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SaaStr 823: Is GTM Really Dead?! with SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin In this episode, Jason Lemkin, SaaStr CEO and Founder, addresses common misconceptions about traditional go-to-market strategies in the age of AI. Despite claims that outbound marketing, SEO, and old-school tactics are dead, the speaker highlights how leading AI companies are successfully employing these methods with minor tweaks. Drawing from the success stories of OpenAI, Notion, Dialpad, and others, the presenter emphasizes the importance of high-quality content, dynamic sales tactics, and the unmatched potential of AI-driven tools like AI SDRs. He also discusses the necessity of providing substantial ROI from day one and urges marketers to reassess and improve their strategies rather than dismiss them as obsolete. Finally, practical advice is given on optimizing sales and marketing efforts to tap into the booming AI budget effectively. This episode is sponsored by: Fin is the #1 AI Agent for resolving complex queries like refunds, transaction disputes, and technical troubleshooting—all with speed and reliability. See how Fin can deliver the highest resolution rates and highest-quality customer experience at fin.ai/saastr. This episode is sponsored by: You didn't create a startup to run a small business. Let Salesforce help you connect data, automate busywork and empower employees on the only platform you'll ever need, no matter how big you get. With smarter AI and built-in collaboration tools like Slack, the sky's the limit. Learn how Salesforce works for startups at salesforce.com/smb. Hey everybody, SaaStr AI in London is this December and we're on track to completely sell out. Join 2,000 B2B + AI leaders for two days of practical advice on scaling into the new year. We'll have speakers flying in from OpenAI, Wiz, Clay, Intercom, and all your favorite SaaS companies, including yours truly with Harry Stebbings for a live 20VC podcast. It'll be fun, and it's all in the heart of London. Don't miss out: get your tickets while you still can by going to podcast.saastrlondon.com
⬥GUEST⬥Pieter VanIperen, CISO and CIO of AlphaSense | On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pietervaniperen/⬥HOST⬥Host: Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imsmartin/ | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com⬥EPISODE NOTES⬥Real-World Principles for Real-World Security: A Conversation with Pieter VanIperenPieter VanIperen, the Chief Information Security and Technology Officer at AlphaSense, joins Sean Martin for a no-nonsense conversation that strips away the noise around cybersecurity leadership. With experience spanning media, fintech, healthcare, and SaaS—including roles at Salesforce, Disney, Fox, and Clear—Pieter brings a rare clarity to what actually works in building and running a security program that serves the business.He shares why being “comfortable being uncomfortable” is an essential trait for today's security leaders—not just reacting to incidents, but thriving in ambiguity. That distinction matters, especially when every new technology trend, vendor pitch, or policy update introduces more complexity than clarity. Pieter encourages CISOs to lead by knowing when to go deep and when to zoom out, especially in areas like compliance, AI, and IT operations where leadership must translate risks into outcomes the business cares about.One of the strongest points he makes is around threat intelligence: it must be contextual. “Generic threat intel is an oxymoron,” he argues, pointing out how the volume of tools and alerts often distracts from actual risks. Instead, Pieter advocates for simplifying based on principles like ownership, real impact, and operational context. If a tool hasn't been turned on for two months and no one noticed, he says, “do you even need it?”The episode also offers frank insight into vendor relationships. Pieter calls out the harm in trying to “tell a CISO what problems they have” rather than listening. He explains why true partnerships are based on trust, humility, and a long-term commitment—not transactional sales quotas. “If you disappear when I need you most, you're not part of the solution,” he says.For CISOs and vendors alike, this episode is packed with perspective you can't Google. Tune in to challenge your assumptions—and maybe your entire security stack.⬥SPONSORS⬥ThreatLocker: https://itspm.ag/threatlocker-r974⬥RESOURCES⬥⬥ADDITIONAL INFORMATION⬥✨ More Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast:
Dr. Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist and one of the world's leading experts on self-awareness and business savvy. She's worked directly with 40,000 leaders and spoken to hundreds of thousands more, helping them achieve dramatic and measurable change. Her clients have included the NBA, Walmart, Salesforce, and more, and her TEDx talks have been viewed more than 10 million times. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of multiple books, including Insight and her latest, Shatterproof, which publishes this week. On this classic episode, Tasha joined host Robert Glazer on the Elevate Podcast to talk about Shatterproof, the role of resilience in life and leadership, and antifragility. Thank you to the sponsors of The Elevate Podcast Mizzen & Main: mizzenandmain.com (Promo Code: elevate20) Shopify: shopify.com/elevate Indeed: indeed.com/elevate Masterclass: masterclass.com/elevate Found: found.com/elevate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are significantly increasing their technology budgets, focusing on strategic investments that support long-term growth. According to a study by Forrester Consulting, 88% of SMBs plan to enhance their cloud strategies and cybersecurity through increased spending on third-party services. The study also highlights a growing emphasis on improving customer experience and reducing enterprise risk, with cloud-based disaster recovery solutions and hybrid cloud strategies becoming essential. However, the integration of AI services into the economy is expected to take years, as businesses need time to learn about new AI products and train their employees.The UK government has issued a second Technical Capability Notice requiring Apple to provide access to encrypted data and messages of British users stored on its iCloud service. This directive follows a previous request that raised diplomatic tensions with the US and has led Apple to withdraw its Advanced Data Protection Service in the UK, weakening user privacy. The implications of this move are significant for SMBs that rely on iCloud, as it introduces potential security risks and highlights the need for additional encryption measures.Microsoft is facing pushback as it prepares to end free security updates for Windows 10, which is set to occur on October 14, 2025. A coalition of organizations, including repair shops and advocacy groups, is urging Microsoft to extend these updates, citing concerns that many PCs will be left insecure or unusable. With a significant portion of Windows 10 machines unable to upgrade to Windows 11, businesses are left with difficult choices regarding their operating systems, potentially leading to increased e-waste.In the realm of AI, major companies like Microsoft, Salesforce, and Stripe are launching new tools that integrate AI capabilities into their existing platforms. Microsoft has introduced Microsoft 365 Premium, which combines Office applications with AI features, while Salesforce has launched AgentForce Fibes, a tool that streamlines coding through natural language. Stripe's new instant checkout feature within ChatGPT allows users to purchase products directly from chat interfaces. These developments indicate that AI is becoming an integral part of business infrastructure, and MSPs must focus on helping clients leverage these tools effectively to drive business outcomes.Four things to know today00:00 SMBs Are Increasing Tech Budgets for Cloud, Cybersecurity, and AI, But Forrester Warns True AI Value Will Take Years to Realize04:07 UK Pressures Apple on iCloud Again, Forcing Encryption Rollback That Puts Privacy, Business Security, and Global Precedent at Risk05:39 Windows 10 Sunset Becomes a Flashpoint: Market Share, Hardware Incompatibility, and Sustainability Collide in Microsoft's 2025 Deadline08:23 From Office to Checkout: Microsoft, Salesforce, Stripe, OpenAI, and Google Push AI Into Everyday Work and Consumer Life This is the Business of Tech. Supported by: https://scalepad.com/dave/https://mailprotector.com/ Webinar: https://bit.ly/msprmail All our Sponsors: https://businessof.tech/sponsors/ Do you want the show on your podcast app or the written versions of the stories? Subscribe to the Business of Tech: https://www.businessof.tech/subscribe/Looking for a link from the stories? The entire script of the show, with links to articles, are posted in each story on https://www.businessof.tech/ Support the show on Patreon: https://patreon.com/mspradio/ Want to be a guest on Business of Tech: Daily 10-Minute IT Services Insights? Send Dave Sobel a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/businessoftech Want our stuff? Cool Merch? Wear “Why Do We Care?” - Visit https://mspradio.myspreadshop.com Follow us on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28908079/YouTube: https://youtube.com/mspradio/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mspradionews/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mspradio/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@businessoftechBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/businessof.tech Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Technovation with Peter High (CIO, CTO, CDO, CXO Interviews)
1016: The AI workforce won't replace humans—but it will reshape how work gets done. On this episode of Technovation with Peter High, Salesforce EVP & CDO Joe Inzerillo joins to explore the rise of agentic AI and how it's transforming work, from org structure to customer engagement. Joe draws on lessons from Disney, SiriusXM, and now Salesforce to unpack the “Customer Zero” model, how digital labor changes work design, and why empathy is the superpower for AI leadership.
In this episode of the Salesforce Commerce Innovators podcast, host Caleb Bryant speaks with Jeff Cannon, CEO of Yoga Democracy, and Aaron Hutten, co-founder of Ember Agency. They discuss the journey of Yoga Democracy, from its origins to its recent transition from Shopify to Salesforce Commerce Cloud in just six weeks, emphasizing the significance of accelerating time to value in a unified commerce platform. Show Highlights: Evolution of Yoga Democracy from niche hot yoga apparel to significant athleisure market player Challenges and solutions in hiring seamstresses in the U.S. and the establishment of a factory in Kenya Importance of strategic partnerships Leveraging technology like AgentForce and Einstein for better consumer insights and personalized experiences Creative strategies for customer engagement Advice for entrepreneurs on aligning business decisions with long-term goals and selecting adaptable technology solutions Follow and Review: We'd love for you to follow us if you haven't yet. Click that purple '+' in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We'd love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review,” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second, and it helps spread the word about the podcast. Guests: Jeff Cannon, CEO, Yoga Democracy: https://www.yogademocracy.com/ Aaron Hutten, Founder, Ember Agency: https://discoverember.com/ Supporting Resources: Learn more about Agentforce for Commerce: https://www.salesforce.com/commerce/ai/ Join the Commerce Cloud Community Unofficial Slack: https://sforce.co/commercecrew *** Episode Credits If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com. Let them know I sent you.
Hey CX Nation,Here's the first CXWeekly Update from CXC in a long time!This week's episode I walk through some ideas, goals & CTAs that I've learned from the 5 years of building CXC.Don't worry we have a ton of amazing guest interviews coming down the pipeline over the next couple of weeks.Part of our goal at CXC is to create more customer focused business leader content, including short episodes like these ones that are digestible, actionable & most importantly entertaining & valuable for all of you.Full candor, we also wanted to celebrate our 5 year anniversary of building CXChronicles. We are approaching 300+ episodes of customer focused business content, we've worked with almost 150+ companies across the world helping them make customer & employee happiness a habit & we are now partnered with some of biggest players in software & technology including Salesforce, Hubspot, Intercom, Zendesk, & Freshworks to name a few. If you enjoy The CXChronicles Podcast, stop by your favorite podcast player and leave us a review today.You know what would be even better?Go tell one of your friends or teammates about CXC's content, CX/CS/RevOps services, our customer & employee focused community & invite them to join the CX Nation!Are you looking to learn more about the world of Customer Experience, Customer Success & Revenue Operations?Click here to grab a copy of my book "The Four CX Pillars To Grow Your Business Now" available on Amazon or the CXC website.For you non-readers, go check out the CXChronicles Youtube channel to see our customer & employee focused video content & short-reel CTAs to improve your CX/CS/RevOps performance today (politely go smash that subscribe button).Contact us anytime to learn more about CXC at INFO@cxchronicles.com and ask us about how we can help your business & team make customer happiness a habit now!Reach Out To CXC Today!Support the showContact CXChronicles Today Tweet us @cxchronicles Check out our Instagram @cxchronicles Click here to checkout the CXC website Email us at info@cxchronicles.com Remember To Make Happiness A Habit!!
