Human Touch in an AI World
Final Thoughts:
Andrea leaves us with powerful insights about the intersection of international expansion and female leadership.
"Too often, I'm the only woman in the room, and the higher we get, the more lonely we are. And I see something now, so I'm 40, I have a family. And I see a lot of women, stepping down, at my age... a product would be good if it's diverse, and it needs to be built by a diverse team. And a diverse team is gender, is age, is racial."
Her final message emphasizes that international expansion success requires diverse perspectives and that supporting female leadership isn't just about equality, it's about building better products and strategies through diverse thinking.
International expansion isn't just about scaling revenue—it's about building global capabilities while maintaining local relevance. As Andrea demonstrates, success comes from combining systematic frameworks with cultural humility, starting small to learn big, and recognizing that the skills needed for international success often come from unexpected backgrounds.
The future belongs to leaders who can navigate complexity with both strategic thinking and cultural intelligence, whether they started in embassies or startups.
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth. Today, we're exploring the death of traditional sales training and the rise of AI-native sales performance with Laura Keith.
What makes Laura's story compelling isn't just the courage to disrupt a successful business, but the customer insight that sparked the transformation. When a trusted customer told her to "stop selling me training when I don't know whether I've got a sales training problem," it triggered a fundamental shift from asking "how do you train reps to perform better?" to "how do we help reps to close more deals?"
We explore why traditional sales training is dead, how AI is transforming sales performance, the critical importance of customer feedback loops, and Laura's predictions for the future of sales technology and human capability
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Customer Feedback Catalyst: When Truth Disrupts Success
2: The Death of Traditional Sales Training: Why the Old Model is Broken
3. AI-Native Performance: Meeting Reps Where They Are
4. Product-Led Customer Discovery: Building What Customers Actually Want
5. The Future of Sales: Human Touch in an AI World
Final Thoughts:
Laura leaves us with practical wisdom about building sustainable success while maintaining personal boundaries.
"It's not easy. It's not, you can't have it all. Create clear boundaries, know what's important to you, and protect that time. And build networks and communities and advisors, I think, are the key."
Her final insight reminds us that professional success must be balanced with personal sustainability, and that building strong networks and communities is essential for long-term career growth.
The death of traditional sales training doesn't mean the end of sales development, it means the beginning of a more intelligent, personalized, and effective approach. As Laura demonstrates, when you combine AI-native technology with deep customer understanding and human-centered design, you can create performance platforms that actually help reps close more deals rather than just completing more training modules.
The future belongs to organizations that can diagnose before they prescribe, personalize at scale, and use technology to enhance rather than replace human capability.
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth. Today, we're diving deep into the rise of GTM engineering and how AI is transforming revenue ops with Michael Saruggia.
Michael is one of the world's leading GTM engineer advisors, author of "The GTM Engineer," and architect of a movement that's fundamentally changing how companies scale revenue. What makes Michael's approach revolutionary is his philosophy of micro-relevance over mass personalization, a strategic shift that's redefining how companies think about automation and human connection in their go-to-market motions.
His origin story begins at the intersection of AI, technology, and business ROI, where he discovered that with "just a little bit of automation," he could outperform entire SDR teams. This wasn't about replacing humans, it was about augmenting their capabilities and unlocking time for what matters most: actual selling.
We explore why GTM engineering is here to stay, how it differs from traditional RevOps, the critical importance of activation over signals, and why most companies are thinking about Clay and automation completely wrong.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Automation Misconception: Augmentation, Not Replacement
2: Micro-Relevance: The Strategic Alternative to Mass Personalization
3. GTM Engineering vs. RevOps: The Activation Difference
4. The Company Stage Reality: When GTM Engineering Actually Makes Sense
5. The Clay Complexity Paradox: Why One Person Should Touch the Platform
Final Thoughts:
Michael leaves us with a powerful framework for thinking about GTM engineering ROI and implementation.
"The biggest unlock is the time SDRs invest in making the list... I've seen people twice doubling the number of sales touches that they do per day on outreach, creating a better list. But it's very simple. One is, you just wake up and you prospect, and in the other, you're lost."
His final insight emphasizes that GTM engineering success isn't measured by the sophistication of the automation, it's measured by how much more effective it makes your human teams.
The GTM engineering revolution isn't about replacing human connection with technology, it's about using technology to enable more meaningful human connections at scale.
As Michael demonstrates, when you focus on micro-relevance over mass personalization, activation over signals, and augmentation over replacement, automation becomes a force multiplier for revenue teams rather than a replacement for them. The future belongs to companies that can master this balance, using GTM engineering to unlock their teams' potential rather than trying to engineer their teams away.
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, partnerships, leadership, and specifically SaaS growth. Today, we're exploring how to scale human connection in a tech-driven world and redefine leadership on your own terms with Paige McPheely.
We explore how she's built Base around the fascinating paradox of using technology to scale human connection rather than replace it, why the Executive Assistant (EA) leader relationship is the most intimate professional relationship, and her predictions for the future of delegation and outsourcing in leadership.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Adversity-to-Opportunity Pivot: Building from Necessity
2: The Chemistry Factor: Why EA Matching is More Art Than Science
3. Human-First Technology: Using Tech to Enable, Not Replace
4. Beyond Work-Life Balance: The Integration Fallacy
5. The Delegation Revolution: Building Your Personal Support Army
Final Thoughts:
Paige leaves us with a powerful insight about what separates transactional task completion from transformational support.
"When we see a lot of clients that come to us, and they're like, please, I just need somebody to tell me what to do. Like, please come and boss me around, and, like, build all the systems, and just tell me what to do. And when those people come to us, we're like, yes, we got you, we got you! We could do that all day long."
Her final message emphasizes that the best EA relationships aren't about task delegation, they're about finding someone who can think strategically, anticipate needs, and provide the kind of support that gives leaders "oxygen in their helmet" to focus on what matters most.
The future of leadership support isn't about replacing human connection with technology, it's about using technology to create deeper, more meaningful professional relationships that enable both leaders and assistants to do their best work.
As Paige demonstrates, when you put humans first and use technology as an enabler, you can scale intimacy and connection in ways that seemed impossible just a few years ago.
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, sales, RevOps, AI, and partnerships. Today, we're diving into the art of storytelling in sales and what it takes to survive 25 years of constantly resetting targets with Brad Parker.
We explore how his acting background shaped his approach to storytelling in sales, why discovery is the foundation of every great story, and his controversial take on whether great salespeople are born or made through deliberate practice and coaching.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Acting Advantage: Why Performance Skills Transfer to Sales
2: Discovery as the Foundation: You Can't Tell Stories Without Understanding
3. The Emotional-Rational Bridge: Making Decisions Feel Right
4. The Great Debate: Natural Born vs. Trained Salespeople
5. Responsibility Over Accountability: The Hiring Secret
Brad leaves us with a powerful reminder about the mindset that separates great salespeople from the rest.
"I'm really trying to figure out if somebody's got that fire in their belly, you know, that desire to be the best, with or without support, with or without training. I'm going to get there, Brad, you know, you might be able to help me get there faster, but it's gonna happen."
His final insight emphasizes that while skills can be taught and processes can be learned, the internal drive for excellence and self-improvement cannot be coached, it must come from within.
The journey from stage to sales reveals that great salespeople aren't born with supernatural powers—they're made through deliberate practice, deep customer understanding, and an unshakeable commitment to personal responsibility.
As Brad demonstrates, whether you come from acting, sports, or any other background, the fundamentals of storytelling, resilience, and genuine customer connection remain the same. The question isn't whether you're naturally gifted, it's whether you're willing to do the work to become great.
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Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and especially SaaS growth. Today, we're diving into how to build demand gen that actually drives revenue with Irina Jordan.
Irina is Head of Demand Gen at Chowly, a leading restaurant growth platform trusted by over 17,000 restaurants nationwide. But what makes Irina fascinating isn't just her role, it's her revolutionary approach to demand gen that has the entire marketing community talking.
We explore why she publicly declares that MQLs are "lazy," how she's pioneered variable compensation tied to SQLs, and why reporting to a Chief Revenue Officer as one unified revenue team transforms everything about demand generation strategy and execution.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The MQL Death Sentence: Why Marketing's Favorite Metric is "Lazy"
2: Variable Comp Revolution: Putting Your Money Where Your Metrics Are
3. The Revenue Team Unification: Breaking Down Silos Through Structure
4. Bowtie Mastery: Demand Gen Across the Complete Customer Journey
5. AI-Era Adaptation: Fundamentals Over Panic in the GEO RevolutionAs Irina demonstrates, when you align compensation with revenue outcomes, structure teams around shared goals, and focus on the complete customer journey rather than isolated metrics, demand generation transforms from a cost center into a true revenue driver. In an AI-driven world where traditional tactics are evolving rapidly, this foundation of alignment and accountability becomes even more critical for sustainable growth.
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Today, we're tackling "The Discounting Challenge" with Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz, founder of Valueships and one of the world's leading SaaS pricing consultants.
This is Part 3 of our comprehensive series, and if you haven't watched
Part 1: The Value Challenge or
Part 2: The Price Setting Challenge
We highly recommend starting with htese earlier episodes as this series builds momentum across all three episodes.
This final installment focuses on the shocking reality of how much money companies are literally throwing away through discounting.
What makes this episode particularly eye-opening is Krzysztof's revelation of "unconscious discounting", where companies give away too much at the same price rather than explicit percentage discounts.
His data reveals that some clients have seen up to 40% of their margin leaking through suboptimal discounting practices, with one client losing almost $140K (MRR) in monthly recurring revenue through discount leakage alone.
We explore the brutal mathematics of discounting (a 15% discount requires 60% more sales just to break even), the counterintuitive correlation between discounting and churn, and the systematic approach to "sealing" discount leakage without destroying your customer base.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. The Shocking Mathematics of Discounting: Why 15% = 60% More Sales
2. Unconscious Discounting: The Hidden Revenue Killer
3. The 40% Margin Leak: Real Data from Client Engagements
4. The Discounting-Churn Paradox: Why Discounts Increase Customer Loss
5. The Discount Sealing Process: How to Fix It Without Losing 30% of Customers
About This Series
This concludes our comprehensive three-part SaaS Pricing Optimization series with Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz. Each episode tackled a specific pricing challenge that's costing SaaS companies millions in lost revenue:
Part 1: The Value Challenge - Why companies hide their value and how to communicate profit effectively.
• Part 2: The Price Setting Challenge - How to set prices based on willingness to pay rather than guesswork.
Part 3: The Discounting Challenge (This Episode) - Why discounting is killing margins and how to optimize realized prices.
The data shows most companies have at least 10% untapped revenue potential.
The question is: which challenge will you tackle first?
Don't let another month go by with unconscious discounting bleeding your MRR.The frameworks and methodologies shared across these three episodes provide a complete roadmap for transforming pricing from a painful, ad-hoc task into a systematic growth engine that compounds returns over time.
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Today, we're tackling "The Price Setting Challenge" with Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz, founder of Valueships and one of the world's leading SaaS pricing consultants.
If you haven't watched Part 1: The Value Challenge, we recommend starting there as this series builds momentum across all three episodes.
This second installment focuses on why you're probably selling yourself short, a bold claim backed by shocking data from Krzysztof's consulting practice.
What makes this episode particularly eye-opening is Krzysztof's revelation that in 90-95% of their last 100 client engagements, they decided to increase the average price.
This isn't coincidence, it's systematic underpricing driven by two critical factors: founders who don't want price to be a barrier between customers and their product, and companies treating pricing as a one-off task rather than a strategic process.
We explore the Van Westendorp price sensitivity meter, the four-quadrant feature matrix that reveals why most SaaS companies are losing margin on premium buyers and conversion on budget buyers, and the car analogy that transforms how you think about feature packaging.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. The 90-95% Problem: Why Most SaaS Companies Systematically Underprice
2. From One-Off Task to Strategic Process: The Pricing Transformation
3. The Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter: Research-Driven Pricing
4. The Four-Quadrant Feature Matrix: Core, Differentiable, Add-On, and Trash Land
5. The Testing and Migration Strategy: Solving the Over-Engineering Problem
About This Series
This is Part 2 of our comprehensive three-part SaaS Pricing Optimization series with Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz. Each episode tackles a specific pricing challenge that's costing SaaS companies millions in lost revenue:
Each episode tackles a specific pricing challenge that's costing SaaS companies millions in lost revenue:
- Part 1: The Value Challenge - Why companies hide their value and how to communicate profit effectively.
- Part 2: The Price Setting Challenge (This Episode) - How to set prices based on willingness to pay rather than guesswork.
- Part 3: The Discounting Challenge - Why discounting is killing margins and how to optimize realized prices.
Don't miss Part 3 where we'll reveal exactly how much revenue is leaking through discounting, including one particular statistic about how much more you need to sell to recover from specific discount levels that will fundamentally change how you think about pricing negotiations.
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Today, we're tackling "The Value Challenge" with Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz, one of the world's leading SaaS pricing consultants and founder of Valueships.
This series addresses one of the most critical areas for SaaS companies: pricing.
You can have the best product, the best value, the best impact, and the best solution, but if you haven't got the correct pricing strategy, you're leaving money on the table.
Most companies are literally hiding what makes them worth it.
What makes this series particularly valuable is Krzysztof's bold claim that companies are not just underpricing, they're fundamentally hiding their value.
With the AI wave making products less of a competitive advantage, focusing on value communication has become more critical than ever before.
In this first episode, we explore the four pricing strategies, the value waterfall framework, and why most SaaS companies are failing at the most basic level: communicating the profit they create for their customers.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1. From Product Roadmap to Value Roadmap: The Fundamental Shift
2. The Four Pricing Strategies: From Cost-Based to Value-Based Evolution3. The Value Waterfall: Understanding the Four Horsemen of Pricing Apocalypse
4. The Unseen Value Crisis: Why 66% of Value Goes Unrecognized
5. Dollarizing Value: The Key to Pricing Success
About This Series
This is Part 1 of our comprehensive three-part SaaS Pricing Optimization series with Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz.
