Podcasts about ZoomInfo

Episode 221: Automate Your Lead Generation with our FREE online course: https://go.digitaltrailblazer.com/auto-leads-course-freeWithout strong testimonials and case studies, online business owners are forced to rely solely on their own claims to make sales — a much harder and slower path to conversions, especially with higher-ticket offers.In this episode, Preston Zeller teaches us how to build a powerful library of social proof by conducting structured video interviews with past clients, how to reach out in a personalized way that gets a "yes," the three types of testimonials and which ones actually move buyers, and how to extract compelling before-and-after stories even when results are hard to quantify.About Preston Zeller: Preston is a faith-tech founder, growth executive, documentary filmmaker, and abstract artist with 15 years of experience scaling companies from $25M to $300M ARR. As founder of Psalmlog, he's building an AI-powered biblical guidance app that helps believers find relevant Scripture for any life situation. His growth expertise includes serving as Chief Growth Officer at BatchService, leading digital marketing at A Cloud Guru (acquired by Pluralsight for $2B), and contributing to ZoomInfo's IPO.Preston is also the creator of the documentary The Art of Grieving (2022), which follows his year-long journey of painting daily after the sudden loss of his brother. The film has won Best Documentary at multiple festivals and is available on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Tubi.Connect with Preston:https://prestonzeller.com https://linkedin.com/in/prestonzellerWant to SCALE your online business bigger and faster without the endless hustle of networking, referrals, and pumping out content that nobody sees?Grab our Ultimate Ad Script for Coaches, Agencies, and Course Creators.Learn the exact 5-step script we teach our clients that allows them to generate targeted, high-quality leads at ultra-low cost, so you can land paying customers and clients without breaking the bank on ad spend.Grab the Ultimate Ad Script right HERE - https://join.digitaltrailblazer.com/ultimate-ad-script✅ Connect With Us:Website - https://DigitalTrailblazer.comFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/digitaltrailblazerTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@digitaltrailblazerX (Twitter): https://x.com/DgtlTrailblazerInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/DigitalTrailblazer

Craig Rosenberg, Chief Platform Officer at Scale Venture Partners and co-founder of Topo, joins AJ Bruno and Asad Zaman to take on the question every founder is wrestling with: can you still build a world-class sales team when OpenAI and Anthropic are handing individual contributors $10 million equity packages? Craig argues you do not have to compete head-on, then lays out the hiring profile to chase instead, the quota-to-comp discipline that keeps packages sane, and why founder brand has become the most reliable pipeline play left as CAC keeps climbing. Topics include enterprise AE compensation, where private equity is still winning the GTM talent war, the Topo playbook for events and data-as-moat, and a bull-versus-bear debate on whether Gong goes public in the next 36 months. Plus, a Quiz Pro Quo on the real customer counts behind Salesforce, HubSpot, and ZoomInfo. Key Takeaways: - Rather than try to outbid OpenAI and Anthropic for talent, build your own farm system and develop people into the role. As Craig Rosenberg, Chief Platform Officer at Scale Venture Partners, put it: "You have to change your hiring profile to a unique profile that's unique to your business, but then you gotta coach 'em up." - A resume from a hot AI lab is not a guarantee of success at your company. As Craig Rosenberg noted, "The person that is going to do well at Anthropic may not do well at Series B," so hire for the stage and the hunger rather than the logo. - On compensation, Craig anchors the package to the role's real value: "you pay for what your wedge costs… if you feel like you have to pay $10 million, then you have a huge problem and you gotta go back to the drawing board." If the number runs away from you, the model is broken. - With CAC climbing and most channels breaking down, founder brand has become the highest-leverage pipeline play. As Craig Rosenberg said, "The value of building a founder brand, when you look at the data, it's amazing," pointing to gains in both pipeline and deal size. Connect with the Hosts & Guests: Host: AJ Bruno, CEO at QuotaPath - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/ Host: Asad Zaman, CEO at Sales Talent Agency - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/ Guest: Craig Rosenberg, Chief Platform Officer at Scale Venture Partners - https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigrosenberg/ Topline is more than a YouTube Channel: Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://toplinemedia.substack.com/ Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters: 00:00 Introducing Craig Rosenberg 02:34 Can Anyone Out-Hire The AI Labs? 04:33 Why Craig Isn't Worried 06:52 Enterprise AE Comp Is Climbing 08:21 Founders Overpay For Star CROs 10:53 Why AI Reps Struggle At Series B 14:00 Hire The Slighted CRO 14:42 Quota-To-Comp And Attainment 18:45 Can AI Labs Sustain Growth? 22:20 Where PE Still Wins GTM Talent 27:17 Major Runs Reshape GTM 32:36 The Topo GTM Playbook 37:55 Quiz Pro Quo 47:45 Founder Brand And Rising CAC 58:42 Bulls and Bears

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with ParkerGale Operating Partner Paul Stansik to break down five ways CFOs can help build a better sales engine: making the budget mean something, improving forecasting, sharpening metrics, getting involved in key RevOps moments, and building real trust with sales.—SPONSORS:Aleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com/cjBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metrics—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulstansik/Company: https://www.parkergale.com/Hello Operator: https://hellooperator.substack.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—RELATED EPISODES:Is a weekly martini ARR? | with Dave Kellogghttps://youtu.be/Yb1lUQLJ6qw—TIMESTAMPS:All verified. Here are the timestamps:0:00 Preview and intro2:27 Parker Gale and Paul's role3:52 Topic: how CFOs build a better sales engine6:21 1: Make the budget mean something8:11 Budget segmentation and cleaving the business10:54 Sponsors — Aleph | RightRev | Rillet14:08 2: Help emphasize forecasting17:23 Forecasting as non-threatening co-construction19:37 Sponsors — EY | SpendHound | Brex23:06 3: Lend a hand with data and metrics25:32 Walking sales through NDR levers27:16 Metrics tied to exit readiness28:00 4: Get involved in a few RevOps spots29:04 Pricing, proposals, and quoting31:22 Kill your SKUs32:51 Selling with certainty: quote formatting34:26 CFO letter for enterprise deals37:37 5: Build a great relationship with sales37:59 You can't fix a secret39:23 EQ over IQ for finance leaders40:41 Recap: all five tips42:11 Credits#RunTheNumbersPodcast #CFO #SalesStrategy #FinanceLeadership #RevenueOperations

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Figure Technologies CFO Macrina Kgil to break down how Figure's business model works, why traditional lending remains so bloated, and how speed in origination and funding flows through financial performance. They also cover stablecoins, blockchain as invisible infrastructure, AI in accounting, and scaling finance with fewer than 35 people.—SPONSORS:Brex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com/cj—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/macrina/Company: https://www.figure.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro3:10 Working for a CEO who's a former CFO5:00 What Figure does and how it makes money6:57 Blockchain's first commercial use case8:17 50%+ margins, path to 60%9:23 Sponsors — Brex | Aleph | RightRev12:56 HELOC origination: 45 days to 5 days14:26 Where the lending system is bloated15:56 Credit and liquidity as core risks17:06 Blockchain makes the marketplace transparent18:10 Risk as a fintech CFO19:49 Sponsors — Rillet | EY | SpendHound22:58 Crypto on the balance sheet24:12 Blockchain becomes invisible like cloud25:44 Stablecoins explained27:47 YLDS: Figure's yield-bearing stablecoin29:02 Crawl, walk, run stablecoin strategy34:32 IPO process: what got easier35:03 What got harder: testing the waters37:12 Blockchain KPIs and investor conversations38:21 Finance team: 130 people down to 3540:00 SEC engagement: storytelling not financials40:49 IPO advice: pick durable KPIs42:05 First earnings after IPO: don't miss43:13 AI automation goal: 60% by 202646:11 Director of Finance Transformation hire47:40 30-60-90 for the transformation role48:58 Long-Ass Lightning Round52:20 Credits

Richard Harris and Scott Leese unpack one of the most honest conversations they've had on the Surf and Sales Podcast. From sales layoffs and negotiating severance packages… to why even top sales leaders struggle to see their own blind spots… this episode dives deep into the realities nobody talks about in SaaS and sales leadership. Topics include: The hidden value of mastermind groups and peer feedback Why successful people still get stuck How to structure a high-impact mastermind ZoomInfo layoffs and the controversy around termination-by-text Negotiating severance packages the smart way What sales professionals should do immediately after getting laid off Why sales careers may need to expand beyond SaaS The psychology of feedback, ego, and career growth Richard finally switching from PC to Mac after 30+ years Plus: an update on the next Surf and Sales in Costa Rica and why attendees call it "life changing." If you work in sales, leadership, SaaS, consulting, or startups — this episode will hit close to home. #Sales #SalesLeadership #SaaS #Layoffs #SalesTraining #SurfAndSales #RichardHarris #ScottLeese #SalesCareers #Negotiation #FounderLedSales

AGENDA: 00:05:11 — Anthropic freezes secondary sales, requiring board approval for all transfers. 00:10:45 — Why Anthropic is buying capacity from Elon Musk. 00:15:35 — Anthropic's massive $200B revenue commit to Google. 00:18:55 — Goldman Sachs predicts a 24x surge in token consumption driven by agents. 00:31:05 — Will AI labs eat the app layer? The threat to Legal and CX verticals.  00:37:55 — SaaS public markets: HubSpot tanks 18% while Monday.com finds its footing. 00:42:40 — Growth theft: How Clay is commoditizing ZoomInfo's data business. 00:46:25 — Cerebras prices IPO at $150–$160 with a $48B market cap. 00:52:15 — Real Venture Capital: Celebrating the early bets by Foundation and Benchmark. 00:58:30 — Ramp's valuation vs. the Chapter 7 collapse of e-commerce card Parker. 01:06:20 — Success and Sacrifice: Is mental health the price of building a $20B company?  

Cerebras is going public with the largest commercial chip ever built, $510M in 2025 revenue, and a $24.6B backlog mostly tied to OpenAI. CJ breaks down the company's wafer-scale AI bet, why inference changed the story, the strange customer-investor-lender relationships behind the IPO, and the big question: is Cerebras the next NVIDIA-style infrastructure winner, or a concentrated hardware company with a very expensive cloud pivot?—SPONSORS:SpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com/cjBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartups—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNCJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro0:59 Cerebras: the dinner plate chip3:56 Why chip size matters for AI5:26 Old vs. new AI: inference is the bottleneck7:30 Revenue: 20x in 3 years7:49 Sponsors — SpendHound | Brex | Aleph11:33 Gross margin12:02 Net income: the one-time accounting trick12:41 Operating cash flow whipsaw13:24 RPO: $24.6B backlog13:58 Customer concentration: the UAE entities18:06 Sponsors — RightRev | Rillet | EY21:05 Cloud revenue: the inverse SaaS story22:23 Cloud gross margin collapse23:53 G42 warrants for pennies29:14 The OpenAI warrant: Funky Town31:08 $40B market cap milestone31:36 R&D and S&M breakdown33:15 Balance sheet and cash burn35:59 Red flag 1: accounting weaknesses36:37 Red flag 2: one foundry, no supply deal37:28 Red flag 3: UAE geopolitical risk38:10 Red flag 4: cloud is unproven39:02 Cap table: founders diluted40:43 Voting control: Class A, B, and N41:15 Valuation: 10–13x forward revenue41:48 Peer comparison43:47 CEO's prior issues46:10 CreditsNothing said or created by this podcast is business or investment advice#RunTheNumbersPodcast #IPO #Semiconductors #AIStrategy #FinanceLeadership

Most of us have run an event, watched the in-person conversations crackle, then sent the same templated follow-up to everyone on the lead list. The energy disappears the moment marketing hits send. That gap is what Dave Schools set out to close when he started Singulate, and it's what he and Mason Cosby get into on this episode of Scrappy ABM.ㅤDave breaks down why marketing ops keeps becoming the bottleneck on personalization, why data is now a commodity but messaging is not, and what it actually takes to send hyper-segmented email at scale without sounding like AI. He shares the four channels working for Singulate today, the 15% open-rate bump from a single hook rewrite, and the framework his team uses to keep humans in the loop while AI does the heavy lifting.ㅤIf you're a revenue leader running ABM with a limited budget and a database full of underused signals, this conversation gives you a clearer picture of what to do with what you already have.ㅤ

In der heutigen Folge sprechen die Finanzjournalisten Philipp Vetter und Holger Zschäpitz über einen kleinen Realitätscheck an den Börsen, die Orbitpläne von Space X und Google sowie eine veritable Enttäuschung bei der Munich Re. Außerdem geht es um Bayer, Munich Re, Siemens Energy, Thyssenkrupp, Zalando, Under Armour, Hims & Hers Health, ZoomInfo, GitLab, CME Group, Alphabet, Rackspace Technology, AMD, eBay, GameStop, Allianz, Micron, Meta, Tesla, Apple, Qualcomm, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz Group, Airbus, Saudi Aramco, Equinor, ConocoPhillips, AppLovin, Nvidia, Investor AB, Welltower, Altria Group, CNOOC, SAP, Global X China Electric Vehicle and Battery ETF (WKN: A3C5S0), UBS MSCI China A SF UCITS ETF (WKN: A2PRV8), Xtrackers CSI300 Swap UCITS ETF (WKN: DBX0M2), HSBC MSCI China A UCITS ETF (WKN: A2N390), KraneShares CSI China Internet UCITS ETF (WKN: A2PBU9), HSBC Hang Seng Tech UCITS ETF (WKN: A2QHV0), iShares Dow Jones China Offshore 50 ETF (WKN: A0F5UE). Wir freuen uns an Feedback über aaa@welt.de. Noch mehr "Alles auf Aktien" findet Ihr bei WELTplus und Apple Podcasts – inklusive aller Artikel der Hosts. Hier bei WELT: https://www.welt.de/podcasts/alles-auf-aktien/plus247399208/Boersen-Podcast-AAA-Bonus-Folgen-Jede-Woche-noch-mehr-Antworten-auf-Eure-Boersen-Fragen.html. Hier könnt ihr den AAA-Newsletter abonnieren: https://www.welt.de/newsletter/article232797673/Alles-auf-Aktien-Der-taegliche-Boersen-Newsletter-fuer-WELTplus-Abonnenten.html Und - ganz neu: AAA gibt es jetzt auch auf Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alles_auf_aktien/ Disclaimer: Die im Podcast besprochenen Aktien und Fonds stellen keine spezifischen Kauf- oder Anlage-Empfehlungen dar. Die Moderatoren und der Verlag haften nicht für etwaige Verluste, die aufgrund der Umsetzung der Gedanken oder Ideen entstehen. Hörtipps: Für alle, die noch mehr wissen wollen: Holger Zschäpitz können Sie jede Woche im Finanz- und Wirtschaftspodcast "Deffner&Zschäpitz" hören. +++ Werbung +++ Du möchtest mehr über unsere Werbepartner erfahren? Hier findest du alle Infos & Rabatte! https://linktr.ee/alles_auf_aktien Impressum: https://www.welt.de/services/article7893735/Impressum.html Datenschutz: https://www.welt.de/services/article157550705/Datenschutzerklaerung-WELT-DIGITAL.html

Consumer inflation coming in hotter-than-expected for April: Carl Quintanilla, David Faber, and Seema Mody broke down what it could mean for the broader rally with Michael Santoli - along with Bespoke Investment's Paul Hickey and Moody's Chief Economist Mark Zandi... While also debating whether dotcom bubble comparisons are valid. Plus: more on the latest software name getting hit post-results (Zoominfo), what it portends for an already battered software sector... along with details on the China side of big tech ahead of the President's face-to-face with Xi Jinping later this week.    Elsewhere this hour: a look at some extremely bullish action within the options market, details on Ebay's rejection of Gamestop's takeover offer, and other key movers in the early trade like Wendy's and Under Armour.        Squawk on the Street Disclaimer Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

David Bell, co-founder of Idea Farm Ventures and early investor behind Warby Parker, Harry's, and Diapers.com, and CJ break down how consumer investing works. They cover why durable consumer companies require more than clean unit economics, how to apply SaaS-style thinking to businesses without contracts, and why the best opportunities often live in boring gray space.—SPONSORS:EY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com/cjBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cj—Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-bell-086820/Company: https://www.ideafarmventures.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro3:16 Edge: economics and psychology5:21 Best ideas in boring gray space5:41 Functional, emotional, and symbolic value7:08 Grüns gummies and divisibility9:02 Sponsors — EY | SpendHound | Brex12:31 Ideation: personal pain vs. market analysis13:17 Diapers.com and the Starbucks origin story16:00 Warby Parker: asking why16:33 LTV to CAC in D2C18:02 Retention math: 85 to 90% can double LTV19:00 Milkman and recurring vs. reoccurring20:42 Trust economics22:38 Warby stores boost online sales22:58 Sponsors — Aleph | RightRev | Rillet26:12 Away store as advertising27:46 Warby discovery: dots on a map30:10 Home try-on word of mouth value32:09 D2C unit economics mistakes34:55 Innovating on distribution35:50 Touchland in Sephora: right channel, right signal37:00 Capital allocation: margin and low CAC first39:18 Sequencing: people, brand, then inventory40:58 Product vs. brand: the 8x10 thought experiment42:23 Consumer monetization shifts45:45 The gravity framework50:32 Isolation principle: most underused lever52:36 Working backwards from exit at day zero57:23 What if your business isn't venture scale?59:32 Book plug: Founders Gold1:00:25 Credits

CJ turns the mic on the people behind Mostly Media for a special behind-the-scenes episode of Run the Numbers. Michelle, Callie, Sarah, Matthew, Ben, and Steve share what it's like building the company, scaling media, talent, sales, production, and operations, and dealing with CJ's scooter lore, calendar quirks, and chaos along the way.—SPONSORS:Rillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com/cjBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJ—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNCJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro2:44 Show intro: meet the Mostly Media team3:37 Michelle Finn: accounting and ops4:28 Parts Tech days: CJ's first CFO role7:21 How the newsletter convinced Michelle to join9:02 Sponsors — Rillet | EY | SpendHound12:11 Callie Spillane: talent director13:17 Callie's background: HubSpot, Sneak, Superhuman13:40 Why Callie was hard to hire15:37 Snyk hypergrowth: 150 to 1,500 people16:59 Zero to one vs. one to ten18:20 9 of 20 roles filled: how it's going23:24 Sponsors — Brex | Aleph | RightRev26:58 Sarah Bousquet: media op27:45 Stay at home mom to ops lead33:48 CJ's schedule: American Psycho34:43 Matthew Mozzocchi: sales and partnerships35:41 Going full time with a newborn36:20 Product market fit signal38:07 Fewer, bigger bets on creators41:00 Podcast is the air game, newsletter is the ground game43:56 Ben Hillman and Steve Cerasoli: production47:46 Media in service of a product vs. the product itself48:37 Run the Numbers vs. Mostly Growth51:25 Where are we in three years?52:40 Credits#RunTheNumbersPodcast #CreatorEconomy #MediaBusiness #Entrepreneurship #ContentBusiness

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ Gustafson breaks down the diamond industry as a business model: how De Beers controlled supply, engineered demand, and built one of the most powerful pricing machines in history. From the Central Selling Organization to “A Diamond Is Forever” to the rise of lab-grown diamonds, this episode unpacks monopolies, scarcity, pricing power, and what happens when technology forces transparency.—SPONSORS:RightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com/cjBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/run—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNCJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—RELATED EPISODES:Why Uber Drivers Can't Escape the 30% Cuthttps://youtu.be/LpbH9GpBrSY—TIMESTAMPS:All verified. Here are the timestamps:0:00 Blood Diamond1:55 Show intro2:15 Diamond history: ancient India and riverbed origins3:56 Brazil supply shock and the mining era4:39 De Beers: Cecil Rhodes and the PE rollup6:47 Sponsors — RightRev | Rillet | EY9:49 The Central Selling Organization (CSO)10:39 The site system: invite-only, take-it-or-leave-it auctions12:22 Diamonds are more abundant than gold13:01 NW Ayer, Bernays, and engineering demand14:17 "A Diamond is Forever" campaign15:13 Lab grown diamonds: 20% of US purchases16:32 De Beers collapses: $3.1B operating loss17:18 Sponsors — SpendHound | Brex | Aleph21:07 Lesson 1: Rollups are powered by capital21:39 Lesson 2: Distribution beats mining22:11 Lesson 3: Artificial scarcity unravels22:55 Lesson 4: Price opacity is a temporary moat23:39 Lesson 5: Demand engineering24:30 Lesson 6: The real product was risk smoothing26:30 Credits#RunTheNumbersPodcast #BusinessStrategy #FinanceHistory #Pricing #Monopoly

40% of a seller's time is spent on prospecting. That's a big investment, especially when a lot of it does not lead anywhere. So how do you make sure that time actually turns into real opportunities? Let's break down how to prospect in a way that leads to conversations and closed deals.Leverage Intent and Relevant DataA big part of prospecting comes down to timing. You want to reach out when buyers are already looking for a solution.That is where intent data comes in. Tools like ZoomInfo and 6sense can help you identify prospects who are actively researching solutions like endpoint protection.When you do reach out, make it relevant. Speak directly to their industry and back it up with a recent success story from a similar company. That is what helps build credibility early.Utilize Advanced LinkedIn SearchingInstead of reaching out to everyone, focus on a smaller group of people who are more likely to respond.You can build a list of 30 to 40 individuals by narrowing your search. Look for people who are new in their roles or who have been active on LinkedIn in the past 30 days.You can also look at who they are connected to, especially if they follow industry influencers or are part of specific associations. That gives you a stronger starting point for outreach.Systematize ReferralsReferrals are one of the most overlooked opportunities in sales.Most prospects are open to giving referrals, but very few salespeople actually ask for them. That is a missed opportunity.Start making it part of your process. When you are working with a client, ask if they know others who are dealing with similar challenges. A simple ask can open the door to warmer conversations.Target Niche Local EventsNot every opportunity comes from online outreach. Smaller, more focused events can be a great way to connect with people directly. Think industry meetups or informal gatherings where conversations happen more naturally.These settings make it easier to build relationships and lead to introductions that feel more genuine.The Fortune Is in the Follow-UpEven when you get in front of the right people, it does not mean much if you do not follow up.A large percentage of event attendees have the authority to make buying decisions, yet most leads never receive any follow-up at all.That is where the real opportunity is. Following up within 12 to 24 hours and staying consistent with your outreach can be the difference between being remembered and being forgotten.“Nine out of ten prospects are willing to give a referral, but only about 11% of salespeople actually ask.” - Donald C. KellyResourcesDo you need help on getting more referrals? Check out episode 1976.Keep track of your sales activity and boost your results with the Prospect Pro sales tool.Step up your sales game with Sales Mastermind. Get accountability, stay motivated, and tackle the blockers keeping you from hitting your goals.Visit Blue Mango Studios for help in creating podcast production content. Sponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.CreditsAs one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and produced by Brightseed and Hill.

