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When your self-hosted services become infrastructure, breakage matters. We tackle monitoring that actually helps, alerts you won't ignore, and DNS for local, and multi-mesh network setups.Sponsored By:Jupiter Party Annual Membership: Put your support on automatic with our annual plan, and get one month of membership for free! Managed Nebula: Meet Managed Nebula from Defined Networking. A decentralized VPN built on the open-source Nebula platform that we love. Support LINUX UnpluggedLinks:

#323 | Anthony Pierri from Fletch PMM joins Dave to talk about what actually matters in B2B positioning and messaging. They break down how to think about value props, why buyers don't care about your features, and what makes a homepage instantly click. Anthony shares lessons on positioning from working with hundreds of early-stage B2B SaaS companies and explains how to connect real customer problems to clear outcomes. Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive. AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.Visit exitfive.com/retreat to apply for Exit Five's first-ever, in-person Marketing Leadership Retreat, March 18–20, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Join 100 CMOs and VPs of Marketing from companies like like Zoom, Snowflake, Manychat, Bitly, G2, HP, and more for two days of thinking bigger around a trusted group of peers in marketing. ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

When it comes to working in military intelligence, strong leadership skills and the ability to make quick decisions under pressure are key. Just as important to a mission's success is being a good team player.Those were the lessons and skills Chris Stillwell '24 carried into his two career pivots after his time working as a military intelligence officer for the U.S. Army. His first pivot landed him a role at Kearney in Dubai focusing on M&A integration and strategy consulting. Chris then decided to pursue an MBA at Rice Business to sharpen his financial skills and pivot once again into the world of investment banking. Now an investment banking associate at Bank of America, Chris joins co-host Brian Jackson '21 to discuss his military experience, why he chose Rice, how the program helped him make a major career transition, and his advice to those considering an MBA to pursue new career opportunities. Episode Guide:00:00 Introduction to Chris Stillwell01:03 Military Intelligence: Separating Fact From Fiction02:15 Roles and Responsibilities in the Army03:08 Leadership and Decision Making in High-Pressure Situations08:07 From Military to Consulting09:49 Living Abroad: Challenges and Cultural Insights15:02 Transitioning to an MBA at Rice University18:13 Involvement and Networking at Rice20:56 Entering Investment Banking: Preparation and Challenges25:37 Day-to-Day in Investment Banking28:46 Advice for Career Pivoters and VeteransThe Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.Episode Quotes:The moment Chris realized that Rice gave him an edge over his peers[20:48] Brian: Going into investment banking, was there, like, now an elevated sense of confidence of, Okay, I've done this before; I'll do it again?[20:56] Chris: Maybe some blind confidence sometimes. Yeah, you could even ask my parents. I went home for like four days for the Christmas break the year I was recruiting. And I was studying flashcards with my mom of all the IB 400 questions. And I was like, “I'm not going to get a job. You know, like all these people around me are much smarter than me. There's a really—we've got a really talented pool of candidates that are recruiting this year.” But you know, I felt like at the end of the day, the Finance Association and Rice, just the classes I took, really prepared me to understand the basics of finance, the basics that are expected of the interview process. And then, going forward, I saw when I started as an intern at the bank, I went to New York for a week…We were training with all these people from all these different schools, going to all these different groups in the bank, and some people didn't even know what a DCF was or didn't know how to do it that well, I should say. We were doing some practice problems, and I was like, “Wow, we're actually far ahead of a lot of these other schools and people.” So that was kind of good to see that Rice really put an effort into training us up. What Chris learned about leadership through three career pivots[30:15] There are certain people who can be leaders and are very good at being leaders. But being a good leader in the military might not translate to being a good leader at banking. And a lot of times you actually see that, or you see military officers leave the military and go into the corporate world and not be as successful. Because I really think you do need to tailor your leadership style to the one the industry you're working in, and two, the people you're working with, you know, different ways of operating motivate people differently. Like in the military, you could yell at somebody and hold them to a higher standard and maybe they'll do it. But if you yelled at somebody like, you know, a marketing job, they probably would shut down and that'd be the end of it. It really doesn't work the same. The leadership style is something that you have to adjust to the area you're working in.On how his military experience strengthened his teamwork skills[04:03] In the military, you are a leader, but you learn how to be a good follower as well. And I think what you do with that is that you are able to have great teamwork. You're able, like in my current job now, I have an analyst underneath me, but I have people like VPs and MDs above me and I can understand what their intent is and what we need to get accomplished in our day-to-day job, but also articulate to the people below me, Hey, this is the intent and this is how we do it. So it's kind of been very helpful in those soft skills.On how Rice gave him the academic foundation he needed[16:49] My reasons for going to Rice were great, but once I got there, I appreciated it a lot more. I really got exposed to, I mean, I was looking for some things like smaller classrooms for example. Like a lot of people we hire from Kearney were from Yale or HBS, and their class size was like a thousand people. And maybe you didn't have a lot of rigor in terms of academics. I think Rice, especially in the first term, really forces you to go to classes to do your homework, to learn the materials. And that was attractive to me as well, because I didn't come from a finance background at all. So I didn't even know what a DCF was before I came to Rice. So I was very grateful at that, you know, getting to Rice and realizing that it was such a good platform to be integrated into.Show Links: TranscriptGuest Profile:Chris Stillwell | LinkedIn

#322 | Louis Grenier joins Dave for a conversation about what it actually takes to stand out in B2B marketing when everything feels the same. Louis sent Dave 10 surprise gifts to open during the show, and each one sparks a conversation about marketing, career, and life. They talk about the reality of how people decide to buy and why Louis is so focused on timeless fundamentals.Timestamps(00:00) - — Timeless marketing vs the AI hype (05:24) - — The colonoscopy story. (12:44) - — Trojan Horse marketing. Get attention first. Sell later. Stop leading with your product. (17:44) - — Why you can't create demand, only redirect it. (23:24) - — Category creation vs sub-categories. Most startups get this wrong. (26:14) - — Meaning-free brand assets. Why weird mascots and visuals actually work. (33:18) - — How to sell bold ideas internally without asking for permission. (37:08) - — Ads that look like ads fail. Attention is the job. (45:48) - — Triggers vs pain points. How people actually decide to buy. (51:08) - — First principles, repetition, history, and why this stuff still works no matter the tech wave. Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive. AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.Visit exitfive.com/retreat to apply for Exit Five's first-ever, in-person Marketing Leadership Retreat, March 18–20, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Join 100 CMOs and VPs of Marketing from companies like like Zoom, Snowflake, Manychat, Bitly, G2, HP, and more for two days of thinking bigger around a trusted group of peers in marketing. ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

Happy 2026. This Episode is hosted by Chris Maffeo and brought to you by MAFFEO DRINKS. A Deep-Dive Analysis of This Episode is Available at maffeodrinks.com Eric Franco, a former SABMiller colleague, recently Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Brewdog USA and entrepreneur who started as a bar owner, joins for a discussion validating core bottom-up principles through battlefield experience.Working long days running his own bar before selling for global brands, the conversation confirms what becomes clear through market observation: everyone agrees on bottom-up methodology in theory, but execution fails when immediate gratification culture, social media distortion, and funding pressure collide with foundational discipline.The discussion explores patterns visible across markets: brands hiring VPs before mastering founder-led selling, Target distribution forcing unsustainable multi-state expansion, and burning retail relationships in concentrated markets.Eric's owner-operator perspective adds depth to the systematic approach to channel selection, geographic expansion, and the three-year foundation period required before authentic scaling becomes possible. ​Timestamps00:00 Introduction and Catching Up01:11 Defining 'Bottom Up' in Brand Building04:36 Challenges in Brand Growth and Market Expectations09:41 The Importance of Local Market Mastery15:16 Balancing Big Opportunities with Realistic Growth32:02 Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up This episode is brought to you by MAFFEO DRINKS, an Advisory helping drinks leaders execute bottom-up growth while managing stakeholder expectations. You can get in touch at bottomup@maffeodrinks.com 

Women leaders face declining sponsorship support—only 31% have sponsors compared to 45% of men (McKinsey, 2025). Neuroscience reveals storytelling activates unique brain patterns that make your achievements memorable and promotable. Learn the immersion framework that transforms ordinary experiences into extraordinary career opportunities for women managers, directors, and VPs.