Each episode tackles a specific pricing challenge that's costing SaaS companies millions in lost revenue:
•Part 1: The Value Challenge (this episode) - Why companies hide their value and how to communicate profit effectively.
• Part 2: The Price Setting Challenge - How to set prices based on willingness to pay rather than guesswork.
• Part 3: The Discounting Challenge - Why discounting is killing margins and how to optimize realized prices.
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Discount Epidemic: Your First Revenue Leak
Krzysztof opens by revealing the most common way companies hemorrhage revenue without realizing it, discount management that has spiraled out of control.
"The first thing that we see, and surprisingly, both in PLG and SLG companies, is discount management so frequently. There was a Black Friday. There was something in your solution not working. So you decided to grant your customers a discount for 3 months that has never been sealed after afterwards."
2: The Grandfather Trap: When Loyalty Becomes Loss
Krzysztof addresses the emotional challenge many founders face with early customers who helped them get started but are now paying outdated prices while receiving significantly more value.
"If you find yourself in the situation that after 5 years you still have those first customers. Trust me, they most likely really really like your product. And since they've been either the early adopters or the innovators. Most likely they've been seeing, you know, the advancement that you've like the progress that you've done."
3. The Churn Myth: Why Price Increases Don't Kill Customers
One of Krzysztof's most counterintuitive insights challenges the widespread fear of customer churn from price increases.
"The churn increase that we see if we increase the prices with good communication. If it's a fair increase when you talk about the value, if you give them some time if you act as a human... the churn increase. That we see is minimal. Right? I'm not saying that the churn is not happening. Of course it does. Nevertheless, I haven't seen the situation so far that clients were not better off from price price increase."
4. AI Pricing: Evolution, Not Revolution
Krzysztof provides a nuanced perspective on AI pricing models, arguing they're more evolutionary than revolutionary when viewed through the lens of existing industries.
"The output based models, the usage based models. The success based models were here for quite quite a while. So imagine the marketplace, or like booking.com right booking.com is basically a success model... If the booking was successful for putting your room or your hotel in front of their buyers. They are booking through booking, booking receives the and the Commission."
5. Add-Ons vs. Discounts: The Strategic Choice
Krzysztof concludes with the fundamental strategic choice every company faces: building value through add-ons or destroying it through discounts.
"When you think about this. And when you look at the research. We all focus on sales marketing, growing in volume. Then frequently we also streamline our costs to make sure that we are efficient. But then pricing is always like this, cousin that nobody wants to talk about."
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Math Foundation: Why Numbers Drive Everything
Gaz opens with a fundamental truth that challenges the growth-at-all-costs mentality that has dominated SaaS for years. His perspective on why companies fail reveals the critical importance of mathematical understanding.
"Companies like SaaS companies... it's not. They don't fail because of a lack of ambition. They fail because they don't really understand the math of their business right? And there's this been this growth at all costs. Focus heavily on the top of funnel. Get everything in, and then sort of just forget about the other side."
2: The Bowtie Revelation: Seeing the Complete Picture
Gaz describes his first encounter with the Winning by Design framework as a transformative moment that codified everything he'd been thinking about GTM for years.
"I immediately messaged the CRO from that story my business partner, and was like, I've just watched someone explain in the best way I've ever heard everything that we've been talking about for the last 6 years... that is the best way to succinctly explain to somebody what it is they need to do in go to market."
3: Breaking the Sauron Syndrome: Ending Departmental Blame Games
One of Gaz's most powerful analogies describes how leadership often behaves like "the eye of Sauron," constantly scanning for someone to blame when things go wrong, rather than understanding the interconnected nature of GTM challenges.
"Often when things start to go wrong in the business, leadership becomes like the eye of Sauron, it must be sales. It must be marketing... and they get to the end of quarter and go. Oh, wait! Hold on! No, it wasn't the product... and they're constantly scanning looking for a simple problem. And often these things aren't simple. Single answer. Silver bullet problems. They are a interrelation, a dance of things that are happening."
4: Micro-Optimizations: The Compound Power of Small Changes
Gaz emphasizes how understanding the math enables powerful micro-optimizations that can have massive compound effects across the business.
"The idea of those micro adjustments is really powerful... that enables you to have an aligned, unified GTM discussion because it's not sales. You have to make 30% more... it's sales. We just need to increase the win rate. And then how can I help you increase win rate? Well, we need better quality MQLs, okay, great. So let's change. Let's adjust what we need to do in MQLs."
5: AI-Native vs. SaaS-Native: The Process-First Revolution
Gaz provides crucial insights into why AI-native companies are outpacing traditional SaaS companies, and it's not just about the technology—it's about fundamental operating principles.
"The AI native companies are process driven. They use data to make very quick decisions. They are constantly refining through feedback loops... The SaaS companies are still stuck... they're buying AI tools, but they're often not ready to even be getting the efficiencies out of it. It's really just sort of oh, I hope this works."
Final Thoughts
Gaz leaves us with a critical warning about the dangers of using AI without understanding the underlying business math.
"Strip out all of the AI pieces. Do you understand the operating math of your business. Do you understand the operating model? So when you plug in AI, it's going to make you more efficient and better and faster. But you understand what it's anchored in, and yo
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Rock Bottom Revelation: From Rejection to Revenue
Andrea opens with the powerful story of how repeated rejections led to her breakthrough business model. After being declined by four companies—including two where she was the only candidate, she discovered a fundamental market truth.
"I realized 2 things. One, I realize that companies don't want to commit, especially not to a senior leader right now... unless a company can be 100% sure that they have their right candidate, this is the right leader that will take them to the next level they don't want to commit. They would rather not hire."
2: The 15-Minute QBR Revolution: Solving Executive Attendance
Andrea's breakthrough came from a simple question during a customer success training: "How do I get executives to attend my QBRs?" Her response sparked a viral movement that's changing how CS teams approach customer engagement.
"Why don't you just do it in 15 min? Every executive leader has 15 min. You can get an executive to agree to a 15 min meeting... but when you get that 15 min you better have something of value to deliver right? And when an executive is talking with a vendor, the only question they truly want to answer in that conversation is, Am I getting value or impact from your solution, and should I keep spending money on it?"
3. Emotion Over Data: The Psychology of Customer Retention
One of Andrea's most powerful insights challenges the data-first mentality that dominates customer success. She emphasizes that emotional connections often matter more than spreadsheets when it comes to renewals.
"The emotional reasons behind why people buy are actually stronger than the rational reasons. Right? We buy for emotional reasons. And we back it up with data. But it's emotion first... if a customer purchased your product for an emotional reason, but we're only tracking data, and then we go into the conversation right at renewal and we're putting data out there again. But they purchase for an emotional reason. Where's that reason?"
4. The Camera Presence Revolution: How You Show Up Matters
Andrea has pioneered an often-overlooked aspect of customer success: training teams on their virtual presence. In a post-COVID world where most interactions happen via video, how CS teams show up on camera directly impacts renewal outcomes.
"Lately I have spent more time than ever training CS leaders and CSMs... how to show up on cam... we experiment with lighting, we experiment with camera positioning, we experiment with using gestures and our hands. We experiment with smiling more and having more expressions... if they show up to a conversation with poor lighting, where you can only see half their face... I don't care how good they are, they are not connecting."
5. Customer Success as Revenue Engine: Sitting on All the Money
Andrea reframes customer success from a cost center to the revenue engine that "sits on all the money." Her approach to establishing CS value involves both mindset shifts and concrete financial modeling.
"Customer success sits on all the money. We sit on all the money. So you know we're what keeps the lights on. We're what keeps everything going... We pay people's salaries. Everything like we sit on all the money... and the company is relying on us to renew all that money and grow it right."
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1: The Lean Revenue Factory: From Toyota to GTM
Rutger opens by explaining how lean methodology, originally developed by Toyota for manufacturing efficiency, applies directly to modern GTM operations. He sees the entire customer journey as a factory line that can be optimized.
"What I see the go to market departments, you know, going from first marketing lead coming in all the way up to an expanded or retention customer as a factory line similar. So every handover moment, every deal stage is sort of like an extra machine which you can optimize, which might have a bottleneck which might, you know, get wasted in."
2: The Three Pillars: Purpose, People, and Process
Rutger breaks down lean methodology into three foundational elements that must work together to create sustainable GTM efficiency.
"Lean has the mindset of 3 things, purpose, people and process... The purpose is ensuring that everything that you create, every step that you do has value to the customer. So you don't have, you know, an obligatory demo if the customer's already interested in doing it themselves, or an obligatory sales call if the person actually just wants to know what the pricing is."
3. The Compound Power of 1% Improvements
One of Rutger's most powerful insights centers on the mathematical impact of small, consistent improvements across the entire GTM process.
"If you have a deal stage of 6 stages, say, and if you do a 1% improvement of each stage for a month, you come up with 80% improvement of your entire usage... from just doing a 1% improvement and that 1% is tiny right? 80% improvement. That's the power of compounding."
4. Change Management: The 90% Failure Rate Problem
Rutger addresses why over 90% of digital transformations fail, focusing on the resistance that accumulates when organizations try to change too many things simultaneously.
"For every change that you have, the amount of resistance increases right? If you change a process, there's some resistance. If you change a KPI, there's more resistance... Now if you didn't use the CRM and then suddenly came up with... a CRM. And then you not just did a CRM. You also did a sales methodology... And then you told your sales people... Now you've added I think at least 3 items of resistance in there.
5. The Right Side Revolution: Lean Customer Success
Rutger shares his framework for applying lean principles to customer success and retention, addressing the critical challenge of adoption and churn prevention.
"Your platform, whatever it might be, is trying to elicit a change within your customer. So again you come into Change Management again... from the sales perspective... you have to have that discussion of, hey? This is how you can leverage our platform. This is how you become successful with our platform."
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Foundation: Why "How You Sell" Matters More Than Ever
Graeme opens with a powerful story that illustrates why sales approach can make or break even the most obvious deals. He shares an experience where a market-leading software company lost a sale at the one-yard line due to poor sales execution.
"Their rep was out for the week, right? And so actually, the very first demo and discovery have was with the sales manager, and the session was amazing... Following week, the actual AE who's assigned to our account, took over the call... This gentleman had been at the President's club the previous week, and he would not shut up about how much fun he had at this president's club."
2: SPICED as Framework, Not Methodology: The House Analogy
Graeme distinguishes SPICED from traditional sales methodologies by positioning it as a foundational framework rather than a rigid process. He uses a compelling house-building analogy to explain this concept.
"I personally don't believe that SPICED is a methodology. I believe it's a framework... As a framework I like to think of it's like your house, right? You're building your house, you have your, you know, 3 or 4 bedrooms. You have your 2 bathrooms, you have your kitchen, you have that very strong foundational framework. The brand of kitchen sink, or the brand of windows... That's more kind of a methodology."
3: The Critical Event Distinction: Why Most Deals Die on the Vine
One of Graeme's most powerful insights centers on the difference between critical events and compelling events, and why this distinction determines deal outcomes.
"Most deals die on the vine from customer indecision, right? And if we don't do a good job of digging into: Is it a critical event or a compelling event? They could have a big pain... We could have the decision makers mapped and the decision criteria known. But if their timeline isn't known, what's driving them to make a decision... a lot of the deals that die on the vine from customer indecision."
4: The Full Bowtie Impact: From Sales Qualification to Customer Success
Graeme emphasizes that SPICED's real power emerges when applied across the entire customer journey, not just the sales process. He explains how poor sales qualification directly impacts customer success outcomes.
"Are we qualifying these customers? Are we understanding what the impact is that they want before they sign up for a solution, so that when they sign up, they are able to actually get that impact and get the outcome that they want... And that very first call on the implementation side should be, listen, okay, let's recap why you purchased us. What outcome are you looking to achieve, and within which timeline?"
5: The Adoption Strategy: Domino Reps and Data-Driven Conversations
Graeme shares his practical approach for implementing SPICED across organizations, focusing on both top-down leadership and bottom-up adoption through what he calls the "domino rep theory."
"I'll do a specific training, and I will get some feedback from a couple of reps. Right? Not your top reps, but not your bottom reps. Right kind of your up and coming reps... I'll get them to test that... live in the field, and then we'll record those calls. Then I'll take those calls, and I'll showcase them when I do the overall training for the whole team."
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1: SPICED Beyond Sales: The Customer Success Framework for Understanding Needs
De'Edra opens by redefining SPICED as more than just a sales methodology, it's a comprehensive framework for understanding customer needs throughout the entire journey.
"If I have to distill it down to a really a concise ideology for lack of a better term, it's understanding your customers needs... So that's the situation. And then what's that pain point? What is that? One thing that your product or solution is going to allow your customer to be successful. And then what's the impact if they don't address that particular pain point?"
2: From QBRs to COREs: Revolutionizing Customer Engagement
A breakthrough moment in the conversation comes when De'Edra introduces her alternative to traditional Quarterly Business Reviews—Customer Objective Reviews (COREs).
"I did away with QBRs. Customers don't like them, and they're an incredibly laborious process... I do what's called a customer objective review. It's called a CORE. And the difference is... customers showed up. They were engaged, and they were willing to have a very thought provoking conversation that yielded a tremendous amount of results."
CORE framework focuses on three critical elements: the customer's goals and KPIs tied to your solution, their technical roadmap, and what's working well versus opportunities for improvement. This approach transforms vendor relationships into true partnerships.
3: The Four-Phase Customer Journey: From Alignment to Advocacy
De'Edra breaks down her systematic approach to customer success through four distinct phases built into their CRM workflow.