News and Updates: Pope Leo XIV rejected a proposal to create an AI-powered “virtual pope,” calling the idea of a digital clone horrifying. He warned that deepfakes, automation, and artificial substitutes erode trust, strip dignity from work, and risk turning life into “an empty, cold shell.” His stance echoes concerns as layoffs at Microsoft and Salesforce mount amid AI adoption. OpenAI released its first major study on ChatGPT usage, showing that over 70% of queries are non-work-related, with people mainly seeking tutoring, how-to guidance, brainstorming, and writing help. Only 4% of consumer queries involve coding, with writing far more dominant. Work-related use centers on information gathering and decision-making. Adoption is now global, especially in low- and middle-income countries, with 10% of adults worldwide estimated to use ChatGPT. A preliminary deal to keep TikTok in the U.S. has been reached: existing investors and new U.S. backers, including Oracle and Silver Lake, will control about 80%. ByteDance's stake drops below 20% to comply with U.S. law. Oracle will safeguard U.S. user data, while the recommendation algorithm will be licensed, retrained under U.S. oversight, and cut off from Beijing's influence. The U.S. government is also set to receive a multibillion-dollar facilitation fee. The European Commission is considering scrapping the cookie consent banner requirement, part of the 2009 e-Privacy Directive. Alternatives include setting preferences once at the browser level or exempting “technically necessary” cookies. Any change would fold into GDPR, but privacy advocates are likely to resist. Samsung has begun testing ads on its Family Hub smart refrigerators in the U.S. Despite previously denying plans, a software update now pushes “promotions and curated ads” to fridge screens when idle. Samsung calls it a pilot to “strengthen value,” but users blasted the move as another step in the company's “screens everywhere” strategy.
Are marketers ready to relinquish some control and embrace a future where autonomous agents handle complex tasks and act as always-on collaborators? Agility requires adapting to change while also anticipating it, and being ready to adapt when new ways of doing things mean better outcomes for customers and the brand. Today, we're going to talk about how marketers can bring agentic marketing to life with actionable data, cross-departmental workflows, and autonomous AI agents that handle complex tasks and act as always-on collaborators. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Devin Kunysz, Senior Director, Industry GTM, Consumer Goods & Retail at Salesforce. Devin, welcome to the show! About Devin Kunysz Devin Kunysz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinkunysz/ Resources Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow Register now for Sitecore Symposium, November 3-5 in Orlando Florida. Use code SYM25-2Media10 to receive 10% off. Go here for more: https://symposium.sitecore.com/Don't Miss MAICON 2025, October 14-16 in Cleveland - the event bringing together the brights minds and leading voices in AI. Use Code AGILE150 for $150 off registration. Go here to register: https://bit.ly/agile150 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.showCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company
"How Agentic AI Is Replacing Subscription Revenue"Chuck Ganapathi, the CEO of Gainsight & Brett Queener, Managing Director at Bonfire Ventures, who previously ran product at Salesforce and helped destroy Siebel, the company where he and Chuck first met. Together, they've witnessed every major shift in enterprise software over three decades, and they believe the biggest one is happening right now.In this conversation, Brett unveils his forthcoming thesis on "the end of ARR," arguing that agentic AI will fundamentally break subscription business models. When products finally achieve what he calls "product purity", actually doing the job they promise without requiring armies of CSMs, endless onboarding, and quarterly business reviews, the entire economic foundation of SaaS collapses. Chuck and Brett discuss whether this is an existential threat or the evolution the industry has been waiting for.What you'll learn:- Why the "friction gap" between product and value created the entire CS industry- What "product purity" means and why it threatens traditional SaaS economics- How agentic AI fundamentally changes the unit economics of software- Why usage-based pricing is inevitable once products actually work- The product marketing playbook that still matters in an AI-first worldCheck out the Key Takeaways & Transcripts: https://www.gainsight.com/presents/series/unchurned/Where to Find the GuestBrett's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettqueener/Chuck's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckganapathi/Where to Find Josh: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/In this episode, we cover:0:00 - Preview & Introduction1:18 - Meet Chuck & Brett3:30 - How Brett and Chuck met at Siebel 9:28 - Transition to Salesforce: destruction of Siebel as a goal14:11 - Changing Nature of Product Marketing in the AI Era18:00 - Systems of Record vs. Systems of Action21:13 - Databases as “lossy” representations of reality29:00 - Brett's thesis: "The End of ARR (And I Feel Fine)"34:28 - How should agentic applications be priced?43:43 - Future Outlook: Market paying premium for top agents47:17 - 10x CSMs enabled by AI agentsReferences:- Brett Queener's blog: https://queener.substack.com/
This week, Cathy McKnight, Chief Problem Solver at Seventh Bear, makes her monthly visit to the studio, and she and our host Ian Truscott discuss 5 skills marketers need for working with agentic AI, based on an article she wrote for Salesforce.com. They discuss: Strategic thinking Creative direction AI literacy Ethical judgment Orchestration and collaboration If you have any comments or thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear them, we welcome your feedback. Enjoy! — The Links The people: Ian Truscott on LinkedIn Cathy McKnight on LinkedIn Mentioned this week: Cathy's article on Salesforce.com: 5 Agentic AI Marketing Skills You Need Right Now Cathy's firm - Seventh Bear Rockstar CMO: The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM. Track List: We'll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to the CanadianSME Small Business Podcast, hosted by Kripa Anand. Today, we dive into the role of technology transformation in scaling businesses, focusing on how growth-driven companies can move from chaos to clarity through automation, AI, and scalable systems.Andrew Andreoli from Trajectory Group and Heather Gordon from Initus Technologies join us to explore the signs businesses should upgrade from legacy tools, the key to integrating CRM and ERP systems, and the future of enterprise systems for Canadian businesses.Key Highlights:1. Legacy System Upgrades: When and why mid-market companies need to move beyond legacy tools.2. The System Design Trap: How businesses can avoid the common traps when scaling with platforms like Salesforce and NetSuite.3. Unified Operating Models: Building a seamless Go-To-Market-to-Finance system for speed and clarity.4. AI and Automation: How Initus powers optimization and what lessons businesses can apply in their own tech transformations.5. Future of Enterprise Systems: Trajectory's role in helping businesses scale effectively and the future of enterprise systems in Canada.Special Thanks to Our Partners:RBC: https://www.rbcroyalbank.com/dms/business/accounts/beyond-banking/index.htmlUPS: https://solutions.ups.com/ca-beunstoppable.html?WT.mc_id=BUSMEWAGoogle: https://www.google.ca/A1 Global College: https://a1globalcollege.ca/ADP Canada: https://www.adp.ca/en.aspxFor more expert insights, visit www.canadiansme.ca and subscribe to the CanadianSME Small Business Magazine. Stay innovative, stay informed, and thrive in the digital age!Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as direct financial or business advice. Always consult with a qualified professional for advice specific to your situation.
Are marketers ready to relinquish some control and embrace a future where autonomous agents handle complex tasks and act as always-on collaborators? Agility requires adapting to change while also anticipating it, and being ready to adapt when new ways of doing things mean better outcomes for customers and the brand. Today, we're going to talk about how marketers can bring agentic marketing to life with actionable data, cross-departmental workflows, and autonomous AI agents that handle complex tasks and act as always-on collaborators. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Devin Kunysz, Senior Director, Industry GTM, Consumer Goods & Retail at Salesforce. Devin, welcome to the show! About Devin Kunysz Devin Kunysz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinkunysz/ Resources Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow Register now for Sitecore Symposium, November 3-5 in Orlando Florida. Use code SYM25-2Media10 to receive 10% off. Go here for more: https://symposium.sitecore.com/Don't Miss MAICON 2025, October 14-16 in Cleveland - the event bringing together the brights minds and leading voices in AI. Use Code AGILE150 for $150 off registration. Go here to register: https://bit.ly/agile150 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.showCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company
In this episode of The D2D Podcast, Sam Taggart sits down with Vess Pearson, CEO and Co-Founder of Aptive Environmental, one of the fastest-growing pest control companies in North America. From knocking doors as a young rep to building a company that generates more than $500 million in annual revenue, Vess has spent the last 20 years mastering the art of sales, leadership, and business growth. His story is not just about scaling numbers—it's about creating systems, solving problems with endurance, and building a culture where sales reps feel part of a bigger mission rather than just chasing a paycheck.Vess dives into the principles that helped Aptive rise to the top of the industry, including differentiated training methods, talent retention strategies, and the importance of aligning personal and company goals. He shares how culture has evolved beyond perks to focus on career paths, ownership, and long-term value for both employees and customers. Listeners will hear why professionalism, ethics, and integrity are more important than ever in door-to-door sales, and how these values open doors to greater opportunities. Whether you are just starting in sales or already leading a team, the insights from this conversation provide a roadmap for thinking bigger, training smarter, and creating sustainable success in the D2D world.You'll find answers to key questions such as:What habits separate long-term D2D winners from reps who burn out?How can training and culture directly impact sales performance?Why is retention of top talent more valuable than chasing high commissions?How can reps balance personal income goals with company vision?What role does integrity play in sustaining a career in door-to-door sales?Get in touch with Vess Pearson: Instagram: @vess4 Website: https://aptivepestcontrol.com/Ready to train like the pros? Join D2DU 2.0 and get access to free resources, next-level training, AI tools, certifications, and a real community built for serious growth.
Identity theft affects millions of people every year — but do you really know how it works, or how to protect yourself? This week, we're joined by Eva Velasquez, CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, who shares the latest trends in identity crime and what steps you can take if it ever happens to you.