Why B2B Lead Qualification Fails and How to Fix It  Traffic is cheap, but qualified B2B sales conversions are not. Too many CMOs in the B2B space are watching brilliant creative go to waste at the top of the marketing funnel because what's passing through as a “qualified lead” often isn't really qualified. How can B2B marketers identify where the real lead qualification bottleneck is? Why is rethinking how MQLs are defined, scored, and routed one the most strategic fixes a CMO can make to improve pipeline performance? That's why we're talking to Gabe Lullo (CEO, Alleyoop), who shared some insights around why B2B lead qualification fails and how to fix it at the top of the funnel. During our discussion, Gabe challenged the common misconception that poor lead quality is the issue when sales aren't closing. Instead, he emphasized the importance of a clearly-defined Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), a strong product-market fit, and a well-mapped B2B sales journey. Gabe also stressed the need for A/B testing, identifying and resolving funnel bottlenecks, and using data-driven decision-making to improve lead conversion rates. He underscored the value of nurturing leads and cautioned B2B marketers against dismissing traditional marketing channels without rigorous testing. https://youtu.be/KXVmywNsfP0 Topics discussed in episode: [02:36] Why top-of-funnel lead qualification breaks down in B2B. [16:37] How to define and operationalize your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). [12:17] When MQLs hurt more than they help, and how to fix them. [26:14] How A/B testing and data-driven decisions improve lead conversion. [27:53] Why lead nurturing is critical to long sales cycles. [34:05] When to test (not abandon) traditional B2B marketing channels. Companies and links mentioned: Gabe Lullo on LinkedIn  Alleyoop  ZoomInfo  Salesloft  Adobe  Transcript SPEAKERS Gabe Lullo, Christian Klepp Gabe Lullo  00:00 So we’re doing top of funnel activities, and then we’re sending leads over. The sales team takes them, and then what we find, a lot, we hear this all the time, is leads aren’t closing. And what’s interesting is that it was never a lead problem. It was more of a, you know, seller problem. I don’t mean to put blame on it, but companies come to us saying, hey, my sellers are saying we don’t have enough leads, we don’t have better leads, we don’t have good leads, and they’re the ones complaining about the lead. So they come to us to fix the lead problem. We fix the lead problem, but it doesn’t fix the revenue problem. It’s still not closing. So what is it? Christian Klepp  00:30 Traffic is cheap, but conversion is not too many CMOs (Chief Marketing Officer) are watching brilliant, creative go to waste at the top of the funnel, because what’s passing through as qualified just isn’t so how can you identify where the real bottleneck is, and why is rethinking how MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) are defined and scored the single most strategic fix? A CMO can make welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Gabe Lullo, who will be answering these questions. He’s the CEO of Alleyoop, a sales development agency working with industry giants such as ZoomInfo, Salesloft and Adobe. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B Marketers Mission is, and off we go. Mr. Gabe Lullo, welcome to the show, sir. Gabe Lullo  01:17 Christian. Thank you so much. First off, I’m a huge fan of yours, so is my team, and we just appreciate all that you do for the industry. And I’m so excited to be here. Thanks for the invite. Christian Klepp  01:28 Wow, wow. Thank you. Thank you so much. Right off the gate with the praise, thank you, sir. Gabe Lullo  01:33 Well, you deserve it, man, you’re the best. What do you do. I love it. I love your show, and I love being a part of that. Christian Klepp  01:38 I appreciate that. I appreciate that. You know, we really had an awesome, like, pre-interview conversation. I’m gonna say, like, you know, talking about coming up to Toronto and Buffalo and what have you. And I’m really looking forward to this conversation, Gabe, because, man, you know, what? As much as some Marketers probably don’t want to hear this. It’s an, I think this is an absolutely necessary conversation to have. Right this topic that we’re going to talk about, and I will not keep the audience in suspense for too long. I’m just going to jump into the first question, if you don’t mind. Gabe Lullo  02:09 Yeah, no problem. Let’s get right into it. Christian Klepp  02:11 All right, so Gabe, you’re on a mission to provide the ultimate assist to your clients by setting them up for success. So for this conversation, let’s zero in on the following topic of how B2B Marketers can fix qualification at the top. So here comes the first question in our previous conversation. You talked about many marketing funnels being a leaky bucket. Can you please explain what you meant by that? Gabe Lullo  02:36 Yeah, I think companies right now are going to market in a very hodgepodge type of way, you know, ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), you know, we throw that terminal around a lot, and, you know, people think they know what it is, or feel like they have it drilled down, or feel like it’s completely locked, locked in. And then clients invite us in, and we realize it’s not the case, and it’s not just what the ideal client profile is, which, of course, is quintessential to going to market, and it’s really the first step to qualification, isn’t it, right? But on the other side of it, it is, you know, is there a product market fit? Is there a pricing that needs to be aligned? What’s the competitive landscape look like? So when we’re having live conversations, our sellers are making, you know, 11 million cold calls a year. That’s front of the line conversations, right? And we can hear, understand, and truly, you know, debrief with what each call is sounding like, so we can then narrow in what those qualifications should be. You know, a lot of you know, let’s say VPs of sales come into the sales development side of the house or the marketing side of the house, and they apply sales training methodologies to top of funnel qualifications, and it really gets broken as well. So there’s a lot to unpack, but I’ll give you an example. You know, band for instance, but you know budget authority needed timing. Like, is that really the right qualification at the top of the funnel, or does that really, you know, evolve the seller and the demo and the discovery call at that moment in time. So really understanding who’s in charge of that top of funnel and what their experience is also as a part of it, in my opinion. Christian Klepp  04:13 Absolutely, absolutely and you’re absolutely right. There’s so much to unpack here, but I have to ask just from your experience, and I know you have a lot, it seems like it’s just, there’s so many moving parts in this ecosystem, and a lot of like, well, what causes the leaky funnel? I’m gonna say is a lot of the things that you just mentioned, right? It’s a lack of understanding of who the actual ICP is. It’s probably also, especially the bigger the the organization gets sorry to everyone out there, but the lack of ownership and accountability, the lack of an actual strategy, like, where’s this all gonna go? Right? Gabe Lullo  04:54 Oh, it’s interesting. Yeah, I find this to be our except we so we’re doing top of the funnel activities, and we’re sending leads over, the sales team takes them, and then what we find, a lot, we hear this all the time, is leads aren’t closing. And what’s interesting is that it was never a lead problem. It was more of a seller problem. Now I don’t mean to put blame on it, but companies come to us saying, hey, my sellers are saying we don’t have enough leads, we don’t have better leads, we don’t have good leads, and they’re the ones complaining about the lead so they come to us to fix the lead problem. We fix the lead problem, but it doesn’t fix the revenue problem. It’s still not closing. So what is it? It’s the entire channel, right? It’s the entire sales journey, and we have to make sure that all of those things are working like an engine, right? All the cylinders are working at the same time in the same motion, to truly know what the problem may be. So that that’s really exposed a lot when we step in and start doing top of funnel activities, Christian Klepp  05:55 Absolutely, absolutely. And that segues into the next question, which I feel you’ve already answered to a certain extent. But where do you feel the true bottleneck lies, and that may be dependent on the company, right? Because each company maybe has a different set of challenges. And most importantly, okay, where does the bottleneck lie? And how do how can B2B Marketing teams help address the bottleneck and not be part of the bottleneck? Gabe Lullo  06:21 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s an eight step approach to sales. That’s what we call your sales journey, right? You have, obviously, you know, list building, and then we have, of course, outreach, we have qualification, we have discovery call, we have demo, we have, you know, closing or negotiating. We have client success. I mean, that’s the basic funnel, if you will. So is our, I should say, all of those things operating at the best of its ability. And what is broken, and it’s, it’s the old, you know, Henry Ford approach the assembly line. You know, there’s an assembly line and building a car, and there’s an assembly line in sales. And you have to know those steps, firstly, two, you have to know if those steps are working correctly, and figure out where that bottleneck is, and then, you know, take those blockers away so that those cars are flowing in and the production line doesn’t stop and we’re, you know, executing on the results that we need to serve our clients. Christian Klepp  07:16 100% agree. But now I’m gonna throw in another like wild card question, and I know you can handle it, right? When companies like yours come in to help organizations, right, there are times, even from my own experience, where the internal teams look at you and go, What are those guys doing here? Right? Like, is my job on the line. So they feel, they feel threatened, right by by somebody coming in and providing an external perspective. So I guess the question is, how do you deal with that kind of push back to help fix this leaky marketing funnel? Gabe Lullo  07:57 Yeah, it’s very important, right? Because a lot of companies come, you know, come in like us, and say, You know what, we’re going to come in here and try to solve the problem, or rip and replace or threaten the job. And it’s interesting, our point of contact, usually is the person who may be, you know, being fired because of our success. Well, we don’t want to approach it that way. So we set clear expectations that, hey, listen, we’re not here to rip and replace we are here to work as a parallel to what you’re existing doing, so we can A/B test and share best practices and be collective in those results. A lot of companies who have existing teams in place usually put us in scenarios where we’re bringing something new to market, or we’re reaching out to a market that is you know, you know, a new product line or a new segment, and we’re bringing that in. We do, however, see about a 20 to 30% increase in existing production when an outside partner comes in, because, again, we are sharing best practices. We’re all working together, but there is some pressure on the line when they see it. You know, another great player on the team playing ball. However, we did put a mechanism in place that really helps alleviate the fear, if you will, of that rip and replace scenario. Very unique thing to us, only a handful of companies I know about, of hundreds and if not thousands, that do what we do, do this. And here’s what it is, a lot of companies want to hire everything within and bring everything in house, in the sales development side within, because they graduate those people into account executives or closers or higher level performers or managers, so that graduation of career placement is there if you do it in house. So what we say is, you know what? You can have that great feeling of growing and building your team in house with us too. So all of our reps (representatives) who come work here, and all of our clients who enroll with us know that they can hire our reps and and bring them into their payroll and into their in house team with our help. So that’s a really good way of curving the fear, because they know, hey, this person who’s executing this outbound activity could be our next closer, and we can hire them to not take again, to not take away from what their current teams are doing, but to add to and grow that existing team they have. Christian Klepp  10:14 Absolutely, absolutely, and you know where I’m going with this, right? Because, like, you know, far too often, especially the higher ups that are not involved in the day to day, that are looking at this from the, I call it the Mount Olympus perspective, right, looking down at the land of the living, right? Like, why are you bringing in an external partner? Isn’t that your job to fix it? Right? But there are benefits to your point of, like, bringing in somebody that’s external, that’s not privy to, perhaps, some of the bias, some of the, certainly, the, certainly the organizational like dynamics and politics, which may, may be more detrimental than useful, right? Gabe Lullo  10:50 Yeah. I mean, we do punchy contracts, right? We have a six month minimum engagement. But so when we do that, you know, we’re saying, Hey, listen, we’re, we’re going to work with you for six months. We’re going to give it everything we got. And if it’s something you want to bring in-house from our team, great. If it’s you want to continue, great, or if you’ve learned a lot and you’re able to duplicate our efforts, also great too. So again, we’re not going in there saying, Oh, this is our world. Now. Get out of the way. Good luck, you know, and giving pink slips to people, it’s about really, again, how can we help? How can we assist? How can we hit this number? It’s not getting hit. There has to be reasons why. And let’s figure those numbers out, and let’s figure out the reasons why. And then, and then we move on, you know. So there’s short contracts, and then there’s very, very long contracts, you know, ZoomInfo has been a client off and on for the last decade. We’re doing a program right now where they just launched a lot of cool things, and we’re helping them so companies like that, size and stature, still come to outside help when necessary, when the timing is right and the fit is right. Christian Klepp  11:55 Amazing. Amazing. All right. Next question. So why do you believe rethinking how MQLs are defined and scored as the most strategic fix that a CMO can make, and what are some of these other key pitfalls that Marketers should avoid, and what should they be doing instead? I mean, let’s, let’s keep the conversation constructive here, right? Gabe Lullo  12:17 So defining and scoring MQLs is by far one of the first things, if not the most important thing, to start with, right? Because that is, again, the start of that assembly line. You know, garbage in, garbage out. And so if we’re not actually understanding why those MQLs are, the MQLs that we are saying they are, and what those triggering events are causing them to be considered. MQLs could truly dictate whether or not we’re receiving garbage into the funnel versus excellence and extraordinary leads and MQLs into the funnel. So again, it’s going back to that ICP, like we discussed earlier. It’s determining, okay, are these worthy and does it make sense to continue this, lead this MQL down the funnel, and will it produce results? Should it even be in the system at all? So knowing that up front, like I said earlier, it’s like the raw material. You know, if you have really bad raw material that you’re using to build your cars, you know, no matter how great it comes out at the other end, it’s not going to be a quality vehicle. So it’s that, it’s the raw material that we need to make sure that’s first and foremost, because it’s the start of the entire process. Christian Klepp  13:29 Yeah, yeah, no, that’s for sure. Because, you know, how many times have you heard that, right? Like the marketing team says, well, we’ve, we’ve got, we’ve generated the MQLs, we’ve passed them on to the sales team now, so we’re good, yeah, but that’s not where it stops, right? Like, so especially if the MQLs are, like, not qualified, right? Gabe Lullo  13:48 No, I couldn’t agree with you more. And again, having sales and marketing work synergistically in that determination is paramount. You know, so many companies, and it’s the old adage, and I think it’s almost a cliche now, because it’s been said so many times that you know, sales is throwing spears over the fence to marketing, and marketing is throwing another spear back to them, and they’re fighting back and forth over this wall. The deal is, you got to break down the wall and start having conversations. And again, sellers have to give feedback on why we’re seeing this to not be the right fit, and Marketers have to be curious and asking what those things may be happening on those conversations, so they can go find the MQLs that that is worthy. Christian Klepp  14:30 Absolutely, absolutely. And on that topic, what are some of these other pitfalls that marketers should be looking out for, and what should they be doing instead? Gabe Lullo  14:39 Yeah, I think what right now is that you have to really understand your channels. You know, a lot of Marketers right now are doubling down on things that may not be producing the results that they have been expecting. Maybe a year from now, two years from now, every company is different, every ICP is different, and every industry is different. I’ll give you an example. You know, if you’re reaching out to sellers and you know, red. Heads of revenue, you have to have a totally different approach than if you’re reaching out to VPs of technology and cyber security. Now that may sound basic, but if you were coming from a company and you’re in your head of marketing, and you’re coming from a company where your ICP and your persona is all tech based companies, or all tech based personas, and you go into a new industry or a new company, and you come with that lens. It’s not the right approach. You know, sellers like to pick up the phone. They think they’re customers. They use the phone all day long. They pick up the phone all the time. Maybe that’s the right channel, right? CTOs (Chief Technology Officers), CIOs (Chief Information Officers), CSOs (Chief Security Officers), they are not usually picking up the phone. Maybe they’re their channels significantly different, and so you have to realize, understand what your persona is, so you can do marketing activities towards that total addressable market that resonate and hit home and get their attention. And it could be just as much as where they live in regards to where, where do they associate with, what, what channel are they living on? Are they people that pick up the phone? Are they ones that live on LinkedIn? Are they ones that go to Instagram? Are they ones that go to conferences? Where is your audience? And know that first and then go talk to them? Christian Klepp  16:10 That’s definitely a great insight. You know it. I know it. The problem is that there’s so many teams out there that skip this part, right? Like that, like that. That detailed breakdown you just gave us about the different let’s call them like, the different personas, the different behaviors, the different channels, like, Why do you think a lot of teams out there skip this part? Is it because of the the time crunch, the pressure to deliver immediately is all of the above? Gabe Lullo  16:37 Yeah, I think, you know, there’s a lot of boardrooms out there. They come out with this unique product, and then with all they do is they do is they look at the TAM, what’s the total addressable market? But that’s like saying, I want to go catch a tuna fish. But you know, let’s just look at the entire ocean. Like, okay, we have to be more specific. Where do the tuna fish actually swim? Where part of Do they like warm water? Do they like the coast? Are they more towards New Zealand, or are they up towards the Massachusetts? So you have to know where your school of fish are. If you want to go fishing, you can’t just look at the entire ocean as the market. And I think narrowing it down to understand patterns and where people are so you can go talk to them is the right approach, versus this spray and pray mentality that I feel marketing has been living in for many, many years, and now it’s becoming more self evident because of AI, right? Because AI can tell us a lot of these things. AI can do a lot of analysis and research, and it’s giving us insights that we’ve never been able to really see before because of the speed and quickness of it. And so I think we are getting to a point, and I’m hopeful that we are more specific with our total addressable markets in new companies specifically that may not have the experience or the capacity like they used to. And I think it’s exciting. Christian Klepp  16:37 Oh Gabe, you just open the door to another question there. Man. Gabe Lullo  16:37 Like, start with an A. Christian Klepp  16:37 Yeah, it starts with an A. But, like, you know, since you brought it up, I’ve got to ask AI, right? Gabe Lullo  16:37 Yeah. Christian Klepp  16:37 And in terms of, like, helping to fix a leaky marketing funnel, how do you from your experience and your perspective, how do you think AI is helpful, and how is it harmful? Gabe Lullo  17:23 Sure. I mean double edged sword, right? We love AI. We accept it. We know it’s here. We’re not scared of it. We’re not running away from it, but we’re also not ripping and replacing things too abruptly with with the implementation of it, either. For instance, I’ll give you real examples. Are we telling AI to go make cold calls? Well, no, it’s illegal, technically. Secondly, are we using it, though, on the flip side, to train our reps on how to effectively handle great questions and objections through an AI sparring partner? Yeah, we are, and it’s amazing at it. So we actually have our reps when they’re brand new and onboarding or launching into a new campaign. We program the robot, the AI right to be able to have conversations in real life time with our reps, to literally spar with them. And it’s like practice. It’s a sparring partner before they go live onto a campaign, and it prepares them immensely before the live show, before they’re before they’re active, right on the campaign. So this is one way we’re doing it. Other ways, obviously email, messaging, obviously personalization, obviously research, you know, pre-call research, account research, determining who’s picking up the phone when they pick up the phone, how many times does it take to call them? You know, time zones? What’s the best time to call them? And it’s crazy what it could do, but it’s really, really helpful. But it’s not a crutch. It’s an assistant, and that’s how we’re approaching it. It’s not replacing human to human communication. If it was. Maybe you and I would just have our AI avatars do this podcast right instead of we’ll be on a beach somewhere, maybe we’ll be there in the future. I’m not predicting it, but I will say there’s a huge, significant role it plays right now, but it is not a role that’s, in my opinion, supposed to replace everything. It can replace a lot, but not everything. Christian Klepp  20:20 Absolutely. I mean, it certainly requires a lot of like, human intervention, right? And it’s and it’s constantly learning, and it’s learning quickly, which I think is to its benefit, to its detriment. And I think that’s, that’s your point as well. There’s a lot of stuff out there that’s AI generated that just looks off, starting with videos even, even like in I don’t know if you’ve dabbled with Google notebook, right? It can, it can take all that content and turn it into an audio file. And it’s scary. How real it sounds. Gabe Lullo  20:54 It is pretty scary. And I have seen tools like that. I love there’s one right now, where it’s actually tracking not even what someone is saying, but how they’re saying it. So tonality, right is a huge piece of communication, as we know, and so it’s literally listening to calls and sales calls, and not just again, we’ve seen it before, like, you know, Gong and others, where it’s telling, hey, maybe say this. Don’t say that, but it’s also giving that score of how they’re delivering that message, which, in my world, is huge because, you know, I could read a script, or I can, you know, have an amazing performance, and that’s how we approach, you know, the way we communicate on a phone call. So that is why we’re so excited. Because there’s new tools coming out all the time that are really, really impactful, for sure. Christian Klepp  21:42 Absolutely, absolutely. So you’ve touched on this a little bit like in the past couple of minutes, but explain how market research and strategy help to develop a solid marketing funnel, not a leaky one. Gabe Lullo  21:55 Yeah. I mean, I think it’s your playbook, right? You know, you have to have a built out playbook, and it’s your guide. And it’s not just important to go to market with a playbook, but it’s also going to market to scale, right? You know, once you get it to work, the ever everything after that is, how do we duplicate and how do we scale? So the playbook is that design is the architecture behind your strategy. So when we do start pouring fuel on the fire and we’re adding people, we’re adding leads, we’re adding workflows, we’re adding everything outside of that, we still go back to the playbook. It’s like the Constitution, right? Everything based off that in our country. I know we’re in different ones, but my point is is, is you have a framework, right, that we go off of and that playbook is so vital to our importance of market research gives us a great understanding of where that playbook is built and how it’s designed and how it’s architected, and that’s how we that’s how we do it here. Christian Klepp  22:55 And even how the playbook can be iterated, right? Because let’s not forget that it’s not written in stone. Gabe Lullo  23:01 Evolving. Yeah, absolutely. I do want to warn people, though, evolve with time. Be patient, right? You know, marketing, sales, development, it’s not a light switch. Yeah, I always say it’s like boiling water, right? So a watch pot technically does boil. It’s just painful to watch. So, but the point is, is that you have to give it enough time to see if that playbook is yielding results. What you don’t want to do is change the play, you know, too many times in the middle of the game, because then you look confused and confused. People do nothing, right? So, yes, is it evolving? Does it pivot? Does it grow? Do you do you change things up, of course. But also you want to do it in a tactful timeline to make sure that it is truly a working playbook or not. Christian Klepp  23:47 Absolutely, absolutely. And you brought something up, and I have to ask this, this next question, it’s… We know, from a marketing point of view, that rolling out these initiatives and seeing the results takes time, yeah, but we’ve had, I’ve certainly had this experience in B2B, that there are people, again, at the top, that don’t have oversight into the day to day, and probably also don’t understand quite how the process works, that don’t have that patience, right, that are telling you, like, hurry up and deliver like, we want results right now. So what do you say to those, I guess the people that are doubting that this initiative needs more time than they think it does. Gabe Lullo  24:30 Yeah. I mean, I think looking at benchmarks and case studies and past results is very important, like I said, Back to the boiling of water. You can show a thermometer as well, like you can see, is it working well? You can put a thermometer in a boiling pot of water and watch the temperature go up, right? And it gives you a clear indication and forecast, if you will, that you’re going to achieve boiling point eventually. It’s not just again, you put the water in and then. And you all of a sudden, measure boiling. You have to measure along the way, and that’s we want to do. So what the ways we do it specifically is, if we’re working on a campaign that is almost a look alike campaign to another company, maybe it’s in the same industry, same ICP, you know, same your size, same scope, we can look at that historical result and say, Hey, by the way, if we do these, these, these and these, you’re going to we’re going to expect boiling point at this time based on a company that’s very similar to yours. Now, is it identical? No, maybe that company has really bad sellers we talked about. Maybe that company doesn’t really care about content and they’re just missing the boat there. Maybe they have a crappy website, like, I don’t, there’s different levers that could, you know, alter the recipe, but we can absolutely make highly educated guesses, as opposed to just trying to wing it or give false expectations. Christian Klepp  25:54 Yeah, yeah, no, that’s absolutely right, all right. I mean, you’ve given us a lot of, like, recommendations, a lot of actionable tips. So walk us through, and I know it varies from company to company and case by case, but walk us through the process of how you actually fix a leaky marketing funnel. Like, what are the steps? What are those key components that absolutely have to be in that process? Gabe Lullo  26:14 Yeah, you have to, you know, inspect what you expect. You have to understand what your messaging is, and you have to A/B test it all the time. I A/B test everything, whether it’s data vendors, whether it’s email messaging, whether it’s LinkedIn content, what you have, obviously mechanisms, depending on what tech you’re working with, what vendors you’re working with, or your history or historical results are to give you grades and scores and A/B testing everything. So if you have, you know campaigns that are running that are successful, you should be able to know how to measure that. That’s what’s so important. So you have to have inspect, inspection tools in place across everything you’re doing on those campaigns to tell you, Hey, this is broken, this is leaky. This isn’t working. Or on the flip side, this is crushing right now. This is totally resonating right now, and we’re loving these, seeing these numbers, and then pour fuel on that fire and focus on that and remove the other ones, and still A/B test, because you always want to keep getting better. So A/B test everything, define the leaks, and then try to fix those leaks as fast as possible. Christian Klepp  27:23 Fantastic, fantastic. And because we’re talking about marketing funnels, I mean, like, I can’t help myself but ask you, okay, but what about metrics? Because that’s something that people want to see, right? But I’m not talking about like, let’s, let’s come up with this like, laundry list of like metrics, and you go down this deep rabbit hole. Like, what are the metrics that you would say, or you would advise B2B Marketers to look at to say, like, okay, we’re trying to fix the leaky marketing funnel here, and these metrics will help you to indicate that there is progress. Gabe Lullo  27:53 Yeah. I mean, it’s harder now than ever before to metric things out, and it’s because of tech that’s kind of getting in the way. You know, for instance, in an email campaign, there’s been some rules and regulations in the last recent years that prevents us from seeing whether or not there’s clicks and opens that are happening on email campaigns. I’ve actually removed many of those triggers completely away from our campaigns, because it’s preventing deliverability, and it’s preventing our ability to keep domains healthy. So there are a lot of moving parts right now that’s happening because of these AI filtration tools. I just heard Google just released that it’s going to now put disclaimers and emails saying that this was written by AI. And so there’s it’s ever involving so depending on I guess when your listeners are hearing this, it may be completely different in a year, but I will tell you that there are definitely things that we need to metric and we need to have KPIs for. But I think the priority of what we used to measure two, three years ago, is significantly different than what we measure today, because of those rules and regulations. So if we’re talking about emails, I want to know what we’re sending, who we’re sending it to, who obviously is responding. What are those responses look like? Is it turning to an actual lead? Are we turning on warm leads, or are we just looking at set meetings? You know, it’s interesting, right? There is only about 2 to 3% of the market ever wants to truly buy, and they’re in buying mode, and I think a lot of companies are just looking for those people, and about 20% of the market is actually interested in buying and we turn that entire segment off. It’s about 10 times more people. But if we can warm the nurture them correctly, and message them correctly, that’s where the rubber meets the road, and that’s where your gold is. I like to analogize everything. So, yeah, when you have a green apple, right? What do you do with the green apple? You put it on the window sill, and then the sun on the windowsill warms it up. Now, that doesn’t mean you just throw out the apple. That means you have a lot of opportunity. You just have. To nurture, and you be patient. And you have to know that timing is everything in business. So if you’re just looking for the red apples, you’re only gonna get 3% if you’re looking for green apples that turn into red apples, now you’re getting 25% so focus on the 25, be patient. Fix those leaky buckets, of course. A/B test, and then then you measure. Christian Klepp  30:20 Yeah or you get yourself an apple orchard. You mentioned one keyword there, nurture, right? I think that’s the one that’ll I see a lot of, like people in sales and even in marketing, right? They just don’t take that time to nurture those leads. They close in. I keep saying they close in for the kill too fast, right? Gabe Lullo  30:44 Yeah. I mean, go back to that food analogy, that the fruit analogy, again. Christian Klepp  30:49 Sure. Gabe Lullo  30:49 I’m on a roll with that. Christian Klepp  30:50 Please. Gabe Lullo  30:50 It’s the low hanging fruit cliche, right? Christian Klepp  30:52 Yes. Gabe Lullo  30:52 Everyone focuses on the low hanging fruit. They’re not focusing on what else is part of that harvest. They’re not focusing on the nurturing. They’re not focused on watering. They’re not focusing on circling back, following up, checking in, providing value in those checks. Not just say, Hey, I’m following up, no, provide value in those seconds, right? And that’s again, that’s where you see excellence happen, you know? And there’s a lot of young, and I don’t mean to be age, but like tenure, people that are experienced, that are in these experience roles right now, and I feel that they’re just trying to get that quick answer and that quick response. And we’re in this like dopamine, like, you know, hit like social media environment right now. Not to go off topic, but I think people are not again, they’re in this microwave society, and they don’t understand the value of nurturing. And if you do and you treat that part seriously, wow, it usually is a windfall at that time. Christian Klepp  31:47 Absolutely, absolutely. It’s an art, a skill, a craft, isn’t it? Right? All of you love, okay, my friend, we come to the point in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and Gabe, you’ve given us plenty, all right, but just think of this kind of like a recap. If there was somebody listening to this conversation that you and I are having, and you want them to walk away with three to five things that they that they can take action on right now, when it comes to fixing a leaky marketing funnel, what would they be? Gabe Lullo  32:17 Well, I think the best thing is you have to really decide if you have the right people in place, right, and are they? And it doesn’t mean that they are the ones that are going to bring it home. It doesn’t mean that they’re they don’t need support and training and love, like, do they have the commitment? Do they have good experience? Are they willing to roll up their sleeves and get get a little dirty, and if you feel like you have a great team in place of people that are ready to get to work and solve some problems. I think that is literally step one. Step two is, do we have the messaging in the mark, in the ICP nailed down? We really need to know that, because, again, there’s no point of building a campaign if you don’t know who you’re sending it to. And then, thirdly, you really have to make sure that you’re willing to A/B test. It’s hard enough to build a campaign, but it’s much more difficult to build two or three campaigns. Run three campaigns, right as opposed to one, and score each of them to determine what’s working, what’s effective, and what’s not, and then you pivot based on those results. So I think finding a great team is basic and fundamental. Finding a great ice or determining a great ICP is before you build the messaging and then measure the message across multiple campaigns, and then you should be on your way Christian Klepp  33:29 And test, test, test, everything, right? Gabe Lullo  33:34 Yes, it’s great. It could be working. It’s exciting, but maybe there’s a significantly more effective way of doing it, even though it’s still working, and let the data make those decisions for you and drive everything based off data driven decisions, and that’s how you should be operating. Christian Klepp  33:51 Absolutely, absolutely. All right. Here comes the soapbox question, a status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with and why? Gabe Lullo  34:05 Yeah, I think the big thing right now, and I have to just kind of talk about my space, because you said in my industries, like, there’s a lot of, you know, people out there soapboxing, to be exact, on things that are dead or not. And I will tell you that, you know, cold calling is dead, emailing is dead. You know, LinkedIn is dead, or all of these things and and when you peel back the onion, you notice that those individuals who are saying that users are trying to sell a book or something, and nothing against selling books, but it sounds like there’s a personal agenda and not actual operational intelligence that is dictating what they’re saying. So to your point about testing everything, don’t assume something is not going to work just because someone said it on the internet. Test it and then decide if it’s going to work. And it may surprise you in a big, big way. Christian Klepp  34:56 I truly believe that, man, I truly believe that. I mean to your point. About, like, email being dead. I mean, I did close one client who was a guest on the show, and it took me a year to close, but I closed it through email. Gabe Lullo  35:09 Yeah. Christian Klepp  35:11 Right. And it’s to your point, it’s sending, sending that person articles that were relevant to that person’s industry and saying, like, Hey, I read this the other day, what are your thoughts on this? And here’s my take. What do you think? Gabe Lullo  35:24 That is the best way to do an email, right? You know, we do a lot of content and on social media, we do a lot of podcasting, posts on LinkedIn, but that’s all great, but where the rubber meets the road is you take that post and you send it in an email or a direct message and say, Hey, listen. This made me think of our last conversation, and I really liked the way that this person mentioned this. Do you think you know that there is, is the timing right here to reopen this conversation, and you feel like the problem is still existing in your world, and love to see if we can solve it for you, that type of content, that type of message, that type of verbiage at the right time in a nurture campaign like we discussed, close one business, right? That’s how it works. Christian Klepp  36:08 Absolutely, absolutely okay. Here comes the bonus question, and for those of you that are listening to the audio version, Gabe’s got two guitars right behind him, so I’m just gonna go on a hunch here that he likes playing guitar, right? So the question is, if you had the opportunity to, like, go on a tour with your favorite guitarist/musician, who would it be, and where would you go? Gabe Lullo  36:36 Wow, I love this question. I do play the guitar. I’m a bet big avid music player. Love Rock as well, but all genres, I will say, in real life, we just actually my family, my wife and daughter and I went to go see Oasis reunion tour, which was in Toronto, actually, out of all places. Christian Klepp  36:53 That’s right, you mentioned it. Gabe Lullo  36:54 Yeah, we went to see that. It was epic. Obviously, the brothers have been apart for many years. A lot of drama there. But yeah, you know, I’m old enough to remember their original songs, so it was cool to reminisce and introduce my daughter to that music, which was pretty cool. We’re gonna go see Paul McCartney in a few weeks. He’s on tour now and never seen him or I’m a big fan of The Beatles, and I think that would be really exciting to tour with him, obviously. And I think those are definitely both of those right there kind of sum up the type of music that I resonate with. Christian Klepp  37:26 Amazing, amazing. I just remember, like, this is, this is a couple of years ago. I think he’s already passed away, but Compay Segundo. Gabe Lullo  37:33 Oh yeah. Christian Klepp  37:34 Buena Vista Social Club. And the guy was in his 90s, and they were, they had a concert, and they they brought him up in stage in his wheelchair, helped him get up, get out of that wheelchair, and they gave him that guitar, and off he went, Man, like, Gabe Lullo  37:48 Yeah, yeah, that’s amazing, man, that’s amazing. Christian Klepp  37:53 Gabe, this has been such a great conversation. Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. So please quick intro to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you. Gabe Lullo  38:03 Yeah, LinkedIn is the best way to connect with me directly. I post twice a day, every day. We’re very bullish with our content. There’s a lot of free material there. We have a newsletter, so please take a look at that, and if you like what you see, and he heard today, you know, reach out, and I’ll definitely be responsive. And you know, anyone who is looking or struggling with the after-sales motion, which are after marketing motion, that sales development function, that’s where we play, and we’d love to look at what you’re looking for and see how we can help. Christian Klepp  38:33 Sounds good. Gabe, once again, thank you so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Gabe Lullo  38:38 Thanks, Christian. Christian Klepp  38:39 All right. Bye for now.