Master the Microsoft co-sell evolution today. Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this deep-dive panel discussion, industry experts Erin Figer, Erika Irby, and Reis Barrie celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Microsoft Co-Sell program by dissecting its evolution from its 2016 inception to today's data-driven, outcome-focused landscape. The group explores the critical shift from transactional sales to modern, frictionless co-sell motions, emphasizing the importance of signals, intentionality, and building credibility with Microsoft field teams. Whether you are navigating the complexities of the marketplace, struggling with reseller enablement, or looking to integrate AI into your sales process, this conversation offers actionable insights to align your organization's go-to-market strategy with Microsoft's evolving priorities and achieve results. https://youtu.be/KV1MGSoyWbQ Key Takeaways Effective co-selling has shifted from autonomous, fragmented motions to a highly collaborative, data-driven approach essential for modern cloud GTM strategies. Credibility is the currency of partnership; without trust from vendors and customers, technical go-to-market motions will fail to produce long-term outcomes. The “REO” (Reseller Enablement Offering) model is an operational unlock for ISVs to go global and sell local without the friction of multi-party private offers. Integrating AI into CRM systems is vital for identifying total addressable market (TAM) signals and maintaining sales velocity. “Don’t automate a bad process” remains the cardinal rule; technology should be used to refine existing, successful motions, not to propagate inefficient ones. The human element—community, in-person events, and empathy—is a necessary differentiator in an increasingly digital, automated B2B landscape. 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. Key Tags Microsoft Azure, Co-sell evolution, Hyperscaler strategy, SMB partner investment, Cloud Marketplace, Veeam GTM, Partner Center alignment, Channel enablement, REO, Cloud consumption, ISV scaling, Go-to-market optimization, Partner-led growth, Azure consumption, Channel friction reduction, Outcome-driven sales, Microsoft ecosystem, Revenue acceleration, Partner alignment. Transcript Erin Figer Panel For Cut Out [00:00:00] Vince Menzione: So when we, so, uh, this all started ’cause I was trying to figure out what was next when I left Microsoft and I had this woman who was doing work, actually starting the co-selling process when we first started doing co-selling. And she was working with one of our partners and she was working with my team when I was at Microsoft. [00:00:17] And then I said, this lady knows a lot about this stuff. So I reached out, I left Microsoft, I said, I think we can help each other. Like, I think we’re gonna, I got these companies that I spoke at Microsoft’s conference. They’re like, can you come help us out? And we teamed up. And, uh, we’ve been friends and doing fun stuff ever since. [00:00:34] And she’s spoken at just about every event in some capacity or another, whether it was on stage or a workshop. Aaron Feiger. And then, uh, I, I found, I also, through Aaron, I met this other gentleman who had another company and he was doing amazing work with ISVs or SDCs, uh, Reese Barry from Carve. And then, uh, when I think we started up the event, I mean, Erica Irby came to one of our first events and spoke on stage. [00:00:58] I was like, yeah, this. The person knows what she’s doing. So I’ve asked the three of them to come up and kind of round out and end the day, but all three of ’em have a tremendous, uh, background in this whole process of co-selling go to market strategies. And I thought you, you can, I’m just giving it over to the three of you. [00:01:17] Erin Figer: I we don’t need [00:01:18] Vince Menzione: a, you don’t needer you don’t need a clicker and you, you know what you’re all gonna be talking about. But these are some really smart people about how to partner with Microsoft. So, yeah. No, thank you for having us. [00:01:27] Erin Figer: Um, hello. Hello. I think this is on. All right. So actually we’re gonna do an exercise. [00:01:32] Um, I want everyone to close their eyes. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. All right. I want you to think back to January of 2016. What were you doing? Where were you in your career? What company were you working for? What was going on in your Microsoft partnership in January of 2016? Okay, Erica, what was happening for you? [00:01:59] Erika Irby: So, uh, is this on? Sorry, I cannot tell. Um, I was at Veeam for the first time. We had just launched our first, uh, endpoint backup, uh, product in April of the previous year because nobody knew what cloud was yet, and people were scared. So we had to launch that product. And we had a relationship with Microsoft in a sense that about 20% of our business sat on Hyper V. [00:02:25] That equated to about, I think like around 90 ish million dollars, which at the time was incredible for us. But to Microsoft was, you know, like, who are you guys again? And, um, we begged and begged to have any type of communication with them. Events. Funding nothing. We did not know what Azure consumption was. [00:02:43] We didn’t have any of that information. And if somebody would’ve told me at that time that nine years later we would sign a five year contract with them and have multiple products dedicated to Microsoft, I would’ve been like, y’all are bananas. [00:02:58] Erin Figer: Reese, what were you doing in January of 2016? [00:03:00] Reis Barrie: Uh, let’s see, Jan, 2016, I was moving from Orlando, Florida to Seattle, Washington, uh, sight unseen with no place to stay. [00:03:10] Uh, to take a job at a place called Microsoft or Consulting Gig, a place called Microsoft. Um, kicking off some of the cool motions that we’re, uh, we’re gonna talk about today, I think. [00:03:20] Erin Figer: Does anybody know the significance of January, 2016 in the audience? Any takers? It was the launch of Cosell officially for Microsoft. [00:03:31] Congratulations. We’re celebrating 10 years of officially. Problematizing how you connect with the Microsoft sales organization in a programmatic at scale way. And try to build meaningful relationships. And I have been helping partners since the inception of Microsoft’s Cosell program. Um, I was on the partner side, Reese was on the inside. [00:03:59] You were at a partner. So we have all seen the evolution of Cosell across all three hyperscalers launching, you know, their co-sell initiatives. So I just wanted to take a moment to recognize. I didn’t know how many people realized that it’s been 10 years, it’s 10 year anniversary. I think it’s a big milestone. [00:04:15] Huge. So. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, you know, when they launched it, I went, I was consulting for a startup outta Boston and we were trying to get Microsoft’s attention, competitor to fame, and I went to the business development guy and said, uh, do you, did you just see this program that Microsoft launched? I think we should include this in our branding strategy and we should use co-sell as a way to get our brand out to Microsoft and be able to tell our story of who we are and what we’re doing and that we’re in their accounts and they don’t even know it. [00:04:55] ’cause we’re the startup out of Boston who switched over from AWS to Microsoft. And we did, and I put every single opportunity in the system I could for the first six months, which was the last six months of their fiscal year. We go to partner of the, we go to, what was it called? Them WPCI think at the time. [00:05:13] Mm-hmm. Uh, in Vegas. And Nasuni won wins like all four wards worldwide. US Education, healthcare Partner of the year because I put 117 deals in the system and then it seeded Na Sunni’s Marketing for the next two years. ’cause Microsoft gave them tons of money and attention and we were off to the races. [00:05:35] Right. And then it was, can you repeat that? And we went and repeated it with Red Hat and Rubrik and Nintex and Quest and. I don’t know, lots more. But it was, it’s been fun journey co-selling. And it’s interesting to see now, um, how we continue 10 years later to evolve co-sell. And so Erica, what were some of the takeaways you had today listening to the conversation about how co-sell, how you’re modernizing and co-sell is changing inside your organization, especially now being a boomerang. [00:06:08] Erika Irby: Yeah, well we call it a Veeam ring ’cause everything a veer ring, everything has to start with with Veeam. Well, one thing I was gonna comment on, I think I’m sitting here thinking how wild is it that back in the day we actually had to define that co-sell was an action that, that, you know, partners and vendors needed to take or, and different vendors and alliances. [00:06:25] I mean, now we can’t even imagine going to market without, you know, that, that attach. But at the time, we were just very autonomous and everybody sold their own product and it, it took like this actual motion, um, to get us working together. But now look at us. I mean, this community is incredible. And we can also see this by, and even when AGU was mentioning earlier, all the bosses he had in his room, I mean. [00:06:47] How many people like know each other. I mean, this is like part of that, that ecosystem. But today, um, a couple of things I took away, and by the way, we want a lot of interactions, so we’re going to kind of throw it back out at you guys. But for me, um, outcomes came up repeatedly that was mentioned multiple times about outcomes. [00:07:04] Um, speed with intentionality. I think that was super critical. We have to go to market. There has to be a sense of urgency, but if we’re not intentional, it’s like, what are we doing? It’s just like a big mess. Um, and then credibility. And this is something I think is super important, regardless of, um, all of our emotions, all of our go to market, all of the, the things that we do, if we are not credible or not building trust with our vendors, our, our co-partners, our customers, we will never be successful. [00:07:35] Um, so those are the three main things that I took away from, from everybody talking today. And I, I thought, I mean, to me personally, I thought those were pretty powerful. [00:07:42] Yeah. [00:07:42] Erika Irby: So we’d love to hear. [00:07:43] Erin Figer: Yeah. And I know Reese, you have been doing a lot around outcomes and changing kind of the cosal, um, intention. [00:07:54] Reis Barrie: Yeah. The, uh, the, just thinking back to today, like that was like such a, it was really a, a big key theme of today. Like everyone talked about, whether it’s pivot of, of sales, partnership, um, even when you’re talking about AI and some of the, the, uh. POC discussions. So the live like type of stuff, everything was centered around that narrative. [00:08:17] And so, um, and it’s the same with, it’s the same with partnerships. It’s the same with your co-sell motion, same with your benefits utilization, um, and the way you’re utilizing partnerships. And so that’s, that’s a huge, huge component of, um, what I also took away from today. Um, and then somebody, I think it was Mark who said it that I’m gonna, I’m gonna steal this because the, the whole, um. [00:08:40] Near and dear to my heart of like, don’t, don’t scale automate ai, A-I-F-I-A bad process. Like as someone who deals with like, for the most part, bad processes, like day in and day out, um, and trying to refine them and improve them. Like, that’s one of the first things that we, uh, that we talk to partners about when it comes to their partnership and, and the processes they have in place. [00:09:03] So those are like two really big, just takeaways from [00:09:06] Erin Figer: Yeah. Nice. So we’re here to learn from each other, right? Like this is an ultimate partner community of learning from each other. So I’d really love to hear from the audience, like what are some of the things you’re doing in your cloud? Go to market approach and co-selling that you’re trying out. [00:09:23] Either you tried it, you failed fast, you learned from that, that you can share those lessons learned or like what’s working and how are you changing to be more outcome driven in your cloud go to market, uh, approach. Any takers in wanting to experience share? Great. Give that man a mic. [00:09:50] Audience Member: The SMB investments. Um, these, these new, I don’t know what they are. I partner accelerators, PBAs, uh, there’s kind of something going on in the SMB space where it just seems like they’re coming outta the woodwork to come help. On deals. I’ve never seen Microsoft really embrace the customer that they, the way they have in SMB in the cos sells. [00:10:10] I’m not sure if anybody else is seen that, but seems to be working. It’s two things. One, you at Data 60 [00:10:22] America. [00:10:54] I think, I think part of the rarity there is that. Typically you wouldn’t get a seller attached, right? They’re unmanaged that they’re kind of in the nobody cares category, but, [00:11:06] um. So Microsoft made a huge investment in the distribution space saying we’re gonna lean on distribution to help enable our 165,000 indirect resellers that we have as a business. And part of that enablement goes back to field sales alignment. So there’s these roles, ca roles called um, partner Solutions Sellers, PS. [00:11:30] And so they’re aligned by, um, solutions architecture, if you will, for Microsoft. So, or cloud solution area, whatever the new term, modern work, uh, or, uh, AI work, AI workforce, um, data and ai. And so they are there to help support your deal. So it’s, it’s a huge investment and one that I would just can say continue to advocate for it if you’re seeing success with it, because I mean, we’re heading into FY 27 planning for Microsoft. [00:11:58] So. Like there, there could be role changes. So I would say if it, if it’s helpful, like make sure you’re talking positively about it. [00:12:05] Reis Barrie: Yeah, yeah. Just to, to your point, like I, I’d say like, um, in the last six to 12 months, like that’s been a, a thing that’s like we’ve to go back and like, I mean we manage a portfolio of a couple dozen, dozen partners at this point, and so we’ve had to go back and rewrite some of our playbooks, reeducate some of. [00:12:26] Uh, some of the partnership folks that we use because, um, historically you kind of get into this like void of, you’re in partner center, you’re picking, you know, account alignment and it’s not managed. And so it’s like, okay, I expect to do nothing with this deal on the Microsoft side from a co-sell standpoint. [00:12:42] Um, but that’s kind of, that’s changed quite a bit, um, in the last six months where, um, it’s not like a, it’s hard to create, it’s hard to create processes and dependence around it ’cause it’s not like a guarantee that you’ll get, you get engagement, but. Uh, you see more eng engagement, more on more and more deals. [00:12:58] Um, and so we’ve had to go back and work with some of our partners to rewrite some of our, uh, deal sharing playbooks to account for, uh, things like that, which is, it’s super cool to see, frankly, um, to see engagement on these, like predominantly. [00:13:12] Erin Figer: So in that motion. So first off, for the folks that are on the other side of this black curtain by the food station, if you guys could please stop the conversation. [00:13:19] It’s really hard to pay attention to what’s going on in this room. Um. Thank you. Thank [00:13:25] Erika Irby: you for saying that. [00:13:26] Erin Figer: That was a great, that was a great, that’s a great point. And what I wanna talk about next is like in order to kind of continue to evolve the playbooks and they’re changing and people are changing, and priorities are changing, what are some of the signals that you guys are using internally in your organization, whether you’re building or buying, um, but would love to learn from all of you. [00:13:46] What kind of signals are you looking at to help you continue to like co-innovate, co-sell, co-market? Um, in your go-to market strategies? [00:13:58] Audience Member: Yeah, [00:13:58] Erin Figer: please. Um, [00:14:00] Audience Member: well, I’m, I’m, we’re building everything from scratch right now because we’re brand is integration. [00:14:39] Like having our, our engineer be able to interact with product [00:14:43] Erin Figer: engineer. [00:14:50] I’m gonna pick on trend ’cause I had just spent last week with them and Sanjay, I think like what you guys are building internally, um, using signals, building it into an AI agent. To help you understand your tam, you wanna share a little bit. [00:15:06] Audience Member: Happy to, and I’ll disclose. The first thing I did was hire Aaron Feiger to run my co-sell operations, uh, for the, for the second time. [00:15:12] It’s [00:15:13] Erin Figer: nice to be a GDI again [00:15:14] Audience Member: for the second, so well planted. Um, but honestly, like I can’t have an environment where I fail my sellers, like this process has to be frictionless in co-sell and marketplace operations. Or I lose trust in my own house, let alone in my channel and in my customer base. So. Uh, building that strong foundation is like job number one. [00:15:34] I’ve been, I spent a decade at Trend. I’m back, uh, five weeks on the job now. Um, but I’d say we’ve built a multi hundred million dollar cloud marketplace business thinking highly transactional. And what we’re trying to pivot to is a highly dated driven approach where we can look at any cloud in any region around the world, figure out roughly how many accounts they have. [00:15:57] Figure out what those customers are spending and things that we can protect from a cybersecurity standpoint, knowing that four or 5% of that total spend will be spent on cybersecurity, doing an overlap of where I have existing customers in that drawing a tam, overlapping that with my incumbent partners to get the Venn diagram of like, where’s my sweet spot to move this forward? [00:16:18] And then where’s my blast radius? So when I sit down with a guy leading France, or a person leading healthcare. I can have a really specific opportunity about how to leverage my cloud partnerships to accelerate deals and expand growth in a very surgical, data-driven, propensity driven way. And it like totally changes the conversation. [00:16:40] And the other thing we’ve done because you get a lot of pushback and when you’re working with Microsoft, uh, I was chatting with a few folks today, like if you’re in cybersecurity, it’s not easy. They got a 25 billion ish dollars cybersecurity business. So you gotta find your swim lanes. And the dialogue I have now internally with my sellers is a major League baseball analogy, which is, if you play major league baseball and if you hit the ball 30% of the time, you’re gonna go to this little thing called the Hall of Fame, right? [00:17:07] If you bat 300, if you’re in sales and Microsoft, or Amazon or whoever helps you, 30% of the time, you’re gonna go to this thing called President’s Club. That’s the difference between sitting at home in Ohio and sitting with your beach. You know, your, your toes in the sand. So it’s, we’re really trying to change. [00:17:25] Uh, one of the first things I ask my team is, what’s our brand promise to our sales leaders and our sales team? And if you don’t know that answer, you got a fricking problem. So you gotta get that. What’s your Brene Brown would call it? What’s your North Star? What are your values? Whatcha are you gonna deliver? [00:17:38] Right? So you gotta get that right and then you gotta be relentless in making it frictionless. And then you gotta hire Aaron Fier to run your co-sell. [00:17:46] Erin Figer: Okay? Okay. And so, I mean, I think like that’s a trend that I’m seeing across the partners that I’ve been working with is how they’re using data and doing more data driven, um, decision making and getting to their TAM faster so that as they start to then look at this pathway of, okay, now I’m trying to go to market, what. [00:18:11] Programs does Microsoft have or my other partners have that I can use to move me down that path faster. But getting that tam and feeling more confident about it, like, this is the group, this is the subgroup that I’m gonna start with until I see something that says, oh, I need to deviate and do something different. [00:18:30] Um, so I’m definitely seeing that trend. Like what are you seeing, uh, what are you guys doing at Vem? [00:18:35] Erika Irby: Um, so a couple different things. So like you were saying, we, we do leverage, um, AI more, uh, recently for New Deal Reg, um, automation. And we lit, literally just launched it this week. So this is the week that it’s exciting until the, someone tries to use it for the first time and then for. [00:18:52] Um, so I can’t wait to see my emails later, but, um, it, it’s, we’re seeing like that, that that movement, which is, uh, definitely good for that. We have a task force internally for marketing, so trying to figure out how we’re gonna, um, you know, leverage that, uh, um, internally. And I think that Veeam, you know, they, they have been on the forefront of technology for, for a while. [00:19:12] You know, they were the first with the. Virtual backup and, you know, all these things, you know, really trying to be ahead of the thing, ahead of the game. But, um, one thing I, I, I love how many people brought up the intentionality and the mindfulness because I think sometimes we can easily. Put out a whole bunch of tools. [00:19:28] I love that you called out the point about the bad processes, um, because it actually, I think, can just create more confusion, more of a mess, and that, um, really mindfulness will be so much more beneficial, you know, down the road for your partners, for your customers, for everybody that has to, you know, do that interaction business with you. [00:19:47] I did wanna call out that I thought it was lovely that you had a positive comment about Microsoft. I dunno if I, [00:19:53] Audience Member: yeah, [00:19:53] Erika Irby: I like rarely hear that. So like, awesome. I hope that does get back to Microsoft. I hope that they do, um, continue that. I’m sure their SMB is quite a bit bigger than maybe others, but that is a massive install base for, for Veeam as well. [00:20:07] And even though we’re driving and trying to push into the enterprise, protecting that install base is just absolutely critical for success. [00:20:15] Erin Figer: What about you race? [00:20:17] Reis Barrie: So if I’m looking at like signals, I, I think. Uh, I’ll focus on too, I think you mentioned, uh, the, the cycles of change at Microsoft. Like it used to be an annual thing and now it’s like a, then it was a half base thing, and then it was a, now it’s a quarterly thing basically. [00:20:30] Um, but there’s also like, there’s, there’s big signals and small signals, and so annually we still get like that, like the, the, the guiding direction so that we can align. How we talk about ourselves, how we talk about our partnership, how, how we enable our sellers and whatnot. And then we got a lot of programmatic shifts from a, from a quarter to quarter standpoint. [00:20:50] Um, and so focusing on the, like these, um, these signals so we can align our, our messaging and our frameworks to align with, with, with our partnership, um, is, is one thing that’s, you know, super, super important to keep, keep tabs on. Um, and the second one, I’ll, I’ll give, you’ll. Mention is more on the cus sorry, uh, customer side, but like the seller enablement. [00:21:15] And so how is your, on the marketplace side, how, how are your sellers talking to your customers about marketplace? Um, are they, are they bringing up earlier in the, in the qualifying discussions of how does the customer prefer to buy? Um, are there fire drills with two weeks to go, um, till the, till the deal closes and now the customer wants to go marketplace and, and no one knows how to do it? [00:21:37] Um, seen that way too many times. Um, and so, but how, how, like studying kind of the, uh, maturity of our sales org to see well, like where, where, where is our, our, where are our sellers competent to have this marketplace discussion? Um, because I often relate, like, this is kinda a silly analogy, but I, I, simple stuff works really, really well with me. [00:22:00] But I like, have you ever been to a farmer’s market and you’re like nervous to buy something? ’cause you don’t know if they take credit card. [00:22:07] Audience Member: Yeah. [00:22:07] Reis Barrie: And so like to me, I’m like, okay, well, like it’s the same thing with Marketplace to me. And so like, it’s, it’s the same concept of you want your customer to be able to buy, they want the way that they would like to buy. [00:22:19] Um, and you want the person that they’re interacting with to be able to, um, facilitate that, that transaction in, in a way that feels frictionless. Yeah. Right. Uh, and so that’s a lot. Like, those are the kind of, the really two deep signals, um, that we, we look at a lot. [00:22:37] Erika Irby: I wanna make a comment on the marketplace. [00:22:38] So I don’t know if anybody else is experiencing this, you know, Veeam being an ISV, we have a really strong traditional, traditional channel motion. So, to your point about how sellers are, are managing the marketplace, to be totally honest, we struggle on, um, that, because right now it feels like a deal that goes to the marketplace is taken away from a reseller, and that reseller loses out then on that upfront margin and. [00:23:06] Um, there’s not a clean path necessarily for, you know, just because the, the deal happened there. They really, they still need to maintain that because they’re the one pri providing the services. And somebody had brought up earlier that, um, A SMB customer will never be successful without a partner. And I, I totally agree with that, but it’s like that part is missing. [00:23:26] So we almost need like a mindset change. In the channel where the marketplace is just a route to market and how the customer receives the product. It shouldn’t totally matter because at the end of the day, the, they still have to provide the services. It’s like, I could go to Home Depot and purchase a bunch of pipe for my house, but can I install it a thousand percent? [00:23:49] No. I would destroy my house. I used to have to have a plumber. So I think there’s, we could help our channel by changing that mindset, and at the same time, we, we need the marketplace owners to, to provide the benefits so that it is still very attractive for those traditional. Partners to, to push their customers there or else I, I think we’re just gonna constantly have that strife. [00:24:11] Erin Figer: Yeah. Does anyone in the audience, has anyone in the audience activated REO with Microsoft? You have? Yeah. So how’s it, like, how’s it going? Yeah, there’s Bump. Yeah. [00:24:32] Audience Member: How that shifts making people more effective in their roles individually. So we’re early stage of it, but it’s, it’s been a good experience. [00:24:42] Erin Figer: Has it helped to kind of unlock some of that friction with the resellers and continuing to include them to get to the s and b customers? [00:24:49] Audience Member: Yeah, I think the, the challenge that we’re working through right now is, you know, Erica may have said it, but it’s. [00:24:56] It’s not just the, the view of the marketplace taking people out of the equation, it’s how do we use the marketplace for, for co-innovation to keep people in it. So if, if, if it’s gonna take three to five of, of us in this room to deliver that spectrum to innovation for the customer. Um, how do we use the marketplace as a force multiplier of bringing that together and making that transaction easy? [00:25:21] Yeah. If, if our consumers are more and more influenced by Instagram and TikTok Shop Now buttons, like my husband’s texting me about my stuff that showed up today, [00:25:31] Erika Irby: which is none of his business. [00:25:32] Audience Member: None of your business. That’s right. Just put it [00:25:36] Erika Irby: in my room. Thank you. [00:25:37] Audience Member: If people are, people as consumers in the, in the u, us consumer based economy is driving more and more people through like that social experience of purchasing, that is an area where I do think Microsoft could help us and we could help ourselves in marketing how that, how we leverage it to be a force multiplier versus another omnichannel. [00:25:58] Well, [00:25:58] Erin Figer: so on that note, how many of you have put a button on your website? Click to buy? Yeah, [00:26:02] Audience Member: that’s, that’s where I’m at with our marketing team. [00:26:04] Erin Figer: Right? [00:26:04] Audience Member: Yeah. That’s, I think, the next evolution for us in the, in the REO piece. [00:26:08] Erin Figer: Yeah. Yeah. [00:26:10] Audience Member: I, I don’t want it on our website. I want to, I want it on my Instagram, my LinkedIn, my TikTok reels. [00:26:15] That’s, we’re going to, sir, it’s coming next week at our sales kickoff. Yeah. [00:26:21] Erin Figer: Nice, nice. Anybody else? Uh, activated. REO [00:26:28] besides the, you know, RE speed wagon? Uh, it’s the Microsoft Reseller Enablement. Um, offering, so like you activate your resellers to just take your listing and be able to do a private offer so that you don’t have to do multi-party private offers anymore. Your resellers can just take the listing and sell it directly, and they don’t have to wait for you to send them the offer. [00:26:52] Then they have to go do, so it takes out some of the steps and that friction in the process streamlines it and it allows them to like. Add on and do their own pricing. And then the reseller, however you have your arrangement with that reseller, continues to pay you in the back end for, um, selling that through the marketplace. [00:27:11] Erika Irby: I think I’m going to have you come and do a webinar for our Veeam partners to, to help them with that, because to your point, I don’t, I don’t think it’s as prevalent yet. It’s, it hasn’t really caught on. [00:27:21] Erin Figer: Yeah. It’s been really an unlock of, I had a large, um, ISV that I helped. We implemented REO internally, so they have 34 marketplace offerings and they have this initiative. [00:27:36] They wanted to go global, sell local, and so they launched five more publishing accounts and they came to me and said, we need to replicate our catalog five times 34. And I was like, oh God, please, no. And luckily like two months later, Microsoft, like GAed, uh, REO, and I was like, here’s your answer. We’re not going to do that. [00:27:58] We’re going to enable each of your publishing accounts to be resellers of your quote unquote gold standard publishing account, and that we actually implemented REO as an internal mechanism for them to issue their own publishing accounts, to resell private offers in local currencies. Um, and that was really an operational unlock for them. [00:28:25] All right. Anybody you wanna ask a question to the audience? [00:28:29] Audience Member: Okay. I’ll just keep going. [00:28:32] Erin Figer: Um, all right. So what are some other, um, signals or ways that you guys are evolving the way you’re co-selling? Um, does anybody else have some experience shares that they want to, to share with the audience? We’ve got, we’re using data, uh, we’re using some ai, we’re helping us get to our audience faster. [00:28:51] I really loved work span, um, building in an AI tool inside your CRM system, um, so that you can get some of those signals. Any other signals that you guys are using, uh, to change the way you’re co-selling? [00:29:07] It’s quiet on [00:29:07] Reis Barrie: Maybe, maybe I’ll share one, but Yeah. Yeah. So, um, just when it comes to, like, for us, account alignment to me is like one of the most important things and consistently doing, uh, you know, account planning and account alignment against Microsoft their accounts. Um, now it’s a bit interesting ’cause you can include some s and b stuff in there. [00:29:27] Um, but also, uh, Jason you mentioned up there, the. Uh, marketplace rewards, having the propensity mapping. And so looking at not only from an account alignment, um, what Microsoft accounts are, we, um, you know, areas are we most penetrated in, but also of those accounts, which ones are already buying on marketplace. [00:29:47] Uh, maybe have a commitment to Microsoft in, in some way to help us just further, uh, further target and focus on, you know, if we have 500 opportunities that we’re trying to, um. I’m trying to work through, um, to Sanjay’s point, like what’s, what’s the 30% that I’m gonna get my batting average on? Um, and so that constant account alignment to us is like a, is a huge, huge signal, um, for us to focus on. [00:30:14] Um, and then you can even take it a layer deeper to identify, okay, well if I’m looking like, do I have density within Nina had the, the ou up here on the screen. So do I have densities with density within like specific. Uh, verticals or regions, um, or segments that I should maybe if I just focused on that one segment or one vertical, um, you know, then all of a sudden I, I’m super successful having an executive sponsorship in that, uh, in that ou, something like that. [00:30:44] Um, and, but that, that’s all starting with, um, the foundations of that being that consistent account alignment and leveraging some of the, some of the propensity stuff that Microsoft is, is providing. [00:30:56] Erin Figer: And then making sure you’re like bringing it back into your CRM and storing it so that you can continue to use that information ongoing. [00:31:03] And we’re trying to figure out how to embed more and more. [00:31:37] And are you integrating like. Microsoft and other partners into that data as well. It’s like, this is a great partner. Incorporate them at this point in the journey. Yeah, we um. [00:31:50] When [00:31:50] Audience Member: you’re in the process with, with Microsoft, we haven’t opened it up externally, so that’s our crawl, walk, run is we’re, we’re trying this out internally. Let’s see if we can work the bugs out, get the agents working, and then how do we now go to our MSP community and offer this up as an agent they can use within their sales team. [00:32:08] And on the end of. We’re still working in the middle, but front end profiling, it’s helping a ton, um, and giving us a lot of good intel that the sellers are driving through the agent on the back end. It’s, it’s giving us not, um, just propensity data, but what’s resonating. So if we launched 12 products this year and we trained sellers on. [00:32:28] What’s hitting, where’s my pipeline velocity coming from? Where’s my close rate coming from? So that every month when we have our sales town hall, it’s like, here’s the top three sales motions that are actually driving pipeline and fast to cash close rates. [00:32:42] Erin Figer: And I gotta imagine that helps you get to your differentiators. [00:32:45] Audience Member: Oh [00:32:45] Erin Figer: yeah. And refining your superpower story. [00:32:48] Audience Member: That’s right. That’s. Yeah, because it’s for, for our sales team. I mean, we were talking about it earlier, it’s all about simplification. There’s so many options, so much noise. It’s like, just go focus on these three things and this is where you’re gonna deliver impact and outcomes to your customer. [00:33:01] And if we’re doing that, we’re all winning. [00:33:03] Erika Irby: Yeah. I, I, um, just recently, this is why one of the coolest things that Veeam has done, we just launched this tool called, um, expansion iq, and it’s part of our command, the expand motion this year where we’re really. Upselling and cross-selling our, um, install base. [00:33:17] This tool takes all the partners individual propensity data, puts it against four solution plays that we think are the main plays, and then provides them, this is what you could be earning if you took this motion. And then from a marketing perspective, we provide them. And to do this, here’s your campaign. [00:33:37] Here’s your this, here’s your that. Step one, send this email. Like very, very, you know, just, uh, planned out. And I loved what Nina said earlier today when she shared that, um, org chart. Essentially with all the different, um, industry focuses we are driving. One of our go to market actions is a Microsoft healthcare campaign. [00:33:56] That is like very, very specific, but it’s helping our partners in that manner. Could they go to their own database and pull their own and do all this stuff? Of course. But for our sellers to go blink and then give them a report and be like, here it is. It makes it so much more relevant. And then the steps just, they just hand that to their marketing org and then they’re just off and running. [00:34:18] Going back into your team to say, Hey, we rolled out these 12 things, only three landing. You gotta go back to the drawing on the other side. Or We need more money for these three. Yeah, but let’s figure what’s not with customer [00:34:38] to record the. [00:34:47] Audience Member: A better, faster, uh, listening post for, uh, can I talk really loud? Um, it’s, it’s, it’s helped turning on a listening post for our engineering, our marketing, our service delivery organization that would’ve taken months or quarters to get spun up in an executive board meeting or something. Right now they get it real time every week. [00:35:09] Okay. [00:35:09] Erin Figer: So what I’m hearing, like the theme here is to really like. Understand your sales process. Also, your co-sell sales process that runs in parallel with that. And how do you continue to serve up the right data at the right time to help your people take the right next action to continue to drive those outcomes that you’re looking for, but then also using data to circle it back, to say what’s working, what’s not working, to continue to refine that whole motion. [00:35:43] Um, so if you’re not doing that, I think that’s a big aha moment and takeaway, uh, from today’s session or from here today is like, okay, am I really identifying all the opportunities in my process to involve data to help my people continue to drive outcomes? [00:36:04] Audience Member: You [00:36:04] Erin Figer: have a, [00:36:05] Audience Member: you have your head in up back there, Gary. [00:36:06] Yeah. I, I couldn’t tell if, uh, you were prompting me when you asked that question and I, I didn’t want to, you know, do a shameless plug for cloud, but I think everybody [00:36:15] Erin Figer: should shamelessly plug, plug away. [00:36:16] Audience Member: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, you brought up a mitt and, uh, the co-sell thing, but it, it does relate to what Reese had said about, um, you know, the being at the farmer’s market and. [00:36:26] Not sure what, you know, can I use a credit card or not? And I think that, um, or [00:36:30] Erin Figer: can I use Apple Pay? I still ask. I’m like, do you, do you accept Apple Pay? [00:36:32] Audience Member: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it’s like, I think, uh, a lot of times you don’t understand the seller in that situation is not sure how to handle that conversation. So, and there’s not a lot of information about their, about that. [00:36:44] Like how to, when it comes to a seller talking about marketplace and asking about the commit. Because the commit obviously is one of the main drivers, right? 900 billion out there. And committed spend across all the hyperscalers. So how to actually bring that up with a customer and what if they don’t know, right? [00:37:05] So there’s a whole process that, you know, they, they need to be taught this. But the first thing that’s also come up multiple times is activating them also means how to engage them. So an approach there of how to engage your salespeople is critical because if salespeople aren’t in it, they’re nothing’s happening. [00:37:23] You’re not gonna do well with marketplace. And on the co-sell part, it’s kinda the same thing. The typical thing, and I remember talking to Aldo Desal about this at another Ultimate Partner event, but uh, you bring your salespeople into a call, like you set up a call with, with Microsoft and the seller comes in unprepared. [00:37:42] Typically they’re not sure what to say and it’s a little bit intimidating. How, how, how do I, you know, what do you do in this situation? Like, so you start talking about product ’cause that’s what you know, and it’s the last thing you want to do. You, you want to understand what they care about, like em stage and, and, uh, what’s your consumption story and what kind of MRR impact you’re gonna have. [00:38:03] So it’s, these things are just unusual topics for the salespeople to be prepared, uh, to talk about. But it’s critical if your salespeople are gonna be enabled that they can do that. So I think from a co-selling standpoint, that’s just what I want to mention. And by the way, we offered a tool that does that. [00:38:20] Erin Figer: Nice. Awesome. Thank you. Uh, I mean, I don’t know about you. Reese Cloud Atlas. Every time we helped an ISV with their cosell motion, we would say, okay, we’re ready to go share cos sells and drive introductions. Have you done your sales enablement? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve enabled the sellers we have, and then we launch like the first batch of cos sells and then they immediately come back. [00:38:43] Stop, stop, stop. Don’t share any more deals, like we’re causing too much confusion. Uh, we didn’t do our sales enablement. Wow. Grace, [00:38:52] Reis Barrie: I mean, sound [00:38:53] Erin Figer: familiar? [00:38:53] Reis Barrie: It sounds very familiar. It sounds too familiar. Uh, P-T-S-D-A little bit there, but the, uh, sorry, [00:38:58] Erika Irby: but that’s why you guys have jobs. [00:39:00] Reis Barrie: Yes. Go on. It’s, it’s, um, but this, you know, I, I always come back to the, the concept of like, if we showed up to a Microsoft co-sell call the way we do to a customer call, like, oh. [00:39:14] Erin Figer: It, [00:39:14] Reis Barrie: it would, it would be night and day difference of the value you’d get outta your Microsoft partnership and co-sell. That’s all. It’s [00:39:20] Erin Figer: Well, [00:39:20] Reis Barrie: but I think people [00:39:21] Erin Figer: forget Microsoft is your customer too. [00:39:23] Reis Barrie: Yeah. [00:39:23] Erin Figer: They’re your partner, but you have to sell to before you can sell with and through. So you first gotta like master the sell to. [00:39:30] Reis Barrie: Yeah, a hundred percent. So there, there’s there like, and then to your point, [00:39:34] Erin Figer: it’s still true. 10 years later, people, it’s still true. Back to the fundamentals, right? [00:39:39] Reis Barrie: Yeah. It’s, [00:39:40] Erin Figer: yes. Go for it. [00:39:44] Audience Member: The, um, Microsoft being customer, right? So, and I love what you said about sem uh, alignment. So we actually made it a point, um, in our co-sell process, we have a validation checkpoint with Microsoft. If we build a co-sell packages, um, we are an si We’re not primarily ISV, but I think that’s shifting as well gradually. [00:40:10] And ESI kind of becoming a little bit of ISV. Um, so why it’s important, I think like Ree said, like you come up, you show up to co-sell call and you just pitch your services or say, well, let’s do account planning with this and that. Right? But what if it doesn’t work in the field? So that validation became critical for us, and I can tell you that now we have success stories that are actually proven based on that multifaceted feedback, uh, as to it’s one thing to build it. [00:40:46] Yeah. But is it useful for seller, for Microsoft sellers actually in the field? Can they actually position it and help clients to be more successful? Because that’s the ultimate goal. So that validation became, uh, an important checkpoint for us, uh, to make those packages repeatable and successful for customers at the end of the day. [00:41:06] So when we talk about signals, you absolutely right. It’s not just customer signals like we use ZoomInfo, we use all this data points, et cetera, but it’s also signals from the field because while Microsoft is a huge organization, they’re also very dynamic. On very regular basis, a lot of things changed. So taking those signals into account, uh, has created that, what we call like, more of a holistic approach for us, uh, to make it more meaningful. [00:41:33] So [00:41:34] Erin Figer: I like it. And you made it sticky by making it like a required point in the sales process? Absolutely. That everyone stops. Take a moment. [00:41:41] Audience Member: Yeah. [00:41:41] Erin Figer: And make sure that we’re all on the same page. [00:41:43] Audience Member: Yeah. And I think for us as si it’s even more critical. Like I, I, I think there is a lot more to happen in marketplace as, as, as much as we talk about it, but being in si I, we still kind of figure it out, like how Mark marketplace actually becomes a place of transaction for a size. [00:42:01] Yeah. So that’s why, you know, we’re passionate about packages and it’s not just a matter of publishing it and say, oh, it’s co-sell ready? Then what? Yeah. Right. So yeah, so, so that’s why that, that checkpoint is very important for us. So [00:42:16] Erin Figer: definitely, definitely. I think you ladies over here in the corner had some, some hands up, Michelle and, and the other Michelle, Michelle Squared. [00:42:26] Audience Member: Thank you. Michelle Squared. I like it. Um, so. I’ve been a little quiet because I wanna just give my background. So I’m a global VP of channels and alliances and, um, I think it’s a bit of this, uh, the movement, right? So I love your farmer’s market analogy so much. I’m gonna steal that. Thank you. But the reason is because you don’t know unless you’re gonna meet your partners where you are or meet your customers where they are in that journey. [00:42:53] So the first time that they’re selling whatever their goods or wares are, and somebody says, do you take Apple Pay? That’s a clue. And then when you hear it over and over again, you realize there’s a correlation that there’s a need in the market. So in In my life, all roads read to Romes, right? Reseller and VARs, OEM, alliances, MSPs, MSPs, ISVs System integrators. [00:43:17] And as a partner leader, you wouldn’t necessarily think marketplace is first because you feel like you’re going around your partners. But am I meeting my partners where they are in their journey and choosing to procure the way they want to procure? And I think that’s the notion that I have a lot of learning from this team and everyone in this room to understand how do we in a company. [00:43:38] Prescribe the right solution to, to meet our partners in that journey. And I’ll use, kind of circling back to the MSP space, PAX eight, one of Microsoft’s largest partners created a marketplace dedicated to MSPs. And while I was the global Channel chief of SonicWall, a lot of partners said to me, I like you. [00:43:56] I like your products, I like your firewall, but unless you’re on the park, PAX eight Marketplace, I’m not gonna buy from you because they make my life frictionless. And easier to do business with. And I think that’s the motion that every vendor in this room needs to understand is, are we truly meeting our partners where they are? [00:44:14] PS I work for Carrero DDoS Solutions and come to talk to me about that. Thank you. [00:44:18] Erika Irby: Well, and a Guo owes you some money for that commercial right there. [00:44:30] Audience Member: From, we’re actually community first. Um, as an MSP, even though we’re national, like we really focus in on community local touch. Um. Like you said, um, um, Southern seldom me in a southern way. Like that’s what we focus on. I’m your [00:44:45] Erin Figer: huckleberry. [00:44:46] Audience Member: I love that. Exactly. Um, and we’re seeing a ton of success with actual in-person events now. [00:44:53] Like the majority of our business is come in, leads are coming from that right now. And even though, like I, I truly believe in digital first motions, we need to be on Instagram and have that self-serve motion as the next generation comes up in our. Buying and transitioning to their kids or whatever that looks like. [00:45:14] Like we have to remember that there’s also a trend of tactile in person people first coming with it. And so like we, I, I feel like there, there has to be that motion engaged and I would love to hear your thoughts around how are vendors thinking about engaging in that community driven approach, not just the platform itself. [00:45:37] Erika Irby: Yeah, I, I personally also, this is hilarious ’cause we’re like best friends, so we can talk about this later, but, um, from a Veeam perspective, Michelle, um, we are seeing a resurgence in like these thought leadership type of events. And I think there’s, this is, this is sort of related, but just to, this is kind of how I think about this. [00:45:57] Um, Barnes and Noble’s business has like gone through the roof lately, and they are, they’re actually like opening more stores, which is bananas because at one point they were like going outta business because nobody wanted to go and like, touch a book or talk to somebody. But that is changing, thank God. [00:46:11] Right? That is like changing and people are actually like becoming more social because they’re missing this. Um, my kids’ generation refers to places like Barnes and Nobles as the third place. Like this magical place that exists where you can talk to a real human that’s not on your phone. Like it’s, it’s amazing. [00:46:28] But anyways, we’re, I think we’re starting to see this in marketing. We used to like pump everything out digitally, but after a while people get that form and they’re like, I am not putting my dang information in this form. And then your ability to capture that lead completely dissipates. All it is, is, is now an impression, which is. [00:46:47] Fairly worthless. You can have millions of them and nothing happens. So we are definitely investing more into, um, uh, live events, but also with the live streaming because then people can, they’re still watching it live. They still have to register for it. They knew they couldn’t make it. So I think that there’s definitely that digital aspect that’s super helpful. [00:47:05] But a purely digital, you will never make that connection. [00:47:10] Erin Figer: Yeah, I mean, I think. Unfortunately, COVID made us, you know, all do things digitally. But now that we’re past that, getting back to that multifaceted approach, I think if we think about what’s going on in the B2C world, lots of communities within communities, there’s whole company’s getting created, like women are bringing women together to do craft circles. [00:47:37] And literally. Okay. But like I did that digitally. That was pretty awesome. I was like three years. That shameless plug. No, I, no. But like then now there’s like companies that are actually like renting space, bringing people together, like crafting and while they’re doing the activity, um, if anyone’s ever done therapy, a therapist will say. [00:48:01] You know, if you wanna get your kids talking, get them coloring, like distract them and they will start to open up. And so you distract people with an activity and they start to open up. And what they really are, thrive, like what they really need is in this digital world where we’re getting so much information, we still need. [00:48:22] The next layer of filter to help us vet out and validate and confirm like our thinking or like our suspicions on things like, am I in the right going down the right path? Is this the right direction? So there’s still a human element that needs to be involved in that buyer journey, and you’re seeing that with these little micro communities inside communities. [00:48:45] Um, and so I’ve. I mean, I love micro communities inside of bigger communities. I’ve started two of them, three of them. So I, it definitely, like, we need still that in person, uh, interaction and I love seeing it coming back in our space. [00:49:04] Erika Irby: I, I was just thinking about ear, the, the previous panel and the, the topic came up about who can assist partners as they transition from that direct to CSP motion. [00:49:15] And I mean, yes, it, I think Microsoft plays a role there, but I think it would behoove Microsoft to invest in these communities and they would enable that change. Yeah, [00:49:26] Erin Figer: yeah, yeah. There is a person inside of Microsoft who has that remit, but she’s like one person, one person trying to do that. I was like, wow. [00:49:36] Okay. Grace, what are you seeing amongst your partners and also your perspective with working with Microsoft? [00:49:42] Reis Barrie: Yeah, yeah. Um. There’s a really good, uh, the frontier study, the work like door work study that they did, um, which talks really heavily about just like in this, you know, post 20, you know, 2020 culture, how like the amount of busyness has just increased in an insane amount and how a, a really strong use case for AI is to buybacks from that time essentially, um, for us to, you know, return back to a, a normal state and I think social creatures, right? [00:50:10] And so, um, in this. I run a fully remote company, which is like a blessing and also like really interesting to try to create a really strong culture within people that are, you know, 13 times zones apart times. Um, and so it’s uh, it’s a really interesting thing and coming together and, um, into an in-person space or a place here or a place where you can actually talk to your customers, talk to, um. [00:50:39] Step away from that, like that busy day to day where like, I, I can’t even fit a 15 minute break in to grab lunch. You know, days like how much, supposed to find 15 minutes to just have a, a casual conversation and these types of events, which I’m sure Vince is cheering back there that we’re talking about this right now. [00:50:57] But the, uh, but these type of events, they let you decompress from that day and they let you kind of just have these really important conversations that, you know, bring us back to just being humans To me. [00:51:10] Erin Figer: And being human and co-selling with each other. And on that note, we’re 44 seconds over. Yeah, we’ll give it back to Vince, [00:51:18] Reis Barrie: but we were plugging Vince’s events, so I think we’re okay. [00:51:21] Vince Menzione: We One more question. We have one more question from, sorry. Oh yeah. [00:51:23] Reis Barrie: It’s [00:51:23] Audience Member: maybe more a, a shared just as we’re talking [00:51:25] Vince Menzione: by the clip, right. [00:51:27] Audience Member: And to compliment everything that you guys have been talking about around co-sell and. Getting ready in line with Microsoft to speak to the customer and speaking. So the signals that we’re going after are on the actual conversations that are happening in the conversation. [00:51:41] So aside from all the planning, which I agree on, we’re building agents to hear what’s going on on the calls with Microsoft, on the calls with customer, and grab those actual signals. Are we answering the questions in the right way? What types of questions are coming back to us that we weren’t able to answer. [00:51:58] Maybe we forgot some information that we planned on and thought about can we signal and provide that feedback to the user, the seller, or whatnot on the call. And so as we’re doing this, ’cause we’re in the communication space, so we have some self-interest here ’cause that’s sort of the future of our business. [00:52:12] But it’s a really interesting opportunity for us to grab these signals to improve how we’re selling with our customers, how our partners are selling with our customers, with Microsoft. It’s just an interesting way with everything that’s going on full circle, we’re trying to complete that sort of sales journey with AI and, and grab those signals and keep getting better all the time. [00:52:32] Erin Figer: Yeah, I love that. And I think it’s like the ongoing balance of people, process and technology and how do you continue to keep the human in the loop? It, as we continue to introduce and evolve AI and use of data in our companies is like continuing to be mindful about the human in the loop. Um, part of that journey. [00:52:54] So thank you all. [00:52:55] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Great conversation. [00:52:56] Erin Figer: Thanks for all the audience engagement. We appreciate it. [00:52:59] Vince Menzione: Co-selling the house, co-selling the house. [00:53:02] Audience Member: Thank you, Vince. [00:53:02] Vince Menzione: Thank you. And I remember that January, 2016. Yes.