"We actually built out a customer journey that started with 4 phases. The 1st phase is the align phase... and that's documenting their desired business outcomes. Building out that sort of situational piece... once that became a high probability of close, it would automatically kick it into what we call the onboarding phase."
The four phases: Align, Onboard, Engage, and Advocate, create a structured path that ensures no customer falls through the cracks while maximizing opportunities for retention and expansion at each stage.
4: The Value Driver Mindset: Redefining Customer Success as Revenue Generation
One of the most powerful themes is De'Edra's approach to positioning customer success professionals as value drivers rather than cost centers.
"We are not salespeople. However, we are the owner of a revenue metric... we are value drivers, and when you identify value opportunities for your customers, you're not selling to them, you are presenting them with the opportunity to optimize the solution that they've already purchased."This mindset shift is crucial for customer success teams who struggle with the perception that they're "not salespeople" while still being expected to drive revenue outcomes.
5: The Human-First Strategy: Balancing Automation with High-Touch Relationships
De'Edra addresses the critical balance between scalable automation and meaningful human interaction in today's hybrid GTM world.
"That's the difference between being a vendor and being a partner... if you really want true engagement, if you really want to drive value for your customers. You've got to identify... ICPs that really need that human interaction because it's going to drive retention. It's going to reduce and minimize churn."
She outlines three critical touchpoints that require human interaction: onboarding for enterprise customers,
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Root Problem: Why Leaders Get Stuck in Their Own Way
Mike opens by addressing the fundamental challenge that plagues most leaders: ego and loyalty. These aren't character strengths in decision-making—they're blind spots that create massive obstacles to growth.
"My 2 biggest blind spots, biggest risk character flaws are ego and loyalty. I have high ego, because if there was a better way to do it, I'd already figured it out... and then the other side is loyalty. I've got a high amount of loyalty and commitment to the people that are around me."
He explains that when either ego or loyalty influences a decision, leaders can't make that decision alone. They need external perspective from boards, advisors, or coaches who can help them see past these blind spots and ask the questions that shift perspective.
2: The Skills vs. Tools Trap: Why New Frameworks Don't Fix Fundamental Gaps
A core theme is the dangerous tendency to chase "shiny new tools" instead of building foundational skills. Mike uses a powerful analogy to illustrate why this approach fails.
"Imagine if I was trying to screw in a Phillips head screw, and I had. The only thing I had was a hammer. Could I do it? Sure? Could I create a little bit of damage? It's gonna be yeah, it's going to be rough. So we apply the wrong tool to the job."
The real issue isn't having the right framework—it's building the core leadership skills: problem solving, decision making, goal setting, execution design, and communication. Without these foundational skills, any tool becomes ineffective.
3. The Three Jobs of Every Meeting: Eliminating Wasted Time and Confusion
Mike breaks down one of the biggest productivity killers in organizations: poorly designed meetings. He introduces a "jobs to be done" framework that transforms how teams collaborate.
"I believe there's 1 of 3 jobs to be done of every meeting, and too often people try to do more than one job in a meeting."
The three jobs are: convey information and get feedback, make a decision, or collaborate to solve a problem/align on strategy/design a process. The key insight is that mixing these jobs creates chaos and wastes everyone's time.
4. Leadership Self-Care: Using Data to Manage Your Operating System
Mike addresses a critical but often overlooked aspect of leadership: self-awareness through measurable data. Just as leaders track business metrics, they need to track personal performance indicators.
"You talk about knowing your numbers inside your business. What about knowing your numbers for self? And how are those changing over time? It's not how my numbers compare to your numbers, Mike. It's how my numbers compare to my numbers yesterday or the day before the month before."
He shares practical tools like heart rate variability, resting heart rate, and sleep metrics, emphasizing that leaders need to monitor their own "operating system" to maintain peak performance.
5. The Simplification Framework: From Chaos to Predictable Operations
The conversation culminates in Mike's approach to transforming chaotic execution into predictable output. The solution isn't more process—it's radical simplification.
"Simplify what you do as a business, whatever those things are like. Why do people actually work with you? What do you deliver inside the organization... break things down into really really small, simple parts, and these can be like Meathead words that you use. It doesn't have to be o
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Shift to Personal Brands: Why Buyers Trust People, Not Logos
Jared explains that the biggest change in marketing is the move away from faceless corporate collateral. Buyers now want to see the real people behind a company. This is where trust is built.
"You started to see more founders and executives step out from behind the company brand and really start to put themselves out there... and that trust that they're building personally just transfers back to the company in the long run."
2: The Mindset Shift: Content is a Lifestyle, Not a Short-Term Campaign
To succeed, Jared argues that you must treat content as a long-term commitment, not a temporary project. It's about planting seeds consistently over time, not looking for immediate results.
"This is going to sound Corny, and when I say it, it sounds Corny, but it is a lifestyle. You have to shift the mindset to understand that you can't test this out for 2, 3 months and hope that you get a bunch of clients from it. That's not how it works. It's a long term. Play."
3. The Content Strategy: Blending Expertise with Authentic Storytelling
A common mistake is defaulting to "buy my stuff" content. Jared breaks down the right content mix, which is not just about business but about humanizing the executive. It's a blend of domain expertise, thought leadership, and personal stories.
"It's a heavy dose of, I would say, probably 40%. What your business does. Probably 20 to 30% of thought leadership. And then the rest of that is your story. It is passions that you're doing. It's that type of stuff that's just supposed to throw personality on top of, like you already, being really good at what you do."
4. The "Dark Social" Effect: Influencing the 95% Who Aren't Ready to Buy
Jared emphasizes that the real power of content lies in "dark social", the conversations happening in private channels. Your content equips your champions to share your message inside a target account long before you're ever in the room.
"If you're visible when they don't need you, you'll be remembered when they do."
5. Overcoming "No Time" and Imposter Syndrome: A Practical Guide to Starting
Jared addresses the two biggest hurdles for executives: the feeling of "I don't have time" and the fear of putting themselves out there. He provides a simple, actionable process to get started.
"The authority is in there, though, like these people that we work with are sharp. They know a lot about a lot of things, and once we kind of find that button you start to see them shift their their tone and their personality go from like guarded to. I'm having a good time. Let's keep this party going."
Final Thoughts:
Jared leaves us with a powerful prediction about the future of B2B marketing: the rise of the B2B influencer. As the social media generation becomes the dominant buyer, companies will make it mandatory for their teams to build personal brands.
"That is the social media generation. These are the people that are on social media. They grew up on social media, and it will be the most important thing from the b 2 b. Space... companies will make it mandatory for their teams to create content and be active."
His final piece of advice is a simple but urgent call to action for anyone who knows they should be doing this but feels stuck. The most important step is the first one.
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The Real Job of the Operating Model
The Operating Model’s job is to transform your GTM efforts from a collection of chaotic, incompatible parts into a unified, efficient Revenue Factory.
It defines:
- How to connect disparate teams and tools with a shared map (The Bowtie).
- How to align everyone on a single, customer-focused goal (Impact).
- How to ensure different GTM motions can work together seamlessly (SPICED).
- How to scale revenue growth in a cost-efficient, sustainable, and predictable way.
It is the essential architecture for moving from a world of chaos to a world of order.
Because, as the framework makes clear:
Recurring Revenue is the result of Recurring Impact. The Operating Model is the system you build to deliver that impact, consistently, across the entire customer journey.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
The Problem of Chaos: Why GTM Teams Need a Unified Operating Model
Charlie opens by addressing a universal challenge: the friction caused by incompatible tools, metrics, and methods across Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success. This misalignment leads to escalating costs, declining productivity, and a chaotic customer experience.
"The root cause of the GTM issue is that the number of interconnections between various means and methods increases exponentially with each additional GTM motion; this causes cost to escalate and productivity to decline."
He explains that without a standardized blueprint, teams operate in silos, creating a disjointed journey where the customer is the one who ultimately suffers. The solution isn't to eliminate tools, but to create interoperability through a shared system.
Anchoring in the Customer Journey, Not Internal Processes
A core theme is the shift from an inside-out to an outside-in perspective. Many companies design their operations around their internal teams and processes, but a true Operating Model must be anchored in the customer's journey.
"The Operating Model should be rooted in the customer journey — not internal processes."
Charlie discusses what it truly means to build a customer-centric system, aligning every team across the bowtie funnel to contribute to customer impact in a consistent, measurable, and scalable way.
SPICED: The Common Language for Your Entire Revenue Engine
The conversation dives into the practical application of the SPICED framework as the connective tissue for the entire Operating Model.
"SPICED creates a Uniform Methodology that acts as an interface between crucial actions from all GTM teams across all GTM motions."
We explore how SPICED provides the "open interface" that connects everything from lead generation and deal qualification to customer success and expansion, ensuring a seamless flow of information and value.
Emotional vs. Rational Impact: The Human Element of Buying Decisions
Charlie breaks down the two crucial types of impact that drive every sale: Rational and Emotional. While Rational Impact (like ROI) benefits the company, Emotional Impact benefits the individual, and it's often the more powerful driver.
"Humans in most cases make an Emotional decision. We first decide what we believe is the right solution. We then rationalize that decision with facts and figures."
The Operating Model ensures that GTM teams are equipped to uncover and speak to both the personal
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: From Scientist to GTM Leader: A Journey of System-Level Thinking
Randi Sue opens the conversation by sharing her unconventional path from a clinical scientist with a "math science brain" to a Go-to-Market leader. This unique background shaped her entire approach to revenue growth.
“whether it's engineer or clinical scientist, you're taught system level thinking.”
She explains how this foundation in system-level thinking and a pivotal conversation with a mentor propelled her into the commercial side of healthcare, where she quickly excelled by applying a scientific, data-driven mindset to sales and customer relationships.
2: The "Lab Mindset": A Framework for Intentional Growth
Randi Sue introduces her "lab mindset," a powerful framework for designing and executing a successful Go-to-Market strategy. It’s about moving beyond guesswork and embracing a structured, experimental approach.
“So 1st off lab mindset is really about thinking from a system perspective... you have to have a system in place that considers all the inputs and the outputs, you know, in its simplest form.”
This mindset requires fanatical documentation, rigorous change control, and a constant search for patterns in the data to understand which levers will truly move the needle in your system.
3. The Power of Micro Movements: Compounding 1% Gains
A key theme of the conversation is the incredible impact of small, consistent improvements. Randi Sue explains why focusing on "micro movements" is more effective than chasing large, elusive goals.
“it's about small movements that compound over time, right? And and that's why I like to call them micro movements.”
She details how making 1% improvements every day—whether in sales cycles, deal sizes, or customer acquisition costs—compounds over time, leading to significant, sustainable growth and a shorter path to achieving your goals.
4. Documentation as a Superpower: Why You Need to Write It Down
Randi Sue argues that one of the most overlooked yet critical disciplines in any business is documentation. Without it, you're flying blind and cannot learn from your successes or failures.
"one of my superpowers coming from the science world is that if it wasn't documented it didn't happen. So I am fanatical about documenting.”
She emphasizes that documentation isn't just about recording what happened; it's about using data to drive decisions, explain the "why" behind changes, and create a playbook that allows you to pivot effectively and make better decisions based on your unique business environment.
5. Be the Change You Want to See: Championing Women in GTM
Randi Sue shares her passion for supporting and amplifying other women in the Go-to-Market space, emphasizing the importance of allies and creating a supportive community.
“So I think 1st off, it's, you know, be the change you want to see right? So as a female leader, it's, you know, supporting other women, amplifying other women, and also like bringing allies like you.”
She explains that her own biggest opportunities have come from allies who spoke up for her when she wasn't in the room, and she encourages others to do the same to foster a more inclusive and empowering GTM community.
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
Attribution: Still a Mess, but Critical
Olga doesn’t mince words when it comes to one of the most debated topics in partnerships: attribution.
“The big challenge with attribution is that every company defines it differently… You have to be very deliberate and define what success means to your organization.”
She emphasizes the need to define what attribution looks like at different GTM stages—from influence to sourced—and warns against relying solely on form fills or deal tags to prove value.
Hyperscalers and the ‘Attach’ Game
Having built GTM motions with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, Olga gives a candid look into what partnering with hyperscalers really entails.
“At the end of the day, those big cloud players care about what attaches to their compute. That’s the business model.”
She explains how you need to align to their incentives, whether that’s building joint GTM plays, co-selling, or surfacing your wins through their marketplace metrics.
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AI Partnerships: GTM Strategy, Not Just Tech
Olga highlights that the AI wave has added complexity to partner programs—especially when founders treat it as a product-only play.
“If AI is part of your stack and you’re integrating with Azure, great. But you still need a partner GTM motion—landing pages, demos, field plays. That’s where most teams fall short.”
She shares how top companies are using GTM alignment as the differentiator in AI partnerships, not just the tech integrations themselves.
Partner-Led Growth Requires a Real Motion
Many leaders want the upside of ecosystems without the structure behind them. Olga stresses that partner-led can’t be wishful thinking, it needs operational rigor.
“You can’t say it’s partner-led growth if you don’t have a repeatable process to enable, to scale, to track, and to drive outcomes.”
She outlines how internal education, cross-functional buy-in, and reliable attribution paths are all needed to move beyond partner theater.
Final Thoughts:Olga Lykova delivers a straight-talking view into what actually makes strategic partnerships work. Whether you’re navigating hyperscaler alliances or building an AI GTM motion, the message is clear:Align incentives. Build repeatable systems. Track what matters.Anything else is just noise.
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
1: The Real Job of a Partner Leader? Influence Without Authority
Will opens the conversation with a truth many avoid: partnership leaders often lack direct power, but are still expected to drive revenue. That makes influence your #1 skill.
“You’re influencing across all departments, but none of those people report to you.”
He shares how he’s learned to build cross-functional trust, educating teams about partner value without becoming “just another ask.”