#321 | Jess Cook, VP of Marketing at Vector, joins Dave to break down what's actually working in early-stage B2B marketing. They dig into how she thinks about attribution for brand channels, how Vector's podcast became a top marketing channel, why they created a brand mascot, and details on what content strategy is working on LinkedIn right now. They also cover shift from content leader to VP of Marketing and how to drive demand without a massive team or budget.Timestamps(03:06) - — Meet Jess Cook & What is Vector? (07:39) - — B2B Influencer pilot setup: why this channel, why now (14:57) - — The result: 45 demos, ~$1.1M pipeline, and how she tracked it (16:55) - — How to run influencers (22:20) - — Scaling idea: retainer-style influencer partnerships (26:00) - — Vector's podcast: “awareness magnet” and the format that works (28:24) - — The production system: in-person batch recording a full season in 2 days (42:10) - — Jess's LinkedIn strategy: why she started posting and what she optimizes for (53:58) - — Content → VP shift: the two muscles she's building (metrics + leadership) Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive. AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.Visit exitfive.com/retreat to apply for Exit Five's first-ever, in-person Marketing Leadership Retreat, March 18–20, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Join 100 CMOs and VPs of Marketing from companies like like Zoom, Snowflake, Manychat, Bitly, G2, HP, and more for two days of thinking bigger around a trusted group of peers in marketing. ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

Welcome to the CavasShips Podcast with Christopher P. Cavas and Chris Servello…a weekly podcast looking at naval and maritime events and issues of the day – in the US, across the seas and around the world. On today's special podcast we dive into the naval portfolio of Lockheed Martin with VPs and General Managers Paul Lemmo and Joe DePietro. The SNA National Symposium runs Jan 13-16 and is held at the Crystal City Hyatt Regency. Our daily SNA pod coverage is sponsored by Lockheed Martin in conjunction with our weekly pod sponsors HII and GE Aerospace.

#320 | Matt Carnevale, Head of Community at Exit Five, joins Dave for a discussion about community building. They dive into a bunch of the lessons learned from building the Exit Five community over the last few years, including specific plays like onboarding, matchmaking, and moderation. If you're thinking about community building in 2026, this is a good primer; plus the guys give their opinion on what “community” actually means and whether you should build a private community like Exit Five or focus more broadly on community building.Timestamps(00:02) - – Matt's path from BDR to Head of Community at Exit Five (08:29) - – What “community” actually means (and what it definitely isn't) (13:14) - – Why most B2B communities fail before they ever get traction (17:54) - – Community vs. content: what gets people in vs. what makes them stay (22:29) - – Why Slack groups aren't a strategy (27:14) - – Treating community like a product, not a marketing channel (34:48) - – The role of trust, curation, and saying no to the wrong people (40:23) - – What community managers actually do behind the scenes (47:18) - – How in-person events changed the Exit Five community (53:28) - – The biggest lessons Matt's learned after two years building Exit Five Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive. AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.Visit exitfive.com/retreat to apply for Exit Five's first-ever, in-person Marketing Leadership Retreat, March 18–20, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Join 100 CMOs and VPs of Marketing from companies like like Zoom, Snowflake, Manychat, Bitly, G2, HP, and more for two days of thinking bigger around a trusted group of peers in marketing. ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

Nine years in. 500 episodes later. Hundreds of CMOs on the mic. A deep well of marketing wisdom for anyone brave enough to draw from it. This milestone episode is a celebration of the bold B2B ideas, experiments, and hard-earned lessons that have filled the show from day one. Thank-you to every marketer who has listened, shared, and dared to try something new because of what they heard here.    Recorded live at the 2025 Super Huddle, Drew's conversations with Udi Ledergor, Denise Persson and Chris Degnan, and Carilu Dietrich anchor this milestone episode.  In this episode:  Udi shares how Gong pulled off a Super Bowl spot on a regional budget, aimed it at VPs of Sales, and tracked impact in traffic, conversations, and pipeline.  Denise and Chris explain how a CMO and CRO stayed aligned through four CEOs at Snowflake and evolved the story from "cloud data warehouse" to "data cloud," all in lockstep.  Carilu shows how Lovable is building a movement with real users as influencers, a CEO who lives on social, and a speed-first mindset tuned to the pace of AI and customer buzz.  Plus:  Why a "crazy ideas" budget creates room for standout plays that still satisfy the CFO  How empathy for sales and shared ownership of the number strengthen CRO-CMO alignment  How CEO-led social, customer stories, and edutainment power modern B2B brands  What it takes to move at AI speed while keeping product value and customer love at the center If you want a concentrated hit of CMO-level courage, alignment, and playmaking, this milestone episode is your highlight reel.  For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegademarketing.com/podcasts/ To learn more about CMO Huddles, visit https://cmohuddles.com/

#319 | Dave sits down with Jess Lytle, Head of Marketing at Exit Five, to talk about how AI is changing the job of B2B marketers and the reality of how AI is actually being adopted internally. They also cover how AI even helped Jess get her job at Exit Five and why she's become obsessed about deploying AI in marketing and really believes this is the most important martech wave yet. Timestamps(00:00) - – Goals, manifestation, and reverse-engineering outcomes (06:14) - – Meet Jess Lytle, Head of Marketing at Exit Five (08:28) - – How Jess got hired at Exit Five (webinar → DMs → job) (10:28) - – From demand gen to AI: early adoption, teaching, and Lovable (15:58) - – Why AI feels different than traditional martech (18:28) - – Content in 2026: originality, human insight, and AI distribution (29:16) - – NotebookLM: real marketing workflows and internal use cases (35:16) - – AI tools, team structure, and hybrid marketer roles (45:56) - – Working at Exit Five, founder-led marketing, and brand bets Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive. AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.Visit exitfive.com/retreat to apply for Exit Five's first-ever, in-person Marketing Leadership Retreat, March 18–20, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Join 100 CMOs and VPs of Marketing from companies like like Zoom, Snowflake, Manychat, Bitly, G2, HP, and more for two days of thinking bigger around a trusted group of peers in marketing. ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