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ Gustafson sits down with Angela Chen, former CFO of The North Face and Mars Veterinary Health, to unpack how finance leaders build and scale iconic consumer brands. Angela shares how to measure brand equity, why the CFO should act as an architect of growth, and how capital, talent, and strategy connect inside a scaling business. They also get into humanistic leadership, consumer-margin tradeoffs, and what a 39-cent Taco Bell taco can teach finance teams about growth.—SPONSORS:Aleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to close faster without fighting legacy systems. Designed to support complex revenue recognition, multi-entity operations, and real-time reporting, Rillet helps teams achieve a true zero-day close—with some customers closing in hours, not days. If you're scaling on an ERP that wasn't built in the 90s, book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com/cjBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metrics—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelachensf/Company: https://sku.is/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—RELATED EPISODES:Minted's CFO: Half the Year Happens in One Monthhttps://youtu.be/hD4-exunKMo—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro2:45 Measuring brand equity5:09 CFO as architect of growth7:11 Connecting money, ideas, and talent7:52 North Face vs. Mars: where to invest10:52 Sponsors — Aleph | RightRev | Rillet14:14 Scaling North Face 5x without diluting the brand16:31 From technical brand to lifestyle brand19:30 Quality of revenue21:49 Seasonality and Q4 concentration24:01 Sponsors — EY | SpendHound | Brex27:14 Retailers shouldn't own factories31:30 Supply chain and 18-month product cycles33:23 Humanistic leadership in finance34:32 Purpose and profit are mutually reinforcing36:15 Purpose vs. profit in public companies38:05 Playing to Win framework39:47 Operational cadence and the gas gauge43:02 Killing bad projects: the battery jacket story44:16 Taco Bell and 39-cent margins47:10 Lightning round47:36 Screwed up: hiring on credentials48:27 Advice to younger self: network is the work50:07 Craziest expense story: snowcat ski trip50:50 Credits