2: Partnerships Aren’t Handoffs. They’re Embedded
Too many orgs treat partnerships as one-off handoffs or referral moments. Will makes the case for embedded partnerships, where product, content, enablement, and sales are all part of the design.
“It’s not about throwing a deal over the fence. It’s: how do we build this together?”
He challenges partner pros to think end-to-end, not just where the partner comes in, but how the entire buyer and user experience is shaped by the partnership.
3: Kill the Funnel. Think in Loops.
One of the biggest mindset shifts Will pushes is moving from linear funnel thinking to flywheel and loop thinking. A partner might first come in through content, then influence a customer renewal, then become a co-marketing advocate.
“You can’t measure that in a traditional CRM. But it’s driving value across the lifecycle.”
This is where partnerships shift from being a side channel to being a strategic multiplier across marketing, sales, and success.
4: The Power of Showing Up Authentically
Will also shares why authentic visibility matters more than polished content or automation hacks. His presence on LinkedIn wasn’t planned—it grew from being real, consistent, and helpful.
“I just started showing up consistently, sharing the things I was learning… and that built trust.”
He encourages partner leaders to stop worrying about perfect positioning and start building presence by being useful in public.
5: Strategic Partner Enablement: Beyond Toolkits
Will outlines why partner enablement is not about decks and battlecards—it’s about alignment, feedback, and iterative motion design.
“Enablement is a two-way street. If partners aren’t using what you give them, it’s your fault, not theirs.”
He suggests thinking of enablement like product development: validate the need, build small, and improve with partner feedback.
Final Thoughts:Will Taylor delivers a fresh take on partnerships—one rooted in empathy, strategy, and influence.
For any GTM or RevOps leader building an ecosystem motion, this episode is a reminder to slow down, go deeper, and architect partnerships into the core of your customer journey.
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GTM as a System: Moving Beyond the Duct Tape Era
Elio opens the conversation by describing the common GTM setup in early-stage startups: a patchwork of tools, disconnected workflows, and reactive processes.
“A lot of GTM still looks like a duct-taped stack. It works until it breaks, but it always breaks.”
He emphasizes the importance of thinking about GTM as a repeatable system, not just a series of tactics. Automation, he says, must support the flow of decisions, not just trigger emails or route leads.
Human-First Doesn’t Mean Human-Only
While automation is key to scale, Elio is adamant that the best systems enhance the human element, rather than replace it.
“You automate the repeatable, but you empower the personal. That’s the balance.”
He explains how the most effective GTM engines combine automation for volume and human-led moments for trust-building, especially in PLG and mid-market sales environments.
Why RevOps Is the Glue Between Strategy and Execution
Elio gives a clear role for RevOps in a scaling business: to architect how strategy flows into frontline action. Without this, GTM motions get lost between teams, tools, and dashboards.
“RevOps is not just reporting. It’s the translation layer between your vision and your execution.”
He walks through examples of how RevOps can make or break early-stage growth, and why aligning it early is essential to prevent later chaos.
The Danger of Over-Automation Without Intent
One of the more cautionary moments in the episode is Elio’s take on automation overload. He describes how teams get stuck automating for automation’s sake, without tying it to outcomes.
“I’ve seen teams automate themselves into irrelevance. Just because it can be automated doesn’t mean it should.”
Elio calls for intentional design, where each step in the GTM flow is there to create clarity, speed, or trust.
Building an Operating System for GTM
Elio introduces the idea of a GTM operating system - a consistent, feedback-driven structure that connects strategy, execution, and measurement.
“You can’t scale chaos. You need a GTM OS that everyone understands, even if they’re new.”
He outlines how startups can gradually implement this system without losing agility, using automation as an enabler, not a crutch.
Final Thoughts:
Elio Narciso reminds us that GTM is no longer a wild experiment. In today’s market, it needs to be intentional, repeatable, and human-first.Whether you’re using AI agents or Zapier workflows, the goal is the same: build systems that scale trust, not just tasks.For founders, RevOps leaders, and GTM teams ready to evolve, this episode is a practical guide to engineering growth with clarity, not chaos.
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What is the Revenue Model?
Think of the Revenue Model as the financial engine beneath your GTM motion. It’s not just about what you charge—it’s about how your business turns value into income, and how that cash flow shapes your ability to scale.
If the Data Model tells you what’s happening in your pipeline, the Revenue Model tells you whether your business will survive the journey.
It’s built on three foundational components:
- Revenue Type
At the top level, your revenue model defines whether you generate income through:
- One-time transactions
- Recurring subscriptions
- Usage-based billing
- Service layers
- Or a blended model
Choosing the wrong type, or failing to evolve it as you scale, can stall growth, distort CAC, and misalign your teams.
2. Monetization Logic
This defines how and when you recognize revenue relative to:
- When the customer pays
- When value is delivered
- When onboarding completes
- Or when usage happens
Monetization logic drives everything from customer success pressure to churn risk to cash runway. It also shapes financial visibility and investor confidence.
3. CAC Payback & LTV Dynamics
Finally, your revenue model must align with your unit economics:
- How long it takes to recover Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
- How long a customer stays (LTV)
- And how these numbers shift over time
Early-stage companies should optimize for quick CAC payback. As you scale, LTV expansion becomes the lever for compounding returns.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode: The Revenue Model: Your Entrance to the Corner
Nick uses a motorsport analogy to explain why the revenue model is the critical first decision when architecting growth:
“If you get the entrance to a corner wrong, nothing else matters.”
He explains that rushing into GTM tactics without first understanding how revenue will be structured and realized is a common, and costly mistake. Founders who jump to sales motions without addressing how they get paid risk building fragility into the system from day one.
Why the Model Must Match the Motion
One of Nick’s core points is that misalignment between your revenue model and your GTM motion creates drag. For example, using an enterprise sales team for a low-price product breaks margins. Likewise, trying to scale PLG with an onboarding-heavy platform delays revenue and spikes CAC.
“Your motion has to reflect the nature of your product. If you mismatch, you’re playing uphill.”
He encourages leaders to match how they deliver value with how they capture value, ensuring that the motion supports the model.
The Danger of Skipping the Revenue Model
Nick reflects on why early-stage companies often skip this step, and how that undermines scale later:
“Model One is our equivalent of getting the entrance to the corner right. If we don’t get this bit right, it doesn’t matter what else we do in terms of GTM motions, mathematical models…”
He highlights that getting this wrong doesn’t just affect revenue, it cascades into team design, cost structure, and even how you fundraise.
Revenue Model Questions That Matter
Rather than rushing to pricing or packaging, Nick challenges companies to ask:
“What is the frequency with which we expect
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Partner Ops Isn’t Support, It’s the Strategy
Antonio opens with a clear thesis: companies that treat Partner Ops like back-office admin are missing the point. Partner Ops is where partner strategy becomes executable, and without it, co-selling and partner-led growth simply don’t scale.
“Partner Ops is how the strategy becomes real. If you can’t execute it, it’s not a strategy—it’s a slide.”
He explains how partner operations create the architecture for everything from onboarding and tiering to pipeline sharing and performance tracking.
The GTM Engine Behind Co-Selling: Precision in the Partner Lifecycle
Antonio walks through the anatomy of a modern co-sell engine, from partner onboarding and enablement to the real-time exchange of pipeline signals, attribution clarity, and mutual success metrics.
“Without precision in the partner lifecycle, co-selling becomes chaos. Every motion breaks down.”
He outlines how clarity in Partner Ops ensures that reps know what’s expected, partners know how to win, and the company knows how to measure results.
Tiering, Incentives, and the Attribution Trap
One of the most practical segments of the episode is Antonio’s take on partner tiering and attribution. He explains how poorly designed tiers or unclear attribution rules cause misalignment between internal teams and partners.
“If attribution isn’t agreed and visible, you’ll lose trust with both your reps and your partners.”
Antonio shares tactical advice for designing tiering models that motivate partner performance and attribution systems that support transparency and credibility across the funnel.
Scaling the System: What Breaks Without a Partner Ops Foundation
Antonio shares war stories from hyper scale, what happens when Partner Ops isn’t in place, and how broken workflows, unscalable spreadsheets, and one-off partner asks start compounding.
“Without Partner Ops, your partner program becomes a collection of favors. That’s not a business model.”
He explains how companies can build the foundation early, layering in tools, documentation, and systems that support 100s or 1,000s of partners without losing control.
AI and the Future of Partner Operations
Antonio also offers a forward-looking view: how AI will impact Partner Ops over the next 12–24 months. He sees a future where AI agents support partner onboarding, alert teams to stale opportunities, and recommend optimizations in real time.
“AI will make Partner Ops more proactive. It won’t just measure performance—it’ll prescribe the next best action.”
This shift could turn Partner Ops into one of the most intelligent functions in GTM, helping companies scale faster with greater precision.
Final Thoughts
Antonio Caridad brings a sharp, systems-first lens to partnerships—one that’s long overdue. In his world, Partner Ops isn’t reactive—it’s revenue architecture.
For SaaS leaders building ecosystems, and RevOps pros building for scale, this episode offers a masterclass in what it really takes to turn a partnership strategy into repeatable growth.
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The Autonomous Business: Outpacing, Not Outspending:
Amos opens with a provocative idea: the best GTM teams in the next decade won’t be the biggest—they’ll be the most autonomous. His team scaled rapidly by focusing not on headcount, but on process orchestration, smart automation, and systems that run themselves.
“It’s not about how many SDRs you have. It’s about how many inputs and decisions can be handled without a human in the loop.”
He details how they built an autonomous GTM machine, using AI agents, clear triggers, and repeatable sequences to deliver pipeline at scale.
Diagnose First, Then Design: The Discipline of GTM Ops:
Before you add a tool or hire a rep, Amos insists you must understand your internal bottlenecks. He shares how most GTM leaders chase tools or headcount without ever diagnosing what’s truly broken in their system.
“Founders need to stop asking, ‘Which tool should I buy?’ and start asking, ‘Where am I stuck?’”
It’s a design-first mindset: identify what’s holding growth back, then build or buy only what solves that specific constraint.
Motion-Fit Before Channel-Fit: Why Most GTM Experiments Fail:Amos emphasizes the importance of matching your GTM motion to your product, price point, and customer journey—long before choosing a channel like LinkedIn ads or outbound emails.
“If you’re running PLG tactics with an enterprise sales motion, you’re already underwater.”
He urges GTM teams to zoom out and assess their motion architecture first, whether it’s low-touch, high-touch, or partner-led—and then layer in execution strategies accordingly.Scaling Without SDRs: When to Break the Rules:One of the boldest takeaways from Amos is that you don’t need SDRs if you build an inbound engine that does the qualifying work upfront. He shares how his team avoided a bloated SDR function by using a combination of content, AI routing, and structured onboarding.
“We skipped SDRs entirely and still filled pipeline. Why? Because our system knew exactly who to surface and when.”
It’s a signal to founders that they can rewrite the GTM playbook, if their system is designed to guide the right buyers through the journey.
Run GTM Like Product: Versioning, Testing, Shipping:Perhaps the most valuable mental model Amos offers is the idea that go-to-market should be run like a product team. Instead of one-off campaigns, his team builds GTM “features”, each with a version, a goal, and a feedback loop.
“We don’t launch a campaign. We ship a GTM feature. It has a change log, a version number, and a KPI attached.”
This mindset creates accountability, speed, and continuous iteration. It’s also a far more scalable way to approach growth.
Final Thoughts:
Amos Bar Joseph doesn’t just talk about the future of GTM, he’s building it. By combining lean systems, AI agents, and ruthless focus on bottleneck elimination, he and his co-founders have shown what’s possible when you scale with precision instead of bulk.
For any founder or RevOps leader tired of bloated playbooks and outdated roles, this episode is a blueprint for modern growth—autonomous, intelligent, and fast.
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AI in the Investment Playbook: A Must-Have, Not a Nice-to-Have
Nav explains that for modern investors, AI has become embedded in every phase of the deal lifecycle. No longer just an idea or a pilot, AI is now core to how firms like Active Growth Partners source, underwrite, and operate their investments.
“AI isn’t a side project—it’s becoming part of the deal DNA.”
This shift goes beyond efficiency, it’s about using AI to find value in places traditional diligence might overlook. From automating research on customer trends to surfacing hidden patterns in financials, Nav sees AI as table stakes for forward-thinking investment firms.
Beyond Efficiency: AI as a Growth Engine Post-Close
While many investors talk about AI as a tool to cut costs, Nav believes the bigger opportunity is to drive top-line growth. He shares how Active Growth looks for ways to embed AI directly into the GTM stack of portfolio companies, creating new revenue streams and customer experiences.
“We’re not just looking for AI to cut costs. We’re looking for it to unlock new revenue streams, new business models, and competitive moats.”
Nav sees AI not just as a margin play, but as a lever for creating compounding value post-close, whether through smarter cross-sell or more data-driven pricing.
Tech-Enabled M&A: Predictive Sourcing and Faster Diligence
AI isn’t only about portfolio operations, it’s also transforming the M&A process itself. Nav shares how data-driven sourcing is helping identify companies that align with strategic value, and how AI models can accelerate due diligence while reducing risk.“Data-driven signals let us move faster and more confidently, even in complex markets.”
This means more precise targeting, faster deal cycles, and ultimately more conviction in the investment thesis, even in high-stakes environments.
Balancing Risk and Innovation in Deal Execution
Nav acknowledges that AI also brings a risk of hype and noise. He talks about how investors must separate real AI opportunities from the buzzwords—ensuring that any AI investment has a clear path to ROI and customer value.
“We’re not here to fund science projects. We’re here to fund real businesses that can use AI as an accelerant.”
For Active Growth, this means rigor around where and how AI gets deployed—focusing on real-world impact and long-term defensibility.
From Efficiency to GTM Acceleration: AI in Portfolio Operations
Post-close, Nav sees AI as a game-changer for revenue growth—not just internal efficiency. He explains how AI can inform customer segmentation, identify the best-fit go-to-market motion, and even forecast churn risk with more precision.