In this episode, I'm breaking down a guide from Ben Tossel on how you can actually build with AI agents without being technical. I walk through what he's shipped as a “non-technical” builder, why he lives in the terminal/CLI, and the exact workflow he uses to go from idea → spec → build → iterate. We also talk about the meta-skill here: treating the model like your over-the-shoulder engineer/teacher, and using every bug as a learning checkpoint. The takeaway is simple: pick a tool, ship fast, fail forward, and build your own system as you go. Ben's Article: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/Ben-Tossell-Article Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 01:04 – What Ben Has Shipped 03:21 – The Workflow: Feed Context → Spec Mode → Let The Agent Rip 07:52 – His Agent Setup 08:56 – Coding On The Go 10:07 – Things to Learn 13:33 – The New Abstraction Layer: Learning To Work With Agents 14:33 – Learning from Others 16:15 – Use The Model As Your Teacher (Ask Everything) 18:13 – Contributing to Real Products 19:13 – Why this is Different 21:31 – Asking Silly Questions 24:00 – Beyond “Vibe Coding”: A New Technical Class 24:43 – Vibe Coding is a game 27:12 – Fail Forward + Permission To Build And Throw Things Away 28:16 – Pick One Tool, Minimize Friction, Keep Shipping Key Points I don't need to be a traditional engineer to ship—I can learn by watching agent output and iterating. The terminal/CLI is the power move because it's more capable and I can see what the agent is doing. “Spec mode” works best when I interrogate the plan like a philosopher instead of pretending I understand everything. agents.md becomes my portable instruction manual so every new repo starts clean and consistent. The fastest learning path is building ahead of my capability and treating bugs as checkpoints—fail forward. Numbered Section Summaries The Thesis: Non-Technical Doesn't Mean Non-Builder I open with Ben's core claim: you can ship real software by working through a terminal with agents, even if you can't write the code yourself—because you can read the output and learn the system over time. Proof: What He's Actually Shipped I run through examples Ben built—custom CLIs, a crypto tracker, “Droidmas” experiments, an AI-directed video demo system, and automations that keep projects moving even when he's away from his desk. The Workflow: Context → Spec Mode → Autonomy High Ben's process is straightforward: talk to the model to load context, switch into spec mode to pressure-test the plan, link docs/repos for exploration, then let the model run while he watches and steers when needed. http://agents.md/ The “Readme For Agents” That Follows You Everywhere I explain why agents . md matters—one predictable place to tell your agent how you want repos structured, how to commit, how to test, and what “good” looks like so each session gets smoother. Coding On The Go: PRs, Issues, Phone, Telegram, Slack We get into the real “agent native” behavior: install the GitHub app, work via pull requests and issues, tag the agent to self-fix, and even push changes from your phone—plus using Slack as a one-person “product” with an agent in the loop. Learning The Primitives: Bash, CLIs, VPS, Skills I cover the building blocks Ben's learning: bash commands and repeatable terminal workflows, preferring CLIs over MCPs to save context, and using a VPS + syncing to keep projects always-on. The Mindset Shift: The Model Is The Teacher The real unlock is treating the model like your patient expert—ask everything you don't understand, bake “explain simply” into your agent instructions, and close knowledge gaps as they appear. Fail Forward, Pick One, Keep Shipping I end on the playbook: build ahead of your capability, treat it like play, give yourself permission to throw things away, and stop tool-hopping—pick one system and go deep. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

I cant believe it. After 2 weeks and tons of news I come back to reports of the VPs home being targeted. Its getting scary out there. Become A Member http://youtube.com/timcastnews/join The Green Room - https://rumble.com/playlists/aa56qw_g-j0 BUY CAST BREW COFFEE TO FIGHT BACK - https://castbrew.com/ Join The Discord Server - https://timcast.com/join-us/ Hang Out With Tim Pool & Crew LIVE At - http://Youtube.com/TimcastIRL