John is joined by Shon Morgan and Jack Baumann, both partners in Quinn Emanuel's Los Angeles office. They discuss the growing legal tension surrounding the aggregation and commercialization of publicly available information. It focuses on when compiling public data into structured, searchable databases creates a protectable property interest, and when such activity exposes companies to legal risk.One recent series of cases involves disputes over whether entities that invest substantial resources to digitize, index, and organize public records may prevent others from accessing and reusing that enhanced data. In these cases, courts often recognize a distinction between underlying public records, which remain freely accessible, and value-added compilations created through private investment, which may be entitled to protection.A team led by Jack recently won one of these cases on behalf of Ancestry.com, a genealogy company that invested heavily in digitizing and organizing historical public records. Ancestry partnered with state records archives to convert paper and microfiche records into digital formats, adding searchable indexes and metadata that transformed otherwise difficult to use materials into accessible databases. Although the underlying records remained public and available to anyone willing to retrieve them manually, the company's financial and technical investments significantly enhanced the utility of these public records.The dispute arose when an individual sought to obtain not the original public records, but the company's digitized and indexed versions, through a public records request for Ancestry's work directed at one state's archive. The request effectively attempted to appropriate the company's value-added work product without incurring the costs required to create it. An administrative body initially ruled that the materials should be disclosed, reasoning that the company had acted as an extension of the government in performing a public function. On appeal, however, a higher tribunal rejected that view, concluding that the digitized and organized database was materially different from the original records and not subject to compulsory disclosure.A second series of cases have been brought by individuals whose personal information appears in these searchable databases such as ZoomInfo, Spokeo, or Whitepages.com. Plaintiffs in these cases often assert privacy or right of publicity claims, arguing that even if the data originated from public sources, companies should not profit from compiling and monetizing that data without their consent. Although many of these claims face challenges similar to claims in data breach cases, especially in demonstrating actual harm or the inherent value of ordinary personal information. Some courts have allowed these cases to proceed past the dismissal stage, creating significant potential exposure for companies due to the prospect of class-wide liability and statutory damages.While raw public data remains freely accessible, significant private investment in organizing and enhancing that data may often generate a protectable interest. However, individuals may argue that while their information may be publicly available, they never agreed that third parties could profit from it. This tension remains unsettled and will likely evolve as courts confront similar disputes in other contexts involving large-scale data aggregation.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with PSG Managing Director Chris Nesbitt to unpack how great deals are actually found, how investment decisions are really made, and why narrative often matters more than most investors admit. They also dig into forecasting, boardroom authenticity, simple vs. complex models, and the roles of market, product, and leadership in driving outcomes.—SPONSORS:Brex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to close faster without fighting legacy systems. Designed to support complex revenue recognition, multi-entity operations, and real-time reporting, Rillet helps teams achieve a true zero-day close—with some customers closing in hours, not days. If you're scaling on an ERP that wasn't built in the 90s, book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com/cj—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophersnesbitt/Company: https://psgequity.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro2:44 PSG origin story4:01 Growth to 30B AUM5:07 Strategy: small software at scale5:50 Vertical SaaS treasure hunting8:10 Ministry Brands: software meets payments9:28 Sponsors — Brex | Aleph | RightRev12:46 Early M&A work and rollup strategy15:52 Sourcing is more competitive now18:28 Smoke signals and relationship sourcing21:22 Does brand get you in the room?22:15 Authenticity as a sourcing edge22:52 Sponsors — Rillet | EY | SpendHound26:09 Brand name of investor or deal partner?27:44 Investors are narrative driven animals29:18 Market, product, then execution31:26 Danger of falling in love with the narrative33:40 Operator AI pivot story: GRC company34:51 Keep it simple: one tab, five key inputs39:21 Forecasting confidence beyond 12-18 months41:51 What makes a useful board meeting45:01 Build vs. buy: the payments decision47:45 ARR vs. EBITDA multiples50:30 Lightning round50:34 Board materials: send 3 days in advance51:03 LTV to CAC and cap software debates51:32 First deal at PSG52:35 What young investors get wrong54:04 Credits

Most reps are using AI to write outreach and most of it sounds exactly like that.Surface-level personalization that blends in with the noise isn't a messaging problem, it's an input problem.In Part 3 of our AI for Sales series, Kyle Vamvouris broke down how to feed AI the right signals so it stops producing fluff and starts producing messages that actually get replies.Walk away with a repeatable workflow to turn ICP pain and real buying signals into specific, human-sounding copy across email, LinkedIn, and cold calls, plus a quality control checklist to catch generic output before it hits an inbox.You'll Learn:The inputs that make AI produce specific, relevant messagingHow to turn signals into angles and into multi-channel sequencesA quality control checklist to keep AI output from sounding like AIThe Speakers:Jed Mahrle and Kyle VamvourisIf you want to catch The Daily Sales Show live, join hereFollow Sell Better to get the latest actionable tactics from sales pros at the top of their gameExplore our YouTube ChannelThank you to our sponsors: ZoomInfo

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Manu Diwakar, CFO of Virta Health, to unpack why health tech breaks traditional SaaS thinking. They get into the realities of running a business where outcomes matter, half the company are medical professionals, and efficiency can't come at the expense of care. It's a conversation about sustainable scaling, smarter reinvestment, and building for durability over hype.—SPONSORS: SpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com/cjBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to close faster without fighting legacy systems. Designed to support complex revenue recognition, multi-entity operations, and real-time reporting, Rillet helps teams achieve a true zero-day close—with some customers closing in hours, not days. If you're scaling on an ERP that wasn't built in the 90s, book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartups—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manu-diwakar-1aa578/Company: https://www.virtahealth.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro1:18 Welcome and guest intro3:02 What sector is health tech?4:34 Virta go to market explained7:01 B2B to B2C model9:00 Value based care and ROI guarantees9:18 Half the company are medical professionals10:36 Sponsors — SpendHound | Brex | Aleph14:03 Annual planning process16:42 Shape of the curve17:33 TAM: metabolic health is massive20:45 Fee for service vs. value based care24:16 Sponsors — RightRev | Rillet | EY27:24 Unique costs of health tech: billing, compliance30:54 Corporate practice of medicine31:44 North star: members under management32:43 The flywheel: $250 charge, $500 saved33:28 Early stage CFO job is easy35:28 Bad habits baked in during high growth38:02 Choosing not to profit vs. not turning a profit41:15 Running a VC-backed business for sustainability42:07 People, tech and process framework44:31 Hiring philosophy: hard work, learning, curiosity48:26 Athletes vs. experts in hiring50:03 Clock hands interview question50:49 Lightning round51:09 Screwed up: having hard conversations late51:57 Advice to younger self52:15 Finance software stack52:42 Craziest expense story53:47 Credits

"Document everything." Spring startup season exposes more than operational stress. It also reveals what happened months earlier when systems were laid up poorly, maintenance steps were skipped, or warning signs were documented but not acted on. In this episode, Trace Blackmore connects that reality to a broader infrastructure problem: hidden damage inside pressure piping systems that operators often cannot see until a leak, rupture, or budget crisis forces action.     Why hidden pressure pipe problems are so expensive  Chris McDonald, CEO and President of CPM Pipelines, explains why pressure pipe inspection and rehabilitation deserve more attention from utilities and industrial facilities. His core point is practical: many owners are still making repair or replacement decisions without first getting a high-resolution look at the pipe's actual condition.  That creates two risks. First, teams may spend too late, after a failure creates public, operational, or safety consequences. Second, they may spend too much, replacing long stretches of pipe when only a targeted section actually needs rehabilitation. Chris argues that better inspection narrows uncertainty and helps owners avoid both extremes.  Inspection first, then the right rehabilitation scope  A major theme in the conversation is that CPM Pipelines works across both inspection and rehab, which changes how projects are evaluated. Chris notes that many inspection firms inspect, and many rehab firms rehabilitate, but few do both. That difference matters because the best answer is not always the biggest project.  He shares an example of a recent force main inspection that showed half the line was in bad condition and half was in very bad condition, yet the data still allowed the agency to target the rehab scope precisely. According to Chris, that approach saved a small utility of almost $10 million. He also explains why trenchless rehab can often reduce project schedules from months to weeks and save roughly 50% compared with traditional dig-and-replace work.  Leadership, documentation, and building the right team  The conversation also moves beyond pipelines into business leadership. Chris reflects on entrepreneurship, the value of solution-driven work over commodity selling, and the importance of documenting systems early if a company intends to scale.  He also emphasizes team alignment, core values, and recognizing quickly when someone is in the wrong seat. For owners and managers, that part of the episode is as useful as the technical discussion. The takeaway is clear: strong execution depends on both sound field data and disciplined internal systems.  Pressure pipe problems are often invisible until they become urgent. This conversation shows why better inspection, better decision timing, and better documentation can improve both infrastructure outcomes and business results.  Listen to the full conversation above. Explore related episodes below. Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!    Timestamps  01:18 — A call to action for the Global 6K for Water on May 16, 2026  02:20 — Trace introduces the podcast, notes that spring startup season is underway and warns that cooling and irrigation systems laid up poorly can produce rusty water and decayed piping, often leading clients to blame the water treater.   05:23 — "Words of Water" game show, James McDonald   06:48 — Trace highlights upcoming events, encouraging listeners to use the Scaling UP! events page to plan their professional development  09:59 — Guest Chris McDonald shares his 25‑year journey through US Pipe, distribution and finally entrepreneurship; he credits his wife's support and explains how she joined the company without reporting directly to him  14:30 — Chris recalls that working in manufacturing and distribution taught him that value comes from solving problems rather than selling the same products as competitors, which prompted him to launch CPM Pipelines  16:16 — CPM Pipelines now focuses exclusively on pressure‑pipe inspection and rehabilitation. Chris describes how combining contracting and representation allows his team to inspect, assess and rehabilitate pipelines using high‑resolution inspection technologies and exclusive trenchless lining systems  18:44 — He argues that trenchless rehabilitation can cut costs by roughly 50 percent and reduce a six‑month dig‑and‑replace project to six weeks, noting that pressure‑pipe adoption has lagged due to access and bypass challenges but is beginning to change  21:14 — A recent force‑main inspection exemplifies their approach: high‑resolution data pinpointed a failing section, enabling targeted rehabilitation that saved a small utility nearly $10 million compared with wholesale replacement  22:40 — Chris and Trace discuss infrastructure sprawl and water billing; Chris observes that development patterns spread systems ever outward, straining budgets, yet people still balk at paying $20 for water while spending far more on cell phones  25:21 — CPM insists on inspecting pressure pipes before rehabilitation; Chris explains that many leaking pipes remain structurally sound and that sometimes replacing a short force main is cheaper than an inspection, whereas longer mains justify data‑driven decisions  32:08 — To find clients, the team monitors news for main failures, uses AI to scan meeting notes and leverages LinkedIn and ZoomInfo; Chris notes that industrial clients often have funds to act quickly while municipal agencies defer action until failures become public  34:49 — Many early pipe failures stem from random construction defects rather than gradual wear; detecting a dent hidden beneath coating may require high‑resolution tools because conventional models cannot predict these anomalies  40:49 — Chris emphasizes the importance of putting the right people in the right seats, recognizing bad fits quickly and hiring high‑level talent. CPM grows organically without borrowing money and values of alignment among employees, contractor partners and clients    Quotes "If there's nobody else that sees value in what I do, whether or not I see value in it is irrelevant."  "You don't want to invest too early. You don't want to invest too late. And you don't want to invest too much, right?"  "Don't let any good conduit go unused, right?"  "You can't do this by yourself. It takes a team."  "Document everything."  "Always be a student."     Connect with Chris MacDonald  Phone: (760) 809-5391   Email: chris@cpmpipelines.com  Website: CPM Pipelines  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-macdonald-95805b13/   CPM Pipelines LinkedIn  BulletLiner System LinkedIn    Guest Resources Mentioned  The Future is Faster Than You Think: Chris MacDonald Of CPM Pipelines On How Leaders Are Preparing for The Innovations, Disruptions, and Strategies That Will Define Tomorrow    Scaling UP! H2O Resources Mentioned  AWT (Association of Water Technologies)  Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses  Submit a Show Idea  Global 6k    Words of Water with James McDonald Today's definition is an expression for calculating the solubility of a gas in a fluid based on temperature and partial pressure.  Do you know the word or phrase?    2026 Events for Water Professionals  Check out our Scaling UP! H2O Events Calendar where we've listed every event Water Treaters should be aware of by clicking HERE.    This episode is made possible through our valued partners at:   