“AI gives you sharper customer insights, not just back-office efficiency. That’s where the compounding growth really starts.”
He frames this as a new era of portfolio management—where the goal isn’t just to maintain margins, but to unlock new pathways to growth and market leadership.
Final Thoughts
Nav Rajput’s perspective is a timely reminder that AI is no longer optional—it’s foundational. For private equity leaders, GTM strategists, and portfolio operators, the takeaway is clear: using AI to automate is only the start.
The real differentiator is using it to create new reven
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
From Global Brands to Local Champions: Finding the Right Fit
Kate’s career path took her from some of the world’s biggest names to supporting local tech communities and scaling startups. She shares how the discipline and process of global brands gave her a foundation for creating customer-obsessed cultures at smaller organizations.
“Big brands taught me discipline. But startups taught me how to build everything around the customer.”
Her approach blends the best of both worlds—process where it matters, and flexibility where it counts.
Listening as a Superpower: Leading with Empathy in Sales
For Kate, sales leadership is first and foremost about listening and observing. In a world obsessed with demos and metrics, she believes that empathy and curiosity are what truly build trust and unlock opportunity.
“Your customer will tell you what they want, if you stop talking and start listening.”
She shares how this mindset has helped her teams not only close more deals, but create genuine, lasting partnerships.
Navigating Leadership as a Woman in TechKate opens up about her experiences as a woman in leadership, especially in the male-dominated world of tech sales. She talks candidly about the challenges of being the only woman in the room and the moments that pushed her to find her voice.
“You have to find your voice and stand in it—even when it’s uncomfortable.”
Her journey is a powerful reminder of the importance of representation and the responsibility leaders have to create more inclusive spaces. Building Communities That Scale ImpactBeyond revenue numbers, Kate is passionate about building communities, especially for women in tech. She talks about her work with local leadership networks and how these communities create safe spaces for growth and mentorship.
“It’s not just about the boardroom - it’s about where women can be seen, heard, and supported.”
For Kate, scaling impact means scaling relationships, not just headcount.Balancing Growth and Wellbeing: A Leadership ImperativeKate doesn’t shy away from the tough conversations about burnout and the toll of hypergrowth on teams. She argues that the best GTM leaders balance ambition with compassion.
“Growth at any cost isn’t real growth. We have to create environments where people can thrive.”
It’s a call to leaders to measure success not just by ARR, but by the wellbeing and sustainability of their teams.
Final Thoughts
Kate Parashina’s story is a reminder that great GTM leadership isn’t about having all the answers - it’s about creating space for others to show up as themselves.
From building brand-consistent processes to nurturing authentic relationships, Kate’s approach is equal parts discipline, empathy, and impact. If you’re looking for a perspective that blends global experience with local heart, this episode is a must-listen.
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode: The GTM Model as the Execution Layer of Revenue Architecture
The GTM Model is where all the theory becomes tangible. While the first five models of Revenue Architecture define the who, what, and why of your go-to-market, the GTM Model defines the how. It’s the layer where strategy becomes process, and process becomes pipeline.
“The GTM Model is where the architecture becomes action. But only if the foundations are there first.”
Mats explains that many GTM issues aren’t due to poor execution, but to misapplied or disconnected motions. When done right, the GTM Model becomes the operating system for repeatable, scalable revenue.
Motion-Segment Fit: Choosing the Right Motion for the Right Job
GTM success hinges on what Mats calls motion-segment fit, aligning the right sales or marketing motion with the right type of customer and opportunity. He warns that even strong motions fail when misapplied to the wrong segment.
“Segment-motion fit is what separates scale from waste.”
Rather than chasing trends like PLG or outbound, companies need to diagnose customer size, sales cycle complexity, and deal velocity, then match motions like No Touch, Low Touch, or High Touch accordingly. The GTM Model provides that clarity.
Why Most GTM Execution Breaks: Misaligned Motions, Misfiring TeamsAccording to Mats, the #1 cause of GTM underperformance is premature execution. Teams launch outbound, invest in inbound, or build SDR engines before understanding which motion fits their revenue model, buyer, or product.
“If you start executing without knowing what segment you’re serving, or whether your math works, you’re building GTM on guesswork.”
Mats emphasizes that GTM isn’t about activity volume, it’s about motion precision. Revenue grows when execution is sequenced properly on top of a solid architecture.Layering Motions, Not Replacing ThemMost companies treat GTM like a series of switches: turn inbound off, turn outbound on; replace SDRs with partners; stop sales and try PLG. Mats says that mindset breaks scale.
“Don’t swap plays. Layer them. Each motion adds force, if the engine can handle it.”
The most mature GTM engines aren’t built on one motion, they’re blended. Inbound creates gravity, outbound adds predictability, partners extend reach, and PLG drives efficiency. But only when layered with operational intent.
Enablement is the Make-or-Break for GTM Success
Strategy sounds good in a workshop. But GTM lives or dies in execution. Mats points out that most breakdowns happen not because of poor planning, but because frontline teams weren’t enabled to run the motion.
“Everyone talks about strategy. The hard part is getting teams to run the play.”
For a GTM Model to work, every motion needs content, workflows, CRM triggers, and training mapped to it. Otherwise, you’re just handing your team a playbook they can’t run.
RevOps as the GTM Engineer
RevOps isn’t just ops. It’s the engineering layer of GTM. Mats highlights how RevOps teams are best positioned to measure, monitor, and optimize each motion using data from the Data Model—volume, conversion, and velocity.
“RevOps brings continuity across the motions. They’re the engineers of the GTM machine.”
When GTM is scatt
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In Season 4, Episode 4 of Force and Friction, we continue our Winning by Design Revenue Architecture Series with Jos de Wit, certified Revenue Architect and founder of MNTM.
Jos has helped SaaS and RevOps teams across Europe and North America dismantle faulty assumptions, realign broken processes, and build go-to-market systems that scale with precision.
In this episode, Jos delivers a masterclass on what it really means to “architect” your revenue engine, from foundational data models to unified customer journeys, segmentation, handoffs, and the role of AI in automation.
If your GTM strategy feels like it’s held together with duct tape and dashboards, this conversation will show you how to rebuild it from first principles.
What is the Data Model?
Think of the Data Model as the blueprint of your GTM engine. It maps out what should be happening, how often, how well, and how fast, across every part of the customer journey.
It’s built on three core metric types:
- Volume Metrics (VM)
Volume Metrics tell us how much is happening at each key stage of the GTM journey. They’re often counted in units (leads, opportunities, deals) or revenue (MRR, ARR, LTV), and serve as the raw material of your pipeline. These are the hard numbers. But without context, they mean little. That’s where conversion comes in. - Conversion Metrics (CR)Conversion Metrics show how well each stage turns into the next. They tell you how efficient your GTM engine is, from top-of-funnel to onboarding to expansion. These are expressed as percentages. Drop-offs between CRs signal friction. Weak CR4? It’s your sales process. Poor CR6? Onboarding or product value isn’t landing.
- Velocity Metrics (Δt)
Velocity Metrics measure time. They capture how fast leads and customers move through each phase, and where things might be getting stuck. These are critical for improving cycle time, onboarding experience, and expansion timing. - If your Δt4 is too long, you burn pipeline. If your Δt6 drags, onboarding churn follows. Velocity fuels scale.
Each metric connects directly to a key moment in the Bowtie model, which includes both acquisition (pre-sale) and expansion (post-sale).
Together, these metrics allow RevOps and GTM leaders to not only measure performance, but diagnose what’s breaking, where friction lives, and how to optimize sustainably.
These three categories—Volume, Conversion, and Velocity—form the operational core of your GTM engine. You can’t just focus on one. You need to measure them together, look for gaps, and run diagnostics continuously.
Because here’s the truth:
Growth isn’t random. It’s architected.
And the architecture starts with a model that actually mirrors how your revenue factory works.
Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode: Architect Before You Execute: Why GTM Starts with Data Design
Jos introduces the foundational mindset of Revenue Architecture: You don’t start with the funnel, you start with the Bowtie.
“We often jump into execution with a funnel or tech stack, but if the underlying model isn’t designed first, everything breaks later.”
The Hidden GTM Risk: Bad Assumptions at the Core
One of Jos’s most urgent messages is that bad data models lead to good teams performing poorly. Whether it’s poor ICP definition, mismatched lifecycle stages, or
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
From Crisis to Breakout: Franz’s Unexpected Journey into GTM
Franz shares how a failed startup and a global pandemic unexpectedly led him into the Hopin rocketship, where he learned to build under pressure and follow signals others missed, like the rise of agencies during virtual event chaos.
“We didn’t have enough capacity. Agencies had too much. Partnerships became the bridge.”
Lessons from Hopin: The 1,000 Leads a Day Playbook
At the height of COVID-19, Hopin was fielding over 1,000 inbound leads per day. Franz describes how the team scaled fast, iterated faster, and turned chaos into clarity by leaning into rapid-fire experimentation and partner ecosystems.
"If you pitch 20 times a day, you figure it out fast. That pressure became our best teacher.”
Partnerships as a Culture Shift, Not a Headcount HireFranz explains that partnerships aren’t just a function, they’re a fundamental shift in how organizations go to market. He addresses the internal resistance many partnership teams face and why indirect GTM feels risky to leadership.“It’s speed versus control. And CEOs don’t like giving up control.”
The SaaS Buying River: Mapping the Flow of Partner ValueFranz introduces his “SaaS Buying River” analogy, explaining how to identify where you fit in the customer’s journey, and which partners flow upstream (lead gen) or downstream (expansion/integration). He later tied this thinking to Winning by Design’s Bowtie model.
“Before the Bowtie, we had the River. Either way, it’s about meeting your customer where they are.”
Scaling Opus Clip: PLG + Partner-Led PrecisionWith Opus Clip’s rapid rise past 10M users, Franz explains how product-led growth laid the foundation, but partnerships are now helping the team build stickier workflows, expand to new audiences, and scale implementation.
“AI clipped the content. Partnerships helped distribute and expand it.
The Myth of ‘Too Early’ for Partnerships
Through experience and community research, Franz debunks the idea that partnerships come after product-market fit. He reveals why early-stage companies that start small and stay focused can see huge long-term leverage.
“Most CEOs wait too long. Partner leaders know Day One is the best time to start.”
Barney Partnerships and the Customer Blind Spot
Franz warns against “Barney Partnerships” feel-good, founder-to-founder deals that never deliver. The biggest red flag? No customer overlap.
“Your boss isn’t your boss. The customer is. And they can fire the whole company.”
Operational Rigor: The 15-Minute Partner SLA
Drawing on a standout case study from Olga Laikova at monday.com, Franz highlights how operational excellence, like responding to partners in 15 minutes can lead to measurable revenue gains and become a true differentiator.
“If you’re first to respond, you’re the one the partner pitches. That’s how deals get won.”
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From WordStream to Customers.ai: A Shift Toward Accuracy-First Marketing:
Larry shares his journey from building WordStream into a $150M exit to launching Customers.ai, based on the insight that remarketing and website visitor identity are the true low-hanging fruit for marketers, if the data is trustworthy.
“Every marketing channel eventually leads to your website. If you know who’s there -accurately, it’s the ultimate force multiplier.”
The Big Problem: Why Visitor ID Technology Hasn’t Gone Mainstream
Visitor ID sounds amazing, but the industry hasn’t delivered. Larry breaks down the painful truth:
- Traditional visitor ID vendors have 70–95% error rates.
- Most businesses churn within 4–5 months because the data simply isn’t accurate enough.
- Bad visitor ID data harms deliverability, poisons CRM systems, and sabotages ad campaigns.
“Bad data is toxic waste for your go-to-market system. It doesn’t hurt immediately, it kills you slowly.”
Match Rate vs. True Match Rate: Why the Metrics Are MisleadingLarry explains how many vendors have gamed metrics by chasing high match rates without caring if those matches are correct.
“You can have a 40% match rate and still be 90% wrong. Match rate without accuracy is meaningless.”
He stresses the importance of true match rate, the percentage of matches that are actually correct, and how Customers.ai focused on getting the data right.
How Bad Data Wreaks Havoc on GTM Systems:Bad visitor ID data has far-reaching consequences:* Tanks email deliverability * Corrupts CRM and marketing databases * Destroys AI ad training models on platforms like Google and Meta
“You think you’re helping your ad targeting. But if you pump in wrong data, you’re actually training the AI to find the wrong audience.”
Larry calls this “data sabotage”, and it’s why most brands give up on visitor ID.The Customers.ai Difference: Building a Data Company, Not Just Another Platform:Unlike most competitors who resell low-grade ad data, Customers.ai built its own identity graph, signal systems, and engineering layers from scratch.“We didn’t just license data. We rebuilt the entire stack from zero. That’s why we’re 5x–16x more accurate.”
Their in-house model delivers 70–85%+ accuracy consistently, changing the game for visitor identification.
Proof in Performance: The Jordan Craig Case Study
Larry shares the powerful Jordan Craig case study undertaken using Customers.ai:
- Customers.ai delivered a 2.79% conversion rate from visitor ID leads.
- Competitors delivered less than 0.01% to 0.24%.
- Revenue per ID was 15x higher using Customers.ai data.
“When you send clean data, you get real conversions. When you send noise, you sabotage your entire funnel.”
The Future of Visitor ID: Infrastructure, Not an Add-On
Larry believes visitor ID has been niche because of bad data—but high-accuracy solutions like Customers.ai will soon become core infrastructure for every serious GTM team.
“Visitor ID isn’t a ‘nice to have.’ If you do it right, it’s the foundation of better ads, better sales outreach, better email marketing—everything.”