Not every launch succeeds on day one, but the brands that endure find ways to win over time.That's why we're turning to Clue, the 1985 murder mystery comedy with three different endings. Despite bombing at the box office, it grew into a beloved cult classic. In this episode, we break down its lessons with the help of special guest Christine Royston, Chief Marketing Officer at Wrike.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from building strategy before execution, balancing brand and demand, and embracing word-of-mouth to turn audiences into passionate advocates.About our guest, Christine RoystonChristine Royston is a visionary global marketing executive with a proven track record of scaling iconic technology brands, architecting go-to-market transformation, and driving category leadership in the enterprise SaaS space. As Chief Marketing Officer at Wrike, Christine leads the company's worldwide marketing strategy, fueling enterprise growth, brand acceleration, and customer-centric innovation at scale.With more than 20 years of experience across global B2B markets, Christine has built and led high-performing teams at some of the world's most recognized technology companies—including Salesforce, Dropbox, and Imperva—where she helped pioneer marketing strategies during moments of hypergrowth and IPO. She most recently served as Global Head of B2B Marketing at Udemy and as Vice President of Marketing at Bitly, where she was instrumental in repositioning both brands for business adoption and long-term growth.Christine's executive leadership spans Sales-Led and Product-Led Growth (PLG) models, across direct sales, freemium, and self-service go-to-market motions. Her ability to unify global teams, expand into new international markets, and launch cross-functional marketing engines has positioned her as a sought-after leader in growth-stage transformation and scaled enterprise performance.An expert in enterprise marketing strategy, customer lifecycle innovation, and multi-channel demand generation, Christine has driven business results across cloud computing, cybersecurity, financial services, and manufacturing verticals. She is also known for her passion for mentoring future marketing leaders and building diverse, inclusive, and impact-driven teams.Christine holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia and an International MBA in Global Marketing from the University of South Carolina's Darla Moore School of Business. She brings a global lens to every challenge, with leadership experience spanning the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Clue:Strategy matters more than star power. Even the best team can't save a weak story. Clue had an all-star cast, but without a clear throughline, it flopped at the box office. Christine draws a parallel to marketing: “Even if you have the best team in the world, without a great strategy, you're not gonna win. You've got to have a really fantastic strategy and a really great team to back it up, so that you can kind of play on everybody's strengths, but you're all pointed in the right direction.” Don't confuse talent or resources with strategy. Success comes from aligning everyone around a clear, shared story.Balance is everything. Clue was billed as both a mystery and a comedy, but leaned heavily into the silliness, confusing audiences who expected a tighter whodunit. Christine sees the same trap in B2B: “The movie was… touted as a mystery and a comedy, but it was definitely way more on the comedy side. And so thinking about that balance… and making sure that you're really being clear with your intent of messaging, your intent of the brand.” Great marketing requires a balance between brand, demand, clarity, and creativity. Overweighting one side leaves your audience uncertain about what you really stand for.Word of mouth is your secret weapon. Despite its failure in theaters, Clue became a cult classic through community and conversation. For Christine, that's a marketing playbook: “The fact that it did become this cult classic highlights the importance of word of mouth. How do you make sure you're getting in front of people who will be interested in your product, or interested in your movie, and making sure that you're leveraging communities [and] social as a way to get in front of people who maybe aren't going to go to the box office.” Buzz builds longevity. Beyond paid campaigns, you need advocates, communities, and conversations that keep your brand alive long after launch.Quote“ How do you differentiate yourself and do something a little different. Bring some humor into what is normally a pretty straight-laced B2B technology type of industry. I think people like a little fun in their day-to-day.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Christine Royston, Chief Marketing Officer at Wrike[01:01] Why Clue?[01:24] The Role of CMO at Wrike[03:05] The Origins of Clue, The Movie[14:04] B2B Marketing Lessons from Clue[28:10] Balancing Brand vs. Demand[29:50] Wrike's Brand and Content Strategy[33:21] AI's Role in Modern Marketing[35:11] Wrike's Survey on AI's Impact[40:20] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Christine on LinkedInLearn more about WrikeAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Fraudology is presented by Sardine. Get your tickets to Sardine[Con] and end the scamedmicIn this episode of Fraudology host Karisse Hendrick kicks off this episode with updates on recent fraud news, including new sanctions against Southeast Asian cyber scam networks and the ongoing Shiny Hunters attacks targeting Salesforce plugins. But the meat of the episode focuses on a blockbuster CNBC investigation into fraud on Walmart's third-party marketplace. Karisse meticulously breaks down the investigation's findings, from Walmart's rapid marketplace growth and loosened seller vetting to the proliferation of counterfeit goods and seller identity theft. She explains how Walmart's efforts to woo sellers from Amazon backfired, allowing bad actors to exploit the platform. The episode offers an in depth look at the challenges of marketplace fraud, contrasting approaches by Walmart, Amazon, and Target. This episode is a must-listen for anyone in e-commerce, offering valuable lessons on balancing growth with trust and safety in online marketplaces.Fraudology is hosted by Karisse Hendrick, a fraud fighter with decades of experience advising hundreds of the biggest ecommerce companies in the world on fraud, chargebacks, and other forms of abuse impacting a company's bottom line. Connect with her on LinkedIn She brings her experience, expertise, and extensive network of experts to this podcast weekly, on Tuesdays.Mentioned in this episode:2023-q4-postroll sardine 1
Workday's Kathy Pham and Salesforce's Chief Ethical and Humane Use Officer and EVP of Product, Paula Goldman, discuss moving from theoretical discussions to practical frameworks for ethical technology and a human-centered future of work. They explore Paula's unique journey and how ethical leadership can build a movement for responsible AI.
As the federal government races to adopt AI, many agencies are looking to buy and build the same exact solutions. Recognizing this, the General Services Administration earlier this year launched USAi, a platform that offers agencies access to leading commercial AI models that they can deploy in a streamlined manner, eliminating redundancy across government and leading to greater efficiencies at scale. Zach Whitman, chief data scientist and chief AI officer for the GSA, recently joined me for a discussion at the Agentic AI Government Summit and Jamfest in Washington, D.C., to highlight the USAi effort, how it's progressing, the challenges GSA faces and what's next. The Department of Health and Human Services has tapped DOGE affiliate Zachary Terrell to be its chief technology officer, sources told FedScoop. Terrell's CTO title was confirmed by three officials, who were granted anonymity to be more candid. Taking on the role of CTO comes after his involvement in Department of Government Efficiency work at both HHS and the National Science Foundation, including the cancellation of grants at the science agency. One of those sources told FedScoop that Terrell has been in the technology chief role since the beginning of this month and is still at the NSF as well. While his leadership role is new, Terrell has previously been involved in work at HHS, including as a member of the department's DOGE team, according to a recent legal filing by the government. Per that document, Terrell was listed as one of the 10 team members given access to at least one sensitive system as part of the DOGE work. Specifically, Terrell was one of five team members who weren't directly employed by the U.S. DOGE Service — the White House home for the group. Congress is poised to make yet another run at legislation to reform agency software purchasing practices, with the reintroduction in the House last week of the Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act. The SAMOSA Act, which passed the House last December, would require federal agencies to comprehensively assess their software licensing practices, a move aimed at curbing duplicative tech, streamlining future purchases and reducing IT costs. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, said in a press release: “The GAO has found the federal government spends more than $100 billion annually on information technology and cybersecurity, including software licenses. Far too often, taxpayer dollars are wasted on these systems and licenses agencies fail to use.” The SAMOSA Act, Mace goes on to say, “requires agencies to account for existing software assets and consolidate purchases: reducing redundancy, increasing accountability, and saving potentially billions for American taxpayers.” Also in this episode: Salesforce Global Digital Transformation Executive Nadia Hansen joins SNG host Wyatt Kash in a sponsored podcast discussion on how Agentic AI is reshaping the way government teams work and why agencies need top-level sponsorship, transparent governance and workforce training to realize its potential. This segment was by sponsored by Salesforce. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.
In this episode, Avanish and Umesh discuss:Uniphore's founding story in 2008 and evolution from conversational AI applications to an end-to-end Business AI Cloud platform serving 2,000+ customers including Fortune 500 enterprisesThe pivotal moment when two of Uniphore's largest customers (10% of revenue) warned their contracts might expire unless Uniphore opened up their platform for customer-built AI agentsHow platform necessity emerged from scale—running out of data scientists to manually fine-tune models for each customer led to building automated platform toolingThe "open-heart surgery" transformation: shifting from selling business outcomes to line-of-business buyers to serving CIOs and developers, requiring wholesale DNA changes across engineering, product, sales, and marketingWhy platform and ecosystem strategies are inseparable: "A platform is really not a platform until other people are building things on it"The M&A strategy for platform companies: narrower aperture requiring 100% architectural alignment, but instant unlocks when acquisitions fit the single-codebase platform architectureThree frameworks for platform success: maintain paranoia about whether you're a feature/product/company, surround yourself with "system thinkers," and stay intensely close to customersThe "five-by-five" metric for measuring platform adoption: five large enterprises and five GSIs using the platform as their weekly "factory" for fine-tuning models and building agents, requiring simplified user experience for non-technical business users Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and served as a Board Member of Hubspot from 2018 to 2023; he currently serves on the boards of Birdie.ai, Flywl.com and Meta.com.br as well as a few non-profits and educational boards. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow. From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase. Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early to mid-stage startups in Silicon Valley. About UmeshUmesh Sachdev is the CEO and Co-founder of Uniphore, one of the largest AI-native, multimodal enterprise-class SaaS companies in the world. Sparked by his vision and focus to use AI technology to bridge the gap between humans and machines, today Umesh is recognized as an enterprise AI pioneer, bringing knowledge AI, generative AI and emotion AI into a single platform, allowing customers to harness AI's powerful capabilities across voice, video and text-based applications. Known for his grit as a leader, his passion for customers and his deep understanding of technology, he is called upon to guide some of the world's largest brands through their digital transformation. Umesh's strong portfolio of patents serves as a testament to his innovative thinking and commitment to advancing AI technology.As an international business leader, Umesh has been recognized with many awards including ‘40 under 40' Bright Young Business Leaders in the Economic Times, ‘Next Generation Leader' by Time Magazine, and previously, as an ‘Innovator Under 35' by MIT Tech Review. Umesh is an alumnus of Jaypee Institute of Information Technology and an accomplished speaker and highly sought-after presenter. About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale. Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years. Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.Follow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark
Help us improve the show by filling out our audience survey: bit.ly/4j01Gq0 In this episode of Get Hired, LinkedIn Editor Andrew Seaman sits down with Meredith Brown, senior vice president of Trailhead and Community at Salesforce. Trailhead is Salesforce's free online learning platform that recently launched an AI training series that's open for anyone. In their conversation, Andrew and Meredith talk about the steps to successfully learning a new skill or tool, what to look for in an online learning platform, and how to take initiative on learning to work with AI even if your company is not providing practical training. Key Topics: What Salesforce and Trailhead do Trailhead's free Agentblazer Champion training series The three stages of learning Why leaders should aim to have humans and agents working together How to take initiative to upskill and reskill without company guidance Links & Resources: Follow Meredith Brown on LinkedIn here Join the Get Hired community on LinkedIn here Listen to more episodes of Get Hired with Andrew Seaman here
I am joined by Melanie Kruger, one of the best people leaders that I ever had the chance to work with. She has deep understanding of helping to scale Salesforce ISVs of all sizes. She actually found her way into the Salesforce ecosystem via networking between her husband and J Manning, bringing her to the Head of People at Conga.I got to work with Melanie twice at Conga and TaskRay and was so impressed with how she helped set culture and nurture culture so the companies could grow. Melanie shares that when she joined Conga, lots of people were generalists - Conga had a number of Business Analysts that did everything customer facing - Sales, CS, and Support. This can be a really good model of ISVs early on, but eventually specialization is required. Something similar happened at TaskRay and one of their BAs was Jon Barlow who is now a top tier enterprise AE in the ecosystem.We talk about culture and how it shifts over time, sharing her experience with Red Canary. We explore hiring pitfalls for early-stage ISVs and the importance of job descriptions. We go deep on this topic because it is so, so important to align expectations and help secure top talent as well as touching on some creative perk ideas for employees, like “two weeks to infinity”.It was a lovely conversation that blended business lessons and life lessons. This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond!
CommanderAI launched in early 2024 as a customer relationship manager and sales prospecting platform built for waste management — and other industrial services like dumpster rentals and industrial recyclers – to fill that gap. Also, Silicon Valley-based Cerebras announced it raised a $1.1 billion Series G round on Tuesday that valued the AI hardware company at $8.1 billion. The round was co-led by Fidelity and Atreides Management with participation from Tiger Global, Valor Equity Partners, and 1789 Capital, among others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In een markt gedomineerd door complexe CRM-systemen, bouwden broers Rob en Bart Sauer een revolutionair eenvoudige oplossing: Cirqll CRM. In deze aflevering van de StoryBrand Podcast delen zij hun visie op eenvoud, hun groei van 100 naar 250+ klanten in slechts 10 maanden, en hoe ze concurreren met giganten als Salesforce.In deze aflevering zijn Rob en Bart Sauer te gast, oprichters van Cirqll CRM. Deze broers hebben een missie: het leven van ondernemend Nederland makkelijker maken met het meest eenvoudige CRM-systeem. Rob, met zijn achtergrond in sales, en Bart, de strategische denker, vormen samen een krachtig team dat in korte tijd indrukwekkende resultaten heeft geboekt. Ze delen hoe hun complementaire kwaliteiten bijdragen aan hun succes en waarom complexiteit hun grootste vijand is.Belangrijkste gespreksonderwerpenDe oorsprong van Cirqll: hoe corona en een schets op papier leidden tot een nieuw bedrijfWaarom 90% van de CRM-systemen faalt door onnodige complexiteitDe filosofie van eenvoud die doorsijpelt in alles wat ze doen - van productontwikkeling tot bedrijfscultuurVan Excel sheets naar een eenvoudig CRM-systeem: hoe Cirqll binnen 2,5 jaar naar 250+ klanten groeideHet belang van open API's en mobiele applicaties voor moderne CRM-oplossingenDe balans vinden tussen nieuwe technologie (zoals AI) en het behouden van eenvoudDe complementaire kwaliteiten van de broers en hoe hun verschillen bijdragen aan het succesPraktische tips voor ondernemers die worstelen met klantbeheer en complexe toolsDe moed om 'nee' te zeggen tegen klanten die niet bij je passenRelevante links en bronnenWebsite van Cirqll CRMRob Sauer op LinkedInBart Sauer op LinkedInBoek: That Will Never Work van Marc Randolph - Het verhaal achter de oprichting van NetflixBoek: No Rules Rules van Reed Hastings - Over de unieke bedrijfscultuur bij NetflixNetflix-documentaire over Spotify - Over hoe de muziekindustrie veranderdeLaat jij omzet liggen door een onduidelijke marketingboodschap?Doe de gratis Heldere Marketingboodschap Zelfassessment en ontdek waar je kansen laat liggen. Beantwoord 20 korte vragen (duurt maar 2 minuten), ontvang een persoonlijk adviesrapport met praktische tips en krijg een goed beeld van de kansen voor jouw bedrijf. Ga naar form.buzzlytics.nl/storybrand-marketingboodschap en zorg dat jouw team overal dezelfde heldere boodschap communiceert.