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Praveer Melwani, CFO of Figma, to unpack the financial model behind one of tech's most iconic product-led companies. They cover viral growth, forecasting without a traditional sales pipeline, AI credit pricing, margin tradeoffs, and the metric Praveer believes matters most in the long run: free cash flow per share.—SPONSORS:EY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.comBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to close faster without fighting legacy systems. Designed to support complex revenue recognition, multi-entity operations, and real-time reporting, Rillet helps teams achieve a true zero-day close—with some customers closing in hours, not days. If you're scaling on an ERP that wasn't built in the 90s, book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cj—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/praveer-melwani/Company: https://www.figma.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro1:21 Welcome and guest intro2:55 From banking to Dropbox to Figma5:04 Inflection points: building trust early8:36 TAM expansion thinking10:31 Sponsors — EY | SpendHound | Brex13:38 Two-thirds of Figma users aren't designers14:36 Forecasting product led growth16:22 Cohorts and NDR discovery17:39 LTV to CAC philosophy18:57 Product signals for account expansion20:22 How Figma achieved hypergrowth with 90%+ margins22:14 AI expands TAM: time to hit the gas23:22 AI credit pricing model24:50 Sponsors — Aleph | RightRev | Rillet28:13 Outcome based pricing consideration29:00 Where AI margins settle: gross profit dollars30:08 Free cash flow per share as north star31:04 NDR and pricing volatility32:13 Bundled vs. unbundled seats34:50 Being engaged in sales to understand admin pain35:17 IPO day experience36:27 Keeping employees focused beyond the stock price37:19 Employee stock pressure and lockup reality39:37 Kitchen cabinet of advisors41:44 How to ask better questions of advisors41:47 Lightning round41:50 Advice to younger self42:47 Finance software stack44:09 Claude WTF moment: forecasting model throughput45:13 Craziest expense story: the haircut45:59 Credits

Signals fire, alerts appear, and activity gets logged. But for most reps, those signals rarely translate into booked meetings.The gap isn't the data, it's what happens after the signal appears.Which is why we designed a show to help reps move from observing intent to operationalizing it. Instead of relying on dashboards alone, see how rep-owned execution turns signals into timely outreach and real pipeline.Leave with a clearer framework for acting on intent with urgency and structure, so signals lead to booked meetings instead of stalled follow-up.You'll Learn:Which intent signals are worth acting on versus which ones are just noiseFirst touch frameworks for intent-based outreach that earn responsesA 14-day sprint model for structuring follow-up before competitors catch upThe Speakers:James Buckley and Will FrattiniIf you want to catch The Daily Sales Show live, join hereFollow Sell Better to get the latest actionable tactics from sales pros at the top of their gameExplore our YouTube ChannelThank you to our sponsors: ZoomInfo

Jason was a guest on the recent webinar hosted by ZoomInfo. In this episode, Jason and Michael George from ZoomInfo reveal a proven framework that can triple your cold call conversions. Tune in to learn the strategies, mindset, and data-backed tactics that turn hesitant prospects into eager buyers. Check out more free content and get coaching at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://outboundsquad.com.⁠

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Wealthfront CFO Alan Imberman to unpack automation as a strategy, the compounding power of retention and trust, and how to balance elite profitability with continued investment. They also discuss why Wealthfront went public earlier than many peers and what's really happening in fintech right now.—SPONSORS:Rillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to close faster without fighting legacy systems. Designed to support complex revenue recognition, multi-entity operations, and real-time reporting, Rillet helps teams achieve a true zero-day close—with some customers closing in hours, not days. If you're scaling on an ERP that wasn't built in the 90s, book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.comBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJ—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-imberman-cfa-aab2371/Company: https://www.wealthfront.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro1:37 Welcome and guest intro3:11 Wealthfront overview4:38 Automation as core philosophy6:50 55K clients per support rep example7:45 90% gross margins and $1M revenue per employee8:46 Optimization vs. exploration framework9:58 Data flywheel: the Path product10:43 Cash account insight from customer data11:26 Home lending insight from wire data13:33 Sponsors — Rillet | EY | SpendHound16:45 Product led growth and referrals18:11 Incentives vs. paid marketing20:46 Compounding philosophy and 120% NDR22:07 Long term thinking vs. public market pressure22:40 No guidance decision26:26 Sponsors — Brex | Aleph | RightRev29:44 Serving the wealth builder: 80/20 in wealth management31:45 Decision to go public at $339M revenue33:46 Does size matter for IPOs?34:46 Fintech's moment: Chime, Klarna, Circle36:49 Non-monetary benefits of going public38:30 Memos over slides40:31 Hedge fund early career: spreading 10-Ks in Excel46:45 Don't lose the forest for the trees in modeling48:31 Lightning round48:43 Screwed up: de-annualizing a fee rate49:55 Advice to younger self50:32 Finance software stack51:14 Craziest expense story: $100K coffee tab53:11 Credits#RunTheNumbersPodcast #CFO

On this week's Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Steve Isom of Bloomerang to break down what a “strategic CFO” really is. They cover the shift from reporting to operating, why customer orgs drive SaaS value, and how AI is reshaping the finance role. —SPONSORS:RightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to close faster without fighting legacy systems. Designed to support complex revenue recognition, multi-entity operations, and real-time reporting, Rillet helps teams achieve a true zero-day close—with some customers closing in hours, not days. If you're scaling on an ERP that wasn't built in the 90s, book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.comBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/run—LINKS: Steve on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/steveisomjrCompany: https://bloomerang.com/CJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview1:25 Intro2:55 Welcome Steve Isom3:13 CFO to COO promotion5:02 Having a pulse on every function6:51 Defining "strategic CFO"7:19 Tying strategy to value creation9:27 Being embedded in the rhythm of the business10:55 Finance leaders as commentators vs. team captains12:25 Sponsors — RightRev | Rillet | EY15:33 Killing projects as a core skill18:14 Activity doesn't equal impact19:16 Project Steve killed20:39 Taking over the customer org at Bloomerang22:18 Why acquisition is a cash-losing exercise23:07 LTV lives post-sale24:39 Most vulnerable area: customer success25:24 Ruthless CSM segmentation26:30 Nonprofits don't think about your software29:21 Sponsors — Spendhound | Brex | Aleph32:43 CFO running ops35:52 Metrics vs. humans37:18 Skip levels and what they reveal39:01 Incentives drive the wrong outcomes40:22 Customer-introduced delays as a key sub-metric40:27 Unit economics become tangible when you're accountable42:17 Going deep on AI45:13 Motivating your team to experiment with AI46:02 AI for personal projects47:05 Resource allocation in a vibe-coding world48:42 Does AI efficiency just mean more work?50:32 What excites Steve about the future of finance leadership52:08 Finance leaders who don't use AI won't get hired52:13 Credits#RunTheNumbersPodcast #CFO #StrategicFinance #SaaSFinance #FinanceLeadership #CFOtoCOO

Secondaries aren't a niche anymore — they're the main event. In 2025, the secondary market hit $233B, outpacing IPOs 5:1. This episode breaks down how we got here, why companies stay private longer, and how employees, investors, and CFOs actually navigate liquidity. From Facebook's wild west to structured tenders and continuation vehicles — this is the new playbook.—SPONSORS:Aleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to close faster without fighting legacy systems. Designed to support complex revenue recognition, multi-entity operations, and real-time reporting, Rillet helps teams achieve a true zero-day close—with some customers closing in hours, not days. If you're scaling on an ERP that wasn't built in the 90s, book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.comBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metrics—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNCJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.comBen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/slackerstuff/Slacker Stuff: https://www.slackerstuff.com/—RELATED EPISODES:IPOs Are Being Replacedhttps://youtu.be/oGuZf83pdREThe $10T Question: Who Needs Wall Street?" | Scott Vosshttps://youtu.be/szCIZmTs3SQDriving revenue without selling | Greg Henry of 1Passwordhttps://youtu.be/f5FsNoG8A3EFinance vs. Marketing: Who's Really Right About ROI? | Brandon Sullivanhttps://youtu.be/ivcht5N7uRQDo the things spreadsheets can't do | SeatGeek's Teddy Collinshttps://youtu.be/jn0L5KkmMI4—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 The $233B market replacing IPOs2:57 What is a secondary?4:24 The dot-com hangover5:48 The wild west era8:58 Sponsors — Aleph | RightRev | Rillet12:21 Why companies stay private longer13:56 The three stakeholders18:57 When is it too early?20:42 How to run one of these things23:57 Sponsors — EY | SpendHound | Brex27:04 Not all shares are created equal31:08 The good, the bad, and the ugly34:23 GP-led continuation vehicles36:19 The whole game changed37:34 Credits#RunTheNumbersPodcast #PrivateMarkets #SecondaryMarkets #VentureCapital #CFO

Podcast Summary Unlock the secrets of AI and redefine your business strategy with insights from Seth Marrs, Sandler's Chief Strategy Officer. We promise you'll gain a clear understanding of how to wield AI's transformative power effectively without succumbing to the hype. Together, we'll navigate the tumultuous terrain of AI adoption, cutting through vendor-driven noise to focus on enhancing business efficiency. Learn how precision-targeted AI processes and smart technology investments can elevate your sales strategies while safeguarding data accuracy. Step into the future of sales training as technology and data investment revolutionize traditional methods. We explore how companies that embrace advanced data structures and generative AI are setting a new standard in sales enablement and leadership. From boosting conversation intelligence to redefining KPIs, discover how these advancements allow sales leaders to coach with precision and free teams from the shackles of outdated forecasting. This episode promises a remarkable journey into the next era of sales excellence, where strategic foresight and data-driven decision-making take center stage. Chapter 1: Introduction and Guest Setup 00:00:02 – 00:01:16 Dave Mattson introduces the How to Succeed podcast and frames the focus on attitudes, behaviors, and techniques. He welcomes guest Seth Marrs, Sandler's Chief Strategy Officer, and teases a discussion on where "the puck is going" in tech and AI for sales and leadership. Chapter 2: The Innovative Revenue Leader Podcast Overview 00:01:16 – 00:02:11 Seth explains his podcast format: deep-dives on a single topic across multiple episodes, featuring varied expert perspectives and a research-driven synthesis. The goal is to provide practical tools and insights leaders can apply to grow revenue. Chapter 3: Actionable Depth vs. High-Level Concepts 00:02:11 – 00:02:59 Dave highlights the gap between conceptual podcasts and actionable takeaways. Seth confirms they publish companion reports, citing one on five AI-driven capacity levers to ensure listeners leave with concrete steps. Chapter 4: The AI Hype Cycle and Vendor-Driven Chaos 00:02:59 – 00:04:56 They discuss the rapid acceleration of technology and AI since 2020 and a vendor-fueled market pushing "AI" everywhere. Executive pressure to "do AI" leads to misaligned investments, often neglecting foundational needs like data hygiene. Chapter 5: Why AI Initiatives Fail and What Works 00:04:56 – 00:06:08 Referencing studies with high AI failure rates, Seth argues success comes from mapping and improving specific processes with AI, not buying tools to fix problems. Proven change still follows process-first, tool-second discipline. Chapter 6: Pressure, Waste, and Upcoming Market Correction 00:06:08 – 00:08:41 Dave notes external pressure to adopt AI creates fear of being left behind. Both anticipate a near-term shift toward smarter, ROI-focused adoption, driven by CFO scrutiny and repeatable success stories clarifying where AI truly adds value. Chapter 7: Overlapping Tools and the "Can It Do It vs. Is It Good?" Test 00:08:41 – 00:10:24 They unpack redundancy in tech stacks (e.g., multiple tools that "write emails"). The real question is output quality and contextual relevance, echoing prior dynamics like using LinkedIn for accuracy and ZoomInfo for phone numbers. Chapter 8: Education Gap and Overpromising Vendors 00:10:24 – 00:11:18 Most practitioners don't understand nuanced tool differences, exacerbated by vendors claiming universal AI capability. This fuels confusion and misaligned purchasing. Chapter 9: Where the Puck Is Going: Data, Infrastructure, and Enablement 00:11:18 – 00:12:49 AI performance will only improve; organizations investing in data and infrastructure will compound gains. Seth predicts a transformation in enablement and training through conversation intelligence and role-play powered by GenAI. Chapter 10: From Training Events to Continuous, Visible Reinforcement 00:12:49 – 00:14:24 Enablement evolves from one-off training to ongoing assessment across calls and emails, with clear visibility into who applies the methodology and the outcomes. Leaders gain unprecedented insight to reinforce and optimize. Chapter 11: Science Over Art in Sales Performance 00:14:24 – 00:16:28 Dave likens the shift to medicine and pro sports: from art to data-driven science with MRIs and video review. Sales can now diagnose reality over self-reported optimism, though increased transparency may feel threatening to some. Chapter 12: Tools Elevate but Don't Replace Excellence 00:16:28 – 00:19:30 Seth asserts technology equips practitioners but doesn't eliminate the performance spectrum. Blindly following AI produces average results; top performers synthesize AI with judgment, adapting to context shifts like those during COVID. Chapter 13: Empowering High Performers and Institutionalizing Wins 00:19:30 – 00:21:28 AI can surface winning patterns from "rogue" top sellers and scale them across teams. Digital playbooks can capture best moments across individuals, but most organizations still fail to build and maintain them. Chapter 14: Culture, Curiosity, and Leveling the Field 00:21:28 – 00:22:55 Resistance stems from human nature and legacy structures that reward tenure over curiosity. The new environment favors sellers committed to craft, learning, and experimentation, expanding their opportunities. Chapter 15: Manager Adoption and the Coaching Opportunity 00:22:55 – 00:24:36 Historically, reps learned from call libraries more than managers used them. Pressure is mounting on managers to leverage these tools, shifting from generic call quotas to event-driven, targeted coaching triggers. Chapter 16: Span of Control and Precision Coaching 00:24:36 – 00:25:59 AI-driven diagnostics will increase managers' span of control by automating detection of coachable moments. Time shifts from ride-alongs and full-call reviews to focused intervention on specific gaps tied to deal impact. Chapter 17: Practical Playbook for Sales Leaders 00:25:59 – 00:27:39 Leaders should adopt tech for pinpoint coaching, grounded in recorded calls and captured emails. This enables loss mitigation via timely intervention, delivering more performance with less wasted managerial time. Chapter 18: Rethinking CRO Metrics and Forecasting 00:27:39 – 00:29:47 For CROs and owners, the mandate is a new set of leading indicators sourced from conversation and engagement data. Forecasts should become byproducts of actual selling activity rather than self-reported, error-prone rollups. Chapter 19: From Guesswork to Evidence-Based Operations 00:29:47 – 00:32:20 Leaders gain the ability to make forward-looking decisions from real interactions, not hedged numbers. Reclaiming time spent on forecasting and discovering bespoke conversational indicators creates durable competitive advantages. Chapter 20: Closing Guidance: Start Small, Solve One Problem 00:32:20 – end Seth advises choosing a single, well-defined problem, mapping it to a solvable action with a tool, and executing. Mastery and confidence build through iterative wins, avoiding the trap of broad, unfocused AI implementations. Dave closes by recapping takeaways and promoting Seth's podcast.