As the technology matures, it cou
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
Bridging the GTM Divide: Conversations First, Revenue Follows
Jason’s journey from nonprofit work to sales and partnerships taught him the long-game value of connection. His mantra: revenue begins with conversations—and conversations require trust.
“Partnerships are a long game. They’re a compounding motion that starts with a conversation, not a contract.”
Rather than chasing quick hits, Jason emphasizes the importance of ecosystem relationships as pipeline multipliers and trust accelerators.
The Arcadia Vision: Unifying Revenue Teams through Harmony:
Born from a desire to eliminate GTM silos, Arcadia is Jason’s answer to a misaligned revenue world. Rather than treating Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Partnerships as separate functions, Arcadia’s mission is to bring harmony over handoffs.
“The Arcadia experience is about slowing down to speed up—creating space for GTM leaders to reconnect, realign, and build something better together.”
The initiative also blends nature, intention, and leadership development to shift how we show up in the boardroom and the field.
The Side-of-Desk Problem: Why Partnerships Need a Seat at the Table:
Jason challenges the industry’s tendency to treat partnerships as an afterthought, offering a clear distinction between companies that are “partner-curious” versus those that are “partner-committed.”
“If partnerships are going to work, they can’t be one person's hustle. They need executive support, systems, and shared success metrics.”
Without alignment from Sales and RevOps, partnerships will stay siloed—and revenue potential will remain untapped.
Injecting Partner Plays into Outbound:
The Three I’s Framework:
Jason introduces a repeatable, low-lift method for infusing partnership value into existing sales plays: the Three I’s:
- Intel - Partner-driven context and insight on key accounts
- Intros - Warm handoffs that replace cold outreach
- Influence - Advocacy and trust that accelerates deals
“It’s not about replacing what works - it’s about making what works, work better through the partner ecosystem.”
This model helps GTM teams reduce friction, improve pipeline velocity, and win with more confidence.
Partner Enablement is Internal Too:
One of Jason’s strongest points: most partner motions fail not because of poor strategy—but because internal teams don’t know how to work with partners. He advocates for regular enablement across sales, marketing, and CS to help them:
- Understand the partner motion
- Know when and how to involve a partner
- See clear attribution to deals
“The biggest lift in partnerships comes when internal sellers understand how to leverage partner plays naturally.”
Build Ecosystems Around Customer Need, Not Cool Logos:
Not all partners are created equal. Jason urges teams to build ecosystems intentionally, starting with what your customers actually want, and who they already trust.
“Your best ecosystem strategy starts with customer insight. Where are they already spending time? Who do they already trust? Build from there.”
This approach shifts the partnership conversation from “Who do we want to work with?” to “Who adds the most value to our customer journey?”
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Why Traditional CRMs Don’t Work for Partnerships
Fredrik opens with a personal revelation: despite years of working with top-tier CRMs, partnerships teams were still stuck managing workflows with spreadsheets and manual workarounds.
“CRMs were built for customer-facing roles, not for partner collaboration. That’s why we built JourneyBee, to centralize partner data, automate collaboration, and scale revenue together.”
JourneyBee serves as middleware between organizations and their partners, automating the messy admin and bringing transparency to co-selling motions.
Partnerships Deserve Their Own Stack:
Partnerships are evolving—but the tools haven’t. Fredrik argues that partnerships require a designated tech stack just like sales, marketing, and support.
- CRMs handle customer workflows.
- Marketing automation serves content and lead gen.
- But partnerships? Still underserved and duct-taped together.
JourneyBee changes that by offering a dedicated platform for tracking, managing, and scaling ecosystem-led GTM strategies.
The Rise of Buyer-Led GTM: Flipping the Traditional Sales Model:
So, what is buyer-led GTM, and how does it differ from the seller-led model we’ve relied on for decades?
Traditional Seller-Led GTM:
- Sales reps blast emails, calls, and LinkedIn messages
- Buyers get flooded with unsolicited outreach
- 95% of buyers aren’t ready to purchase—but they’re still getting pitched
The New Buyer-Led GTM:
- Buyers raise their hand when they are actively looking
- They conduct their own research instead of relying on vendor messaging
- Sellers earn trust through valuable, unbiased content and partnerships
“The best GTM strategies will be led by buyers. Companies that help buyers research, evaluate, and make decisions confidently will win.”
Santosh explains how AI-powered buyer research tools will replace traditional lead-gen tactics, ensuring buyers get the insights they need without spammy outreach.
AI-Powered Agents: The Future of GTM is Automated & Intelligent:
As AI advances, agents will begin replacing manual outreach and traditional sales reps. Santosh predicts that:
- AI agents will replace SDR outreach – Instead of cold emails, AI will handle buyer engagement
- Buyers will use AI for vendor research – They’ll get real-time, unbiased insights before making decisions
- Seller & buyer agents will negotiate deals – AI-powered assistants will interact to simplify transactions
“In the future, buyers will have their own AI agents, and sellers will have their own AI agents. These agents will interact, eliminating the need for mass outreach.”
The implication? Sales teams must adapt now. Companies that don’t integrate AI-driven research into their GTM strategies will struggle to compete.
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Unlocking Hidden Pipeline with Data-Driven Co-Selling:
Many SaaS companies struggle to effectively leverage partnerships because of manual processes, disconnected data, and unclear alignment between partner sales teams.
“Partnerships are about more than just referrals—real revenue acceleration happens when teams are strategically aligned and co-selling at scale.”
Cassandra explains how PartnerTap enables businesses to:
1: Map millions of accounts to uncover new sales opportunities.
2: Identify overlap between partners’ install bases.
3: Automate warm introductions between sales teams.
4: Track co-selling efforts with clear revenue attribution.
The key takeaway? Stop treating partners like commission-only resellers, real partnerships are built on shared pipeline and mutual success.
The Give-to-Get Mentality - Playing the Long Game in Partnerships:
Many companies approach partnerships with a "What can I get?" mindset, which often leads to short-term, transactional relationships. Cassandra flips the script, advocating for a "Give-to-Get" approach.
“You have to give before you get. Partnerships take time to develop, but when done right, they pay off in ways you can’t imagine.”
She shares a powerful example from Dreamforce, where PartnerTap, as a startup, fed leads to a much larger partner, which later turned into one of their biggest customers.
The lesson? Think long-term. Partnerships should be built on trust, not immediate transactions.
Fempire: Creating an Ecosystem for Women in Leadership:
Beyond PartnerTap, Cassandra is passionate about shifting capital toward women-led businesses. She founded Fempire, a growing network of women in leadership, to create opportunities for female executives and founders.
What started as a small dinner with 8 women turned into a movement backed by Microsoft, Nvidia, and ServiceNow.
“Women already have power in their organizations—we just need to remind each other of it and create intentional spaces to collaborate.”
The Fempire dinners help women leaders forge powerful connections, drive new business, and support each other in navigating corporate and startup challenges.
The Evolution of Partnerships: From Resellers to Ecosystem-Led Growth:
Cassandra breaks down how the nature of partnerships has fundamentally changed, shifting from reseller-based models to ecosystem-driven co-selling strategies.
- Old Model: Resellers sell software and receive a commission.
- New Model: Partners actively collaborate on sales cycles, sharing data and pipeline.
“The best companies—Microsoft, Nvidia, Salesforce, have built moats through ecosystem-led growth. If you’re not thinking about partnerships, you’re limiting your potential.”
She emphasizes the need for data-driven partner collaboration to maximize deal flow and influence buying decisions.
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The Evolution of GTM: From Relationship-Driven Sales to AI-Driven Intelligence:
Over the past 15 years, sales has evolved from a relationship-based model to a data-driven, automated approach. Santosh shares how he witnessed this transformation firsthand while working with ZoomInfo and Apollo, helping sales teams leverage real-time data and automation.
“We went from a world where data was scarce to a world where we have too much data. The challenge now is filtering through the noise.”
While automation initially helped sales teams become more efficient, it has now reached a breaking point—buyers are bombarded with outreach, and response rates are plummeting.
The Sales Saturation Problem: Why Traditional GTM is Breaking Down:
Sales teams today have more data and automation than ever before, yet 79% of reps are missing their quota (Epsta research, 2024). Why?
1: Too many sellers, not enough buyers – Thousands of companies are sending millions of outreach messages daily.
2: Buyers are overloaded – 20+ calls and 100+ emails a day have made outreach ineffective.
3: Trust is declining – With so much noise, buyers no longer believe in vendor-driven messaging.
“We’ve reached a saturation point where the traditional GTM model no longer works. More outreach doesn’t mean more results.”
This shift has opened the door for buyer-led GTM—a strategy where buyers drive the process and sellers must earn trust to gain engagement.
The Rise of Buyer-Led GTM: Flipping the Traditional Sales Model:
So, what is buyer-led GTM, and how does it differ from the seller-led model we’ve relied on for decades?
Traditional Seller-Led GTM:
- Sales reps blast emails, calls, and LinkedIn messages
- Buyers get flooded with unsolicited outreach
- 95% of buyers aren’t ready to purchase—but they’re still getting pitched
The New Buyer-Led GTM:
- Buyers raise their hand when they are actively looking
- They conduct their own research instead of relying on vendor messaging
- Sellers earn trust through valuable, unbiased content and partnerships
“The best GTM strategies will be led by buyers. Companies that help buyers research, evaluate, and make decisions confidently will win.”
Santosh explains how AI-powered buyer research tools will replace traditional lead-gen tactics, ensuring buyers get the insights they need without spammy outreach.
AI-Powered Agents: The Future of GTM is Automated & Intelligent:
As AI advances, agents will begin replacing manual outreach and traditional sales reps. Santosh predicts that:
- AI agents will replace SDR outreach – Instead of cold emails, AI will handle buyer engagement
- Buyers will use AI for vendor research – They’ll get real-time, unbiased insights before making decisions
- Seller & buyer agents will negotiate deals – AI-powered assistants will interact to simplify transactions
“In the future, buyers will have their own AI agents, and sellers will have their own AI agents. These agents will interact, eliminating the need for mass outreach.”
The implication? Sales teams must adapt now. Companies that don’t integrate AI-driven research into their GTM strategies will struggle to compete.
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The Evolution of AI-Powered Video in Sales and Marketing:
Video as a prospecting tool isn’t new, but scaling it effectively has always been a challenge—until now. Ben explains how sendspark leverages AI to make personalized video fast, efficient, and scalable.
“Sales teams never fully adopted video because it was too time-consuming. With AI, you can record once and personalize at scale in minutes.”
This game-changer allows GTM teams to automate video creation, saving time while maintaining authenticity in outreach.
Cutting Through the Noise: How AI Video Increases Engagement:
With inboxes flooded and traditional outreach losing effectiveness, standing out is harder than ever. Ben highlights how AI-powered video gives sales, marketing, and customer success teams an edge:
1: Higher open and reply rates – Personalized video messages command attention.
2: Scalable 1:1 outreach – Record once, personalize for hundreds in minutes.
✅ Deep CRM integrations – Automate video follow-ups based on customer actions.
“People don’t trust ads—they trust authentic human connections. AI video brings that to scale.”
Beyond Sales: How AI Video is Changing Customer Success and Retention:
While many think of video for outbound sales, its true power lies in customer success and retention. Ben shares how sendspark helps teams:
- Enhance onboarding and reduce churn – Automate personalized welcome videos.
- Improve customer handoffs – Seamless transition from sales to success teams.
- Deliver proactive support – Send customized explainer videos triggered by CRM events.
“Customer success is often overlooked in tech investment. AI video gives them a powerful way to engage customers and prevent churn.”
The Future of AI Video: Personalization Without Losing Authenticity:
Ben addresses one of the biggest concerns in AI-powered outreach: Does automation kill authenticity? His answer? Not if done right.
“AI is a force multiplier for tedious tasks, not a replacement for human connection. It’s about scaling smart, not removing the personal touch.”
As AI advances, companies must balance automation with genuine engagement, using tools like dynamic backgrounds, voice customization, and CRM-based triggers to keep videos relevant and impactful.
The Most Effective GTM Strategies Behind sendspark’s 400% Growth:
Ben pulls back the curtain on sendspark’s massive growth and the strategies driving it:
- LinkedIn Thought Leadership – Vocal leadership and GTM insights fuel inbound leads.
- Partnership Ecosystem – Deep integrations with CRM and automation tools.
- Influencer Marketing & Co-Marketing – Leveraging strategic partnerships for credibility and reach.
“We drive demand by meeting buyers where they are—on LinkedIn, through partnerships, and by making AI video adoption seamless.”
These GTM tactics have helped sendspark become the go-to AI video platform for revenue teams looking to break through the noise.
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Understanding Product-Market Fit: Why It’s Make or Break:
Achieving product-market fit (PMF) isn’t about launching a product and hoping it sticks. Nick emphasizes that true PMF is when a product not only solves a problem but becomes indispensable to its users.
“Your first users are your most valuable asset. If they don’t stick around, neither will your business.”
Nick shares how early-stage founders can measure PMF, why traditional metrics like revenue don’t always indicate success, and how to know when you’ve truly hit the mark.
Founder Identity: Are You an Innovator, Builder, or Entrepreneur?
Nick challenges founders to identify what type of entrepreneur they are, and why it matters. He breaks it down into three categories:
- Innovators – Those who thrive on creating new, disruptive ideas
- Builders – Those who excel at turning ideas into products
- Entrepreneurs – Those who can scale and sell a product effectively
“If you don’t know who you are, you’ll struggle to find the right opportunities.”
Understanding your strengths helps founders make better decisions about product development, team-building, and market positioning.
Lessons from Failure: The Tire Business That Almost Ruined Everything:
Before returning to tech, Nick ventured into the tire-changing business, a decision that cost him two years, financial struggles, and a hard lesson in product-market fit.
“I was chasing revenue instead of solving a real problem I cared about. That’s the fastest way to burn out.”
His takeaway? Stay in your lane. Focus on industries where you have knowledge, passion, and strategic advantage.