#318 | Dave is joined by Kieran Flanagan, SVP of Marketing at HubSpot and former CMO at Zapier. They break down how AI is reshaping B2B marketing workflows, content creation, and team structure, plus Kieran's leadership philosophy for managing a 300+ person team while staying deeply involved in creative execution. This episode offers a clear look at how AI is changing the game and how B2B marketers can stay creative, strategic, and indispensable in the process.Timestamps(00:00) - – Intro + why AI matters now (04:28) - – Kieran's career + the 2-year mission framework (09:58) - – The grind, early-career advice, and earning your stripes (12:28) - – Operator vs. manager + strong opinions in leadership (20:28) - – Why collaborative brainstorms fail (25:28) - – ChatGPT vs. Claude + how Kieran actually uses AI (33:16) - – Where AI is taking B2B marketing (answers → actions) (44:46) - – Picking a lane: technical vs. creative marketers (52:16) - – The future CMO + agencies, in-person, and what still matters Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive. AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.Visit exitfive.com/retreat to apply for Exit Five's first-ever, in-person Marketing Leadership Retreat, March 18–20, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Join 100 CMOs and VPs of Marketing from companies like like Zoom, Snowflake, Manychat, Bitly, G2, HP, and more for two days of thinking bigger around a trusted group of peers in marketing. ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. AI agents are your next customers. Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this exclusive interview, Vince Menzione sits down with Darryl Peek, Vice President for Partner Sales (Public Sector) at Elastic, to decode how Elastic achieved the rare “triple crown”—winning Partner of the Year across Microsoft, Amazon, and Google Cloud simultaneously. Darryl breaks down the engineering-first approach that makes Elastic sticky with hyperscalers, reveals the rigorous metrics behind their partner health scorecard, and shares his personal “one-page strategy” for aligning mission, vision, and execution. From leveraging generative AI for cleaner sales hygiene to the timeless lesson of the “Acre of Diamonds,” this conversation offers a masterclass in building high-performance partner ecosystems in the public sector and beyond. https://youtu.be/__GE0r2fPuk Key Takeaways Elastic achieved “Pinnacle” status by aligning engineering roadmaps directly with hyperscaler innovations to become essential infrastructure. Successful public sector sales require a dual approach: leveraging resellers for contract access while driving domain-specific co-sell motions. Partner relationships outperform contracts; consistency in communication is more valuable than only showing up for renewals. Effective partner organizations track “influence” revenue just as rigorously as direct bookings to capture the full value of SI relationships. Generative AI can automate sales hygiene, turning scattered meeting notes into actionable CRM data and reducing friction for sales teams. The “Acre of Diamonds” philosophy reminds leaders that the greatest opportunities often lie within their current ecosystem, not in distant new markets. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Keywords: Elastic, Darryl Peek, public sector sales, hyperscaler partnership, Microsoft Partner of the Year, AWS Partner of the Year, Google Cloud Partner, partner ecosystem strategy, co-sell motion, partner metrics, channel sales, government contracting, Carahsoft, generative AI in sales, sales hygiene, Russell Conwell, Acre of Diamonds, open source search, observability, security SIM, vector search, retrieval augmented generation, LLM agnostic, partner enablement, influence revenue, channel booking, SI relationships, strategic alliances. Transcript: Darryl Peek Audio Episode [00:00:00] Darryl Peek: I say, I tell my team from time to time, the difference between contacts and contracts is the R and that’s the relationship. So if you’re not building the relationship, then how do you expect that partner to want to lean in? Don’t just show up when you have a contract. Don’t just show up when you have a renewal. [00:00:13] Darryl Peek: Make sure that you are reaching out and letting them know what is happening. Don’t just talk to me when you need a renewal, right? When you’re at end of quarter and you want me to bring a deal forward, [00:00:23] Vince Menzione: welcome to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi. Own your host, and my mission is to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. [00:00:34] Vince Menzione: We just came off Ultimate Partner live at Caresoft Training Center in Reston, Virginia. Over two days, we gathered top leaders to tackle the real shifts shaping our industry. If you weren’t in the room, this episode brings you right to the edge of what’s next. Let’s dive in. So we have another privilege, an incredible partner, another like we call these, if you’ve heard our term, pinnacle. [00:01:00] Vince Menzione: I think it’s a term that’s not widely used, but we refer to Pinnacle as the partners that have achieved the top rung. They’ve become partners of the year. And our next presenter, our next interview is going to be with an organization. And a person that represents an organization that has been a pinnacle partner actually for all three Hyperscalers, which is really unusual. [00:01:24] Vince Menzione: Elastic has been partner of the Year award winner across Microsoft, Amazon, and Google Cloud, so very interesting. And Darrell Peak, who is the leader for the public sector organization, he’s here in the Washington DC area, was kind enough. Elastic is a sponsor event, and Darryl’s been kind enough to join me for a discussion about what it takes to be a Pinnacle partner. [00:01:47] Vince Menzione: So incredibly well. Excited to welcome you, Darryl. Thank you, sir. Good to have you. I love you. I love your smile, man. You got an incredible smile. Thank you. Thank you, Vince. Thank you. So Darryl, I probably didn’t do it any justice, but I was hoping you could take us through your role and responsibilities at Elastic, which is an incredible organization. [00:02:08] Vince Menzione: Alright. Yeah, [00:02:09] Darryl Peek: absolutely. So Darrell Peak vice President for partner sales for the US public sector at Elastic. I’ve been there about two and a half years. Responsible for our partner relationships across all partner types, whether that’s the system integrators, resellers, MSPs, OEMs, distribution Hyperscalers, and our Technology Alliance partners. [00:02:26] Darryl Peek: And those are partners that aren’t built on the Elastic platform. In regards to how my partner team interacts with our team. Our ecosystem. We are essentially looking to further and lean in with our partners in order for them to, one, understand what Elastic does since we’re such a diverse tool, but also work with our field to understand what are their priorities and how do they identify the right partners for the right requirements. [00:02:50] Darryl Peek: In regards to what Elastic is and what it does elastic is a solution that is actually founded on search and we’re an open source company. And one of the things that I actually did when I left the government, so I worked for the government for a number of years. I left, went and worked for Salesforce, then worked for Google ran their federal partner team and then came over to Elastic because I wanted to. [00:03:11] Darryl Peek: Understand what it meant to be at an open source company. Being at an open source company is quite interesting ’cause you’re competing against yourself. [00:03:17] Vince Menzione: Yeah, that’s true. [00:03:18] Darryl Peek: So it’s pretty interesting. But elastic was founded in 2012 as a search company. So when you talk about search, we are the second most used platform behind Google. [00:03:28] Darryl Peek: So many of you have already used Elastic. Maybe on your way here, if you use Uber and Lyft, that is elastic. That is helping you get here. Oh, that is interesting. If you use Netflix, if you use wikipedia.com, booking.com, eBay, home Depot, all of those are search capabilities. That Elastic is happening to power in regards to what else we do. [00:03:47] Darryl Peek: We also do observability, which is really around application monitoring, logging, tracing, and metrics. So we are helping your operations team. Pepsi is a customer as well as Cisco. Wow. And then the last thing that we do is security when we’re a SIM solution. So when we talk about sim, we are really looking to protect networks. [00:04:03] Darryl Peek: So we all, we think that it’s a data problem. So with that data problem, what we’re trying to do is not only understand what is happening in the network, but also we are helping with threat intelligence, endpoint and cloud security. So all those elements together is what Elastic does. And we only do it two ways. [00:04:18] Darryl Peek: We’re one platform and we can be deployed OnPrem and in the cloud. So that’s a little bit about me and the company. Hopefully it was clear, [00:04:24] Vince Menzione: I’ve had elastic people on stage. You’ve done, that’s the best answer I’ve had. What does Elastic do? I used to hear all this hyperbole and what? [00:04:32] Vince Menzione: What? Now I really understand what you do is an organiz. And the name of the company was Elasticsearch. [00:04:36] Darryl Peek: It was [00:04:37] Vince Menzione: elastic at one time when I first. Worked with you. It was Elasticsearch. [00:04:40] Darryl Peek: Absolutely. Yeah. So many moons ago used to be called the Elk Stack and it stood for three things. E was the Elasticsearch which is a search capability. [00:04:48] Darryl Peek: L is Logstash, which is our logging capability. And Cabana is essentially our visualization capability. So it was called Elk. But since we’ve acquired so many companies and built so much capability into the platform, we can now call it the elastic. Platform. [00:05:00] Vince Menzione: So talk to me about your engagement with the hyperscalers. [00:05:02] Vince Menzione: You’ve been partner of the Year award winner with all three, right? I mentioned that, and you were, you worked for Google for a period of time. Yes. So tell us about, like, how does that work? What does that engagement look like? And why do you get chosen as partner of the year? What are the things that stand out when you’re working with these hyperscalers [00:05:19] Darryl Peek: and with that we are very fortunate to be recognized. [00:05:23] Darryl Peek: So many of the organizations that are out there are doing some of the same capabilities that we do, but they can’t claim that they won a part of the year for all three hyperscalers in the same year. We are able to do that because we believe in the power of partnership, not only from a technology perspective, but also from a sales perspective. [00:05:39] Darryl Peek: So we definitely lean in with our partnerships, so having our engineers talk, having our product teams talk, and making sure that we’re building capabilities that actually integrate within the cloud service providers. And also consistently building a roadmap that aligns with the innovation that the cloud service providers are also building towards. [00:05:56] Darryl Peek: And then making sure that we’re a topic of discussion. So elastic. From a search capability, we do semantic search, vector search, but also retrieval augmented generation, which actually is LLM Agnostic. So when you say LLM Agnostic, whether you want to use Gemini, Claude or even Chad, GBT, those things are something that Elastic can integrate in, but it actually helps reduce the likelihood of hallucination. [00:06:18] Darryl Peek: So when we’re building that kind of solution, the cloud service provider’s you’re making it easy for us, and when you make it easy, you become very attractive and therefore you’re. Likely gonna come. So it becomes [00:06:28] Vince Menzione: sticky in that regard. Very sticky. So it sounds like very much an engineer, a lot of emphasis on the engineering aspects of the business. [00:06:35] Vince Menzione: I know you’re an engineer by background too, right? So the engineering aspects of the business means that you’re having alignment with the engineering organizations of those companies at a very deep level. [00:06:44] Darryl Peek: Absolutely. So I’m [00:06:45] Vince Menzione: here. [00:06:45] Darryl Peek: Yeah. And being at Elastic has been pretty amazing. So coming from Google, we had so many different solutions, so many different SKUs, but Elastic releases every eight weeks. [00:06:54] Darryl Peek: So right before you start to understand the last release, the next release is coming out and we’re already at 9.2 and we just released 9.0 in May. So it’s really blazing fast on the capability that we’re really pushing the market, but it’s really hard to make sure that we get it in front of our partners. [00:07:10] Darryl Peek: So when we talk about our partner enablement strategy, we’re just trying to make sure that we get the right information in front of the right partners at the right time, so this way they can best service their customers. [00:07:19] Vince Menzione: So let’s talk about partner strategy. Alyssa Fitzpatrick was on stage with me at our last event, and she Alyssa’s fantastic. [00:07:25] Vince Menzione: She is incredible. Yes, she is. She was a former colleague at Microsoft Days. Yes. And then she, we had a really interesting conversation. About what it takes, like being in, in a company and then working with the partners in general. And you have, I’m sure you have a lot of the similarities in how you have to engage with these organizations. [00:07:42] Vince Menzione: You’re working across the hyperscalers, you’re also working with the ecosystem too. Yes. ’cause the delivery, you have delivery partners as well. Absolutely. So tell us more about that. [00:07:50] Darryl Peek: So we kinda look at it from a two, two ways from the pre-sales motion and then the post-sales. From the pre-sales side. [00:07:56] Darryl Peek: What we’re trying to do is really maximize our, not only working with partners, because within public sector, you need to get access to customers through contract vehicles. So if you want to get access to some, for instance, the VA or through GSA or others, you have to make sure you’re aligned with the right partners who have access to. [00:08:12] Darryl Peek: That particular agency, but also you want domain expertise. So as you’re working with those system integrators, you wanna make sure that they have capability that aligns. So whether it is a security requirement, you wanna work with someone who specializes in security, observability and search. So that’s the way that we really look at our partner ecosystem, but those who are interested in working with us. [00:08:30] Darryl Peek: Because everybody doesn’t necessarily have a emphasis on working with a new technology partner, [00:08:36] Vince Menzione: right? [00:08:36] Darryl Peek: So what we’re trying to do is saying how do we build programs, incentives and sales plays that really does align and strike the interest of that particular partner? So when we talk about it I tell my team, you have to, my grandfather to say, plan your work and work your plan. And if you fail a plan, you plan to fail. So being able to not only have a strong plan in place, but then execute against that plan, check against that plan as you go through the fiscal year, and then see how you come out at the end of the fiscal year to see are we making that progress? [00:09:01] Darryl Peek: But on the other side of it, and what I get stressed about with my sales team and saying what does partners bring to us? So where are those partner deal registrations? What is the partner source numbers? How are we creating more pipeline? And that is where we’re now saying, okay, how can we navigate and how can we make it easier? [00:09:17] Darryl Peek: And how can we reduce friction in order for the partner to say, okay, elastic’s easy to work with. I can see value in, oh, by the way, I can make some money with. [00:09:25] Vince Menzione: So take us through, have there been examples of areas where you’ve had to like, break through to this other side in terms of growing the partner ecosystem? [00:09:33] Vince Menzione: What’s worked, what hasn’t worked? Yes, I’d love to learn more about that. [00:09:36] Darryl Peek: I’ll say that and I tell my team one, you partner program is essential, right? If you don’t have an attractive partner program in regards to how they come on board, how they’re incentivized the right amount of margin, they won’t even look at you. [00:09:49] Darryl Peek: The second thing is really how do you engage? So a lot of things start with relationships. I think partnerships are really about relationships. I say I tell my team from time to time, the difference between contacts and contracts is the R and that’s the relationship. So if you’re not building the relationship, then how do you expect that partner to want to lean in? [00:10:07] Darryl Peek: Don’t just show up when you have a contract. Don’t just show up when you have a renewal. Make sure that you are reaching out and letting them know what is happening. I like the what Matt brought up in saying, okay, talk to me when you have a win. Talk to me when you have something to talk about. [00:10:22] Darryl Peek: Don’t just talk to me when you need a renewal. When you’re at end the quarter and you want me to bring a deal forward, that doesn’t help ab absolutely. [00:10:28] Vince Menzione: So engineering organizations, sales organizations, what are, what does a healthy partnership look like for you? [00:10:35] Darryl Peek: So I look at metrics a lot and we use a number of tools and I know folks are using tools out there. [00:10:41] Darryl Peek: I won’t name any tools for branding purposes, but in regards to how we look at tools. So some things that we measure closely. Of course it’s our partner source numbers, so partner source, bookings, and pipeline. We look at our partner attached numbers and pipeline as well as the amount or percentage of partner attached business that we have in regards to our overall a CV number. [00:11:00] Darryl Peek: We also look at co-sell numbers, so therefore we are looking at not only how. A partner is coming to us, but how is a partner helping us in closing the deal even though they didn’t bring us the deal? We’re also looking at our cloud numbers and saying what amount of deals and how much business are we doing with our cloud service providers? [00:11:15] Darryl Peek: Because of course we wanna see that number go up year over year. We wanna actually help with that consumption number because not only are we looking at it from a SaaS perspective, but also if the customer has to commit we can help burn that down as well. We also look at influence numbers. [00:11:27] Darryl Peek: Now, one of the harder things to do within a technology business is. Capturing all that si goodness. And saying how do I reflect the SI if they’re not bringing me the deal? And I can’t attribute that amount of deal to that particular partner, right? And the way that we do that is we just tag them to the influence. [00:11:44] Darryl Peek: So we’re able to now track influence. And also the M-S-P-O-E-M work that we are also tracking and also we’re tracking the royalties. And lastly is the professional service work that we do with those partners. So we’re looking to go up into the right where we start them out at our select level, we go to our premier level and then our elite level. [00:12:00] Darryl Peek: But left and to the right, I say you gotta go from zero to one, one to five, five to 10, and then 10 to 25. So if we can actually see that progression. That is where we’re really starting to see health in the partnership, but also the executive alignment is really important. So when our CEO is able to meet with the fellow CEO of the co partner company that is really showing how we are progressing, but also our VPs and others that are engaged. [00:12:20] Darryl Peek: So those are things that we really do measure. We do have a health score card and also, we track accreditations, we track certifications as well as training outcomes based on our sales place. [00:12:30] Vince Menzione: Wow. There’s a lot of metrics there. Yeah. So you didn’t bring, you didn’t bring any slides with that out? [00:12:35] Darryl Peek: Oh, no. I’m not looking at slides, by the way. [00:12:40] Vince Menzione: Let’s talk about marketplace. [00:12:42] Darryl Peek: All right? [00:12:42] Vince Menzione: Because we’ve had a lot of conversations about marketplace. We’ve got both vendors up here talking about marketplace and the importance of marketplace, right? You’ve been a Marketplace Award winner. We haven’t really talked about that, like that motion per se. [00:12:55] Vince Menzione: I’d love to s I’d love to hear from you like how you, a, what you had to overcome to get to marketplace, what the marketplace motion looks like for your organization, what a marketplace first motion looks like. ’cause a lot of your cut a. Are all your customers requiring a lot of direct selling effort or is it some of it through Marketplace? [00:13:14] Vince Menzione: Like how does it, how does that work for you? [00:13:15] Darryl Peek: So Elastic is a global organization. Yeah. So we’re, 40 different countries. So it depends on where we’re talking. So if we talk about our international business, which is our A PJ and EMEA business we are seeing a lot more marketplace and we’re seeing that those direct deals with customers. [00:13:28] Darryl Peek: Okay. And we’re talking about our mirror business. A significant amount goes through marketplace and where our customers are transacting with the marketplace and are listing. On the marketplace within public sector, it’s more of a resell motion. Okay. So we are working with our resellers. [00:13:39] Darryl Peek: So we work our primary distribution partner is Carahsoft. So you heard from Craig earlier. Yes. We have a strong relationship with Carahsoft and definitely a big fan of this organization. But in regards to how we do that and how we track it we are looking at better ways to, track that orchestration and consumption numbers in order to see not only what customers we’re working with, but how can we really accelerate that motion and really get those leads and transactions going. [00:14:03] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Very cool. And I think part of the reason why in, in the government or public sector space it has a lot to do with the commitments are different. Absolutely. So it’s not government agencies aren’t able to make the same level of commitments that, private sector organizations were able to make, so they were able to the Mac or Microsoft parlance and also a AWS’s parlance. [00:14:23] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:14:24] Darryl Peek: definitely a different dynamic. Yeah. And especially within the public sector. ’cause we have Gov Cloud to work with, right? That’s right. So we’re working with Microsoft or we’re working with AWS, they have their Gov cloud and then we Google, they don’t have a Gov cloud, but we still have to work with them differently. [00:14:35] Darryl Peek: Yeah. Within that space. That’s [00:14:36] Vince Menzione: right. That’s right. So it makes the motion a little bit differently there. So I think we talked through some of this. I just wanna make sure we cover our points [00:14:43] Darryl Peek: here. One thing I’ll do an aside, you talked about the acre of diamonds. I’m a big fan of that story. [00:14:47] Vince Menzione: Yeah, let’s talk about Russ Con. Yeah, [00:14:49] Darryl Peek: let’s talk about it. Do you all know about the Acre Diamonds? Have you all heard that story before? No. You have some those in the audience. [00:14:55] Vince Menzione: I, you know what, let’s talk about it. All [00:14:56] Darryl Peek: See, I’m from Philadelphia. [00:14:57] Vince Menzione: I didn’t know you were a family. My daughter went to Temple University. [00:14:59] Vince Menzione: Ah, [00:15:00] Darryl Peek: okay. That’s all I know. So Russell Conwell. So he was, a gentleman out of the Philadelphia area and he went around town to raise money and he wanted to raise money because he believed that there was a promise within a specific area. And as he continued to raise this money, he would tell a story. [00:15:14] Darryl Peek: And basically it was a story about a farmer in Africa. And the farmer in Africa, to make it really short was essentially looking to be become very wealthy. And because he wanted to become very wealthy, he believed that selling his farm and going off to a long distant land was the primary way for him to find diamonds. [00:15:28] Darryl Peek: And this farmer didn’t sold us. Sold his place, then went off to to this foreign land, and he ended up dying. And people thought that was the end of the story, but there was another farmer who bought that land and one time this big, and they called him the ot, came to the door and said you mind if I have some tea with you? [00:15:43] Darryl Peek: He said, all right, come on in. Have a drink. And as he had the drink, he looked upon the mantle and his mouth dropped. And then the farmer said what’s wrong? What do you say? He says, do you know what that is? No. He said no. Do you know what that is? He says, no. He said, that’s the biggest diamond I’ve ever seen, and the farmer goes. [00:16:01] Darryl Peek: That’s weird because there’s a bunch right in the back where I go grab my fruits and crops every day. So the idea of the acre diamonds and sometimes that you don’t need to go off to a far off land. It is actually sometimes right under your feet, and that is a story that helped fund the starting of Temple University. [00:16:16] Vince Menzione: I’m gonna need to take you at every single event so you can tell this story again. That’s an awesome job. Oh, I love it. And yeah, they founded a Temple University. Yeah. Which has become an incredible university. My daughter, like I said, my daughter’s a graduate, so we’re Temple fan. That’s great story. [00:16:31] Vince Menzione: That is a very cool, I didn’t realize you were a Philadelphia guy too, so that is awesome. Go birds. Go birds. All right, good. So let’s talk, I think we talked a little bit about your ecosystem approach, but maybe just a little bit more on this, like you said, like a lot of data, a lot of metrics but also a lot of these organizations also have to under understand the engineering side of things. [00:16:53] Vince Menzione: Oh, yeah. There’s a tremendous amount to become. Not everybody could just show up one day and become an elastic partner [00:16:58] Darryl Peek: absolutely. Absolutely. So take us [00:16:59] Vince Menzione: through that process. [00:17:00] Darryl Peek: Yeah. So one of the things that we are trying to mature and we have matured is our partner go to market. [00:17:06] Darryl Peek: So in order to join our partner ecosystem, you have to sign ’em through our partner portal. You have to sign our indirect reseller agreement. ’cause we do sell primarily within the public sector through distribution. And we only go direct if it is by exception. So you have to get justification through myself as well as our VP for public sector. [00:17:21] Darryl Peek: But we really do try to make sure that we can aggregate this because one thing that we have to monitor is terms and conditions. ’cause of course, working with the government, there’s a lot of terms and conditions. So we try to alleviate that by having it go through caresoft, they’re able to absorb some, so this way we can actually transact with the government. [00:17:36] Darryl Peek: In regards to the team though we try to really work closely with our solution architecture team. So this way we can develop clear enablement strategies with our partners so this way they know what it is we do, but also how to properly bring us up in a conversation. Also handle objections and also what are we doing to implement our solutions within other markets. [00:17:55] Darryl Peek: So those are things that we are doing as well as partner marketing. Top of funnel activity is really important, so we’re trying to differentiate what we’re doing with the field and field marketing. So you’re doing the leads and m qls and things of that nature also with partner marketing. So our partner marketing actually is driven by leads, but also we’re trying to transact. [00:18:10] Darryl Peek: And get Ps of which our partner deal registration. So that is how we align our partner go to market. And that is actually translating into our partner source outcomes. [00:18:18] Vince Menzione: And I think we have a slide that talks a little bit about your public sector partner strategy. [00:18:23] Darryl Peek: Oh yeah. Oh, I share that. So I thought maybe we could spin it. [00:18:25] Darryl Peek: Absolutely. [00:18:25] Vince Menzione: I know you we can’t see it, but they can. Oh, they can. Okay. Great. [00:18:29] Darryl Peek: There it’s there. [00:18:30] Vince Menzione: It’s career. [00:18:31] Darryl Peek: One thing, I think this was Einstein has said, if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. So that was the one thing. So I always was a big fan of creating a one page strategy. [00:18:39] Darryl Peek: And based on this one page strategy one of the things when I worked at Salesforce it was really about a couple things and the saying, okay, what are your bookings? And if you don’t have bookings, what does your pipeline look like? If you don’t have pipeline, what does your prospecting look like? [00:18:51] Darryl Peek: Yeah. If you don’t have prospecting what does your account plan look like? And if you don’t have an account plan, why are you here? Why are you here? Exactly. So those are the things that I really talk to my team about is just really a, it’s about bookings. It’s about pipeline. It’s about planning, enablement and execution. [00:19:05] Darryl Peek: It’s about marketing, branding and evangelism, and also about operational excellence and how to execute. Very cool. So being able to do that and also I, since I came from Salesforce, I talk to my team a lot about Salesforce hygiene. So we really talk about that a lot. So make, making sure we’re making proper use of chatter, but also as we talk about utilizing ai, we just try to. [00:19:21] Darryl Peek: How do we simplify that, right? So if we’re using Zoom or we’re using Google, how do we make sure that we’re capturing those meeting minutes, translating that, putting that into the system, so therefore we have a record of that engagement with that partner. So this is a continuous threat. So this way I don’t have to call my partner manager the entire time. [00:19:36] Darryl Peek: I can look back, see what actions, see what was discussed, and say, okay, how can we keep this conversation going? Because we shouldn’t have to have those conversations every time. I shouldn’t have to text you to say, give me the download on every partner. Every time. How do we automate that? And that’s really where you’re creating this context window with your Genive ai. [00:19:53] Darryl Peek: I think they said what 75% of organizations are using one AI tool. And I think 1% are mature in that. But also a number of organizations, it’s 90% of organizations are using generative AI tools to some degree. So we are using gen to bi. We do use a number of them. We have elastic GPT. Nice little brand there. [00:20:11] Darryl Peek: But yeah, we use that for not only understanding what’s in our our repositories and data lakes and data warehouses, but also what are some answers that we can have in regards to proposal responses, RP responses, RFI, responses and the like. [00:20:23] Vince Menzione: And you’re reaching out to the other LLMs through your tool? [00:20:26] Darryl Peek: We can actually interact with any LLM. So we are a LLM Agnostic. [00:20:29] Vince Menzione: Got it. Yep. That’s fantastic. And this slide is we’ll make this available if you don’t have a, yeah, have a chance. We’ll share it. I [00:20:36] Darryl Peek: am happy to share, yeah. And obviously happy to talk, reach out about it. Of, of course. I simplified it in order to account for you, but one of the things that I talk about is mission, vision of values. [00:20:45] Darryl Peek: And as we start with that is what is your mission now? How is anybody from Pittsburgh, anybody steal a fan? Oh wow. No, there’s a steel fan over [00:20:54] Vince Menzione: here. There’s one here. There’s a couple of ’em are out here. So I feel bad. [00:20:57] Darryl Peek: The reason why I put immaculate in there is for the immaculate reception, actually. [00:21:00] Darryl Peek: Yes. And basically saying that if you ever seen that play, it was not pretty at all. It was a very discombobulated play. Yeah. And I usually say that’s the way that you work with partners too, because when that deal doesn’t come in, when you gotta make a call, when you’re texting somebody at 11 o’clock at night, when you’re trying to get that at, right before quarter end. [00:21:17] Darryl Peek: Yeah. Before the end of it. It really is difficult, but it’s really creating that immaculate experience. You want that partner to come back. I know it’s challenging, but I appreciate how you leaned in with us. Yes, absolutely. I appreciate how you work with us. I appreciate how you held our hand through the process, and that’s what I tell my team, that we have to create that partner experience. [00:21:32] Darryl Peek: And maybe that’s a carryover from Salesforce, Dave. I don’t know. But also when we talk about enhancing or accelerating our partner. Our public sector outcomes that is really working with the customer, right? So customer experience has to be part of it. Like all of us have to be focused on that North star, and that is really how do we service the customer, and that’s what we choose to do. [00:21:48] Darryl Peek: But also the internal part. So I used to survey my team many moves ago, and I said, if we don’t get 80% satisfaction rate from our employees how do we get 60% satisfaction rate from our customers? Yeah. So really focus on that employee success and employee satisfaction. It’s so important, is very important. [00:22:03] Darryl Peek: So being able to understand what are the needs of your employees? Are you really addressing their concerns and are you really driving them forward? Are you challenging them? Are you creating pathways for progression? So those are things that I definitely try to do with my team. As well as just really encouraging, inspiring, yeah. [00:22:19] Darryl Peek: And just making sure that they’re having fun at the same time. [00:22:21] Vince Menzione: It shows up in such, I, there’s an airline I don’t fly any longer, and it was a million mile member of and I know it’s because of the way they treat their employees. [00:22:29] Vince Menzione: Because it cascades Right? [00:22:30] Darryl Peek: It does. Culture is important. [00:22:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Absolutely. [00:22:32] Darryl Peek: What is it? What Anderson Howard they say what col. Mark Andresen culture eat strategy for [00:22:37] Vince Menzione: breakfast. He strategy for breakfast? Yes. Very much this has been insightful. I really enjoyed having you here today. Really a great, you’re a lot of fun. You’re a lot of fun. [00:22:43] Vince Menzione: Darry, isn’t you? Amazing. So thank you for joining us. Thank you all. Thank And you’re gonna be, you’re gonna be sticking around for a little while today. I’m sticking around for a little while. I’ll be back in little later. I think people are gonna just en enjoy having a conversation with you, a little sidebar. [00:22:55] Darryl Peek: Absolutely. I’m looking forward to it. Thank you all for having me. Glad to be here. And thank you for giving the time today. [00:23:01] Vince Menzione: Thank you Darryl, so much. So appreciate it. And you’re gonna have to come join me on this Story Diamond tool. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering. [00:23:12] Vince Menzione: We’re bringing these episodes to you to help you level up your strategy. If you haven’t yet, now’s the time to take action and think about joining our community. We created a unique place, UPX or Ultimate partner experience. It’s more than a community. It’s your competitive edge with insider insights, real-time education, and direct access to people who are driving the ecosystem forward. [00:23:38] Vince Menzione: UPX helps you get results, and we’re just getting started as we’re taking this studio. And we’ll be hosting live stream and digital events here, including our January live stream, the Boca Winter Retreat, and more to come. So visit our website, the ultimate partner.com to learn more and join us. Now’s the time to take your partnerships to the next level.