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Glenn Schiffman, CFO of Fanatics. They break down the economics of sports IP, how Fanatics approaches CAC, LTV, and capital allocation across merchandising, collectibles, and betting, and the negotiation lessons Glenn learned from decades in investment banking and leading finance at IAC.—SPONSORS:Brex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to close faster without fighting legacy systems. Designed to support complex revenue recognition, multi-entity operations, and real-time reporting, Rillet helps teams achieve a true zero-day close—with some customers closing in hours, not days. If you're scaling on an ERP that wasn't built in the 90s, book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenn-h-s-51440521/Company: https://www.fanaticsinc.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro1:13 Welcome and guest intro2:38 Football at Duke and college businesses5:40 Predecessor to DoorDash story7:10 IP monetization explained9:22 All deals are snowflakes10:36 Partnership KPIs13:21 Sponsors — Brex | Aleph | RightRev16:40 Buy, bet, collect: CAC and LTV17:15 Single view of the fan18:39 Multi-business customers spend 4.7x20:32 Fanatics credit card launch22:13 AI for personalization23:01 DTC vs. wholesale margin profiles24:05 Budgeting process26:07 Infinite vs. finite: focus on revenue26:37 Sponsors — Rillet | EY | SpendHound29:47 Starve your losers, feed your winners32:58 Capital compounding: revenue, EBITDA, FCF33:56 Buybacks at IAC37:02 First negotiation at Lehman39:17 Outlasting the other side39:56 Listening in negotiations40:03 Long-Ass Lightning Round44:25 Credits#RunTheNumbersPodcast #CFO #SportsCommerce #CapitalAllocation #FinanceLeadership

Most reps are using AI the wrong way. They are asking it to write emails instead of helping them research and think.Jed Mahrle and Kyle Vamvouris broke down how to use AI to speed up prospect research, sharpen targeting, and spot real signals without sounding like everyone else.You will see real prompts and workflows you can start using this week, including how to define your ICP in a way AI can validate, how to pull relevant account insights fast, and how to separate useful signals from noise so you know who to reach out to and why now.Leave with a simple research workflow you can repeat in minutes, plus a practical way to turn what you learn into signal based prioritization and more credible outreach.You'll Learn:Where to use AI and where not toSimple prompts and frameworks for signal-based targetingHow to build “custom signal” workflowsThe Speakers:Jed Mahrle and Kyle VamvourisIf you want to catch The Daily Sales Show live, join hereFollow Sell Better to get the latest actionable tactics from sales pros at the top of their gameExplore our YouTube ChannelThank you to our sponsors: ZoomInfo

In this special Liftoff Unicorn Conversation, Keith sits down with Henry Schuck, Founder & CEO of ZoomInfo, to explore the journey of building one of the most influential B2B data platforms in the world.Henry shares the story behind founding ZoomInfo in 2007, scaling through multiple growth stages, navigating the company's IPO during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how ZoomInfo is now adapting to the AI era.This conversation dives into lessons for founders, entrepreneurs, and startup leaders on scaling a company, building a category-defining product, and staying ahead as technology continues to evolve.If you want insight into how a company grows from startup to public SaaS leader, this episode delivers the playbook.Connect with Henry Schuck: Website: https://www.zoominfo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hschuck Sponsor Info: We are strategic business advisors with decades of leadership experience and a proven track record of driving businesses' growth. We specialize in creating custom-tailored strategies to introduce your company, drive growth, build leadership teams, and ensure companies implement appropriate compensation programs. Our mission is to utilize our expansive network to benefit your company https://www.compass-strategic-advisors.com/ Subscribe for more founder insights and hit the bell for notifications! Follow us on our channels for exclusive startup content and behind-the-scenes insights from interviews like this one. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3cFpLXfYvcUsxvsT9MwyAD?si=f5a14e779777487d Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/liftoff-with-keith-newman/id1560219589 Substack: https://keithnewman.substack.com/ Newman Media Studios: https://newmanmediastudios.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/liftoffwithkeithTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@keithnewman74 For sponsorship inquiries, please contact: sponsorships@wherewithstudio.com#HenrySchuck #ZoomInfo #StartupJourney #SaaSLeadership #Entrepreneurship #FounderStories #AIinBusiness #StartupGrowth #TechLeadership #BusinessStrategy

Jason was a guest on the recent webinar hosted by ZoomInfo. In this episode, Jason and Calvin Flax break down the Outbound Equation and reveal how to win high-quality meetings in a slower market through smarter outreach, stronger offers, and genuine buyer connection. Check out more free content and get coaching at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://outboundsquad.com.⁠

Most deals slip when everything depends on one person. One champion goes quiet, priorities shift, or a new stakeholder shows up late, and the whole deal slows down.James Buckley, Krysten Conner and Monica Stewart broke down a simple, repeatable way to multithread early without looking desperate or going around your champion. This is about building alignment and reducing risk, not adding people to a thread.You will learn how to map the buying group fast, open new threads with a clear reason, and turn the right contact into a real champion who sells internally when you are not in the room. They will cover what to say to your champion, what to say to new stakeholders, and how to ask for intros without making it awkward.You will leave with practical scripts, a straightforward framework for keeping multiple threads warm between meetings, and clean re engagement moves for when a thread goes dark in mid market or enterprise deals.You'll Learn:When to start multithreading and how to map the buying group early so deals do not stall on one contactHow to build a real champion, spot the difference between a champion and a friendly supporter, and ask for the right helpThe plays to open new threads, run stakeholder meetings that move the deal, and keep momentum when people go quietThe Speakers:James Buckley, Krysten Conner and Monica StewartIf you want to catch The Daily Sales Show live, join hereFollow Sell Better to get the latest actionable tactics from sales pros at the top of their gameExplore our YouTube ChannelThank you to our sponsors: ZoomInfo and Quotivity