Listen to this episode of the ORX Operational Risk Podcast to hear the ORX News team cover the top five largest operational risk losses of August 2025, which now features cause and impact. In addition, the team cover the top ten most viewed stories on the ORX News website in August 2025, a business disruption deep dive, the 2025 mid-year review, and the most recent spotlight story about a cyber event at Salesforce which potentially compromised the data of over 700 organisations. You can find the top 5 largest operational risk losses of August 2025 discussed in this episode on our website at: https://orx.org/blog/top-5-orx-news-losses-august-2025 ORX News subscribers can see more on the top 10 most viewed loss events of August 2025 and the 2025 mid-year review on the ORX News website here: https://news.orx.org/node/13441 and https://news.orx.org/node/13342 ORX News subscribers can also read more on the latest deep dive and story spotlight via the ORX News website at: https://news.orx.org/node/13420 and https://news.orx.org/node/13394 ORX News and ORX Cyber subscribers can access the Cyber Operational Risk Event Round-ups 2025 on our website here: https://orx.org/cyber-operational-risk-event-round-ups-2025 ORX News and ORX Scenarios subscribers can download the full Geopolitics Scenario Development Handbook on our website here: https://orx.org/scenario-development-handbook-geopolitics-2025-orx-scenarios To find out more about ORX News, ORX Cyber, ORX Scenarios, or access other operational risk resources, just search ‘ORX' or visit: www.orx.org.
In this episode of OFFBounds, Paula Macaggi sits down in New York with retail veteran and professor Matt Marcotte to celebrate the launch of his new book Built on Belief: Why Cultures of Commitment Are the Competitive Advantage. Drawing on three decades of leadership at Apple, Gap, Tori Burch, Bergdorf Goodman, and Salesforce, Matt shares why employees should be seen as a company's most important customers, the difference between compliance and commitment, and why profit should be viewed as the reward for doing the right thing. This conversation is a masterclass in leadership, culture, and building brands that inspire from the inside out.Get your copy here!
Emerging Cybersecurity Threats: Lockbit 5.0, Salesforce AI Vulnerabilities, and China's Cyber Intelligence Advancements In this episode of 'Cybersecurity Today,' host Jim Love discusses the latest cybersecurity threats, including the emergence of Lockbit 5.0 ransomware which can attack multiple platforms simultaneously, and a critical vulnerability in Salesforce's AI agents known as forced leak prompt injection. Additionally, the episode delves into the growing capabilities of China's Ministry of State Security, which has become a significant cyber intelligence force under Xi Jinping, raising serious concerns for Western security agencies. 00:00 Introduction to Cybersecurity Threats 00:18 Lockbit 5.0: A New Ransomware Threat 03:01 Salesforce AI Agents Vulnerability 05:50 China's Cyber Intelligence Operations 08:55 Conclusion and Call to Action
Nesrine Changuel helped build Spotify, Google Chrome, and Google Meet. Her work has helped her discover the importance of emotional connection in building successful products. At Google, she served as a dedicated “delight PM,” a role specifically focused on making products more delightful. She recently published Product Delight, a book that provides a practical framework for creating products that serve both functional and emotional needs. Based in Paris, she now coaches founders and CPOs on implementing delight strategies in their organizations.What you'll learn:1. Why delight is a business strategy, not just “sprinkling confetti” on top of functionality2. How to identify emotional motivators that drive product retention3. The 50-40-10 rule for balancing delight in your roadmap4. The 4-step delight model5. The origin story of Spotify's Discover Weekly6. Why B2B products need delight just as much as B2C products7. How to get buy-in from skeptical leaders who think delight is a luxury—Brought to you by:DX—The developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchers: https://getdx.com/lennyJira Product Discovery—Confidence to build the right thing: https://atlassian.com/lennyLucidLink—Real-time cloud storage for teams: https://www.lucidlink.com/lenny—Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-4-step-framework-for-building-delightful-products—My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/174199489/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation—Where to find Nesrine Changuel:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nesrinechanguel/• Newsletter: https://nesrinechanguel.substack.com/• Website: https://nesrine-changuel.com/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Nesrine and product delight(04:56) Why delight matters(09:17) What makes a feature “delightful”(12:29) The three pillars of delight(13:03) Pillar 1: Removing friction (Uber refund example)(15:07) Pillar 2: Anticipating needs (Revolut eSIM example)(17:21) Pillar 3: Exceeding expectations (Edge coupon example)(18:35) The “confetti effect” and when it actually works(22:02) B2B vs. B2C: Why all products need emotional connection(29:52) The Delight Model: A 4-step framework(30:57) Step 1: Identifying user motivators (functional and emotional)(33:55) Step 2: Converting motivators into product opportunities(34:46) Step 3: Identifying solutions with the delight grid(36:46) Step 4: Validating ideas with the delight checklist(40:22) The Delight Model summarized(42:18) The importance of familiarity (Spotify Discover Weekly story)(45:21) Real examples: Chrome's tab management solution(51:32) Google Meet's solution for “Zoom fatigue”(55:02) Getting buy-in from skeptical leaders(59:39) Prioritizing delight: The 50-40-10 rule(1:02:41) Creating a culture of delight in your organization(1:06:45) The habituation effect(1:08:15) When delight goes wrong: Apple reactions example(1:10:21) How delight motivates product teams(1:12:24) Lightning round and final thoughts—Referenced:• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/• Linear: https://linear.app/• How Linear builds product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-linear-builds-product• Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira• Asana: https://asana.com/• Monday: https://monday.com/• The Product Delight Model: https://nesrinechanguel.substack.com/p/the-product-delight-model• Revolut: https://www.revolut.com/• How Revolut trains world-class product managers: The “local CEO” model, raw intellect over experience, and a cultural obsession with building wow products | Dmitry Zlokazov (Head of Product): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-revolut-trains-world-class-product-managers• Microsoft Cashback: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/features/shopping-cashback• Superhuman's secret to success: Ignoring most customer feedback, manually onboarding every new user, obsessing over every detail, and positioning around a single attribute: speed | Rahul Vohra (CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/superhumans-secret-to-success-rahul-vohra• Brian Chesky's secret mentor who died 9 times, started the Burning Man board, and built the world's first midlife wisdom school | Chip Conley (founder of MEA): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/chip-conley• Workday: https://www.workday.com/• SAP: https://www.sap.com/• ServiceNow: https://www.servicenow.com/• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/• GitHub: https://github.com/• Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com/• Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com/• Data Superheroes: https://www.snowflake.com/en/data-superheroes/• Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/• Andy Nesling on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andynesling/• Matic: https://maticrobots.com/• Diego Sanchez's (Senior Product Manager at Buffer) post on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7365014292091346945/• Miro: https://miro.com/• Arc browser: https://arc.net/• Competing with giants: An inside look at how The Browser Company builds product | Josh Miller (CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/competing-with-giants-an-inside-look• Migros Supermarket: https://www.migros.ch/• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can't stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell• Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika• Linear's secret to building beloved B2B products | Nan Yu (Head of Product): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/linears-secret-to-building-beloved-b2b-products-nan-yu• Suno: https://suno.com• Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/• Use Reactions, Presenter Overlay, and other effects when videoconferencing on Mac: https://support.apple.com/en-us/105117• Dr. Lipp: https://drlipp.com/• How to be the best coach to product people | Petra Wille (Strong Product People): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-be-the-best-coach-to-product• The Great American Baking Show: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21822674/• Le Meilleur Pâtissier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Meilleur_P%C3%A2tissier• The Upside on Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.3cb8500f-31af-9f4f-5dec-701e086d58e8• The Intouchables: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1675434/• Yoyo stroller: https://www.stokke.com/USA/en-us/category/strollers/yoyo-strollers• UppaBaby strollers: https://uppababy.com/strollers/—Recommended books:• Product Delight: How to Make Your Product Stand Out with Emotional Connection: https://www.amazon.com/Product-Delight-Stand-Emotional-Connection-ebook/dp/B0FGZ93D9Y/• Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think: https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things-Better/dp/1250107814• STRONG Product Communities: The Essential Guide to Product Communities of Practice: https://www.amazon.com/STRONG-Product-Communities-Essential-Practice/dp/3982235189/r—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com
In this CPQ Podcast episode, host Frank Sohn speaks with Tarak Patel, Sr. Vice President of Product and Technology at Aleran Software, about how Aleran is bringing sustainable innovation to Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) and digital commerce. Aleran's Connected Commerce platform is designed for mid-size manufacturers ($20M–$1B) and their channel partners. Built on headless, API-first, cloud-native architecture, the platform integrates with leading ERP systems(SAP, Epicor, Microsoft Dynamics, Infor, Acumatica and more) and CRM solutions (Salesforce, SugarCRM). It also offers native eCommerce, pre-built connectors, Avalara tax, payment gateways, and shipping integrations—helping companies move beyond spreadsheets and home-grown tools. Tarak explains how Aleran supports CTO and ETO products, with a feature- and rules-based configuration engine, plus AI-driven guided selling and automated product content generation. With low-code/no-code flexibility and an average 2-month implementation, manufacturers can achieve fast ROI. Beyond technology, Tarak shares insights on trust-based leadership, Aleran's rapid growth, and how his philosophy of “sustainable innovation” drives both the company and his personal life—including golfing with his two teenage sons.