#317 | Dave hosts a live session with Dasha Shakov (Head of Marketing, Proton.ai), Emeric Ernoult (Founder, CEO, Agorapulse), and Finn Thormeier (Founder, Project 33) to break down what's working on LinkedIn right now. They discuss why LinkedIn is the most important channel for B2B, why social media is the best marketing channel available today, how founder-led and employee content drives growth, and what's changed about how people use the platform over the last five years. The group also gets into LinkedIn's thought leader ads, thoughts on measuring results when attribution is messy, and how to sell LinkedIn's value to leadership and convince them to spend time there. It's a look into how B2B teams can earn attention, build credibility, and make LinkedIn a massive growth channel in 2026.Timestamps(00:56) - – Why LinkedIn is still Dave's favorite B2B channel (05:01) - – Panel intros: Dasha, Finn, Emeric (07:25) - – Why LinkedIn changed and why it matters now (09:34) - – “Our buyers aren't on LinkedIn” is mostly wrong (12:26) - – Who should post: CEO, team, or company page (16:47) - – Why promo posts flop (and why that's okay) (21:44) - – What to actually post when starting from zero (38:13) - – Why thought leader ads outperform everything else Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive. AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.Visit exitfive.com/retreat to apply for Exit Five's first-ever, in-person Marketing Leadership Retreat, March 18–20, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Join 100 CMOs and VPs of Marketing from companies like like Zoom, Snowflake, Manychat, Bitly, G2, HP, and more for two days of thinking bigger around a trusted group of peers in marketing. ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

Fredrik snackar med Peter Arrhenius, VD på HIQ om att hålla markkontakten som hög chef, tekniktrender, och en hel del annat. När pratade du senast med din VD? Vi pratar också om att hålla sig uppdaterad, och inte minst hålla markkontakt. Hur ser utvecklarvärlden idag ut från VD-håll? Upphandlingar - och Danmark som ett föredöme. Vad kan vi som bransch bli bättre på, och blir Sverige generellt bättre eller sämre på upphandlingar? Ja, vi kommer förstås in lite på AI också, kanske mer som exempel på teknikförändringar än något annat. Pratar folk om samma sak när de pratar AI? Har kunder koll på vad AI av idag faktiskt kan? Och hur ser AI ut jämfört med tidigare större förändringar? Om man exempelvis jämför AI med IT-bubblan 2000? Ett stort tack till Cloudnet som sponsrar vår VPS! Har du kommentarer, frågor eller tips? Vi är @kodsnack, @thieta, @krig, och @bjoreman på Mastodon, har en sida på Facebook och epostas på info@kodsnack.se om du vill skriva längre. Vi läser allt som skickas. Gillar du Kodsnack får du hemskt gärna recensera oss i iTunes! Du kan också stödja podden genom att ge oss en kaffe (eller två!) på Ko-fi, eller handla något i vår butik. Länkar Peter HIQ Stöd oss på Ko-fi! Offentliga upphandlingar IT-bubblan Titlar Vanlig arbetande utvecklare Ett gediget intresse Kundinriktad Molnfri höjd Rundabordssamtal Ingenting förs vidare (Att ha) Markkontakt Alla röster blir hörda Fem kundinteraktioner i veckan Mötesintensivt En värdefull dag En del av vardagen Svårt att sålla Professionell rådgivare Maximal möjlighet att göra ett bra jobb Marknadsdialog Svara nej med tydliga anledningar En sund utslagningsprincip En spännande värld

Five years ago, we started Leader Generation with a simple premise: clients learning from clients. This year proved why that matters. In 2025, CEOs and their leadership teams stopped debating whether to adopt AI and began wrestling with harder questions: How do we bring our people along? How do we measure what matters instead of what's easy to measure? How do we maintain the relationships that built our business while transforming how we operate? Excerpts from these ten conversations capture what worked. Not theory—actual results from CDOs, COOs, and VPs leading change at companies like Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits, DoubleVerify, and Digital Remedy. The full episodes are linked in this post. Stuart Goldstein explains why technology is the easy part, and people are where transformations actually stall. Alan Wizemann describes how his team measures success by the time freed up for employees to do valuable work, not headcount reduction. Anna Jankowska walks through preparing teams for scenarios they don't expect, because that's where you see who's ready to lead. These aren't polished case studies. They're candid conversations about the messy reality of leading change when your board wants results, your team is exhausted, and the playbook keeps changing. If you're heading into 2026 with aggressive goals and limited patience for more consultants telling you what you already know, these episodes cut through the noise. They're built for leaders who need to make decisions Monday morning, not attend another conference about the future of work. Links to the full episodes from this top 10 list: #10: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep129-building-your-army-of-ai-agents-what-marketers-need-to-know/ - Fabio Fiss, Aaron Grando, and Javier Lopez #9: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep109-ai-data-marketing-how-to-manage-risks/ - Kevin Purvis #8: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep116-future-of-performance-marketing-data-ai-personalization/ - Jeremy Haft #7: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep126-how-scibids-ai-is-redefining-media-buying-at-doubleverify/  - Wadrille Leroy #6: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep112-leading-through-change-the-human-side-of-marketing-leadership/  - Anna Jankowska #5: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep108-ai-playground-microsoft-copilot-google-notebooklm/ - Alyssa Curci and Jonathan Murray #4: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep140-leading-change-that-sticks-people-processes-platforms-with-stuart-goldstein/ - Stuart Goldstein #3: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep143-time-to-value-innovation-that-puts-customers-first-with-alan-wizemann/ * Alan Wizemann #2: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep119-leading-change-transforming-companies-with-alan-wizemann/ - Alan Wizemann #1: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep121-say-hello-to-brand-agent-ai-that-speaks-your-brand-s-language/ - Aaron Grando   About Tessa Burg: Tessa is the Chief Technology Officer at Mod Op and Host of the Leader Generation podcast. She has led both technology and marketing teams for 15+ years. Tessa initiated and now leads Mod Op's AI/ML Pilot Team, AI Council and Innovation Pipeline. She started her career in IT and development before following her love for data and strategy into digital marketing. Tessa has held roles on both the consulting and client sides of the business for domestic and international brands, including American Greetings, Amazon, Nestlé, Anlene, Moen and many more. Tessa can be reached on LinkedIn or at Tessa.Burg@ModOp.com.

Blog: show notes and links https://finnishfootballshow.com/2025/12/27/highs-and-lows-of-2025/ IN THIS EPISODE... Mark W, Ally and Rasmus take a look back at the 2025 Finnish football season. This is not just a highlights show, they take a fresh look at their own experiences of the past year and invite some regular contributors to join them. So, we also hear from Jules (SJK Seinäjoki), Joe (Musan Salama), Seppo (FC Lahti & international tournaments) and Keke & Mark H (Huuhkjat under Jacob Friis). 00:00:00 Intro 00:03:34 Ally on HJK's 2025 ‘Lyons-Foster scored a lovely goal' 00:11:05 Rasmus - last-minute heartbreak for Ilves 00:20:21 Jules & Mark W - exciting season for SJK but the end of Grieveball 00:30:57 Sebastian has nothing to say about VPS, so Rasmus helps him out 00:33:31 Joe on Musan Salama and Seppo on Lahti and an international summer 00:46:08 Keke and Mark H's tough season watching the Huuhkajat ------------------------------------------------------------------ SUPPORT THE SHOW

When trust is thin and every decision still rolls up to you, the week between Christmas and New Year can feel disorienting. You're not off, but you're not fully on either. Your executive team slows down, emails pile up, and your brain keeps asking, “Should I be doing something right now?” This episode explains why that tension is normal—and how to use it strategically.In this episode, you'll learn:- Why forcing clarity or decisions during this decompression period leads to fatigue, not insight.- How to create mental space for strategic thinking without rushing resolutions.- A simple exercise to capture your persistent thoughts without judgment, letting real insight emerge naturally.- How to protect yourself from burnout while giving your executive team room to regroup.- How to use this pause to enter January with focus, perspective, and energy.This episode is for C Suite leaders, VPs, and Division Presidents of $50M–$750M organizations who are tired of carrying all the thinking while their teams slow down.Happy Holidays and a strong New Year! Take advantage of this quiet period to pause, recharge, and set yourself and your team up for success.

Your revenue team is brilliant, but they are drowning. Research shows that high-performing sales and marketing professionals waste nearly 70% of their time on "Admin Drag"—non-revenue generating tasks like data entry, meeting prep, and internal reporting. You are paying top-tier talent for low-value work. In this special trailer episode, Revenue Architect Mike Allton unveils the new mission for The AI Hat Podcast: AI for Revenue Leaders. We are moving beyond the hype of chatbots and prompt engineering to focus on the operational reality of the "Year of Reckoning." This new season is dedicated to helping VPs, Directors, and Agency Owners build the "Digital Crews" that work alongside their humans. In this new chapter, we explore: The Agentic Shift: Moving from tools that talk to agents that do. Sanctioning the Shadow: Turning the security risk of "Shadow AI" into a competitive advantage. Revenue Architecture: Practical blueprints for fixing broken workflows in Sales, Marketing, and Partnerships. Whether you lead a team of fifty or a team of one, this is your operational playbook for the Agentic Era. Next Step: Secure your team before you scale them. Download the Executive Guide to Shadow AI at ⁠TheAIHat.com/shadow-ai⁠. Connect with Mike: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mikeallton Website: TheAIHat.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fredrik läser Sagan om dyngvätten. Ett stort tack till Cloudnet som sponsrar vår VPS! Har du kommentarer, frågor eller tips? Vi är @kodsnack, @thieta, @krig, och @bjoreman på Mastodon, har en sida på Facebook och epostas på info@kodsnack.se om du vill skriva längre. Vi läser allt som skickas. Gillar du Kodsnack får du hemskt gärna recensera oss i iTunes! Du kan också stödja podden genom att ge oss en kaffe (eller två!) på Ko-fi, eller handla något i vår butik. Länkar Sagan om dyngvätten Stöd oss på Ko-fi! Titlar Sagan om dyngvätten

Dive into Episode #160 of the Psych Health and Safety USA Podcast, featuring host Dr. I. David Daniels, PhD, CSD, VPS, and special guest Dr. Heliana Ramirez, a licensed clinical social worker, trauma therapist, and nationally recognized expert in workplace trauma recovery, and a guest from episode 96 of the podcast. In this episode, Dr. Ramirez shares her research on the challenges pregnant workers face in the workplace. The research also served as the basis for her contribution to a new book, “Corporate Blues,” which includes a series of stories about women in Toxic workplaces.

Podpage Features For Podcasts: In this episode, I share the full story behind why I've rebuilt the Podcast Answer Man website using Podpage and why I now believe it's an excellent turn-key solution for podcasters who don't want to deal with custom design, WordPress architecture, CSS, plug-ins, developers, maintenance, or the expense and complexity of building a fully customized site. For three decades, I've used everything from WordPress to managed VPS hosting to Kajabi to power my online presence. Recently, I discovered Podpage and decided to rebuild my PodcastAnswerMan.com site on their platform. Today's conversation walks you through: Why I moved away from WordPress and external hosting The limitations I ran into inside Kajabi for podcast website needs How Podpage works as a complete website builder for podcasters The features that immediately sold me on switching How Podpage integrates with podcast feeds automatically Why Podpage is now the home of PodcastAnswerMan.com Practical reasons Podpage may be a good fit for your show too If you're a podcaster looking to build a professional presence online, without spending years managing plugins, code, hosting, updates, backups, and design headaches, Podpage is the solution I recommend you to try out. Try Podpage Using My Affiliate Link You can begin testing Podpage instantly by importing your RSS feed and seeing a live preview of your show website: https://PodcastAnswerMan.com/podpage This is my affiliate link. If you sign up using it, I will earn a commission. Links Mentioned In This Episode Podpage: https://PodcastAnswerMan.com/podpage Kajabi: https://PodcastAnswerMan.com/kajabi Kit (Formerly ConvertKit): https://PodcastAnswerMan.com/kit My Podcast Reviews: - http://PodcastAnswerMan.com/reviews Ready To Launch Your Podcast? If you want to launch a podcast but feel stuck, unsure where to start, or overwhelmed by the tech, Podcasting A to Z was created for you. This is a live, four-week guided experience where I personally help you launch a great-sounding podcast with clarity and confidence. Learn more and see if Podcasting A to Z is right for you at PodcastingAtoZ.com.

In this episode of The Career Report, I break down why your job title matters far less than you think when it comes to getting hired. Too many professionals get stuck chasing the “right” title instead of focusing on what actually moves the needle in interviews and executive searches.We talk about how hiring managers really evaluate candidates, what recruiters look for beyond titles, and how relying on a title alone can quietly hold your career back. If you've ever wondered why strong experience isn't translating into interviews or offers, this episode will help you rethink how you position yourself and your value.This is especially relevant for directors, VPs, and senior professionals navigating a competitive market where perception, clarity, and impact matter more than labels.

Aprovechando la migración entre los dos NAS, estoy haciendo un cambio significativo en la arquitectura de red pública para mis servicios. Todo basado en un nuevo VPS, un Traefik en la nube y una nueva VPN.