For a limited time, Latent Spacenauts can skip the waitline to join Dreamer and also compete for a $10,000 cash prize for most useful tools for Dreamer! Thanks @dps!In 2024, David Singleton left Stripe and joined forces with Hugo Barra for a buzzy stealth startup named /dev/agents. This month they emerged out as Dreamer, a consumer-first platform to discover, build, and use AI agents and agentic apps, centered on a personal “Sidekick” that helps users customize experiences via natural language. Sidekick is nothing less than an “agent that builds agents”, with all the complexity that that entails:You've seen many many website builder, app builder, and even agent builder startups by now, but our favorite detail is the sheer amount of work that has gone into the “full stack” nature of the platform, including shipping their own SDK, logging, database, prompt management, serverless functions, and so on. Most platforms restrict the tech stack you can use just to get off the ground — Dreamer does it “right” by letting you push whatever arbitrary code you want to their VMs.Paying the BuildersOf course former leaders of Stripe and Android would not stop at just building the tools, but also building the ecosystem. Dreamer is deeply aware of the 4 sided network effect it has going on and is ready to fund all of it - from hiring Builders in Residence to awarding $10,000 cash prizes to the best tool builders for the Dreamer ecosystem.It's time to Dream!Full Video Episodeon youtube.Transcript[00:00:00] Meet Dreamer Purple[00:00:00] swyx: Okay, we're here in the studio with David Singleton. Welcome.[00:00:08] David Singleton: Hey, Wix. It's great to be here.[00:00:09] swyx: It's great to have you. Uh, we have very sympa that your company color is the same as Lean Spaces color.[00:00:15] David Singleton: That's right. Dreamer Purple.[00:00:17] swyx: It used to be Devrel agents, which I thought was very cool. It's like you call back to Devrel Payments.[00:00:22] David Singleton: Yeah.[00:00:22] swyx: And you were obviously CTO Stripe. And talk to me about just the origin or thinking process behind Dreamer. Yeah. And maybe, maybe start with like, what, what is Dreamer?[00:00:31] David Singleton: Yeah.[00:00:31] What Is Dreamer[00:00:31] David Singleton: So Dreamer is a new product, uh, which everyone can come and play with today. Um, it's a place where everyone, literally, everyone can discover, build, and enjoy and use AI agents and agenda apps.[00:00:45] And we really did design it for consumers, for folks who are not necessarily. Uh, have any kind of technical background. It's really aimed at everyone. I think often of my sister, she's very smart. She's not in the slightest bit technical. She has lots of problems in her life that [00:01:00] she would like to be able to have great software and intelligent software to solve.[00:01:04] But you know, even with the rise of tools like Cloud Code and so forth, she's got no way to get started. And Dreamer is a place where she can come in, grab some intelligent apps that other people in the community have built, start using them right away, and solve real problems in her life.[00:01:19] Sidekick And Waitlist[00:01:19] David Singleton: And at the core, we have a personal agent called the Sidekick.[00:01:24] Um, you can give your sidekick a name, you can give it its own personality, and it really helps you across your entire day, your life. It helps you use all of the agents on the platform, and it also helps you build anything you want. And we've been working in this for a little while. We recently launched in beta.[00:01:41] So anyone can go to dreamer.com, join the wait list. Um, and we have many, many, many people in the community now who are building really fun, really powerful, really useful. Agents and the agentic apps for themselves.[00:01:54] swyx: I think we're gonna go right into a demo. Yeah. I just wanna make an observation that, uh, you, you, [00:02:00] you put discover first before build.[00:02:02] Mm-hmm. But actually, at least for the engineers in the audience. ‘cause we are primarily engineers and you're primarily targeting consumers, right?[00:02:08] David Singleton: Yeah.[00:02:08] swyx: For engineers. Like, there's a huge full stack of stuff, which we're gonna dive into. Let's write. It's so impressive. I'm like, holy s**t, this, this is what I've always wanted.[00:02:16] Cool. Uh, so, so I think that's really good and I've, in some ways, I think given your background given, uh, Hugo's, is it Hugo? Hugo.[00:02:24] David Singleton: Hugo. Hugo Bar. Yeah.[00:02:25] swyx: Hugo, it's not surprising that you can basically kind of build an app store Yeah. For agents.[00:02:30] David Singleton: Yeah. So Hugo was my co-founder. Yeah. Um, Hugo and I met with our other co-founder Nicholas Checkoff in the very early days of Android at Google, where we were building Google's first mobile apps.[00:02:41] Uh, we then contributed to very core pieces of Android itself. And you're right, we were really excited about building two things. One, solving a bunch of problems. That this breakthrough technology here I'm talking about mobile needed to have solved in order to make it work for real people at scale. And then secondly, building this ecosystem, um, [00:03:00] of third party developers using the Play Store, um, and able to deliver way more value on the platform than we could have delivered on our own.[00:03:08] And we think about Dreamer in exactly the same way. So I was working at Stripe, as you mentioned, and we had the opportunity to put some of the very first AI agent systems in the world into production. And from the moment we did the first of those, I was just struck with a strong sense of conviction that this is breakthrough technology that's gonna change how all of us work with computers and phones and so forth, all of the, the technology in our lives, but.[00:03:34] There's a lot of problems to be solved, for real people to be able to make this approachable. Um, and it really is kind of a direct analog for what we were solving back in the early days of mobile apps at Google and, and Android. So it's, it's been fun to bring that to life.[00:03:47] swyx: Yeah. Uh, let's look at it.[00:03:48] David Singleton: Yeah, let's take a look.[00:03:49] Dashboard And Daily Briefing[00:03:49] David Singleton: So, uh, dreamer.com, this is our homepage. This is where you can come and, uh, watch some videos about what is here and sign up for the wait list. Once[00:03:57] swyx: you, I, I just wanna say for those listening, ‘cause we have a lot, you [00:04:00] know, switch to YouTube, look at the animations. So much care.[00:04:03] David Singleton: We, we really care about, uh, this product being fun.[00:04:07] Uh, and, and interesting to use. Obviously a lot of people are using it to do real important stuff. You can do real work, uh, here, uh, but also you can build fun things too. Once you get off of our wait list, you'll come into the product. The first thing that happens is you'll have a conversation with your side cake, which is this little friendly, uh, character here.[00:04:27] And psychic will seek to get to know you and understand you. What do you care about? And will help you discover and build your first AI agents or agentic apps. After that, you're, you're gonna have a dashboard. This is my dashboard. Everyone's is different. Um, you can see I have a few things here. I have a feed.[00:04:42] So a lot of our agents do things in the background when you're not looking and the feed is how they let you know what they've been up to. I have, uh, some widgets, uh, from apps that I have built. Uh, this one is called Calendar Hero. Uh, this is something that I installed from the gallery. Uh, so built by someone in our community.[00:04:59] It's a [00:05:00] really powerful calendar app because for each of my meetings, if it's with someone I don't already know, well it'll actually go off and research it, um, and give me both a history of my interactions with those people and also a bunch of, you know, public useful information to, to get started. One of the things I love about this particular app is that every day it generates a podcast, um, a daily briefing.[00:05:24] And one of the things that we've done with the platform is we've made it possible for all the things that agents do to show up in places that you care about. So if you look over here, this is the screen in my phone, and if I go ahead and open my Apple Podcasts, you can see right here. Your Daily briefing podcast is ready.[00:05:39] This was produced by an agent running in my Dreamer account, and it was very easy by scanning a QR code to connect it to my Apple podcast. That's what I listened to in the car now every morning. Yeah. On my way to work.[00:05:50] swyx: It, it[00:05:50] David Singleton: preps me for, for my day.[00:05:52] swyx: So one additional bit of context. I asked you immediately after seeing this was like, what, what about, I wanna talk back to my agent and you said you actually started with voice and then you went to [00:06:00] podcasts.[00:06:00] ‘cause it's nice to have it pre downloaded[00:06:02] David Singleton: that, right? That's right. Um, yeah, we, you, you can talk to your sidekick. So, you know, on mobile we have, uh, a dreamer app and you can talk to the sidekick right here. Um, but we've actually found that making things, uh, show up in the other apps that you already use in your life is incredibly powerful.[00:06:19] So let's take a look at what's kind of under the hood here.[00:06:21] Gallery Tools And Payouts[00:06:21] David Singleton: So I already mentioned that we have a gallery, so this is where you'll find a lot of agents from our community. Uh, there's. Many at this point, hundreds. And they are solving all kinds of, uh, use cases. I'd say the the top use cases are on personal productivity, but also a lot of information management that can range from personal information like docs and so forth, managing your emails.[00:06:42] It also ranges out to public information that you might be interested in, but you need something to help manage the, the kind of fire hose of stuff that's coming at you. For instance, I have, um, an agent which looks at all the AI news, um, all the time. There's a lot of it and it finds the stuff that I would actually be [00:07:00] interested in, um, and I find it incredibly useful.[00:07:03] So these are agents that you can install that other people have built. Anything that you install on Dreamer, you can actually just say, I wanna start making some changes, and we'll look at that in a second. But in natural language, with the sidekicks help, you can change any of these experiences to work just the way you want them.[00:07:18] But the base layer of the system are tools. So you know, as well as anyone swyx, that any AI system is only as good as the quality of data that it can pull in and the quality of action it can take. So before we launched our beta, we worked very hard to make sure that we seeded our tools with a bunch of very high quality and powerful integrations.[00:07:39] So, you know, for instance, this is real Google search, this is actual Gmail. Um, and you can do very useful things with those. But also this is a platform for everyone. And as we got started talking to people in our alpha community, a whole bunch of sports use cases popped out and we realized if you want to build something cool for sports with ai, you need really high quality live data.[00:07:58] So look at these [00:08:00] Formula one M-L-B-N-F-L, uh, these are tools, uh, that we've built. We've done a, these are not data scraped off the web. This is a, a direct data feed integration. And because it's live and ‘cause it's high quality, you can build really powerful stuff. But tools is not something that we are just going to kind of control ourselves.[00:08:19] The platform is open for tool Builders to contribute tools that anyone on Dreamer can use. So, um, this is actually the place in the platform where I think software engineers, um, well number one, would love for you to come and play with it. Uh, but software engineers are really gonna build, um, a lot of powerful stuff into the system.[00:08:38] And we are actually sharing something for the first time on this podcast, which there is, uh, tool builders on Dreamer get paid. So if you publish a tool to the platform and a lot of agents use it, you'll actually get paid, uh, in proportion to their usage. And we'd love for folks to come and give this a try.[00:08:54] We've got good docs that help you get started and you can build things that, you know, scratch your own itch. For instance, someone built this [00:09:00] Ski Bum tool, which provides live snow conditions for a bunch of, uh, ski resorts. I'd love to show you how I've used that in a second. And also we have some tools, partners where the tools themselves are paper use.[00:09:12] So for instance, parallel web systems is a premium tool. Uh, you can do really cool stuff with it. Um, it's a a, an agentic web research tool. And that one, because it's expensive to operate, is paid on a, on a per usage basis. But if you're coming in to build agents on the platform, even the premium tools, you get a free trial.[00:09:29] So you get a chance to actually try them out, make sure that the use case is good for you before you decide to, to to sign up. So that's tools. So we have the gallery, we have tools, and then the sidekick helps us put all of this together to build agents. We do that in the agents studio. You can also do this on your phone, but if I open up Agent Studio here on Desktop psychic's, just gonna start a conversation about what you want to build together.[00:09:51] I'd love to show you one that I made recently.[00:09:53] swyx: Let's do[00:09:53] David Singleton: it.[00:09:53] Building A Conference App[00:09:53] David Singleton: Um, let's look at something that hopefully is kind of near and dear to your heart. So one of the things I love about Dreamer and this kind of moment in technology is that if you think about it. There are all these things in your life where, have you ever gone to a conference?[00:10:09] I know you have. Right? And, uh, big conferences have apps. Um, and these apps are usually built by agencies and they're, they're usually actually quite expensive to build. I've been involved in running some of these myself. And how many conferences have you been to where the app was good? Zero. Honestly.[00:10:23] swyx: Exactly. Zero,[00:10:24] David Singleton: maybe one. I, I've, I've been to one conference. That was pretty good. Wait, wait session sessions. Um, but, but the point is, they're rarely great pieces of software. Right. And they're also expensive to build, but they're, they're interesting ‘cause they're episodic, they last for this one thing. Um, and then they're, they're not relevant anymore.[00:10:43] Um,[00:10:43] swyx: and so it's the worst feeling to invest in them because, you know, it's like, it's got a limited. Date?[00:10:48] David Singleton: Absolutely. So I decided to build, uh, a conference app for your AI engineer conference. Amazing. Uh, on Dreamer. One of the things that Swix has done, uh, which I [00:11:00] thought was very forward-looking, is actually put a whole bunch of data about the conference on the webpage in an LLM readable way.[00:11:06] There's an LLMs txt file, there's a feed of all of the sessions in js, ON. So I used the data from your conference last year and built this intelligent app, uh, just by talking to our sidekick, uh, in Dreamer. So just to give you a quick tour, this is my Dream Conference app. What I always wanna do for conferences is I wanna be able to search for speakers.[00:11:28] I'm usually there because, uh, there, uh, is a speaker I care about. So, you know, SWIX, you're the speaker I care about. I can actually see here who you're on stage with. So here's, here's Greg Brockman. You've read even ai, uh, and this is his session. And look Greg and Swix for the speaker. So let's add that to my schedule.[00:11:45] Great. And then maybe there's a couple others I might see here. Like on day two, I remember there were some keynotes. So, uh, building the open agenda web, that sounds fun. So I add that to my schedule.[00:11:55] swyx: She's now CEO of Xbox.[00:11:56] David Singleton: Awesome.[00:11:57] swyx: Which is interesting. So cool. So,[00:11:59] David Singleton: so I've [00:12:00] gone through and picked out a couple of sessions that I cared about.[00:12:03] That's as far as I usually get with any conference app. But of course you've got the whole of the rest of the conference to figure out what to do. So here is where the native intelligence of, of these things you build on Dreamer can come in. So I'm gonna click guide me. So Dreamers sidekick actually parsed out the whole schedule and figured out what some of the themes are and I can choose what I'm interested in here.[00:12:23] I'm definitely interested in agents. Uh, I'm definitely interested in code generation and also reasoning in rl. So now I'm gonna say build my schedule. So what this is doing is. It's going across every time slot for the conference. And it's choosing among the things I could go to, which one it thinks is best for me based on my interests.[00:12:41] It also uses its own memory of me that's part of Dreamer, uh, to understand what I might like best. And you know, there's an LLM prompt running for each one of these time slots. So this is, it's not super fast, but it'll be done in about 30 or 40 seconds. And I'm gonna have a special custom schedule for the conference.[00:12:57] This, like I said, is my [00:13:00] dream conference app is exactly what I've always wanted and I was able to build this yesterday morning. Um, I did it between some meetings. I think I spent a total of 25 minutes of wall clock time on it. I did it over the course of a couple of hours. And, uh, here is my schedule for the conference.[00:13:15] I can see it in a calendar view. This is what I should do on Tuesday, this is what I should do on Wednesday. Oof, no conflicts, but, you know, I may not go to every single thing. And there you have it built in, you know, dreamer. So let's take a look at what the building experience actually looks like. So this is the, the actual account that I made it on.[00:13:32] Oh, of course I should say anything you build on Dreamer also works on your phone. So, uh, here is my AI engineer conference app right here on my phone. Got all the same functionality, and of course this is the best place to jump into my schedule.[00:13:46] swyx: Yeah.[00:13:46] David Singleton: Um,[00:13:46] swyx: so you could generate a podcast about it just completely multimodal, absolute thing, right?[00:13:51] To me, I mean, this is why I outsource, I mean, well, I, I posted the L-M-T-X-T, the JSON because you cannot run an engineer conference in 2025 [00:14:00] and not let engineers. Do whatever they want.[00:14:02] David Singleton: Yeah.[00:14:03] swyx: And since all conference apps suck, I'm just gonna put up a ba minimum viable app and just let people do whatever they want.[00:14:09] David Singleton: Totally. And the cool thing about this on Bremer is I published this to the gallery and you can use it so you've got one that's built to my taste of conference apps. I think it's pretty cool. But you might want something different. Yeah. In which case you just start telling the sidekick how to change it.[00:14:23] So let's just very quickly look[00:14:24] swyx: at our, what sports grid is also, you can fork it, right? That I can publish. That's right. I can publish your one and go, this is the base starter. It's, it's got good defaults, but go customize, whatever.[00:14:32] David Singleton: That's right. That's right.[00:14:33] swyx: Yeah.[00:14:33] Agent Studio Under The Hood[00:14:33] David Singleton: So let's take a look at how I actually built this.[00:14:34] This is real. So I'm gonna say make changes. This experience we're looking at now is our, uh, agent development studio. Um, like I said, you can do this on your phone as well. And in fact, this one I started out on desktop. Let's look at my actual prompts. I said, let's make an agent called AI Engineer Schedule Planner should be a custom schedule planner for the AI engineer conference.[00:14:53] I'm not gonna read this all up. You get, you get the point and it told it where to get the data from. So that was the first prompt. And actually after I gave it that [00:15:00] prompt, I actually had a simple version of this app working, um, after the sidekick took one turn. So the Sidekick is a, like a professional software engineer, and we've worked very hard to make this work and build functional apps for folks that might not have any engineering experience whatsoever.[00:15:14] So, you know, done here we have build logs that are technical, but you can hide those away. And sidekick, as it is building, will actually translate everything that is coming out of, uh, of the, the harness into English that you can actually read. And by the way, this English is in the personality of your sidekick, which is fun.[00:15:32] Um. And the way that we build agents and agent apps, it's a little different to what you might have seen in some other platforms for a couple of reasons. One, just the build process. The very first thing that Sidekick does, it understands all the agents you've got set up. It understands all the tools and it will come up with a plan for how to realize your goal, how to make sure it actually has the data and the capabilities to complete it.[00:15:54] It will occasionally refuse. If it can't do what you're asking, it will tell you I can't do that. It needs another tool. And that's a good [00:16:00] jumping off point for any of the tool builders out there to build a new tool. So it'll fi first figure out how, then it will build it, and then it will actually test it.[00:16:07] So it will actually make sure that the thing that it has generated is realizing your goal. And you probably know as well as anybody that anytime you can get any. Modern state-of-the-art coding model into a loop where it can make changes and perceive its own output and then fix bugs. Magic happens. So these builds, the first build will often take 10 to 15 minutes on Dreamer, which is a little bit longer than you might've seen on some other platforms.[00:16:31] But the first thing that it creates will work most of the time. And then of course, as you start making smaller changes, you can like ask it to tweak the UI in any way that you like. Those are much faster. And just to give you a sense, uh, for this one, here's something I asked. Put a logo, I gave it a logo file in static files.[00:16:48] Use that as the title. So for folks that actually really want to dig, uh, into a bit more detail, we've provided a powerful IDE here. So I can actually see here's the code that was generated and some pieces of the [00:17:00] code are more accessible than others, like the prompts. So this is the prompt that's used by a powerful LLM in order to do that schedule picking.[00:17:08] And I can actually read it here directly. I can edit it without having to ask the sidekick if I want to do that.[00:17:12] swyx: So this is very nice.[00:17:13] David Singleton: This is for the more, the more, uh, sophisticated users.[00:17:16] swyx: Yeah. This is other people's entire startup is prop management.[00:17:21] David Singleton: This is true. The other thing that is different about Dreamer is once you've built something here, it's ready to go.[00:17:28] We host it. So you don't have to worry about getting a database from a database provider signing up, getting API keys. You don't have to worry about your LLM provider tokens. All of that is hosted on the platform. And you can use it yourself. You can share it to the gallery for other people to, to riff on it.[00:17:46] You can also share it with your friends and coworkers to use your instance of the agent or agentic app. And we're seeing that happen a lot in our community. We've seen a whole bunch of folks who built little applications for their personal life [00:18:00] and shared them with their significant other. We've seen people who are building little productivity apps for their team at work and sharing it, uh, among them.[00:18:07] And we actually do this a lot inside of the company. So at this point we, we pretty much run the company on Dreamer agents for all kinds of important things. Uh, maybe a good example of that is, um, our wait list. People are signing up every time someone signs up for our wait list. A dreamer agent will actually research, uh, that person.[00:18:25] And we're looking for folks who are builders, not super technical to build agents and come in, uh, and give us a lot of feedback and we're prioritized bringing those people off of the wait list First,[00:18:35] swyx: just a quick question on that one is there's, it may not come up again. Do you find enrichment APIs to be useful like the ZoomInfo?[00:18:42] Uh, clear bit[00:18:43] David Singleton: enrichment is a very, uh, common use case. Um, on dreamer. Any application on Dreamer can kick off a sub-agent to do a particular task. Um, so this actually is a powerful agentic harness that runs inside of its own [00:19:00] vm. Uh, we call them sidekick tasks ‘cause they actually run in the context of the sidekick.[00:19:04] I'll talk more about Sidekick in a second and. Enrichment is a very common use case. And the cool thing about a sidekick task is that it has access to all the tools on the platform, but also public data as well. And so very frequently enrichment on our platform happens using public data that it can be found in the web.[00:19:24] There are some tools for getting people data, uh, from, uh, from various bespoke systems. And so that works pretty well. But actually, you'd be surprised. I mean, we would love if someone out there would like to build a ZoomInfo tool, we don't have one today. We'd love to see that on the platform, and I'm sure it'll be very powerful.[00:19:39] But we're also seeing that this powerful agent harness can pull a lot of data in on that note of tools that make experiences better, we're constantly adding more tools because people in the community are building them and publishing them. We review the tools carefully and then they go live for everybody.[00:19:54] Yesterday we added granola. And that was pretty cool. So I was talking to actually, uh, Sarah on my team was [00:20:00] talking to, uh, someone building on the platform this morning and they actually, they have an agentic app that they built, which is a kind of magic to-do list. So they put stuff on their to-do list and for each thing it kicks off one of these, uh, sidekick tasks to figure out how to move the ball forward thing.[00:20:14] Sometimes it'll complete it[00:20:15] swyx: entirely. Yeah.[00:20:16] David Singleton: Often by calling another agent on the platform and sometimes it just kind of researches it and helps ‘em take the first step.[00:20:21] swyx: Yeah. Do you know, this is Sam Altman's number one, ask for an AI app. It's the self-completing to-do list.[00:20:26] David Singleton: Yeah. The self-completing to-do list is something that a lot of people have built on Dreamer and are getting a lot of use out of.[00:20:32] Yeah. And, and finding it actually genuinely I shouldn't, I should, I should try that. Mm-hmm. Please do. And you'll even find some in the gallery that you can remix. So he was saying this morning that he's, he built this self completing to-do list, uh, on Dreamer already. But he connected the granola tool yesterday and now something really magical happens, which is when he says in meetings that he's gonna do a thing, it magically shows up on his to-do list and then it can magically get completed.[00:20:56] And then, as I mentioned, all the agents, all the [00:21:00] apps on Dreamer can actually work together. So our coding agent, as it builds them, does something very special where it exposes the internals of each of the experiences to the system. And then Sidekick can manipulate those to get stuff done. So he has built another agent, which he uses for recruiting.[00:21:18] It kind of keeps track of candidates and also it's got a kinda mini CRM function, so he's able to introduce candidates to each other. He told us this morning that something he'd committed to do in a meeting that was recorded on granola yesterday showed up in his magic to-do list and his magic to-do list.[00:21:34] It was like introduce a person for recruiting, used his recruiting agent to get it done.[00:21:39] swyx: Ah,[00:21:39] David Singleton: um, and this is, this is the dream. This is why we started the company. It really is the case that you can build and use these very powerful, bespoke experiences that can automate your life by working together. And I'd love to talk a little bit about how they work together.[00:21:55] Ecosystem Trust And Monetization[00:21:55] David Singleton: So obviously it's really cool to have [00:22:00] software that will work on your behalf, but it's only useful if you can trust it, right? So privacy and security is very important to us making these things accessible and. While also being trustworthy is hard. So the model that we have, which is working very well, is that the sidekick is at the core of everything here.[00:22:22] So it is both your companion, your helper, but it's also the traffic cup in the system. So when, when one agent wants to work with another agent and dreamer, it doesn't do it directly, it does it via the sidekick, well ask the sidekick to do the thing. And the sidekick understands both everything, all the expectations that have been set with me as a user about what agents can do, which tools I've given them permission to use.[00:22:45] And it will make sure that whatever is is going on is actually aligned with my own interests. And you know, that's part of the background that I bring to this problem domain. I've. Worked for years, uh, keeping very important information, safe and secure. And [00:23:00] so as we started to think about this problem, we realized that we actually had to build something that's a bit like an operating system.[00:23:06] You know, the sidekicks, like the kernel, the agents and apps are like users. Yeah. Different rings. Exactly. Because if you try to pick off just one piece of this, you can't actually make it work for people at scale. Uh, because you could build little vibe coded apps, but they're gonna grab all your data willy-nilly.[00:23:23] They won't be able to work together. You actually have to invest in the fundamental core in order to make it work well for people. And that's what we've been doing and it's, uh, it's been a lot of fun. One other thing I wanted to mention is, um, I've obviously talked about two things, tools and agentic apps.[00:23:42] We really designed Dreamer to be an ecosystem and a platform, and one of my favorite quotes about platforms, I think it's from Bill Gates, is that you can only be a platform. If you create more value for the folks participating and using the platform than, than the platform itself creates. [00:24:00] And that's our goal here.[00:24:01] So we at every step have been thinking about how do we make sure that other people are deriving even more value from Dreamer than we are? So in that vein, I already mentioned tool builders get paid and people can build agents that solve their needs and share them with others, and we are already thinking about ways that they can actually monetize those as well.[00:24:24] Against that backdrop, one of the things that we are launching today is our Builders in Residence program. So there are tons of people building really cool stuff and contributing it to the gallery already, but we've been really inspired by programs we've seen at other companies where artists might be in residence, people that are very creative.[00:24:43] And might have ideas outside of what the, the folks at the company or in the ecosystem already have. And so we are looking for creative people who have fun ideas and, you know, want to really figure out how to apply their creativity at the cutting edge [00:25:00] of technology today to come and work with us. So, uh, if you go to dreamer.com/latent space, you'll find, ooh, well, we love Latent space.[00:25:09] Uh, you'll find a link both to, uh, our tool Builder information and our builder in residence program. And for builders and residents, we'll let you in off the wait list quickly, build an agent, and then for a small number of, of the most creative folks, we're going to pay you to build agents. Uh, you can work directly with our team.[00:25:29] You know, this is like building Legos. So, you know, we've got some of the basic blocks together already, but if you need a Ron steering wheel and we don't have one already, like we'll build it for you. Yeah. Um, we really want to be inspired by, by these, uh, these builders in residence.[00:25:43] swyx: This Legos thing is pretty common as an analogy.[00:25:46] And there's a, there's a thing I call the master builder. Uh, we, the actual Lego company has master builders that they employ Yeah. To inspire people and post on socials.[00:25:56] David Singleton: That is exactly what inspired us as well. Honestly, we talked about the Lego Master [00:26:00] Builder program, so that's our builder in residence program.[00:26:02] swyx: Yeah.[00:26:03] David Singleton: Um, and then, uh, finally back on, on tools. Like I said, anyone can come in and build tools today. If you follow the latent space link dreamer.com/latent space, again, we'll get you off. Directly off the wait list. So you can build right away, you can monetize by publishing onto the platform. That's for everyone, the very best tool that gets added to the platform by mid-April.[00:26:23] Uh, we have a $10,000 prize that we want to give out really, because we just want to seed the creativity of everyone out there. So we're excited to do that.[00:26:31] swyx: Yeah. And you know, uh, this is completely a flywheel, right? Like the more tools, the more builders, the more the third thing agents, you know, it just feeds into each other.[00:26:39] David Singleton: That's right.[00:26:39] swyx: Yeah. Just on the payments thing, because we probably won't touch on that again, but I have to ask the former CTO Stripe on payments as presumably you're using Stripe Connect.[00:26:48] David Singleton: Yeah.[00:26:48] swyx: Um. Any pain points that you're, people are very interested in agent commerce and micropayment and all these things.[00:26:55] Presumably stable coins get into a conversation at some point, but maybe not now.[00:26:58] David Singleton: Yeah, we are [00:27:00] really, really excited about e agent commerce. The first step we are taking is help people in the world who have never been able to build these kind of experiences and software before to build stuff that meets their passions, share it with the world and get paid.[00:27:14] So that's all commerce that happens on our platform, and so we don't need anything new to facilitate that. Stripe Connect has existed for quite a while and is the perfect solution for this kind of stuff, so, um, we we're excited about that. First and foremost, however. A lot of the things that people are already doing on Dreamer, we just talked about a self-completing to-do list.[00:27:34] A lot of the ways that you want to complete to-dos is by actually closing the loop in the real world, and that's going to involve the exchange of value. So we have some folks that are building tools already that actually do have money move in order to, to complete that, that loop. So far, we just want to be open and agnostic to all the protocols out there.[00:27:54] I honestly think this moment in time is a little bit like the early web. So I personally started coding as a kid [00:28:00] and I think I got access to the internet in about 19 95, 19 96. And back then, uh, the web existed, you know, HTTP was a protocol, but there were also other protocols I was using all the time, like Gopher and UUCP and uh, various others.[00:28:15] So the point is like the web, HTTP and HTML. Was just one among many protocols. And of course it became the winner and it's awesome. Yeah. Um, but the others were also kind of interesting and viable at the time as well. And I think the world of agentic commerce is like this right now. Also,[00:28:30] swyx: acp.[00:28:31] David Singleton: Acp, exactly.[00:28:32] All the, all the cps, you know, on Dreamer. We hope that folks will build tools that kinda make use of all of these things, but I'm sure that at a certain point. One or two will emerge as the winners, and then we'll be able to build like really deep support in,[00:28:44] swyx: yeah. This is like maybe a complete tangent, but I do think about how a lot of these companies in AI companies in particular have to switch from c based to usage based because of course, but then, then they end up, end up having to sort of [00:29:00] obscure the margins a little bit and then they inventing end up inventing their equivalent of rob robots.[00:29:04] David Singleton: Mm-hmm.[00:29:04] swyx: Uh, where they're like, well, okay, well every company should have their own currency. And it's, it's like very short lead to a token.[00:29:11] David Singleton: Yeah.[00:29:11] swyx: Or, and I'm like, okay, well where does this end? I can't really play out the next step as to like, is this chaos? Is this,[00:29:18] David Singleton: yeah.[00:29:18] swyx: Okay.[00:29:18] David Singleton: Well, I think it is kind of like the wild west.[00:29:21] I don't mean that in a completely, it's all completely disorganized way, but there's just so many things that could happen from here. The Overton window is very wide, right? Not far how this might land. And I'm just very excited to be building a platform that can take advantage of all of those opportunities and we're just gonna be there.[00:29:36] Uh, working for our users to make sure that things that emerge work,[00:29:39] swyx: you're gonna own the consumers, you're gonna be up the OS for the app store for everything.[00:29:43] David Singleton: So one of the ways to think about this is, um, dreamer actually uses all of the state-of-the-art models as a user. You don't have to think about should I be using, you know, Opus four six, or should I be using the five four model from [00:30:00] OpenAI?[00:30:00] We are continually doing evals and so forth to make sure that the best things are there for you. You can just build on the platform and know that as the world ships around, you're gonna get the right stuff for you. Um, and I think that's something that is needed to actually have folks take advantage of this technology at scale.[00:30:19] I'd love to show you another example of something I built.[00:30:21] swyx: Let's do it.[00:30:22] David Singleton: This is another example of software that just lasts for a certain moment in time. So recently I went on a ski trip with a bunch of friends,[00:30:31] ski[00:30:31] David Singleton: Bum. Uh, so it uses ski bum. Yes. I went on a ski trip to Big Sky. I'd never been there before.[00:30:38] And I made this little intelligent app for us. And you can see it says it's loading big sky conditions. So it's actually calling the Ski Bum tool that I just showed you, which is, uh, published in our, uh, in our gallery. So what is this? This is a little app that was just for our weekend trip. It shows the current status of all the lifts of Big Sky.[00:30:54] Using that tool from the ecosystem, it shows the forecast for the upcoming weekend. It shows our [00:31:00] accommodation. This is just like where my group was staying. This is just for us and also a bunch of dining information that one of our friends, uh, put together who, who's an expert on Big Sky. So I was able to take this app, share the link with my friends.[00:31:12] They weren't on Dreamer yet, just send it to them on iMessage and they get a version they can use on their phone. And of course, here's the real kicker. So I've been on ski trips before and other weekend adventures with my friends. Yeah, people pay for different things and at the end of the weekend it's always a pain to figure out who needs to pay, who to settle up.[00:31:29] So we use this during the weekend. We added all of our expenses in here. Uh, too close are it's drill data. It's only too closely. And then at the end of the trip, we press split. And we're, we settled up and we're done. So there's another dreamer. This was all through dreamer. So the, the actual payment? No, no.[00:31:47] We, it happened because, because we paid for stuff in the real world, it was like, okay, this person needs to pay that person 20 bucks. Right? Right. This person already paid in that. Right. So it just helped us all settle up. We didn't move the money on Dreamer. You could do that. And in fact, if you're a tool builder [00:32:00] thinking about this and getting excited, like come build a tool to do that stuff.[00:32:02] We really think of our tool builders as design partners.[00:32:05] swyx: Yeah. I got, I got the tool. Uh, what, like, I hate, I use Bank of America. I hate bank, I hate the app. Mm-hmm. I hate the web. All banking websites just horrible.[00:32:13] David Singleton: Yeah.[00:32:13] swyx: So just build me, like build a thing on top of Plaid.[00:32:15] David Singleton: Yeah. Right. And then just So[00:32:17] swyx: five code by banking app,[00:32:18] David Singleton: there's already a tool for that.[00:32:20] Oh. So, um, attain Finance is a tool, a builder in our community built. Okay. Um, and it uses a secure system like Plaid. To access your, uh, financial data and you can build powerful personal finance agents on Dreamer today using this tool. And like I said, we review tools carefully. So when bringing Attain Finance onto the platform, we did actually quite a detailed security review with that company to make sure that if folks build stuff with it, it's, it's gonna work well.[00:32:49] So yeah, check that out. I think, uh, I'm, I'm pretty certain it connects to Bank of America. So you'll be able to build the, the app that you wanted already?[00:32:55] swyx: Yeah. There's a couple of points I wanted to sort of dive in on, maybe highlight to folks, [00:33:00] because I, obviously, I spent more time with Dreamers. So we're making a point where you choose on behalf of your users because they're meant to be consumers.[00:33:07] So maybe less technical,[00:33:08] David Singleton: right?[00:33:08] swyx: But obviously people can, how users can override. If you read that's, but it's not just lms, it is also the, the transcription. It, it's like all, like there's, there's a first party curated set of here's the house opinion. That's right. On what?[00:33:21] David Singleton: That's[00:33:21] swyx: right. The thing is, that's right.[00:33:22] Is what's the list? Is there like,[00:33:24] David Singleton: yeah, so actually if you look in the tool gallery, the first party kind of curated set are all the ones that have these grayscale icons. So we have a built in tool for image understanding, for image generation, for RSS, exploration, text to speech and so forth.[00:33:38] swyx: Recipes.[00:33:39] David Singleton: Uh, we actually do have a built in recipes tool.[00:33:41] It turns out that a lot of people in our alpha wanted to do stuff for cooking. Yeah. Um, and you know, you can scrape the web to get good recipes, but we were able to quite quickly find a good repository of recipes. It works great here. Yeah.[00:33:55] Stable Tool Interfaces[00:33:55] David Singleton: So the point behind these though is that we'll keep the interfaces stable, so they'll always work.[00:34:00] But you know, the best translation model and, you know, there are people using this translation tool to translate Chinese podcasts into English. It's, it's pretty powerful. It can deal with very long text, but the best translation tool today might be different from the best translation tool sometime next year.[00:34:15] And we're just gonna make sure that that translation tool is always pretty close to state of the art. So you can build something and you know it's gonna continue to work well. Of course, some of our tools are branded. You may actually have a preferred way of buying groceries, like maybe you prefer Instacart and that's great.[00:34:29] You can use the Instacart tool specifically.[00:34:31] swyx: Yeah.[00:34:32] Partnerships And Ecosystem[00:34:32] swyx: Your partnerships, uh, I mean, I don't know if you ever hit of partnerships, but this is gonna be a bonanza for anyone on to do deals.[00:34:38] David Singleton: We have an amazing person who, uh, works on all of our partnerships. Um, and it's part of what you have to do to build a platform like this that's gonna work for people.[00:34:46] Like, we've gone and done that. Schlep has a lot of work, one talks lots of different companies, um, in order to make sure that you've got good tools at the core.[00:34:54] swyx: Yeah.[00:34:54] David Singleton: And then of course, because we're open to tool builders contributing to the platform, this is only gonna get better and better and [00:35:00] better.[00:35:00] swyx: Yeah.[00:35:01] Agent Lab Routing Layer[00:35:01] swyx: One observation I have this, this is gonna master a thesis I've been pursuing, which is, uh, what I've been calling an agent lab[00:35:05] David Singleton: mm-hmm.[00:35:06] swyx: Where you sort of different than a model lab in, in, in the sense that you never train your own models, but you are the router evaluation layer, ex subject domain expert for choosing between, uh, models.[00:35:18] David Singleton: Yeah.[00:35:18] swyx: And you're explicitly doing these things. And so like in my sort of construction, every agent lab does some version of this where like, here's the image understanding endpoint and we will route for you and don't worry about it. Yeah. Sally, I think it's kind of cool.[00:35:32] David Singleton: I, I think it makes total sense. Um, and again, to make this work for folks that don't follow the AI news every day, it's an actually, it's a, it's a really important thing to do.[00:35:42] Yeah. And it, it's been, it's been a real pleasure. I mean, I'm a, I'm personally a total geek for this stuff. I love it. And being able to go and dive into all those details in order to make it work well for other people. It's a true pleasure. I cannot imagine working at anything else right now. It's just so much fun.[00:35:56] swyx: The tricky part is multimodality when some of these things do [00:36:00] merge.[00:36:00] David Singleton: Mm-hmm.[00:36:01] swyx: And you are, you're sort of, this is your imposing structure on things that fundamentally don't want to be structured. And so sometimes that might work against you, but for 99% of these cases, this is fine.[00:36:10] David Singleton: Yeah. I mean, I think it's gonna be very interesting to see how the, the, the world matures because a lot of the power of dreamer is the ability to kick off these subagents, so these powerful agent harnesses, which can actually change how they work based on the data.[00:36:25] I actually think that we will be able to. Kind of keep up with and stay at the forefront of the changing landscape of how tools and systems work together. And that's, that's new. You know, software didn't used to work like this and now it does. Um, so even, even just figuring out how to design the right pri to make that possible has itself be a lot of fun.[00:36:44] Builders Can Publish Tools[00:36:44] swyx: This is, is a sort of maybe two part question that why can't streamer make its own tools? And then why don't you let you builders maybe stand up their own routing group? I call this a routing group, right? Like where it's like collect Yeah. Things.[00:36:58] David Singleton: So two things, to [00:37:00] some extent, dreamer does make its own tools in that agents appear to the system as tools.[00:37:05] So they can be, they can be used to accomplish things. So you can build an agent that is essentially a tool. Yeah. Um, and it it,[00:37:12] swyx: which is to me very useful for reuse.[00:37:14] David Singleton: Right.[00:37:14] swyx: Right. Exactly. ‘cause I, I like, this is the way I like it. Now my next five apps, I don't want to do this whole series of back and forth again.[00:37:20] David Singleton: Right.[00:37:21] swyx: Yeah.[00:37:21] David Singleton: Um. Then at the tool layer of the system, it's open to anyone. So it's actually quite powerful and flexible. So if you wanted to add a tool, which was, uh, imagine that you were training your own foundation model, Swyx. That might be fun. And imagine you wanted people to be able to play with, I don't know, maybe you make like, you know, nano chat or whatever and you want to Yeah.[00:37:42] Let people play with your own nano chat and see how I change themselves.[00:37:44] swyx: Now.[00:37:45] David Singleton: You could, you could publish a tool that is Nano Chat and it nano image generation behind a tool, and it could be your own writer if you wanted to. I see. And honestly, if that's the kind of thing that gets you excited as a builder, please come and do it.[00:37:57] Like we, we really are [00:38:00] believers in this idea that we aren't going to figure out every single detail ourselves. We're gonna make sure it's a safe and fun place to build this stuff, but we're really open to these ideas coming from other people. Um, and so I'd like nothing more than you come in and build a tool that does some of that cool stuff that you, that you have in mind.[00:38:15] swyx: Yeah. Awesome.[00:38:16] David Singleton: And just as a reminder, if you'd like to do that, the way to find the links is dreamer.com/latent space. Um, and for a limited time on that page, um, anyone who's listening to this podcast will also get directly off of our wait list. Uh, it's quite long right now. We are working hard to bring Zika.[00:38:32] Wait, so skip the wait list.[00:38:33] swyx: You know, I think, I think that's fantastic. I, I think it's, it is really sort of probuild way to do it. I wanted to jump back to the, the bar. Yeah. You know, you know, I get excited about this.[00:38:41] David Singleton: Yes. Okay. Let's set it back in there.[00:38:43] swyx: Like, let's, you know, this is the engineer podcast that's get[00:38:46] David Singleton: Yeah.[00:38:46] swyx: As technical as you can.[00:38:47] David Singleton: Yeah.[00:38:47] swyx: On everything you've built, like have a show off.[00:38:50] David Singleton: Yeah. Okay.[00:38:51] Under The Hood Debugging[00:38:51] David Singleton: So let's go wild in the aisles in the Asian studio. So as you can see, over on the left here is a conversation with the sidekick where you ask it what to do and it will explain in English that anyone can understand what's going on.[00:39:03] But, um, if you want to pull back the covers and look under the hood, um, if you're, uh, an engineer like me, then we have this, uh, this kind of debug drawer at the bottom. So you can see the full build logs here, but you can actually also dig in and see the files and prompts that have been generated. Uh, you can upload files from your computer in static files.[00:39:24] Um,[00:39:24] swyx: very important,[00:39:25] David Singleton: uh, indeed. You can actually read the prompts that have been generated for you. We intentionally put an example in here just that you can see what the format looks like. And then, you know, we already looked at this one that was generated for this particular, um, app, but if you actually want to bring the code out of Dreamer and work on your own local machine, you can.[00:39:45] So at the core of everything here is an SDK with a powerful command line interface and we built that first. It's actually possible to build agents on Dreamer without talking to the sidekick. You can write code with your fingers on a keyboard if you want to. I know that's very [00:40:00] antiquated, not, but actually this can be a lot of fun.[00:40:02] So if you wanna pull it out onto your laptop, you can use our, our CLI and, uh, you can edit it in cursor or in cloud code. You know, you don't have to use our sidekick. And the CLI actually has full access to the rest of the platform with you as the user. So, you know, obviously it is, uh, secure and privacy sensitive, and this is a way that, um, some of our most technical builders do build stuff on the platform.[00:40:24] The really cool thing is the side cake. When it's in coding mode, it uses exactly the same CLI. So the way it. Build stuff on Dreamer is using the same tools that you might as an engineer. Um, and that's actually a very powerful abstraction because it turns out that the right way to give a lot of context to agents to use CLIs is to write great documentation.[00:40:46] Make sure that all of the things that you could do are actually possible. And guess what? That makes it a delightful developer experience for real heroes as well.[00:40:53] swyx: Yeah. So that's pretty cool. We've been telling developers to do this and they ignore this until now they have to for content.[00:40:58] David Singleton: I, I've been saying this for a [00:41:00] long time.[00:41:00] Uh, we actually Stripe docs.[00:41:02] swyx: I mean, come on. Absolutely. Come on.[00:41:03] David Singleton: Absolutely. But actually, I was chatting with folks at Stripe last week and saying, Hey, you gotta make the Stripe CLI actually tell agents what they can do on Stripe because that way they're gonna use more stuff on Stripe. I think this is a real trend for the entire industry.[00:41:16] swyx: Yeah.[00:41:16] David Singleton: So we, we've been doing that.[00:41:17] swyx: To me, this, this download and, uh, GI push mm-hmm. Everything is complete confidence in that you're not hacking it. Right. Because there's other, let's call them AI builder platforms that impose their stack on you and if you, if you, and so therefore they don't allow you to do this because they cannot.[00:41:34] Right. ‘cause they, they impose some degrees of freedom, uh, restrictions so that they can get it to work. Yours is a fully general like VM running the full code. Correct. Do whatever you want. Correct. Any language you want. Correct. Yeah.[00:41:46] David Singleton: Correct. Well, in terms of language, if you use the SDK, you could build stuff in other languages.[00:41:51] We've actually found that TypeScript is the best language for building these experiences. Yes. Because it's strongly tight. So you find out at compile time if you've made mistakes [00:42:00] and there's nothing better than getting in. A coding agent in a loop where it can see its mistakes and ask them. So TypeScript is the language that everything gets built in by default here.[00:42:08] swyx: Did And did you see that TypeScript overtook Python? I did. I did. Yeah.[00:42:12] David Singleton: And for what it's worth, when we started the company, we started writing stuff in Python, and I love Python. Um, if I do, uh, a vendor code, I always write it in Python. It's my favorite language as a developer with my fingers on the keyboard.[00:42:23] Um, but TypeScript is an amazing language for AI because there's tons of training data in the models, um, and it's strongly tight. And actually at the company we built most of the stack in TypeScript, and we have this amazing property, which is, we have type safety all the way from the database to the front end.[00:42:40] And there's nothing better for working with coding agents than being able to have them check their correctness, compile time. So the same ideas behind building the company's code base, we've put into the agent SDK here as well.[00:42:51] swyx: Yeah. Do you know if you'd use one of those tools, like Prisma or whatever, or is it Tool Lab for you?[00:42:55] David Singleton: We, we actually have crafted most of our own tools. Um. For [00:43:00] instance, we had LLM Driven Code Review, uh, before the thing that got published from philanthropic this week. You know, we, we've been doing this stuff, uh, on our own bat[00:43:07] swyx: email, we'll pay $25 per review.[00:43:09] David Singleton: We, we pay a lot less than that. However, I hear that those reviews are excellent and possibly worth $25.[00:43:14] swyx: Yeah. You know, it's an option. Right. It's good, good to have it.[00:43:17] David Singleton: Just to give you a tour of some other stuff here. So, um, I can also see all the versions. Yeah. Um, this is not gi, this is not gi, this is built into dreamer. I can see all the versions that have been pushed before. Why is it[00:43:27] swyx: not gi?[00:43:28] David Singleton: It's not gi because we can make it work more efficiently than Git.[00:43:32] And we actually, we do some work behind the scenes to kind of understand what's in each of these versions. Yeah. Um,[00:43:37] swyx: so one of the things I'm pursuing, and I have a lot of thesis, right? Mm-hmm. One of the thesis is like, does GI go away? Does GitHub go away? And like, what, what is the active reinvent[00:43:46] David Singleton: you for, for what it's worth to some extent.[00:43:48] And anything you build, there's a lot of path dependency. If we started over, we might make this gi There's, uh, you know, within the company we use, uh. For our, you know, platform source code. And we like it and it [00:44:00] works well with coding agents as well. The very first versions of this, we wanted to be able to make it possible for the sidekick to manipulate it easily.[00:44:06] Um, and this, this was an expedient way to do it.[00:44:08] swyx: Yeah.[00:44:08] Workflows Logs And Databases[00:44:08] David Singleton: Um, you can also see all the activity that has happened in the workflows that you build. A lot of agents, you'll build on Dreamer, do things in the background, so they run on triggers. These are stimuli from the outside to kick them off, and this is a nice way to see all of the things that might have kicked off your agent.[00:44:24] You know, you can have an agent that kicks off on a webhook, so you can plug it into external systems. You can have an agent that runs when you receive certain emails that match filters, including LLM filters. And so here you can see, oh, when did it run? What did it do? You know, if I open up one of these guide me prompts or guide me, uh, events.[00:44:41] Oh my can see God. Well, I told you it was calling an LLM for every one of those time slots. Here's all of the LLM calls, here's the actual prompts.[00:44:49] swyx: And you don't mind exposing all of this, right?[00:44:51] David Singleton: No. We want builders to see what's going on under the hood. It's haiku to,[00:44:53] swyx: okay. Yeah. So,[00:44:54] David Singleton: okay. Right now that one was haiku.[00:44:56] Like I said, we work with all the models and sidekick will actually pick the best one [00:45:00] for the job. And you saw that was pretty high quality and pretty fast. So Haiku four five is the one that it picked for that job. Exactly. Uh, we also have logs, as I mentioned, there's a database spun up on demand for every, uh, agent.[00:45:12] You don't have to go and figure out how to do your own hosting. This is a SQL Light. This is a SQL Light database. Yeah. Um, it's a multi-user SQL light database. And then, uh, but, but each one is you, you get a database that is unique to this agent. But then if you share the agent with multiple people, we take care of like who are the owners in each row?[00:45:31] And all of that stuff is just there outta the box. Um,[00:45:34] swyx: and again, in-house?[00:45:35] David Singleton: In-house.[00:45:36] swyx: Oh my God.[00:45:37] David Singleton: Yeah. Um, well we do work with a bunch of infrastructure providers, but the technology for how to manipulate this is in-house. Fun fact. We actually did a lot of our own infrastructure development early on at the company and realized we need to spend our energy in the stuff that we're uniquely doing in the world.[00:45:53] So we're very delighted to partner with a bunch of great designer and some of this stuff. And then finally, um, I mentioned that agentic apps agents [00:46:00] expose all of their internals to the system so the psychic can manipulate them and use them just like a user can. So you can see how it's decided to break this problem up into functions.[00:46:09] Some of the functions, the ones with the little I here are exported. That means that there's probably the visible from outside. Exactly. And others are internal. And if you want to, you can dig right in here and call individual functions and see what happens. But mostly. You don't need to think about that at all.[00:46:24] Yeah. Uh, you can keep that little drawer closed and you can talk to your sidekick and build really powerful and enchanting experiences.[00:46:30] swyx: Yeah. I mean, to me, like showing this gives the engineer a complete mental model of what you've done and what you can do with it. Yeah. For example, the first thing I, I, I look for.[00:46:39] A mental checklist of things, right? Like is off in the database, off looks like it's not right. So that's a separate layer. That's probably me means it's hard to do multi-user apps on the same app, right?[00:46:50] David Singleton: So you actually, we've solved that. So, um, see, yes, the platform builds in off, so you as a user sign into the platform, if you're using an [00:47:00] agent that was published by someone else, then your identity is, is kind of taken care of by the system.[00:47:05] And when you query the database, you're gonna get the stuff that is for you. Unless the builder specifically said, this is public data that everyone should see. So they, they actually get a chance to think about that. And again, sidekick can guide you through building, uh, agents and apps that work that way.[00:47:19] So you're right, that's another thing that people have to think about when they're trying to figure out how to build software experiences on Dreamer. You, it's built in. You talk to the sidekick as if it were a human being about what you want and that's what you get. So, you know, my, my Big Sky app that I just showed you that was designed for multiple people to use it.[00:47:38] And of course the things that we were putting in as expenses were supposed to be visible to everybody, and I just told the sidekick that's the way I wanted it. Uh, but by default, if I built an app like that, the data from each user would not been visible to the others.[00:47:49] swyx: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, this is, I presume this is a mood question, but basically you've had to build your own coding agent, right?[00:47:55] Which is sidekick slash whatever is in Inside Psychic. Obviously there's a lot of [00:48:00] people with a lot of desire for cloud code and Code X and attachment to it. Mm-hmm. I know under the hood data basically reduced to a loop, but like, would you let people use cloud coding and Code X or is the harness too specialized?[00:48:12] David Singleton: Yeah. If you, if you want to use, um, cloud code and Code X, then you go down here. Yeah. Hit get the S St K. And we even say this right here, edits your heart's content Z cursor code.[00:48:22] swyx: Like people want to use it inside of Ick, right? Yeah. They want to switch the engine.[00:48:26] David Singleton: Yeah.[00:48:26] swyx: That's the coding engine.[00:48:27] David Singleton: Yeah. We are not doing that right now.[00:48:29] Um, you know, again, the goal really is abstract the complexity. Yeah. Um, because the real target for. Building agentic apps is folks who can't do this already today. I can't tell you how many users in our community I've spoken to who are like Dreamer has changed my life because I used to have all these ideas.[00:48:50] If only I could find an engineer to help me implement them, I'd be able to get them done. They're free, and now I can talk to my sidekick and, and get it built. I think that's like really how we think [00:49:00] about the people that should get a ton of value and fun, um, out of the platform. And so they're not asking to be able to plug in their their own, you know, coding agent.[00:49:11] And for those folks, the opportunity is massive. If you've never been able to do stuff in code, now you can build stuff for you, for your friends, for your family, for your coworkers. And also there's a huge opportunity for folks who do build stuff in code to actually contribute to this ecosystem. So that's how we think about it.[00:49:28] swyx: Yeah. Amazing.[00:49:28] Personalization And Memory[00:49:28] swyx: That's most of what I wanted to cover Dreamer wise. I think personalization and memory yeah. Is probably like the single most important job of, uh, of the os. Maybe we could talk about that and then I'll, I wanted to zoom out on company building stuff.[00:49:40] David Singleton: Yeah, yeah. Sounds good.[00:49:41] swyx: Yeah. So how do you handle memory?[00:49:43] What, yeah, what have you found? What have you tried and failed?[00:49:45] David Singleton: Yeah. Okay. So, uh, first of all, at the core of dreamer is the sidekick. The sidekick gets to know you and it builds up a memory about you over time, and that turns out to be very important. So Dreamer, that's