In this episode I talk to Sharissa Sebastian Deppen about the power within introverted leaders. Introduction Sharissa Sebastian Deppen is the CEO of Leadership Mastery Alliance; a company specializing in supporting introverted servant leaders who are women in corporate leadership. She's a leadership and executive coach with an MBA, MSc in Technology Leadership and her PCC Certification from the International Coaching Federation (ICF), as well as a Myers Briggs Certified Practitioner. She has 15+ years of corporate leadership experience in addition to coaching several Fortune 100 leaders and executives. She's also a TEDx speaker and TEDx speaker coach, an award winning international keynote speaker, a writer for Forbes and the Huffington Post, a member of Forbes Coaches Council, a Professor at Southeastern University and an advisory board member at the University of South Florida. Her many years of experience include helping leaders draw on their God-given strengths and abilities, see their value and be able to bring out the best in themselves and others all while having fun, being fulfilled and not burning out! She's able to masterfully help them navigate their blind spots while thriving in their zone of genius to take their career and leadership to a level that has a significant impact on themselves, their teams and their organization. Her clients include leaders and executives at companies such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft, Harpo Studios, Bank of America, CNN, The United Nations, Intuit, SalesForce, BP, Fedex, Comcast, Deloitte, Accenture, Keurig Dr. Pepper, Victoria's Secret, Warner Brothers Studios, US Bank, Coinbase, Ameriprise Financial, Nestle, Virgin, Mars, Slack, Space Force, among others. Resources mentioned in this episode Follow Sharissa: Website: HERE LinkedIn: HERE Instagram: HERE TikTok: HERE FREE Resource-Leadership Mastery Alliance: HERE Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review. Leave comment on what you enjoyed from the episode and if you have any suggestions for future episodes, I'd love to hear from you. Even better, share it with a friend or colleague and turn on the notifications so that you never miss an episode. It really helps the podcast gain more listeners so that we can grow our Lead From Within community. Thanks everyone! Keep reaching for your highest branch! Let's Connect Follow me on LinkedIn Here Visit my website Here Email: mthomson@curisconsulting.ca Self-Care Guide on Amazon: Canada: HERE USA: HERE Leave me a voice note HERE and have it included on a future podcast! Just click on the "message" tab. It is greatly appreciated!
Artificial intelligence is helping to drive up electricity demand in America. Energy costs are rising, and utilities are struggling to adjust. How should policymakers — and companies — respond to this moment? On this special episode of Shift Key, recorded live at Heatmap House during New York Climate Week, Rob leads a conversation about some potential paths forward. He's joined first by Representative Sean Casten, the coauthor of a new Democratic bill seeking to lower electricity costs for consumers. How should the grid change for this new moment, and what can Democrats do to become the party of cheap energy? Then he's joined by Arushi Sharma Frank, an adviser to Emerald AI, an Nvidia-seeded startup that helps data centers flexibly adjust their power consumption to better serve the grid. Sharma Frank has worked for utilities and tech companies — she helped stand up Tesla's energy business in Texas — and she discusses what utilities, tech companies, and startups can learn from each other?Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University. Jesse is off this week.Mentioned: Democrats Bid to Become the Party of Cheap EnergyThe Cheap Energy Act proposalHeatmap's Katie Brigham on Emerald AI, a.k.a. The Software That Could Save the Grid--This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...Salesforce, presenting sponsor of Heatmap House at New York Climate Week 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How did Salesforce build a $200B company by declaring war on "software"? Branding expert Laura Ries (author of "Strategic Enemy") reveals why the world's best brands choose strategic enemies to dominate their markets.Laura explains the counterintuitive positioning strategy behind iconic brands like Tesla, Chick-fil-A, and White Claw. Learn why opposition creates clarity, how visual hammers make brands unforgettable, and why line extensions destroy established brands.KEY TOPICS:The strategic enemy frameworkVisual hammers that build brand memoryWhy line extensions fail (Bud Light case study)How to respond to market disruptorsPersonal branding for executives
In this episode of Quietly Visible, Carol Stewart is joined by Melissa DinWiddie—Juilliard-trained dancer, jazz singer, improviser, author of The Creative Sandbox Way, and creativity consultant for global brands like Google, Meta, and Salesforce.Melissa shares her powerful journey from believing she “wasn't creative” to embracing her artistry and building a career helping leaders and teams unlock their boldest ideas. She opens up about the perfectionism that held her back for years, how self-compassion became her game-changer, and why she now proudly calls herself an “intentional imperfectionist.”
Send us a textWhat happens when a rebellious teenager receives a life-altering cancer diagnosis at 18? In this powerful conversation, Steve Garraty shares his extraordinary journey from self-destructive partying to profound purpose after doctors discovered a grapefruit-sized tumor in his neck on July 4th, 1986.Steve candidly reveals his spiral into reckless behavior after moving to Atlanta as a teen – drinking before school, wrecking five cars while intoxicated, and causing tremendous stress for his family. Just after high school graduation, everything changed with three devastating words: "you have cancer." Through nine grueling months of chemotherapy, Steve kept a journal that would eventually become his book "Greatfruit: How Cancer Led to Living a More Fruitful Life."The heart of this episode explores how facing mortality at such a young age transformed Steve's approach to fatherhood. With doctors warning he might never have children due to his treatments, each moment with his two children became a profound gift. Now a grandfather and successful sales leader at companies like Salesforce, Oracle, and Workday, Steve reflects on how his cancer journey cultivated deep empathy, gratitude, and perspective – qualities that shaped both his parenting and professional leadership.Most compelling is Steve's insight about extracting meaning from life's hardest moments. "We all go through stuff," he shares. "It may have a different face for you than for me, but we all go through moments or events that change us." His message to parents: be resilient through challenges, lean on your support network, and look for opportunities to grow through adversity.Whether you're facing your own struggles or simply seeking perspective on what truly matters in parenting, Steve's story will inspire you to embrace each day with intention and appreciation. Listen now to discover how life's greatest challenges can become the foundation for our greatest strengths.Support the showPlease don't forget to leave us a review wherever you consume your podcasts! Please help us get more dads to listen weekly and become the ultimate leader of their homes!
On this episode of The YM Show, I sit down with my good buddy Michael Kleinfeld, a top performer in B2B sales. We get super practical about how he actually wins contracts—from the first cold call, to follow-ups, to proposals—and how you can apply the same frameworks in any industry.If you're in sales (or you're a founder doing sales yourself), this episode is a cheat-sheet: the ins & outs, do's & don'ts, misconceptions, and yes—the occasional “scheme” to watch for—so you can close more cleanly and build long-term relationships.
How can a podcast become your best performing sales channel?In this episode of the Unified Brand Podcast, we're joined by Donald Kelly, award-winning sales trainer, top Salesforce sales influencer, author of Sell It Like a Mango, and host of the Sales Evangelist Podcast. Donald shares how podcasting helped him leave his full-time job, build two businesses, and become a trusted voice in B2B sales.We dive into:Why you don't need thousands of downloads to build an effective podcastHow podcasting creates lead gen and brand trust at scaleThe right way to launch a podcast that actually gets tractionHow sales and marketing teams can collaborate using podcast contentTurning episodes into lead magnets and sales appointmentsThe rise of non-gated content and building community trustWhether you're a founder, marketer, or B2B sales leader, this episode will show you how to stop chasing fancy metricsand start creating content that sells.
According to research from Gartner, buyer uncertainty leads to a 30% reduction in a buyer's ability to make a purchase decision at all. So, how can you create a buying experience that builds confidence, drives engagement, and ultimately improves win rates? Riley Rogers: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Riley Rogers. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully. Here to discuss this topic is Annabel Hosking, Global Sales Enablement Manager at LexiNexis Risk Solutions. Thank you so much for joining us, Annabel. Just to kick us off, I’d love if you could tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role. Annabel Hosking: Hi everyone. I currently work as a global sales network manager at LexisNexis Risk Solutions within the data services brand, so I’m very fortunate to work across. Four different brands that will work within the data space. And within my role, I lead the sales enablement team. We’re a global team. We’re a small team, small but mighty, and we work across methodology enablement. So all about our sales methodology, how we go to market, how our customers. Experiences. And I also work across all of our onboarding as well as all of our tech stack as well. So my role is really varied. I’m very lucky I get to work with some really great people across the world. And yeah, it was never a dull moment, I’ll say. RR: Isn’t that always the case? Small scrappy teams. Wearing a lot of hats and it’s always exciting. We’re super excited to have you here because I know you have experience spanning a lot of core parts of enablement, so I think there’s a lot to dig into there. Could you walk us through, because I think everybody’s story is different, maybe your professional journey and then how that background led you to enablement, and then how it’s kind of shaped your approach to enablement today. AH: Absolutely. I have what I like to think of as, and it comes from a podcast I’ve been listening to recently, it’s called Squiggly Careers, and I feel like my career was like a very squiggly career of how I ended up in enablement, because I did not at school think, oh, I’m gonna become a. Sales enabler whatsoever. But my background is very much actually in content management and platform management and communication. And how I moved into enablement was I was actually hired in my current company and one of the brands, the beginning of the pandemic. To essentially deliver enablement content. So I worked on delivery of content, content management, delivery of our Highspot system as well. And that was how I started to move into the enablement realm. And I will say it was completely unknown to me originally. I. Wasn’t even clear that I was doing sales enablement per se, but at least a good 18 months in my role here. I thought I was just delivering content and it wasn’t until working with vendors like Highspot where. That term enablement started to come out and it started to change, I suppose, how I delivered my content and it’s really come into its own where now I’m very fortunate where I’m have on my team who does phenomenal content and through my experience. It’s really understanding who my audience is, understanding how they like to consume their enablement, but also how can we consistently stay, um, ahead of what the trends are and how people like to change, how they like to consume, what they’re seeing A meeting was held by our team on Monday with the client team for the Zephyr project to review the status of the forthcoming Q3 launch campaign. The campaign, originally built as a omnichannel activation across CTV, paid social and programmatic display, is now subject to substantial midstream revisions—following newly surfaced client directives. The feedback introduce a material shift in strategic framing under a compressed delivery window. There will be a pivot as Zephyr deprioritizing the performance-tracking narrative to favor of a broader “everyday wellness and inclusivity” story which will require an immidiate reframe of our messaging, architecture and associated visuals. To addressed the revised scope, I've assigned immediate follow-ups actions across the team. Visual art will lead conversations with post-production around stock content intergration. Ad sales will recalibrating the media plan in light of the repositioned messaging and will coordinate with DSPs to avoid penalties related on insertion order delays. Copy desk is to be tasked with stripping all unsubstantiated medical claims from copy, implementing the new CTA and managing a parallel review with legal. We conduct a daily internal stand-up each morning through end of week to identify blockers. The next client check-in is scheduled for July 3rd, where we preview asset revisions and confirm compliance milestones. Final go/no-go is slated for July 7th at 17:00 PDT. We are proceeding with all mitigations in parallel, and escalated any dependency delays as they surface. day to day, because that has vastly changed as well in the last six years. So. Thankfully my background and being adaptable, working globally, working with a lot of different people has really helped shape that. Because you know, I always say if there’s one thing, so my career of, you know, working in content management and working with platforms, working in technology. It has really shaped who I am today because it’s all really embedded in those user Jo Journeys user stories, and that translates into what I hope is a good enablement experience. RR: Well, amazing. I love the phrase squiggly career. I think I am certainly going to have to steal that one, and I think it’s such a good way to describe how so many folks end up at enablement. You start in one place and you bring all of that knowledge that you acquire in that early discipline. Into enablement programming that’s more effective for it. And thinking about, you know, your background in content management and creating content and all of that fun stuff, I’d be curious to know how they kind of come together. So you recently spoke at Spark EA and highlighted the importance of the buying experience, so. What are you seeing as some of those biggest challenges in engaging today’s buyers and how are you addressing them? Maybe through content, maybe through enablement? What does that look like to you? AH: I mean, I think the buying experience today in 2025 is unlike anything we have seen. Ever. It is a completely different world for both salespeople and for buyers as well. And what I’m seeing is, you know, buyers are not only overwhelmed with information, they’re also inundated with it. There is so much content out there for a buyer to consume and not just through their sales individual. This is content that they can easily go and either