Why Most SaaS Startups Fail: Common Pitfalls in PMF.
Having worked with hundreds of SaaS founders, Nick has seen why most startups never reach product-market fit. The biggest mistakes?
- Too many features, not enough focus – Founders keep adding features instead of perfecting a core product.
- Building before validating demand – Many teams launch without confirming if anyone actually wants their solution.
- Scaling too early – Growing before proving PMF leads to wasted resources and high churn.
“If your first feature doesn’t sell itself, no number of extra features will fix that.”
Nick advises founders to resist the temptation to “build their way” to PMF and instead focus on solving one clear problem exceptionally well.
The Role of Founder-Led Sales in Achieving PMF:
Nick believes that founders should be their company’s first sales reps. By engaging directly with early users, they get real-time feedback and can refine their product faster.
“Your first 10-50 customers should come from direct conversations. If you can’t sell your product, neither can your team.”
He discusses why early-stage SaaS companies should prioritize sales over marketing, using direct outreach and networking to validate demand before investing in paid acquisition.
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:
The Origins of the Cheat Code
The cheat code began as a simple concept within Josh’s sales team at LeadMD:
“What’s your cheat? How are you going to win this deal?”
Josh explains how this mindset evolved into a framework for leveraging partnerships, solving customer pain points, and aligning with internal teams to drive measurable outcomes.
Building Trust at Scale: The Key to Sustainable Growth
Josh emphasizes the importance of trust as the foundation of every successful sales, marketing, or partnership effort.
“Trust isn’t just built - it’s earned. The cheat code is about scaling trust through intentional strategies.”
From one-to-many relationships to personal connections, Josh shares how businesses can cultivate trust cycles that transform their GTM approach.
Partnerships Done Right: The Give-to-Get Mentality
One of the core tenets of Josh’s success is the give-to-get mentality in partnerships. By delivering value upfront, businesses can unlock collaboration and mutual success.
“Partnerships aren’t about asking, ‘What can they do for me?’ Instead, focus on how you can create value for your partners first.”
Josh shares practical advice for qualifying partners, fostering alignment, and creating win-win scenarios.
The Go-To-Market Cheat Code Book
Josh Wagner’s and Justin Gray's new book, The Go-To-Market Cheat Code, is a must-read for sales, marketing, and partnership leaders. Designed to simplify complex strategies, the book offers proven methodologies to build trust, scale efficiently, and achieve sustainable growth.
Discover your own cheat code to accelerate GTM success. Pre-order now or grab your copy on Amazon!
The Digital Mask and Earning
Buyer Trust
Josh challenges the misconception that buyers rely solely on digital information to make decisions. Instead, he highlights the importance of human connection and partnership-driven referrals.
“People don’t trust ads, they trust recommendations from peers and partners. That’s where the real magic happens.”
This insight underscores the shift from transactional selling to relational, trust-driven ecosystems.
Navigating Partner Ecosystems: Lessons from the Field
Josh shares candid stories from his time building partnerships at LeadMD, including the setbacks and successes that shaped his approach. He emphasizes the importance of executive buy-in, partner alignment, and focusing on long-term outcomes.
“Not all partners are created equal. Qualify them like you would a customer to avoid wasting resources.”
Final Thoughts
Josh Wagner’s insights reveal the transformative potential of trust-driven partnerships and strategic GTM motions.
Whether you’re a SaaS founder or a revenue leader, this episode is a cheat code for achieving scalable growth in a competitive landscape.
Subscribe to the Cheat Code PodcastFor more Cheat Codes subscribe to the podcast here.
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Standing Out Together: The Philosophy Behind Arys Consultants
Linkon’s philosophy, “We stand out when we stand together,” underscores collaboration and alignment for business success. At Arys Consultants, this belief guides every strategy.
“True success comes from bringing people and organizations together to create greater results.”
This principle highlights teamwork and shared goals as the basis for sustainable ecosystems.
Ecosystem-Led Growth: The Future of Partnerships
With shrinking margins and rising complexity, traditional go-to-market strategies are changing. Linkon explains that ecosystem-led growth offers a scalable, efficient alternative.
“Post-pandemic, businesses are demanding higher ROI on their investments. Ecosystems offer the opportunity to turn $1 into $5 or $10 by maximizing value across every touchpoint.”
This shift underscores the importance of ecosystems as a central growth strategy.
Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution
Arys Consultants’ mantra, “Fall in love with the problem, not the solution,” reflects Linkon’s customer-centric approach. Addressing core challenges leads to sustainable success.
“It’s not just about revenue - it’s about solving the real problems that customers and partners face, creating trust and long-term value.”
This philosophy urges organizations to deeply understand their ecosystem’s needs.
The Power of Transformative Partnerships
Many organizations remain stuck in transactional models, but Linkon promotes a transformative mindset focused on collaboration and shared success.
“The best partnerships create value beyond the deal. They empower everyone involved—partners, customers, and internal teams—to thrive together.”
He cites brands like Starbucks and Nike, illustrating how transformational approaches can redefine industries.
Leveraging AI to Strengthen Ecosystems
AI is transforming how businesses build and manage partner ecosystems. Linkon discusses its role in speeding lead qualification, identifying ideal partners, and enhancing efficiency.
“AI is a tool to augment what we do, not replace it. The human connection will always remain central to successful partnerships.”
Strategic AI integration enables faster, more impactful results without losing the personal touch.
Aligning for Success: The Key to Ecosystem Strategies
For Linkon, alignment is crucial for any successful ecosystem-led strategy. Ensuring customers, partners, and teams work toward the same goals is essential.
“Alignment is everything. Show me your customers, and I’ll show you your partners. Multi-point alignment creates value across every part of the ecosystem.”
This approach ensures ecosystems are effective and sustainable.
Starting Small: Practical Steps to Build Ecosystem-Led Growth
Linkon emphasizes that businesses don’t need massive resources to start their ecosystem journey. Focus on targeted, value-driven initiatives instead.
“Start by solving one big problem. Build trust with a few key partners and let the value speak for itself. You don’t need deep pockets to get started—just a commitment to value-led strategy.”
This advice empowers businesses to take initial steps toward transformative partnerships.
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From Record Labels to Revenue Leadership:Sam’s path to success is far from conventional. He began his career in the music industry, managing bands and running a record label, before transitioning into startups and eventually founding Pavilion.
“The music industry was collapsing, and I realized my calling wasn’t in managing bands, it was in building something that truly helps people succeed.”
This unique background shaped Sam’s leadership philosophy, emphasizing authenticity, resilience, and creativity.
Building Pavilion: From Bootstrap to $10M ARR:
Pavilion’s growth from a bootstrap startup to a $10M ARR business is testament to Sams leadership. He attributes the success to understanding his audience deeply and building a clear value proposition for revenue leaders.
“I was the customer. Pavilion wasn’t about what I needed to build, it was about what the market truly needed.”
Key milestones included launching local chapters, encouraging members to showcase their affiliation on LinkedIn, and pivoting to digital events during the pandemic.
The Power of Playing the Long Game:
Sam emphasized the importance of taking a long-term view in business and life. His advice? Build relationships, not transactions, and focus on creating lasting value rather than chasing quick wins.
“Desperation pushes away your goals. Success comes from patience, persistence, and playing the long game.”
This mindset has been instrumental in Pavilion’s sustained growth and community impact.
Tough Calls: Lessons from Letting Go of an Engineering Team:
One of Sam’s most challenging moments was the decision to let go of Pavilion’s engineering team in 2023 to ensure the company’s survival. He shared his thought process behind this tough call:
“I’d rather have people think I’m an idiot and save the company than let it fail out of pride.”
This story highlights the difficult decisions leaders must make to protect their organizations and the importance of acting decisively in tough situations.
Self-Compassion and Authenticity in Leadership:
At the heart of Sam’s leadership philosophy is the idea of self-compassion. He believes that the stories we tell ourselves shape our reality, and leaders must be kind to themselves to thrive.
“Life isn’t about being perfect, it’s about learning from your experiences and taking care of yourself along the way.”
This principle also underpins his book, Kind Folks Finish First, which explores how kindness and authenticity can drive success.
The Future of Pavilion and GTM Leadership:
Looking ahead, Sam is committed to building Pavilion into a long-term, sustainable organization. He believes in creating meaningful value for members while fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous learning.
“We’re not for sale. Pavilion is about building something that lasts and helps people, not flipping a company for a quick exit.”
For GTM leaders, this serves as a powerful reminder to focus on purpose over profit.
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Building a Reputation of Trust and Integrity: Lessons from a Dutch Village
Jacco’s journey begins in a close-knit Dutch village where reputation was the currency of trust. Raised as the youngest of eight children, Jacco learned the value of integrity and community early in life.
“Reputation is like a currency - it grows with every deposit of trust and integrity.”
For revenue leaders, this underscores the importance of authentic, trust-based relationships in building sustainable business success.
The Birth of Revenue Architecture and the Bow Tie Model
As an engineer at Philips, Jacco developed a deep understanding of system design, which later inspired his approach to revenue architecture. He shared the origins of the bow tie model, which shifts the traditional sales funnel into a recurring revenue loop.
“The funnel is an open-loop system, it amplifies problems and compounds inefficiencies. The bow tie introduces feedback, creating a sustainable, scalable system.”
Jacco explained how this model revolutionized the way SaaS companies think about customer acquisition, retention, and expansion.
The Fall of Growth at All Costs and the Rise of Sustainable Growth
Jacco traced the roots of the “growth at all costs” mentality back to the early 2000s, showing how unsustainable practices led to today’s challenges in the SaaS world. He emphasized the importance of shifting to capital-efficient growth.
“We saw the warning signs as early as 2018. Growth without sustainability is a runaway system - it works until it doesn’t.”
His insights serve as a wake-up call for businesses clinging to outdated revenue strategies.
From Engineering Principles to Revenue Operations
Drawing from his background in engineering, Jacco emphasized the importance of designing revenue systems with precision. He explained how open-loop systems in traditional funnels create compounding inefficiencies.
“Bad leads turn into bad opportunities, which turn into bad deals. Without feedback loops, the system runs away, creating exponential problems.”
The lesson? Revenue operations need to be as deliberate and methodical as any engineering project.
Lessons from Triathlon: Practice Makes Race Day Easy
Jacco’s experience as a triathlete taught him the value of repetition and discipline. He applied these lessons to revenue operations, emphasizing the need for consistent practice.
“Sales professionals think knowing how to do something is enough. But true mastery comes from doing it repeatedly, until it’s second nature.”
For revenue teams, this means prioritizing training and ongoing practice to build expertise.
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Here’s what we uncovered during this engaging conversation:
Embracing Grit and Resilience
Amelia Taylor shares how resilience shaped her journey, inspired by personal challenges and Angela Duckworth’s Grit. Her mindset—"Life is uncomfortable, but everything is figureoutable"—helped her overcome hurdles as a single mother and entrepreneur. For leaders, her story emphasizes perseverance and adaptability in driving growth.
The Power of Relationships
Amelia believes genuine connections fuel revenue. “Relationships drive revenue, not the other way around.” Her relationship-first approach moves beyond transactions, focusing on empathy and active listening.
Learning Through Mentorship
Mentorship played a key role in Amelia’s growth. “The right mentors can unlock doors you didn’t know existed.” She advises leaders to embrace curiosity and vulnerability.
Strategic Communication Across Generations
Amelia highlights the need for revenue leaders to bridge generational gaps through collaborative communication styles.
Leveraging Omni-Channel Strategies
Tailoring messaging to platforms like Slack and LinkedIn is central to her strategy: “Always be yourself, but adapt your tone.”
Balancing AI with Emotional Intelligence
While AI supports scaling, Amelia stresses humanity leads relationships: “Let your humanity lead.”
Overcoming Inaction
“Inaction is still an action—it just happens to be the wrong one.” Amelia encourages taking strategic risks.
The Future of Revenue Leadership
Amelia predicts success will hinge on relationships, emotional intelligence, and adaptability.
Catch Amelia’s full story and more actionable insights on this episode of Force and Friction!
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Here are the core areas we discuss in today’s episode:
From Code to Revenue Architecture: A Journey of TransformationRoee’s career started with a degree in computer science but soon transitioned into solution engineering and later into sales. The shift was driven by his passion for relationship-building and the thrill of selling.
Over time, Roee found his niche in revenue architecture, combining his technical background with strategic problem-solving to help companies design sustainable growth systems.
His journey exemplifies how career paths can evolve in unexpected but rewarding ways.
The Bow Tie Model: Redefining the Customer Journey
The Bow Tie Model, introduced by Winning by Design, offers a holistic view of the customer journey. Unlike the traditional sales and marketing funnel, the bow tie expands to include post-sale activities such as deployment, adoption, renewal, and expansion.By measuring metrics across this continuum, organizations can better align their strategies with recurring revenue goals. This model is particularly vital for SaaS companies seeking sustainable growth in a capital-efficient era.
Overcoming Challenges: The Importance of Executive AlignmentOne of the most significant challenges in implementing revenue architecture is securing executive alignment. Roee emphasized that without buy-in from CEOs and top-level management, even the best-designed processes can fall short. Successful transformations require not only a strong champion within the company but also a commitment from leadership to prioritize and support strategic changes.
Recurring Revenue Requires Recurring ImpactRoee highlights a critical principle for SaaS businesses: recurring revenue stems from recurring customer impact. Companies often focus heavily on acquisition, neglecting the importance of retention and expansion.By investing in customer success and ensuring clients achieve measurable impact, businesses can drive long-term revenue growth. Scenario planning and data analysis are essential tools for demonstrating the ROI of these efforts.