Fredrik chats to Dylan Beattie about Rockstar, esoteric programming languages (Perl in latin, anyone?), and what might happen after the AI bubble. AI will ruin jokes, they can't do things just right. But some things hiding under the label are actually useful as well. Have we been in any similarly strange bubbles before, and what might be left that's useful after it? Also evolution, revolution, and strange Scrabble facts. Recorded during Øredev 2025. The episode is sponsored by Ellipsis - let us edit your podcast and make it sound just as good as Kodsnack! With more than ten years and 1200 episodes of experience, Ellipsis gets your podcast edited, chapterized, and described with all related links in a prompt and professional manner. Thank you Cloudnet for sponsoring our VPS! Comments, questions or tips? We a re @kodsnack, @tobiashieta, @oferlundand @bjoreman on Twitter, have a page on Facebook and can be emailed at info@kodsnack.se if you want to write longer. We read everything we receive. If you enjoy Kodsnack we would love a review in iTunes! You can also support the podcast by buying us a coffee (or two!) through Ko-fi. Links Dylan Dylan also has a podcast - Tech, bugs & rock'n'roll Dylan's presentation at Øredev 2025: Rockstar 2.0: building an esoteric language interpreter in .NET Rockstar Formal grammar Esoteric programming languages Damian Conway Perl Perl in Latin - the paper and the module Latin Inflectional grammar Domain-specific languages Lilypond - Scheme dialect for sheet music Context-free grammar Engraving - the art of creating sheet music codewithrockstar.com Support us on Ko-fi! Scrabble Metal umlaut Piet - the language which should have been called Mondrian Piet Mondrian Mondrian - the undeserving tool Turing completeness The Buster Keaton house scene The dot-com bubble The subprime mortgage crisis Enron Douglas Adams Three mile island Windows Vista Tim Berners-Lee Solid - Tim's project of holding your data locally Ellipsis - sponsor of the week: we edit Kodsnack, and we can edit your podcast too! The emperor's new mind Quantum computing Hadamard gate The linebreakers - Dylan's band of conference speakers ASML Titles Always good fun that one The version of the story that I tell in the talk Enough clichés Resident mad scientist of the Perl community Felis commidet piscem Always the cat that is eating Lexical flexibility Fundamentally, programming is programming A big win for everyone Linguistic conventions and extended alphabets That's a different letter Regional assumptions German ortography A piece of impressionist art Hang it on the wall Something hidden in something else Physical comedy at its greatest Money people believe exists The amount of pretend money It has to come from reality Fortunately, I do not have a trillion dollars Quietly siphoned off Emotionally flat What can I steal from? A little LLM that works for you A spectacular collapse A billion lines of crap Pruning the decision tree Fix the next milestone in the public consciousness Five years of excitement, five years of disappointment Overdue for a little disappointment Reliant on Dutch technology

¿Tu servidor o escritorio Linux está lento o no te deja desmontar un disco? ¿Borraste un archivo gigante pero el espacio no se liberó? ¡Tenemos al culpable!En este episodio de atareao con Linux, te destripo el comando más poderoso para el diagnóstico de sistemas: lsof (List Open Files).Aprenderás a usar este detective de recursos para resolver los problemas más frustrantes de administración de sistemas, desde la configuración de Docker hasta la optimización de tu VPS o Raspberry Pi.

In this episode of The Career Report, Tim and Kristina Madden break down the latest shifts in the job market and why right now is one of the strongest moments we've seen in months for high-level candidates. With job openings hitting new highs, companies are actively moving to secure talent before the new year... creating more interviews, faster timelines, and wider opportunities for Directors, VPs, and Executives who stay engaged.Tim and Kristina unpack what's driving this surge, which industries are accelerating, and how you can position yourself to stand out while the market is moving in your favor. If you've been thinking about starting or restarting your search, this episode makes it clear: now is the time to take action.

If you're a senior executive preparing for or recovering from layoffs, you already know the truth. It is not the cuts that damage organizations. It is how they are handled. When trust fractures, proactivity collapses, execution slows, and your best people quietly start looking elsewhere.In this episode, Alex D. Tremble breaks down how executive teams can navigate layoffs with clarity, dignity, and strategic intent, so you protect trust today and preserve execution capacity for tomorrow.You will learn:Why poorly executed layoffs create long-term cultural and operational damageHow to communicate hard news without gaslighting and avoid the common mistakes that erode trustHow to protect dignity for those leaving and psychological safety for those who remainStrategic questions every senior executive must answer before deciding who to cutAlternatives to layoffs many leaders overlook that can preserve trust and talentA real coaching example showing what compassionate, high-clarity executive leadership looks like in practiceThis episode is for C suite leaders, senior executives, VPs, and Division Presidents running $50M–$750M organizations who are tired of carrying the emotional and operational weight of difficult decisions alone.Listen now to rethink how your executive team navigates its hardest moments.Share this with another senior leader who is facing tough decisions this season.

Fredrik och Kristoffer snackar debuggers och markdownparsning. Debuggers - varför finns det inte fler bra, och varför använder inte fler de som finns? En debugger är inte bara ett verktyg för att hitta buggar - det är ett verktyg för att förstå kod. Kristoffers markdownparser är klar! Hur gick det, hur presterar den, och varför är nästa fundering ett personligt CMS? Ett stort tack till Cloudnet som sponsrar vår VPS! Har du kommentarer, frågor eller tips? Vi är @kodsnack, @thieta, @krig, och @bjoreman på Mastodon, har en sida på Facebook och epostas på info@kodsnack.se om du vill skriva längre. Vi läser allt som skickas. Gillar du Kodsnack får du hemskt gärna recensera oss i iTunes! Du kan också stödja podden genom att ge oss en kaffe (eller två!) på Ko-fi, eller handla något i vår butik. Länkar Björeman // Melin // Åhs My traceroute - MTR Homebrew - pakethanterare för Macos (främst) Lidén data Squadcast We don't do things not because they are easy … Ryan Fleury bygger debugger för C och C++ på Epic Odin GDB Remedy debugger RAD debugger printf Xbox 360 En arg britt som slår en på fingrarna Gleam Kristoffers markdownparser Commonmark Obsidian-markdown Github flavored markdown YAML Djot - striktare än Markdown Right-flanking delimiter run i Commonmark Feynman Edb - ny Erlang-debugger Stöd oss på Ko-fi! DWARF och DSYM NIF Boken Pro Git Mörk borg Lustre - webbibliotek för Gleam CMS - content management system Pingback Medium Helix Dataview Paste URL into selection Note refactor Lazyvim Gleam gathering i Bristol i februari Titlar 50% paketförlust Det kanske är mitt fel En gammal switch med tomma buffrar Rättvist på nätet Ljudet framför allt Nästa omöjligt att debugga Ett otroligt bra verktyg printf-debugging Förstå kod Breakpoints på en pixel på skärmen Visionen för vad som är möjligt Konceptet debugger Copad YAML i toppen Gleam-native Vi tror att det kan vara lätt Sjutton specialfall Right-flanking runs Feynmanmetoden De sista fyra testfallen Debuggervänliga Breakpoint i en produktionsprocess Smink på grisen Hur svårt är det att bygga en debugger? Bättre än den officiella Enpersons-CMS Tredollars-VPS Bekväm i Vim Sourcemaps för Erlang

If you are making it to the panel interview but still getting those automated "Thanks but no thanks" emails, you are likely making one of these 3 fatal mistakes.In this episode, we reveal why high-achievers like nurses, D1 athletes, and experienced VPs fail to break into Pharma and Medical Device sales. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:- The "Immature Enthusiasm" Trap: Why being a "go-getter" isn't enough and the specific clinical research you MUST do before the first phone call.- The LinkedIn Strategy: Stop using LinkedIn like a digital resume. Learn the "20-Person Rule" and how to message hiring managers without being annoying.- The "Guard Down" Mistake: Why you are failing the field ride and peer interviews (and why you should never relax around potential colleagues).CHAPTERS (Jump to the section you need):0:00 - Intro: Why talented people get rejected01:50 - Mistake #1: You Didn't Do the Research (FDA, Clinical Trials, Competitors)04:44 - Immature Enthusiasm vs. Professional Readiness05:12 - Mistake #2: You Are Using LinkedIn Wrong (Stop asking to "Pick their brain")06:35 - The "20-Person" LinkedIn Strategy12:33 - Mistake #3: You Are Not Networking Correctly (The "Invisible" Applicant)13:43 - Warning: The "Guard Down" Trap with Peer Reps ABOUT MEDICAL SALES U: Medical Sales U is the premier training program for professionals looking to break into high-paying careers in Medical Device, Pharmaceutical, and Genetic Testing sales. We turn "outsiders" into top 1% candidates.CONNECT WITH US:Learn more about coaching and career support at medicalsalesu.com/#MedicalSales #PharmaceuticalSales #CareerAdvice #SalesInterview #MedicalSalesU #JobSearchTips #LinkedInStrategy

Host Kim Russo sits down with Job Coach Victoria McMillin, Owner of Job Coach Victoria, to share invaluable tips on how to get your resume noticed and land your dream role with Instagram @JobCoachVictoria. As a seasoned Career Strategist with 20 years of experience placing professionals in Fortune 100 Companies, Victoria witnessed a major disconnect: highly valuable professionals—even VPs and Directors—struggle to present their skills effectively in today's demanding job market.  Victoria's method is built on bridging that gap. She explains how the average job posting receives 100 resumes, making the first six seconds of review critical. Learn the proven strategies Job Coach Victoria uses to structure your resume to bypass that quick glance and land in the "yes" pile. She also reveals the critical steps beyond the application, including: Customized Resume Crafting: Techniques for powerful presentation. Self-Marketing: How to position yourself better for recruiters. Networking Secrets: Finding and using connections you didn't know you had. Interview Mastery: Mastering interviews with confidence.  Victoria has helped thousands of professionals secure positions at top organizations like Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, and Wells Fargo. Tune in for actionable advice that will accelerate your career search! Find her on Instagram @JobCoachVictoria

Recorded on-stage at Øredev 2025, Fredrik talks to David J. Cuartielles Ruizabout the birth and growth of Arduino. It's fantastic when an idea comes alive and starts growing. We talk about how Arduino began, how it started to grow, how you find parts and get things manufactured in northern Italy, and of course a bit about the magical logistics king. Many thanks to Øredev for inviting Kodsnack again, they paid for the trip and the editing time of these keynote recordings, but have no say about the content of these or any other episodes. Thank you Cloudnet for sponsoring our VPS! Comments, questions or tips? We a re @kodsnack, @tobiashieta, @oferlundand @bjoreman on Twitter, have a page on Facebook and can be emailed at info@kodsnack.se if you want to write longer. We read everything we receive. If you enjoy Kodsnack we would love a review in iTunes! You can also support the podcast by buying us a coffee (or two!) through Ko-fi. Links Øredev All the presentation videos from Øredev 2025 David J. Cuartielles Ruiz Open bio-compatible electronics - David's keynote Arduino The school of arts and communication at Malmö university Interaction design institute Ivrea Ivrea Autodesk Piedmont Olivetti Flextronics Titles Algorithms for communication Educational electronics Making boards, not being paid Old factories Buy them by weight The bootstrapping dilemma Our logistics king

Recorded on-stage at Øredev 2025, Fredrik talks to Justyna Zander about AI for self-driving cars, the noise of the present, and more. Don't let the noise of today demolish the positive signal of the future! Many thanks to Øredev for inviting Kodsnack again, they paid for the trip and the editing time of these keynote recordings, but have no say about the content of these or any other episodes. Thank you Cloudnet for sponsoring our VPS! Comments, questions or tips? We a re @kodsnack, @tobiashieta, @oferlundand @bjoreman on Twitter, have a page on Facebook and can be emailed at info@kodsnack.se if you want to write longer. We read everything we receive. If you enjoy Kodsnack we would love a review in iTunes! You can also support the podcast by buying us a coffee (or two!) through Ko-fi. Links Øredev All the presentation videos from Øredev 2025 Justyna Zander Physical AI: crafting resilient systems with emotional intelligence- Justyna's keynote Emotional intelligence Empathy Hyperscalars Snowflake Demis Hassabis Titles You learn something new We have it in the spatial sense The policy of the machine What did the human tell me to do? How do you teach the machine empathy? The first to be disrupted The intent of a human Engineering with purpose Statistics on steroids

Recorded on-stage at Øredev 2025, Fredrik talks to Simon Wardley about maps (not the same as charts!), stories, commodotization, digital sovereignty, getting labeled a heretic by all sides, and a lot more. Among other things, Simon discusses how you can map things out and thereby find new ways to present and challenge the current state within and organization. Not that it will necessarily be very popular, hence the bit about being called a heretic. Many thanks to Øredev for inviting Kodsnack again, they paid for the trip and the editing time of these keynote recordings, but have no say about the content of these or any other episodes. Thank you Cloudnet for sponsoring our VPS! Comments, questions or tips? We a re @kodsnack, @tobiashieta, @oferlundand @bjoreman on Twitter, have a page on Facebook and can be emailed at info@kodsnack.se if you want to write longer. We read everything we receive. If you enjoy Kodsnack we would love a review in iTunes! You can also support the podcast by buying us a coffee (or two!) through Ko-fi. Links Øredev All the presentation videos from Øredev 2025 Simon Wardley From here to there and back again - Simon's keynote Rewilding software engineering - AI, tools and human decisions - Simon's other talk at Øredev Wardley mapping Simon's writings on Medium Innovate-leverage-commoditize model Reaching cloud velocity - AWS book EC2 Mapreduce Extreme programming Six sigma Lean Titles We only had 50 minutes A map, not a graph The map is wrong Maps will get you fired As long as everyone else is just as bad Look at the entire map The size of Malmö Sick-care systems Shocks to the system Wardleyconf

Recorded on-stage at Øredev 2025, Fredrik talks to Tiera Fletcher about her lightning tour of going to Mars and what might happen on the way. And also about - for example - finding visions to guide your daily work. In 60 years, life on Mars could start to be comfortable. Many thanks to Øredev for inviting Kodsnack again, they paid for the trip and the editing time of these keynote recordings, but have no say about the content of these or any other episodes. Thank you Cloudnet for sponsoring our VPS! Comments, questions or tips? We a re @kodsnack, @tobiashieta, @oferlundand @bjoreman on Twitter, have a page on Facebook and can be emailed at info@kodsnack.se if you want to write longer. We read everything we receive. If you enjoy Kodsnack we would love a review in iTunes! You can also support the podcast by buying us a coffee (or two!) through Ko-fi. Links Øredev All the presentation videos from Øredev 2025 Tiera Fletcher Innovating the journey to Mars - Tiera's keynote MOXIE Memory foam GPS Gateway - the modular space station which is meant to orbit the moon Myron Fletcher Rocket with the Fletchers Titles MOXIE+ liquefy For another planet A way to do it better MOXIE is a big one Small dogs and breathing I have a small dog at home My magic number Right at the point of comfort Checking on MOXIE Your daily MOXIE Make the visions louder

Most sales orgs brag about being data-driven, then bury SDRs under forty-seven KPIs, endless meetings, overlapping territories, hope-based quotas, and tool sprawl. That's not accountability. It's anxiety by design.In this episode, Brandon Bornancin breaks down the five GTM design flaws quietly crushing performance and shows you what elite VPs do instead. You'll learn how to cut to five controllable KPIs, replace meeting bloat with async updates, assign single-account ownership, rebuild quotas from real capacity, and collapse your stack so the next action lives in the CRM.Brandon lays out the templates, rules of engagement, and compensation tweaks that turn chaos into throughput... without burning out your best reps. 