get themselves or with things like AI and Copilot, they can have. Harness and surface to them. So that makes the role of the seller that much harder because we don’t always know what the buyer is viewing and whether it’s of value to them, and that means that their time, the buyer’s time is so precious. We are seeing that, you know, buyers, and I mentioned this when I was at Spark, there are so many people now involved in the buying decision. We’ve moved, I think it was from about three people a few years ago. We’re now at. Six to 10 people. And if you think about it, those are all new personas that sellers have to understand, have to get to know, potentially map out, connect with. And what’s really unfortunate is we’re also seeing that for a lot of sellers, our buyers are actually taking. Long to make a decision that they kind of get to a point of no decision. We’re at this decision fatigue. We’re a information fatigue, we’re a decision fatigue. And I think on the whole, our buyers are they tired. And I can talk as a buyer, myself as a customer, it’s really exhausting. And so what we try to encourage where I am in data services is sales have to differentiate themselves. If you wanna get in front of buyers nowadays, you have to think what are you bringing to the table that’s different from them? That’s a unique experience, that’s an experience that makes ’em feel important, makes ’em feel, listened to, makes them feel like they really can understand why we are doing business together. And that starts in how we as enablement get that content to our salespeople. If we are not able to identify the value that we are bringing as brands into that conversation, it becomes really hard for sales to know how to articulate that to the buyers as well. And so. As enablement, we are that bridge between the, a lot of other functions and the sales teams and the commercial teams of making sure that value identification is really clear. So by the time it reaches the buyer, they absolutely know why they’re having that conversation. They absolutely know what the value of that conversation is going to be. And that really does start with how are you getting that information into the hands of your salespeople? How are you making that content? Really accessible, really palatable as well. I think traditional enablement, we defer to a lot of very wordy, very long documents, which from experience, no salesperson really wants to read or look at or go through. So just as we’re seeing the buyers experience evolve, the enablement experience has to evolve as well in order to stay ahead of that and to give them the best experience to our salespeople. RR: I think you’re absolutely right on all of that. It is only getting more difficult, and as things change externally, you need to adapt internally. And so kind of thinking about how you’re making that change, and to your point, how you’re distributing materials in a way that is usable and usable for a sales audience that maybe isn’t gonna read 10 pages of written content. What would you say then is kind of the unique value for an enablement platform when it comes to helping sellers? Create and deliver these impactful and differentiated buying experiences that you’re looking for? AH: Oh, huge value, absolutely huge value. The power of enablement comes in the ability to be able to streamline that messaging. But in order to do so, we do need a channel to do that, you know, and that can’t exist. In ad hoc documents that you just hold on someone’s computer. Our journey with Highspot started many, many years ago. I think it was about sort five or six years ago, very early days for Highspot even themselves. And we set out with a mission statement, which was that Highspot would be a single source of truth holding up UpToDate relevant sales content. And I am happy to say that five years later we still maintain that mission statement. The platform has got bigger. There’s more people, there’s more content, as I’m sure you can imagine, but we have stuck to our statement that it is a single source of truth. It is up to date, it is valid information that sales are getting, but that all comes from having a channel with a witch to push that through to the sales audience. It just makes your role as an enabler that much easier, you know, day to day. As you know, we spoke about at the top of the call is no one day looks the same for enablement. It will always be different. There’ll be different priorities. There’ll be different go to market, there’ll be different initiatives. But if you know that at least you have somewhere that you can reliably put information in front of sales and then see how it’s being used, how it’s being impacted, how the seller is using it, how the buyer’s consuming it. Your role as enablement starts to become just a little bit easier. And so I would say for anyone who’s within the enablement sphere and looking at their tech stack, having a solid CMS is really gonna be a, a strong cornerstone of that. RR: I love the perspective on an enablement platform as kind of a source of consistency. Almost everything is changing. Your day in enablement is different. Buyers are behaving differently. Reps need to do different things to engage ’em, but at least you have one place that is reliable. But I will say, I know that. Strong buying experiences aren’t necessarily contingent just on technology. They also require a lot of hard work internally. And as one of the things that you, I’ve seen you mention on LinkedIn is that a core foundation of LexisNexis Risk Solution Services is ensuring that customers really recognize the value that you provide. And that kind of starts internally. With sales and leadership alignment. So I’m curious, how are you aligning those internal stakeholders so that way your teams are set up for success when they’re shaping those buyer experiences externally AH: with immense difficulty, I’ll say, and I think any enabler that sits here and says that it’s an easy job is lying through their team. It is, I think, one of the hardest, the hardest roles. Of enablement is getting everybody aligned, getting everyone to agree, and especially I work, as I say, across a lot of businesses. You know, I have four MDs, I have four heads of sales, I have a lot of sales leadership and a lot of sellers, and I’m sure that’s the case for a lot of people working in large enterprise organizations, stakeholders. Can be difficult to align, especially when you have a lot of different priorities and a lot going on. But what I would say is, is really identify what is the core value that you as a company or you as a business, as a brand can all agree on. Our MD has this thing, he says that all of our kickoffs, which is, you know, value is not on the lips of the seller, but is in the eyes of the customer. And that mission statement as it were. Has sort of brought all the stakeholders together to agree that even if there’s misalignment or disagreement on how we do things, we can all agree that we want to give the best experience for our customer and the best value to our customer. And so for enablement, it’s then saying, okay, so we have this mission statement, we have this belief that we want to be customer centric. We want to be value focused. What does that actually mean? For each internal stakeholder, what’s important for them? What are the metrics that they’re looking at day to day, month to month, quarter to quarter, and how is what we are doing with an enablement? How is it actually starting to impact that? Where is their focus? What are they going after? And the only way you are really gonna get those answers is by talking to your stakeholders. If you’re an enablement and you’re not a people person, it’s probably gonna be quite a tough job because a lot of our job is just talking. It’s talking with people, talking, you know, at people, sometimes listening to people, taking in information. I would say spend time with your stakeholders. You are there to listen first and foremost. You can’t solve every single problem that they come up with, and you shouldn’t try to. But if you can really understand what their world looks like and what’s really important to them, and what are the behaviors, what are the metrics that are gonna move the dial for your stakeholders? You’ll eventually start to map out, which is what we did. But actually a lot of them start to align. And even though they might be saying different things, the reality is that for a lot of sales leadership, they want similar things. You know, they want to have better pipeline hygiene, they wanna have higher wind rate. They wanna see, you know, large opportunity amounts more in the qualifying, the identify stage, that early sales stages, they wanna increase, you know, the ramping of new starters. We start to get these similar uniform metrics and so then we as enablement can start to work that into our strategy. Although we as enablement can really start to build what we are working on to align with our internal stakeholders and start to deliver for them. RR: I really appreciate that you had some really tactical and helpful tips in there, but also that you led with, this is not easy. That’s the big part, is there’s so many kind of lofty initiatives that you are like, how do I even tackle this? And it sounds so overwhelming. So I appreciate the acknowledgement there. Kind of wanna shift gears a little bit maybe towards some of the capabilities that you’re using and finding some success with. So one of the things that we’ve heard is that digital rooms have been a lever for kind of creating those differentiated buying experiences. So what are some of your best practices for creating effective digital rooms and then maybe getting your teams to leverage them. AH: Mm, absolutely. We have a brand who is using digital rooms really fantastically, and they’re teaching our other brands how they’ve used them. So, you know, I, I wholeheartedly agree they can make such a difference in the buying experience and if you’re not using them, you should a hundred percent be looking into where you can use them. So I would say when you are looking to start with a digital room is really understand. Why are you doing this? Like what’s the purpose of actually taking the time and the effort to work probably with your product marketing team or with your marketing teams as a whole to put together something that looks really professional. Looks on brand, but is also really easy for sales to go in and start to customize. I would recommend not having sales do it fully themselves. They have very busy day jobs, and I think if you’re gonna say to any sales person, okay, over to you to go and create this, you might run. Some adoption issues, however, working, you know, this is where your cross-functional working really becomes essential, is working with the individuals who can make good content, who can deliver good, uh, visuals, good framework for the salespeople to literally just be able to, within their sales cycle, adopt this, lift it, and send it to the customer. Because then we start to see, okay, where are we actually starting seeing the customer impact? Has it changed how the customer engages with the content? Are they revisiting? And so what we’ve seen is we’re actually looking at, you know, we see a much higher engagement rate when we have the customers viewing content through a digital room as opposed to simply. Static content, and we can see that obviously with the Highspot metrics, which you know, are a real gold dust when it comes to that. We can also see that, you know, we have repeat visits, so something that we wanted to drive was customers coming back and revisiting the content rather than just clicking in, seeing it once and then never viewing it again, was actually having that revisit of them continually coming back to their individual microsite, if you will. You know, we spoken a lot about a differentiated. Differentiated buying experience. And that can be challenging for salespeople because unless you are fortunate enough to only have you know four or five accounts, the likelihood is your book of business is probably quite vast. And so the expectation that you are consistently offering a differentiated variance for every single customer is just not sustainable. And so using these digital rooms, you are able to. Have, you know, a differentiated experience that is scalable. That it makes a buyer feel like it’s a really individualized experience when the reality is for sales, it’s probably quite an easy thing for them to put together, but it does take some uplift front end with your other teams and your cross departmental functions. RR: Yeah. I wanna double click it as something you said there, which was, if you’re asking reps to build it themselves, you’re probably not gonna see much in the way of adoption. I, I kind of wanna. Speak about that idea of what you can do to drive adoption more broadly. Because looking at the data, you’ve achieved a really impressive 82% recurring usage rate in Highspot. So in addition to that kind of approach to digital rooms, how are you driving adoption more broadly across your revenue teams, whether that’s internal reps, partners, whomever, what are you thinking about that’s helping you? Get people in the platform and keep them there. AH: Yeah. That’s been, you know, a metric we’re very proud of. And it’s been something where, you know, going back to what I said earlier, which is Highspot was set out to be the single source of truth. As soon as we turned on Highspot, for lack of a better word, we pretty much turned off every single other site. So there was nowhere else. For sales to go to get this information apart from this one platform. And I’ve seen this done various ways. I’ve seen people where they have, you know, duplicates and, oh, we’re doing a slow migration. We’re gonna keep SharePoint for a while, and then we’ll have Highspot as well. And you know, there’s no right answer to this, but ultimately, if you are looking to put out a message that this is your single source of truth, this is where you need to go to speak to sales. Our adoption has come because we really drove that and we continue to drive that. If you want content in front of sales, if you want success stories in front of sales, whatever it might be, it has to live in Highspot because there just simply isn’t anywhere else to go. And this is for a couple of reasons. The main one being that, you know, the actual management of the content is far easier. And if you think about the trickle down effect, the user needs the best experience possible. And so if they have all of this disjointed experience of going to multiple places to find multiple pieces of content that look different, that sound different, they’re not getting the best experience and they’re probably not gonna come back to Highspot. So for us, it’s really making sure I’m maintaining. The consistency in the user experience, and that comes from feedback as well. So we will regularly have feedback forums with our salespeople, with our sales leadership, and we’re very open within our team to hearing, listen, this is actually getting quite complicated to navigate. I dunno how to find content. And so then we as a team, as an enablement team, go, okay, what do we need to do to make it easier? How do we start to surface more content directly in front of our users? Because if they’re not having a good experience, then we are not doing our role as enablement. And you know, you don’t have to, if you do have a large sales team, you don’t have to have that verbatim feedback. You can use things like the search reports in Highspot to see, you know, what are