Navigating the Complexities of Data and AdoptionData quality and adoption are common pitfalls when implementing revenue architecture. Roee discussed the challenges of consolidating data across systems and achieving organizational buy-in.He advised starting with clean data or working with small, manageable datasets to test and refine processes. Aligning top-down directives with bottom-up adoption ensures smoother transitions and greater impact from new systems and strategies.
Learn more at https://winningbydesign.com/
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Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
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Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
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Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
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Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
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Learn more at www.forceandfrictionpodcast.com
Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
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Learn more at www.forceandfrictionpodcast.com
Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
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Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
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Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
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Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
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Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
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Welcome to the Force and Friction Podcast, your go-to show for the latest RevOps strategies, discussions, and interviews.
In today’s episode, we’re going to be discussing the 10 questions we ask every
C-Suite.
Here are the core areas we discuss with the team today:
Adding Positive Friction to Our Sales ProcessFirst, we discuss how adding in 'positive friction' during the sales process can help ensure that clients are willing to put in the work required for RevOps success.
As a RevOps agency, we have a duty to ensure we only work with clients who understand the responsibilities of RevOps and are willing to invest that time.
Preparing for the Board MeetingNext, we discuss how to prepare for introducing the 10 questions to assess an organization's readiness for RevOps to the board.
The RevOps champion should:
- Set clear objectives
- Research the questions
- Encourage debate
- Score each question
- Agree on next steps
It's important to treat this topic seriously and come prepared for a productive and thoughtful discussion to ensure that all perspectives are considered and potential issues are addressed.
The Questions & Scoring MatrixWe discuss the 10 key questions and how to score yourself at each stage. Once you have gone through the 10 questions it's time to rank your company on if they are ready for RevOps.
If you score above 75% you are ready for RevOps - you have the right foundations in place to get started.
If you score between 50 - 74% - you are almost there, you are in a position to consider integrating RevOps into your organization.
If you score below 50% - you have a lot of work to do. But you are in the right place! Take a look at some other podcast episodes and educate your team on the power of RevOps.
If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to access even more exclusive content, podcasts, blogs and get chat support access from our RevOps agency team - meet your fellow RevOps peers by joining us free forever in our Force and Friction Community.
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Welcome to the Force and Friction Podcast, your go-to show for the latest RevOps strategies, discussions, and interviews.
In today’s episode, we’re going to be discussing how tech enablement can optimize your RevOps strategy.
Here are the core areas we discuss with the team today on how to successfully align your team:
The Tech Challanges Overview
First, we discussed the challenges of tech, causing inefficiencies throughout your entire business model. Challenges can include a poorly set up CRM system with bad data, insufficient use of marketing automation, and struggling customer success teams with a ticketing system not integrated with their CRM.
Your Solution: HubSpot's CRM Suite
Next, we discuss how implementing HubSpot CRM Suite helps struggling businesses to streamline their RevOps and provide better service to your customers.
Our clients usually see immediate benefits, such as qualifying and closing deals faster, nurturing leads more effectively, and managing customer onboarding and support more efficiently.
RevOps is Organization (Not Department) Wide
RevOps is all about optimizing revenue operations across an organization, and technology plays a critical role in achieving this goal.
How You Can Enable Technology in Your RevOps Strategy
- Identify the Right Technology Solutions
- Integrate Systems
- Train Your Teams
- Monitor Performance
- Continuously Improve
If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to access even more exclusive content, podcasts, blogs and get chat support access from our RevOps agency team - meet your fellow RevOps peers by joining us free forever in our Force and Friction Community.
Learn more at www.forceandfrictionpodcast.com
Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
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Join our online community exclusively for revops professionals and C Suites at community.forceandfriction.com
Welcome to the Force and Friction Podcast, your go-to show for the latest RevOps strategies, discussions, and interviews.
In today’s episode, we’re going to be discussing how alignment is the key to a successful RevOps strategy.
Here are the core areas we discuss with the team today on how to successfully align your team:
Avoiding The Tactics Shiny Balls
The first step is to adopt a strategy precedes everything approach, this will enable you to build a solid bearing for your flywheel in RevOps to spring.
The Importance of Alignment & Smashing The Silos
Next, we discuss how when your teams work together towards common revenue goals, your organization will achieve revenue growth and long-term success faster and more sustainably.
Communication of Revenue Goals
Then, we speak about the most common pitfall that organizations fall into around alignment: failing to communicate revenue goals to all revenue-generating teams.
Fostering Cross-Functional Collaboration
The next step is to ensure that teams work together and communicate effectively to optimize revenue growth. You can achieve this by introducing and fostering open communication channels, breaking down departmental barriers, and encouraging teamwork across the organization.
KPIs and Individual Contributions
Finally, you must ensure that everyone is aware of the specific revenue goals they are personally working towards. With RevOps, every person in your team should have their own number that they are targeted and measured against.
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Welcome to the Force and Friction Podcast, your go-to show for the latest RevOps strategies, discussions, and interviews.
In today’s episode, we’re going to be discussing the secrets to hiring a team that is built to implement your RevOps strategy.
We have four core areas to discuss with the team today on how to implement a data-driven culture:
1: Hiring RevOps Team MembersThe first step is to assess what type of people and which roles need to be filled in your RevOps team. You need to know you’re hiring the best RevOps team members you can, these members can be categorised as the RevOps Leader, the Project Manager, the Data Analyst and the Platform Team.
2: Identifying RevOps CandidatesOnce you have assessed the types of roles you need in your team, it's time to assess if you are adding to an existing team, hiring external members. There are essentially three types of candidates for a RevOps role: the operations leader with prior experience, the transitioning generalist, and the credentialed specialist.
3: How to Prioritise Hiring for RevOpsThe next step is to consider what to prioritise when hiring for your team, instead of relying on this sense of kinship to pick your next hire, you should ask yourself what your company is lacking; what are you currently unable to do, and what kind of person would be the best fit to do it?
4: Interviewing RevOps CandidatesFinally, the team will walk you through what a successful interview process should look like and key areas you should implement into your interview strategy.
If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to access even more exclusive content, podcasts, blogs and get chat support access from our RevOps agency team - meet your fellow RevOps peers by joining us free forever in our Force and Friction Community.
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Welcome to the Force and Friction Podcast, your go-to show for the latest RevOps strategies, discussions, and interviews.
In today’s episode, we’re going to be discussing the importance of defining and documenting your revenue processes.
We have five core areas to discuss with the team today on how to implement a data-driven culture:
1: Assess Current Processes:The first step is to take a step back and assess the revenue processes that your company currently has in place. Identify areas that are working well and areas that need improvement.
2: Map Out Your Revenue Processes:Once you have assessed current processes, create a detailed map of each revenue process, this will help you to understand how each process fits into the bigger picture and identify any bottlenecks or inefficiencies.
3: Establish Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs):The next step is to establish SOPs. Ensure that everyone is working from the same playbook and that processes are consistent and reliable.
4: Document Processes and SOPs:Make sure that your revenue processes and SOPs are properly documented and accessible to all relevant stakeholders. This will make it easier for new hires to understand how things are done and for existing employees to refer back to if they need a refresher.
5: Continuously Monitor and Improve:With regular reviews, you can identify areas for improvement and make changes as needed. Continuous improvement will help to ensure that your processes remain efficient and effective over time.
If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to access even more exclusive content, podcasts, blogs and get chat support access from our RevOps agency team - meet your fellow RevOps peers by joining us free forever in our Force and Friction Community.
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Welcome to the Force and Friction Podcast, your go-to show for the latest RevOps strategies, discussions, and interviews.
In today’s episode, we’re going to be discussing how to foster a data-driven culture.
We have five core areas to discuss with the team today on how to implement a data-driven culture:
1: Make Data Accessible to All Employees:
The first step is to ensure that all employees have access to the data they need to make informed decisions.
2: Encourage Data-Driven Decision-Making:
Once your data is accessible, encourage all employees to use data to inform their decision-making and make data-driven recommendations in meetings or in their roles real-time to improve the customer experience and the organization’s performance.
3: Provide Data Training:
Provide training and resources to help employees understand how to use data effectively.
4: Make Data a Part of Your Company’s Culture:
Help to embed a data-driven culture within your organization and ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals.
5: Regularly Review and Analyze Data:
The final step is to make sure that you are regularly reviewing and analyzing your data to identify trends and insights that can inform your decision-making.
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Welcome to the force and friction podcast, your go-to show for the latest RevOps strategies, discussions, and interviews. In today's episode, we're going to be speaking and talking about how RevOps, assists you to maximize your efficiency and impact.
We have five core areas to discuss with the team today.
1: Establish Metrics and KPIs:
The first step in measuring and optimizing your revenue operations is to establish clear metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs).
2: Collect Data:
Once you have established your metrics and KPIs, you need to collect the data you need to measure them.
3: Analyze Data:
Once you have collected the data, it's time to analyze it to gain insights and identify areas for improvement.
4: Make Data-Driven Decisions:
Once you have analyzed the data, it's time to use it to make data-driven decisions.
5: Continuously Optimize:
The final step in measuring and optimizing your revenue operations is to continuously optimize your processes based on your data and insights.
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Announcing the launch of the "Force and Friction" Podcast, join the 6teen30 Digital Agency team as we explore the world of revenue operations.
This launch episode covers an intro to the weekly podcast that will feature discussions with industry experts, interviews and insights examining how the fundamental concepts of force and friction can be applied to optimize revenue operations in businesses of all sizes, especially those looking to Scale
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In this latest episode of our Revenue Operations series, the team discusses how today’s CRO faces a growing number of key challenges.
When strong revenue performance and growth are required, the closest scrutiny tends to fall on Sales.
Faced with these significant challenges, an increasing number of CROs are turning to Revenue Operations, also known as Rev Ops or RO.
It’s been described as building the tracks and keeping the trains running on time.
In this latest episode of our Revenue Operations series, the team discusses how today’s CMO faces a growing number of high-pressure challenges.
Many companies are battling not just for market share but to survive and create a sustainable future.
They need their brand to be visible, a solid flow of higher quality leads, and an ability to adapt to a rapidly changing landscape.
Faced with these significant challenges, an increasing number of C-suite leaders are turning to Revenue Operations, also known as Rev Ops or RO.
It’s been described as building the tracks and keeping the trains running on time.
How to slam dunk your business growth targets, The Ambitious CEO's Tactical handbook, 11 Strategies for Cracking Successful Rev Ops Growth - Download Guide
Providing solutions to small to medium, corporates and enterprise clients.
Growing your business is on everybody's minds, more so than ever during challenging economic times. And regardless of your business stage, start-up, growth, scale, downscale or restructure stages, or maybe you just raised money -choosing your tech stack and a partner can be confusing.
Many entrepreneurs still suffer multi-system chaos or are trying to get blood out of a stone with legacy systems that are difficult to align to what the business needs today and for the future.
A with more applications being launched every day, the market can seem even more clouded with a choice.
Enter the HubSpot Growth Suite, built from the ground up for today's progressive businesses regardless of the stage of your business, and it covers for every department and role in your company.
HubSpot serves as your core CRM, drives marketing initiatives, empowers your sales and service teams and even hosts your website.
However HubSpot is a lot more than just software, its a movement, a community and a place where companies can park their business today with a solution that works, affordable and is scalable to ensure partnering with HubSpot today means being able to stay for the long term, no matter how big your future goals are.
Virtual In The New NormalHow does the largest premier inbound conference in the world 'Inbound' pivot and adapt through serious adversity when the pandemic outbreak forced the cancellation of their September 2020 event in Boston?
Before we cover this point, let's just frame what Inbound is, the scale, size, importance to people in the HubSpot and Inbound community.
As an annual event, based in Boston USA, Inbound is the #1 place to be where marketers and digital pros meet up each year, around 24,000 people attend the four-day event packed with world-class keynote speakers, breakout track education sessions and networking that is second to none.
As a HubSpot Solutions Partner, it is the pinnacle event in our calendar each year and with the prospect of not being able to attend, this is a BIG issue.
Enter the genius of the Inbound and HubSpot team, while many companies are going online with their events, Inbound went on steroids.
In this podcast, we discuss the unbelievable Inbound2020 portal and demonstrate some of its feature, the most advanced interactive online conference experience our team has seen...EVER!
If there ever is a gold standard for online events.......welcome to Inbound.
While you may not have the expertise, time, resources to replicate this, it is still possible to transfer your traditional in-person event online - speak without a team for more information.
In this latest podcast, recorded as part of the #Inbound2020 event, we welcome Marije Schreur the founder of Shock Inbound based out of Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
Today diversity, inclusion and global marketing, plus creating a community that breeds creativity has never been as important.
The Economic SandstormThe downturn is here and we can expect the ride to get a lot bumpier before we rise above the thick, grey buffeting clouds into clearer skies.
Take A Proactive ApproachThe businesses that get on top of the seven key areas covered in this podcast are most likely to experience growth and success.
In this episode of The Inbound Podcast, we discuss The Ultimate Persona Template Framework.
The Inbound Podcast, your weekly fix to help you #GrowFaster, and become an Inbound organisation by placing the client at the centre of everything you do by employing HubSpot and the Inbound methodology.
In this episode we review
- Targeted Persona Development
In this episode of The Inbound Podcast, we discuss Why You Should Go Inbound?
The Inbound Podcast, your weekly fix to help you #GrowFaster, and become an Inbound organisation by placing the client at the centre of everything you do by employing HubSpot and the Inbound methodology.
In this episode we review
- The Growth Flywheel
In this first episode of The Inbound Podcast, we discuss the 'Why' behind the show and what you can expect from future episodes.
The Inbound Podcast, your weekly fix to help you #GrowFaster, and become an Inbound organisation by placing the client at the centre of everything you do by employing HubSpot and the Inbound methodology.
In this episode we review
- Today’s Buyer
- The Flywheel Methodology
-
Introduction to:
-
Inbound Marketing
- Inbound Sales
- Inbound Service
-
HubSpot
-
The Inbound Organisation
- Book resources to help you on your Inbound journey