We pull on a few loose threads from recent episodes, and some of them unravel into way more than we expected.Sponsored By:Managed Nebula: Meet Managed Nebula from Defined Networking. A decentralized VPN built on the open-source Nebula platform that we love. 1Password Extended Access Management: 1Password Extended Access Management is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps. CrowdHealth: Discover a Better Way to Pay for Healthcare with Crowdfunded Memberships. Join CrowdHealth to get started today for $99 for your first three months using UNPLUGGED.Unraid: A powerful, easy operating system for servers and storage. Maximize your hardware with unmatched flexibility. Support LINUX UnpluggedLinks:

En este episodio profundizamos en la optimización de tus sistemas Docker. El objetivo de hoy: implementar nuevas y mejores prácticas para que tus contenedores sean más estables y eficientes. Si buscas cómo sacar el máximo partido a tu infraestructura autoalojada, esta es tu guía.Uno de los problemas más comunes al trabajar con Docker Compose es que los servicios dependientes (como una aplicación web o un servidor de correo) intentan conectarse a la base de datos antes de que esta haya terminado de arrancar, provocando errores.Te muestro mi solución PRO para esto: utilizamos la combinación de la directiva depends_on con la condición service_healthy.Esta configuración asegura que servicios críticos como Gitea (mi servicio de alojamiento de repositorios Git) y Stalwart (mi servidor de correo) solo se inician cuando su respectiva base de datos PostgreSQL ha pasado su chequeo de salud y está lista para aceptar conexiones. Esto garantiza una secuencia de inicio robusta y sin fallos, una mejora fundamental en la gestión de tus datos y sistemas.Gitea : Vemos cómo configurar el healthcheck para la base de datos PostgreSQL usando pg_isready y cómo el servicio Gitea espera por esta condición. También optimizamos el tráfico interno del runner de Gitea para que use la red interna de Docker (http://gitea:3000), reduciendo la carga de Traefik y mejorando la seguridad.Stalwart : En el caso de mi cliente de correo, he migrado la base de datos de RocketDB a PostgreSQL. La razón es sencilla: PostgreSQL es más transparente y me permite integrar sin esfuerzo mi contenedor personalizado (atareao/postgres-backup:latest) para hacer copias de seguridad eficientes y automatizadas.En este episodio, también te presento una nueva herramienta que me ha encantado: Dockpeek.Dockpeek es un panel de control autoalojado y muy ligero para Docker, perfecto para la gestión de contenedores en múltiples hosts. Si te gustan las herramientas que reemplazan funcionalidades complejas con soluciones sencillas, Dockpeek te va a encantar.Características destacadas: Acceso web con un clic, mapeo automático de puertos, registros de contenedores en vivo, integración con Traefik y chequeo de actualizaciones de imágenes.Te comparto el compose.yml que utilizo para instalar Dockpeek junto a Traefik.Quantum (Filebrowser): He ajustado los permisos y la configuración del servicio que utilizo para compartir archivos. Te explico la solución al problema de permisos que surgió al intentar usar un usuario que no es root, modificando el uid, gid y mode en la sección configs del compose.yml.Escucha el episodio para obtener el tutorial completo y adaptar estas soluciones a tu Raspberry Pi o VPS. ¡Es la forma más práctica de optimizar tu productividad y tus sistemas Linux!¡Suscríbete a "atareao con Linux" para no perderte ningún tutorial y llevar tu experiencia con Linux a un nivel PRO!

Chris cooked up a wild remote-access trick for Jellyfin that skips VPNs entirely. One tiny toggle spins up a secure tunnel on demand. Simple, absurd, and shockingly effective.Sponsored By:Managed Nebula: Meet Managed Nebula from Defined Networking. A decentralized VPN built on the open-source Nebula platform that we love. 1Password Extended Access Management: 1Password Extended Access Management is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps. CrowdHealth: Discover a Better Way to Pay for Healthcare with Crowdfunded Memberships. Join CrowdHealth to get started today for $99 for your first three months using UNPLUGGED.Unraid: A powerful, easy operating system for servers and storage. Maximize your hardware with unmatched flexibility. Support LINUX UnpluggedLinks:

Dive into Episode #158 of the Psych Health and Safety USA Podcast, featuring host Dr. I. David Daniels, PhD, CSD, VPS, and special guest retired Chief Fire Officer Tiffanye Wesley, the Chair of the Black Chief Officers' Committee. Chief Wesley is the first female chair of the BCOC in its 40-year history and assumes this role after a string of barrier-breaking accomplishments over a 30-year career in the fire rescue service. Chief Wesley shares some of the challenges that she experienced and overcame in a system not designed for her success.

At Dick Cheney’s funeral in Washington National Cathedral, George W. Bush praised his former vice president as “solid, reliable, and rare,” focusing on loyalty and service. The bipartisan gathering included former Pres. Joe Biden and all living former VPs. Notably absent were Pres.. Donald Trump and VP JD Vance, who were not invited amid lingering political rifts. Please Like, Comment and Follow 'Broeske & Musson' on all platforms: --- The ‘Broeske & Musson Podcast’ is available on the KMJNOW app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever else you listen to podcasts. --- ‘Broeske & Musson' Weekdays 9-11 AM Pacific on News/Talk 580 AM & 105.9 FM KMJ | Facebook | Podcast| X | - Everything KMJ KMJNOW App | Podcasts | Facebook | X | Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does executive presence actually mean, and how do you develop it when you're stuck in the middle?  Today's guest, Jennifer Jensen, author of "Developing Authentic Leaders", breaks down the specific mindset shifts that separate directors from VPs—and why most middle managers stay focused on the wrong things. You'll discover why strategic thinking isn't a natural talent but a learnable skill, the mistakes that keep talented people invisible, and how to influence without formal authority.  Jennifer also shares the truth about advancing when your organization won't invest in you, and practical steps you can take starting today. Whether you're wondering why some people rise effortlessly or feeling stuck despite doing great work, this episode gives you a clear roadmap for building executive presence and getting promoted.  Follow The Made Leader for more leadership insights and strategies.  For links mentioned, visit www.growthsignals.co Connect with Jennifer: info@authenticleader.ca Connect with Jen: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenparnold/ Website: https://growthsignals.co/

In this episode of Mostly Growth, CJ Gustafson and Kyle Poyar dig into what it means to be useful rather than just right at work, exploring how communication, empathy, and impact matter more than technical precision as careers mature. They share candid lessons from their own paths—CJ's focus on making others look good to earn promotions and Kyle's evolution into a domain expert through public writing—before unpacking what separates good from great VPs of Sales with insights from Pavilion founder Sam Jacobs. The conversation then shifts to OpenAI's “too big to fail” claims, the economic ripple effects of AI infrastructure spending, and how finance leaders can stay grounded in reality. Rounding out the episode, the hosts preview their latest research—CJ's “Agentic Finance” report on AI in the finance stack and Kyle's 2025 SaaS Benchmarks—and close with lighthearted banter about founder age stats, home maintenance mishaps, and the price of professional Christmas lights—LINKS:Mostly Metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.comCJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Growth Unhinged: https://www.growthunhinged.com/Kyle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-poyar/Slacker Stuff: https://www.slackerstuff.com/Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/slackerstuff/https://sarahcharlton.substack.com/p/from-being-right-to-being-usefulhttps://www.highalpha.com/saas-benchmarkshttps://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/presenting-the-state-of-the-agentic-financial-stackhttps://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/finance-in-2030https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-algorithm-will-see-you-now/https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/openai-ceo-sam-altman-forecasts-20-billion-annualized-revenue-yearhttps://www.growthunhinged.com/p/your-pricing-is-broken—RELATED EPISODES:When the marketing math doesn't math | with Emily Kramerhttps://youtu.be/sSuoV_YSrlwGetting fired 4 times made me a founder | Sam Jacobs of Pavilionhttps://youtu.be/8X-JVOF-1A0How To Win at Early Stage Sales With the Guy Who Helped Take Snyk From $0 to $100M+https://youtu.be/VKrZCte8fyM996 Culture, Exploding AI Bills & SaaS Chaoshttps://youtu.be/qhrxDL0gsRo—TIMESTAMPS:00:00:00 Preview and Intro00:02:18 Sponsors – Pulley and Metronome00:05:09 Flight Cancellation and Airport Chaos00:07:58 Being Right vs. Being Useful00:11:17 Getting Promoted Early by Making Others Look Good00:15:25 What Separates a Good VP of Sales from a Great One00:18:24 Sales Leaders as Capital Allocators00:21:14 The Organizational Tax of Sales Support00:22:33 Is OpenAI Too Big to Fail?00:25:31 AI Investments, Alternatives, and Market Impact00:27:50 Bailouts and Economic Reality00:28:20 Agentic Finance and the AI-Driven Finance Stack00:31:43 SaaS Benchmarks Report 2025 Overview00:33:59 Growth Rates by ARR Tier and Scale00:35:40 AI's Impact on Engineering Teams00:37:45 Age and Startup Success00:39:42 Building Durable Businesses Over Time00:41:25 Something You Tried This Week – HVAC Cleaning00:43:19 Outsourcing Holiday Cheer – Professional Light Installation00:47:08 Credits – Mostly Growth Closing Remarks—SPONSORS:Pulley is the cap table management platform built for CFOs and finance leaders who need reliable, audit-ready data and intuitive workflows, without the hidden fees or unreliable support. Switch in as little as 5 days and get 25% off your first year: https://pulley.com/mostlymetricsMetronome is real-time billing built for modern software companies. Metronome turns raw usage events into accurate invoices, gives customers bills they actually understand, and keeps finance, product, and engineering perfectly in sync. That's why category-defining companies like OpenAI and Anthropic trust Metronome to power usage-based pricing and enterprise contracts at scale. Focus on your product — not your billing. Learn more and get started at https://www.metronome.com—#MostlyGrowthPodcast #StartupFinance #AIPodcast #SaaSLeadership #GoToMarket This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cjgustafson.substack.com

The old PM career playbook doesn't work in the AI era. In this episode of The Skip, we lay out a new career framework for product managers, and it's a lot more “choose your door” than “climb the ladder.” If you're wondering whether to stay in big tech, jump to an AI startup, double down as a builder, or rethink your whole path, this one's for you. We talk about why your hard-won product intuition is quietly becoming obsolete, why some ex-VPs are happily taking senior IC roles, and how to prepare for what's coming next.Key topics• Why your product intuition is outdated — and how to “go back to school” without quitting your job• Why company quality now matters more than your title, comp band, or level• What elite AI companies are actually looking for in PMs• The builder vs factory mindset: are you obsessed with the product, or with the machine that ships it?• How to choose between Big Tech, hot AI startups, healthy growth companies, or founding• A three-part reality check on constraints: compensation, location, and pace• The truth about 9–9–6 and AI startups: when extreme pace is worth it, and when it's just branding• Why “coasting” in big tech is mostly a myth• Remote vs hub tradeoffs: what you gain and lose by moving to SF or NYC• Why this is Part 1 — and what we'll go deeper on next in the PM Career Framework for AI seriesWhere to find Nikhyl:• Twitter/X• LinkedInWhere to find Carly:• LinkedIn• She Leads Podcast• Twitter/XJoin The Skip:• Skip Coach• Skip CommunityFind The Skip:• Website• Substack• YouTube• Spotify• Apple PodcastsTimestamps(00:53) Why the PM career framework needs to be rewritten for AI(03:35) Why ex-VPs are happily taking senior IC roles(06:07) Why your current product intuition is becoming obsolete(11:46) Why AI-first companies only want hands-on PMs(14:40) How to choose between Big Tech, AI startups, growth companies, or founding(18:06) How to actually upgrade your product intuition on the job(25:13) What's really happening with PM compensation in 2025(33:46) Why true AI startups are rarely remote-first(42:42) What 9–9–6 culture at AI companies actually looks like(50:52) The myth of work–life balance in growth environments(55:40) The builder vs factory mindset(60:29) Are you obsessed with the product or the factory that ships it?(67:11) The key takeaway for PMs making career moves in 2025Don't forget to subscribe to The Skip to hear me coach you through timely career lessons. If you're interested in joining me on a future call, send me a note on LinkedIn, Threads, or Twitter. You can also email me at nikhyl@skip.community This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theskip.substack.com

You raised Series B. Now what? If you're a tech founder in a Series B company, you're scaling fast, refining product, and chasing metrics. But while your team builds the tech, who's building the trust? In this solo episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on the blind spot I see across nearly every high-growth company: invisible leadership teams. You've got funding, product-market fit, and momentum—but if your leaders can't communicate externally with clarity, credibility, and confidence, you've got a serious growth liability. I'm not talking about polishing LinkedIn bios or posting more. I'm talking about turning your operators into trusted voices that support your brand, build stakeholder confidence, and drive real business outcomes. Let's talk about what Series B companies are getting wrong, and how to fix it before your competitors outshine you. What you'll learn: Why most Series B companies are ignoring a critical growth driver The external influence blind spot that's holding your leadership team back Real talk on why product alone won't get you to Series C What perception has to do with fundraising, talent, and enterprise deals Why silent CTOs and invisible VPs are costing you credibility How to equip your team to lead out loud, not just operate in the background Your Next Steps: Access the white paper: External Influence: The Currency Every Leader Must Carry. https://externalinfluence.us Follow Shayna on LinkedIn: http:/linkedin.com/in/shaynarattler Visit our website: https://shaynadavisconsulting.com

In part 2 of this year's Spooky Stories special, Wes and Scott discuss the most chilling developer horror stories—from six-month-old unprocessed donations and runaway dog-food orders to vanishing databases, DNS disasters, code that literally tore apart a mall's ventilation system, and more! Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 01:33 A Bug Beyond the Grave 04:16 NHL SPOOKS 06:36 White Space Ghost Faced 10:54 Over Order Nightmare 16:50 Alaskian 21:16 Brought to you by Sentry.io 22:50 Rackspace'd Out 25:02 Fired 26:52 WordPress Woes 33:21 What does the P in VPS stand for? 34:18 Beyond the Grave II 35:39 The Hottest Hot Fix 37:54 Bad Redirect 40:03 Instead of Making Money, You Spend Money! 41:26 Certbot Certain Death 43:55 It's Always DNS 50:02 Cache Ruins Everything Around Me 51:52 Fiber F-Up 56:18 More Spooky Stories Don't Drink and Deploy

Here's a problem that'll tie you in knots: You've got a killer software solution that saves companies massive money on employee benefits. You know exactly who needs it. Fortune 1000 companies with self-insured health plans. But you can't get a single meeting with the people who matter. That's the situation Peter Kleinman from Provo, Utah, found himself in. As the sales and marketing guy for his dad's startup, he was tasked with landing enterprise clients while juggling full-time classes at BYU. He had LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, and a burning desire to make it work. He also had virtually no chance of success using his current approach. If you're nodding your head right now, keep reading. Because Peter's problem is your problem if you're trying to sell into enterprise accounts without the business acumen, social proof, or strategy to break through. The 100-Foot Wall Problem Let me be brutally honest: Fortune 1000 CHROs and C-suite executives have built a wall around themselves that's about 100 feet high. Their entire job is keeping people like you from wasting their time. And if you're young, inexperienced, or new to enterprise sales? That wall might as well be 1,000 feet high. Peter was doing everything the sales books tell you to do. He was going straight to the top. He was messaging decision makers on LinkedIn. He was targeting the right titles. He was also getting absolutely nowhere. Here's why: It has nothing to do with age and everything to do with business acumen. You can't speak the language of enterprise buyers if you've never lived in their world. You don't understand their buying process, their risk aversion, or the organizational politics that determine whether your deal lives or dies. Most critically, you're trying to sell something they don't even know they need. And you have zero social proof to back up your claims. That's not a recipe for success. That's a recipe for frustration, burnout, and a pipeline full of nothing. The Bottom-Up, Top-Down Strategy If you can't get to the top, start at the bottom. I'm not talking about giving up on enterprise accounts. I'm talking about running a multi-threading strategy that builds your business acumen while creating pathways into those massive organizations. Here's how it works: Find the amplifiers. These are the people in the trenches who actually deal with the problem your solution solves every single day. They're not directors or VPs. They're managers, analysts, and coordinators who feel the pain but lack the authority to fix it. These people are 100 times easier to talk to than C-suite executives. They'll take your call. They'll teach you. They'll tell you exactly what's broken in their organization and how decisions actually get made. Compress your experience. When you talk to these amplifiers, you're not selling. You're learning. You're asking questions like, "Help me understand how you make these decisions," and "What problems are you running into?" Every conversation compresses years of experience into hours. You learn the language. You understand the pain points. You gather insights that become ammunition for conversations with decision makers. Surface the insights upward. Now when you finally get in front of that CHRO or VP of Benefits, you're not some kid with a PowerPoint. You're someone who understands their organization better than they do. You can tell them stories about what their own people are experiencing and how you can close the gap. That's how you get meetings. That's how you build credibility. That's how you win deals when you have no business acumen and no social proof. The Insurance Broker Shortcut Here's another path Peter needed to explore: Insurance brokers. If you can't talk to the self-insured companies directly, talk to the people who advise them. Insurance brokers work with these organizations every day. They understand the buying process. They know the pain points.