people searching, what are the terms they’re looking for and the pieces of content, how can you start to surface that in front of them in a much easier way? Putting it on the homepage, putting it into their specific areas, really thinking about how you. Manage, maintain and govern that content to give your users a really solid experience. And that’s what we’ve done and it’s reflected, as I say, in the adoption and in the revisit rates as well. RR: I really like that you called out that search results report because I think that’s such a great way to kind of get a pulse on your people without having to go dig around and have a bunch of conversations. So thinking in addition to that, how do you leverage data and insights in the platform to help you inform and improve the programs you’re leading? AH: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I have actually had to learn to, I suppose, step away from data slightly. Um, so that’s been feedback I’ve had as I’ve moved more into a, I suppose a leadership role is actually the data can’t always tell the whole story, although my heart and enablement goes, yes, it can, it can. But yeah, the. The, the scorecards that we have in high spots. So really for us, you know, looking at things like that play scorecard, we deliver a lot of sales plays. They’re the best way to get our enablement in front of people. They’re enjoyed and they’re liked by sales. But I can see very clearly what is the percentage of my audience that is viewing this play? How long are they spending? You know, what are the outcomes of the, you know, the business impact? At what point in the sales cycle as well? If there’s external content in there, for example, the marketing collateral, are they deploying this collateral and is it actually having any impact on the customer? Those sorts of insights. You just do not get anywhere else within any other content platform that we have. And so when it’s come to say, onboarding our marketing team or our product team into contributing content, being able to give them this insight helps them understand that the work they’re doing on building the content, maintaining the content is actually worth something because we can directly see the correlation with business outcome, which has always been one of our biggest challenges. Beyond that, our company does a lot with actually pulling the data out of Highspot. So we make use of the Highspot data lake, and we’ve actually pulled that into our own BI platform where we’ve started to look at things around, you know, how many channels and how much activity per opportunity are we seeing within sales. Something at the moment that we’d really drive on. Going back to that differentiated experience for the buyer is looking at a multi-channel approach when it comes to how we prospect and how we outreach. And that really started from using information that came from Highspot, looking at information that comes from Salesforce and going, okay, how many channels do people currently use when they’re outreaching? We’re only maybe seeing a couple, you know, one or two channels. But we know in today’s buying world that it’s gonna take between six to eight. Channels to get through to a buyer and to actually have a meeting. So what can we do to start to move the dial and start to build our programs across driving that? And so that’s how we use data and enablement is actually saying, what are we seeing today? What are the outcomes we want to see in the next quarter? What do we need to do in order to get there? There’s always a lot of talk on LinkedIn. I always see it about, you know, you need to be data driven and enablement. If you’re not offering insight, if you’re not offering analytics, you’re not doing your job. And that can be kind of hard to hear when actually, I think there’s almost too much data sometimes, and it can be quite complicated to understand. And this is why I, I personally really like how it is viewed in Highspot because the scorecards make it very accessible, very easy to consume, but also it doesn’t matter whether you’re an enabler, a seller, or a senior leader, you can be presented a scorecard and you can very quickly see what you need to get out of that and what your conclusions you’re drawing from it. RR: Yeah, I think it’s that. The difficulty of democratizing data into meaningful, actionable insights is sometimes impossible. You have so much at your disposal, and so making it useful is sometimes a challenge, so I love hearing that. You’re finding a way to use it well and inform your programs well. So we’ve heard a little bit about engaging buyers driving adoption. Tracking your impact and seeing how it’s kind of helping you do the things that you need to. So just one last question for you to close this out. For other enablement leaders looking to improve the buyer experience in today’s very digital first world, what is the biggest advice you would give ’em? AH: Oh, that’s a great question. I would say if you are in a position where you’re fortunate enough to be the buyer, think about how you want to experience that life cycle. You know, as someone who is a buyer day to day, as well as an enabler. You know, I always ask myself through, when we do our methodology onboarding, I will go and speak to the sales people about actually what it’s like from a buyer’s experience today, and that really helps. Give them that insight into what is sometimes a little bit of an elusive world that we know the buyer’s world, the buyer’s experience. So I would say for other enablers is how do you like to speak to your vendors? How often you know, what makes them stand out? What makes them noisy in your inbox, you know? When do you get those emails or outreach that you think, wow, I really wanna continue a conversation with that person. What did that person do? How can you bring that into your go to market? How can you bring that into your sales team if you’re an enabler who is perhaps not in the buying cycle? I would say. Spend time with your salespeople, really understanding the customer experience, and there are many ways that we can do this. Nowadays with technology, obviously everybody’s got call recording software, so we have a lot of our sales calls recorded. If you as an enabler are not digging in and really understanding what’s happening in those customer conversations, it’s going to be harder for yourself to be able to really get into the world of salespeople. So I would say, you know, you really need to experience. What the customer is going through. And that can be simply by having a look at those calls. Where were they successful? Where was there a positive outcome? Where did the buyer enjoy it? But then also where did the buyer sometimes mention things that were pains to them or where they would like to see improvements? What were the questions? That is where we really need our enablers to be on the front foot of really digging into the customer experience and almost spend as much time as you know with your customers, as you do with your salespeople, to really get that insight. RR: I think that’s fantastic advice to close on, is to put yourself in the buyer’s shoes, understand what they’re going through, and know for yourself what good looks like to you and drive that in your own business. So thank you again, Anabel. This has been a wonderful conversation full of all sorts of good insights that I really can’t wait to share with our community. I appreciate you joining us so much. AH: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me as well. Fantastic questions. RR: Amazing. Well, to our listeners, thank you for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement successful Highspot.
The B2B SaaS market is experiencing a significant slowdown with growth rates dropping, while traditional marketing channels deliver diminishing returns in an increasingly saturated landscape.• Marketing benchmarks show companies growing faster than 20% spend 10-15% of revenue on marketing, while slower-growing firms spend only 7-9%• Digital channels like SEO (search engine optimization), PPC (pay per click), and email are seeing declining performance metrics despite increased spending• Today's B2B buyer completes 80% of their journey independently, yet companies still allocate 70% of go-to-market resources to sales• "What's old is new again" – smaller, intimate events and personalized interactions are outperforming scalable digital tactics• Successful companies balance brand marketing (awareness) and demand generation (conversion) equally• Effective positioning requires elevating problems to the executive level by articulating significant business impact• AI isn't changing what we should measure but enables better personalization at scale across industries and personas• The brand versus demand debate represents a false dichotomy – both work synergistically to drive growthThe rules of B2B marketing are being rewritten before our eyes. In this revealing conversation with marketing benchmark expert Omar Akhtar and go-to-market guru AJ Gandhi, we unpack the surprising reality that most B2B SaaS companies are facing: we're effectively in a recession. Growth rates have plummeted from over 30% to just 11-20%, while traditional digital channels deliver diminishing returns despite increased spending.What's behind this troubling trend? Market saturation, poor tool integration, rapid commoditization, and fundamental shifts in buyer behavior all play a role.The most compelling insight? Companies growing faster than 20% annually are investing 10-15% of revenue in marketing, with a balanced approach between brand awareness and demand generation.Whether you're managing a marketing team, leading sales, or driving overall growth strategy, this episode offers critical benchmarks and tactical approaches for navigating today's challenging landscape. AJ Gandhi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anjaigandhi/AJ Gandhi is a distinguished Go-To-Market (GTM) leader and executive community builder. He currently serves as a Board Member for Plum Acquisition Corp. Additionally, he is a Limited Partner at Stage 2 Capital and GTMfund. AJ is also a co-founder of the GTM Leader Society. Just recently, AJ served as Chief Growth Officer for Marlin Equity Partners and held significant roles at Salesforce, Ring Central, Bain & and McKinsey. AJ is an alumnus of UC Berkeley and Harvard Business School.Omar Akhtar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omarbilalakhtar/Omar Akhtar is the Founder and Principal Analyst at Benchmarker, leading research on marketing excellence for B2B tech. Previously, he was Head of Research at Altimeter, a Prophet Company, where he advised Fortune 500 companies, including Microsoft, Salesforce, Adobe, and Netflix, on marketing, data, and content strategies. Omar got his undergraduate degree in economics from Ohio Wesleyan, and then got a Masters in Journalism from Columbia.Website: https://www.position2.com/podcast/Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/Sandeep Parikh: https://www.instagram.com/sandeepparikh/Email us with any feedback for the show: sparkofages.podcast@position2.com
“Doctors don’t want pharma reps to buy them dinner, right? They don’t. They want help in the five minutes that really matter,” Viz.ai’s CEO Chris Mansi and Salesforce’s Frank Defesche explain in this Vanguards of Health Care podcast episode. Mansi and Defesche sit down with Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matt Henriksson to talk about Viz.ai and its agentic AI platform that connects medical scans and images to the right diagnosis and treatment guidelines. Also tune in to learn how the Viz.ai platform aims to partner with Salesforce’s life-science division to improve pharmaceutical point-of-care workflow while providing more personalized care.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Join InfoBeans' Vice President, Sales, Sandeep Padhye, as he speaks with guest Vivek Mahapatra, Vice President, AI Product, Salesforce, about the rapidly evolving world of AI and its impact on the enterprise. They discussed the importance of "failing fast" and the critical elements for successful AI implementation, including trust, governance, and data integration.
This week, Workday hosted their annual user conference, Workday Rising 2025, taking the opportunity to announce a number of new releases and updates. In other news, CrowdStrike and Salesforce announced a new strategic partnership to enhance the security of AI agents and applications built on Agentforce and the Salesforce platform. To round out the week, Qlik announced the general availability of Qlik Open Lakehouse, a fully managed Apache Iceberg service in Qlik Talent Cloud.Connect with us!https://www.erpadvisorsgroup.com866-499-8550LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/erp-advisors-groupTwitter:https://twitter.com/erpadvisorsgrpFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/erpadvisorsInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/erpadvisorsgroupPinterest:https://www.pinterest.com/erpadvisorsgroupMedium:https://medium.com/@erpadvisorsgroup
In this episode of The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast, Heidrick & Struggles' Paula Davis speaks with Corey duBrowa, the global CEO of Burson and a seasoned communications leader whose career spans senior roles at Google, Salesforce, Starbucks, and Nike. Drawing on his decades of experience, Corey offers insights for today's corporate communications leaders on how to effectively harness AI, anticipate and respond to emerging trends, and guide CEOs and boards in framing and asking the right questions that shape strategy and reputation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What if everything you thought you knew about brand loyalty was just a myth? In this episode of Predictable B2B Success, host Vinay Koshy speaks with Ethan Decker, founder and president of Applied Brand Science, to shake up your assumptions about what drives actual brand growth. Ethan's fascinating journey from computational ecologist to global brand science expert is just the beginning; he dives deep into the science hiding behind successful brands, exposing why "brand stickiness" might trump loyalty in the real world. Together, they unpack the truths about buyer behavior, the importance of staying in touch with reality (not just PowerPoint reports!), and why even the biggest, most revered brands rely on a vast sea of casual customers rather than a handful of loyalists. From quirky brand mascots to the overlooked power of simple, sticky messaging, even in the B2B tech world, Ethan explains how to make your brand memorable and trusted. If you're ready to question some of marketing's most sacred cows and uncover research-backed strategies for growth, this conversation will leave you rethinking how your own business wins, retains, and reacquires customers. Don't miss these transformative insights, tune in now! Some areas we explore in this episode include: Ethan Decker's transition from science to marketing and its impact on his work.The science and evidence-based principles behind brand growth.The myth of brand loyalty versus the concept of brand stickiness.Common misconceptions businesses have about their customers.Measuring brand stickiness: recommended metrics and methods.B2B branding examples, including Volvo and Salesforce.The "Tourist Economy" model and its application to B2B.The "Banana Curve" or long-tail distribution of buyers in B2B markets.Rethinking customer retention versus acquisition and debunking loyalty myths.Integrating sales and marketing for effective revenue and brand growth.And much, much more...
Send us a textThe recent Salesforce layoffs shook the tech world—over 4,000 jobs cut globally. But if you're impacted, this isn't the end of your career—it could be the turning point. In this episode of The Hiring Edge by Joshforce, Josh Matthews is joined by Michael Vukovich (CEO, Wise Wolves) and Peter Ganza to deliver practical, proven strategies to help Salesforce professionals navigate layoffs and land their next opportunity.What you'll learn in this episode:Why jumping to another tech giant (like IBM or Oracle) may not be your best moveHow mid-sized companies can value your enterprise experience more than Fortune 500sSmart ways to leverage your Salesforce brand on platforms like LinkedIn, Upwork, and FiverrNetworking strategies that actually open doors (without coming across as desperate)Why venting on LinkedIn could sabotage your job search—and what to do insteadHow to reframe layoffs as an opportunity to upskill and reposition your careerThe small but powerful actions—like thank-you notes—that set candidates apartMindset shifts to process the change and move forward with confidenceIf you've been affected by layoffs, this conversation offers both immediate tactics and long-term career management advice.
Dime qué piensas del episodio.Mi invitada de hoy es María Pérezcalva @mariaperezcalva fundadora de Creando Talento, una firma que transforma la cultura organizacional de empresas líderes en Latinoamérica. María creció en un entorno donde la expectativa para una mujer no era trabajar, sino quedarse en su lugar. Hoy hablamos de su historia: cómo pasó de ser becaria en Unilever a emprendedora serial, mamá de tres hijos y referente en temas de compensación, estructura y cultura empresarial. Pero también exploramos sus luchas internas: la culpa materna, el divorcio, los sacrificios familiares, y la redefinición de éxito como mujer. Sigue Cracks Podcast en YouTube aquí."No tienes que hacerlo todo tú para demostrar tu valor."- María PerezcalvaComparte esta frase en TwitterEste episodio es presentado por Salesforce, el CRM de IA número uno en el mundo y su nueva solución, Agentforce y por Eight Sleep, la empresa lider en tecnología de sueño.. Qué puedes aprender hoyEl poder de soltar el controlCómo usar tu vulnerabilidad estratégicamenteEl valo de una pausa*Este episodio es presentado por Salesforce, el CRM de IA número uno en el mundo.Su nueva solución, Agentforce, no es simplemente un asistente digital. Es una suite de agentes autónomos diseñada para trabajar codo a codo con los equipos humanos, combinando datos unificados y capacidades avanzadas de IA para llevar a cabo tareas de forma autónoma o colaborar con los empleados en tiempo real. Salesforce integra todos tus datos en un solo ecosistema de IA. Los agentes de Agentforce pueden analizar y actuar sobre la información de cada cliente de manera segura y confiable, transformando cada rol y flujo de trabajo para alcanzar una escala operativa sin precedentes.Revoluciona tu negocio con Salesforce en cracks.la/agentforce*Si escuchas este podcast desde hace tiempo, ya sabes que yo uso el Pod de Eight Sleep… pero lo que quizá no sabes es que hoy no podría dormir sin él. De verdad. Mi esposa y yo lo amamos.El Pod 5 es la última generación de su funda de colchón inteligente, y junto con su nueva Blanket —que también regula la temperatura—, ha cambiado por completo nuestras noches. Ella duerme calientita, yo duermo fresco, y cada quien a su temperatura perfecta toda la noche.El Pod aprende de tus patrones de sueño y ajusta automáticamente la temperatura mientras duermes para que descanses más profundo y despiertes con más energía. Puede enfriar hasta 13 °C o calentar hasta 43 °C, y cada lado de la cama se controla por separado.Además, eleva la cama para reducir o eliminar los ronquidos cuando los detecta.Puedes tener $7,000 pesos de descuento en tu propio Pod 5 Ultra visitando www.eightsleep.com.mx/osotrava y usa el código OSOTRAVA. Ve el episodio en Youtube
Key Highlights from the Episode:2:55 – Why advisors avoid executing on tech integrations and what stops them from leveraging the tools available4:45 – How JEDI offers a cost-effective alternative to hiring full-time tech staff for CRM and custodial support6:10 – Data hygiene explained: why it matters for compliance, efficiency, and business valuation7:45 – Succession planning and clean data: how preparation today drives higher multiples tomorrow10:50 – Custodian and CRM integrations (Salesforce, Redtail, Wealthbox) that streamline advisor workflows13:00 – Why scalable, repeatable processes matter for growth and long-term success14:20 – The rise of AI tools in wealth management and how advisors can take advantage16:05 – JEDI's new partnerships: approved with Schwab, plus collaborations with Salesforce, Wealthbox, and Redtail18:10 – Freeing up staff through workflows and automation so advisors can focus on growth and client relationshipsResources:Elite Consulting Partners | Financial Advisor Transitions: https://eliteconsultingpartners.comElite Marketing Concepts | Marketing Services for Financial Advisors: https://elitemarketingconcepts.comElite Advisor Successions | Advisor Mergers and Acquisitions: https://eliteadvisorsuccessions.comJEDI Database Solutions | Technology Solutions for Advisors: https://jedidatabasesolutions.comListen to more Advisor Talk episodes: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/podcasts/Follow us on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/eliteconsultingpartners
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explore Workday's bold entry into the ERP space and share insights from my interview with Gerrit Kazmaier on how AI and data are reshaping enterprise software.Highlights00:24 — Last week, 30,000 people were at Workday's big Rising event in San Francisco. I had a chance to sit down with Product and Technology President Gerrit Kazmaier to talk about his views on how the Workday approach to ERP is going to be different from what we see from other players.01:08 — Kazmaier brings enterprise applications, data, data cloud, hyperscale — all those different backgrounds, expertise, and experiences — to Workday. And now he's taken a very aggressive agenda in these first six or seven months, leading up to this notion of ERP. Workday moved into the ERP space with a lot of new introductions, agents, and more at last week's Rising event.01:48 —And a couple of things that Kazmaier talks about: Kazmaier believes the ERP concept is right — giving business leaders a chance to see what's going on inside their companies from multiple perspectives with fully integrated applications. But he feels that the tools have been outdated, too difficult, too slow, too fragmented.02:08 —So Workday, although for its first 20 years had avoided getting into ERP, now feels that the time is right to give huge value to customers. Also, for the Data Cloud, it's now got partnerships to enhance the way it's able to give customers better use and value from the data they have. These include partnerships with Databricks, Snowflake, Microsoft, and Salesforce.02:54 —So that full interview with Gerrit Kazmaier, President of Products and Technology at Workday, is coming up here. It's got not just him in a new role, but also Rob Enslin, over the last several months, as Chief Commercial President and Chief Commercial Officer, and a new Chief Technology Officer, Peter Bayless, who came to Workday from Google Cloud. Visit Cloud Wars for more.
In this episode, Bob Evans chats with Gerrit Kazmaier, President, Products and Technology, Workday. They explore how Workday is evolving into a platform company, the role of AI agents in reshaping enterprise workflows, and why trust, accuracy, and extensibility are key to future-ready business solutions. Kazmaier also discusses Workday's approach to ecosystem innovation and composable ERP.Workday's AI FutureThe Big Themes:AI at the Core: Workday is reshaping how enterprises operate by embedding AI into the core of their business processes. This isn't about slapping AI onto legacy systems as a side panel or assistant. It's about redefining how people work, with AI-led experiences, purpose-built agents, and intelligent orchestration. From onboarding to payroll, Workday is transforming each layer of the enterprise with tools that understand business context.Open Platform and Data Integration: Customers demand flexibility and interoperability. Workday is responding by making openness a foundational principle — not just a tagline. Through partnerships with Snowflake, Databricks, Microsoft, and Salesforce, Workday ensures that enterprise data is not locked away but is seamlessly integrated across platforms. Whether you're building a forecasting model in Snowflake or enriching financials in Workday, the data now flows freely.Workday's Focus: Kazmaier referenced a quote: “Technology evolves from primitive to complex to simple.” Today's ERP systems sit in the “complex” phase — bloated, hard to manage, and expensive. Workday's goal is to move ERP into the “simple” era. That means intuitive, intelligent systems that just work — powered by AI, open by design, and personalized for each user. The aim is to empower CEOs to drive outcomes, and employees to thrive at work, without wading through process chaos or outdated tools.The Big Quote: “I frankly think that today, the default is that vendors have a slew of generic agents, they hand them over to their customers, and wish them good luck in figuring out how it's supposed to work. When we say, open AI platform, I talk about purpose-built frameworks and tools like our new Agent Builder . . . so that you can seamlessly compose, you know, workflows in the definition and context of your business and expect them to work with high accuracy and reliability, without becoming an AI expert yourself."Learn more:Follow Gerrit on LinkedIn, and read more about Workday and agentic AI. Visit Cloud Wars for more.
We studied Palantir for 200+ hours to understand how its stock keeps growing, how the company handles sales and marketing, and to understand why it's such a cultural phenomenon. Thanks for tuning in! Catch new episodes every Sunday Don't miss GTM2025 — the only B2B tech conference exclusively for GTM executives. Use code TOPLINE for 10% off your GA ticket. Subscribe to Topline Newsletter. Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and Palantir's Enigmatic CEO 00:53 Welcome to Top Line 03:39 Diving into Palantir's Business 09:52 Palantir's Government and Commercial Ventures 22:41 The Role of Sales in Palantir's Success 32:33 Sales Culture and Treatment 34:00 The Role of Salespeople in Product-Led Companies 35:01 Challenges and Opportunities in Sales 38:12 Palantir's Go-To-Market Strategy 45:06 Salesforce vs. Palantir: Market Cap Battle 46:33 HubSpot's Potential and Challenges 55:29 AI Predictions and Impact on Business 59:17 AI in Personal and Professional Life 01:03:58 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
I'm so excited about this episode. I have a good friend and co-host of our new podcast joining me. We're here to introduce Sales 101: The B2B Classroom.It's a podcast for sales professors on how you can help guide the next generation of sellers in our industry. Students and those already in the industry can still listen in — we share plenty of tips that can help you as well.Growth of College Sales Programs· BJ and I have taught sales at Brigham Young University for years. We're starting to notice the growth of college sales programs compared to 20 years ago. BJ shares that there's been a 50% increase in sales programs.· What's so great about this is that students are able to gain sales skills before entering the field. It's also an untapped recruiting source for modern B2B organizations.Hands-On Training in Academia· College sales programs allow students to gain real-life skills using frameworks like Challenger, SPIN,and MEDDIC, as well as industry tools (Salesforce, HubSpot).· They get time to role-play, use simulations, and gain practical hands-on experience.· For example, I shared a story about how students at BYU won sponsorship deals for their local theater.Integration of AI in Sales Education· I play a clip from Professor Barry on how he's using AI tools to enhance role play, research, and call analysis while teaching his students.· This shows how college sales programs can help students learn to use AI-powered techniques for outreach, efficiency, and analytics.Why Listen to Sales 101: The B2B Classroom· Besides hearing our handsome voices, you'll learn directly from sales college professionals and industry leaders about what's working and what's not. You'll also hear firsthand from students about their real experiences in the field.· This podcast bridges thegap between academic sales programs and real-world B2B selling. · We spotlight the latest trends in sales education, share best practices from top university programs, and reveal how savvy companies are tapping into this talent pool to build their sales teams of the future.“We have one goal and that is to get our students jobs. We understand in order to get our students jobs, that theory doesn't cut it alone.” - Dr. BJ Allen."They're not only getting the book smart. They're getting learning from industry leaders, from guest lecturers, and they're getting practice." - Donald Kelly. ResourcesSales 101: The B2B Classroom PodcastSponsorship Offers1. This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.2. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.3. This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the