AI can either give reps hours back each week or quietly make their outbound worse.In this Daily Sales Show episode, we broke down how strong sellers decide what to automate and what to keep human. Instead of chasing every new tool, you will learn how to protect message quality, improve execution, and reclaim selling time with a small number of trusted workflows.We also looked at a practical example of AI coaching in action, including how tools like ZoomInfo's Henry AI Coaching Agent can analyze real sales calls and provide structured feedback. The goal is not to replace human judgment, but to strengthen it. When used correctly, AI can help you catch deal killing moments, refine talk tracks, and walk into your next call more prepared.By the end of the show, you will leave with a clear decision framework, a handful of proven automation workflows, and a smarter way to integrate AI into your day without losing control of your messaging.You'll Learn:How to decide what to automate and what to keep human so AI improves execution instead of hurting response ratesProven AI workflows that save hours each week without adding complexityHow to use AI call analysis tools like Henry to improve talk tracks, tighten messaging, and take better next actionsThe Speakers:James Buckley and Samantha LoweryIf you want to catch The Daily Sales Show live, join hereFollow Sell Better to get the latest actionable tactics from sales pros at the top of their gameExplore our YouTube ChannelThank you to our sponsors: ZoomInfo

Matt Shephard is the Chief Revenue Officer at BatchData, a property and homeowner intelligence company providing real estate data solutions. Since joining BatchData in 2023, Matt has helped propel the company from $50,000 in ARR to capturing 9% market share within two years, all with a lean team. Previously, he spent nearly a decade at ZoomInfo (formerly DiscoverOrg), where he led teams closing major enterprise deals and developed deep expertise in data-driven sales.  In this episode… Most startups don't fail because of a lack of ideas — they fail because their revenue engine never quite clicks. So what does it actually take to scale a company from near-zero revenue into a meaningful market player in just a couple of years? According to Matt Shephard, a seasoned revenue leader who has helped scale high-growth tech companies, the key lies in clarity and focus early on. He explains that the first priority is identifying the right customer, building a product that truly fits their needs, and making the buying experience simple enough that switching feels easy. In practice, that meant redefining the ICP, reshaping the product offering, and simplifying the sales conversation to focus on outcomes instead of features. The result is a revenue motion that moves faster because every part of the system is aligned around the same customer and value proposition. In this episode of the Revenue Engine Podcast, Alex Gluz is joined by Matt Shephard, Chief Revenue Officer at BatchData, to discuss how to scale a startup and build a high-velocity revenue engine. They explore identifying the right ICP, simplifying sales for practical buyers, and aligning marketing and sales around shared accounts. Matt also shares advice on signal-based go-to-market strategies and why timing is becoming the most important advantage in modern sales.

AI is not going to do sales for you. But it can give you back hours every week if you know how to use it correctly.Join Kyle Vamvouris and Jed Mahrle broke down the foundations of AI for sellers. They discussed a simple setup, a repeatable prompt formula, and real workflows you can run tomorrow morning.You will learn what AI is actually good for in sales and where it quietly creates fake confidence. We will show you how to structure prompts that produce usable outputs for research, call prep, follow up, objection practice, and account notes without sounding generic.You will leave with a clear AI setup, a daily prompt structure, and 2 to 3 starter workflows you can immediately plug into your process.You'll Learn:What AI is good for in sales and where it falls shortA daily prompt formula to turn generic outputs into usable workA simple workflow you can run this week for research, call prep, follow up, objections, and notesThe Speakers:Jed Mahrle and Kyle VamvourisIf you want to catch The Daily Sales Show live, join hereFollow Sell Better to get the latest actionable tactics from sales pros at the top of their gameExplore our YouTube ChannelThank you to our sponsors: ZoomInfo

Are you putting in the work every day but still unsure if your pipeline is growing the way it should? For many sellers, pipeline stalls not because of effort, but because it is unclear which accounts actually deserve attention.We broke down how strong sellers consistently create pipeline through disciplined account selection, focused outreach, and consistent follow through. You will see how top reps decide where to spend their time, prioritize the right accounts, and use signals to guide daily execution without adding noise.You will leave with a clear and repeatable way to decide exactly which accounts deserve your time today, this week, and this month, along with pipeline plays you can run immediately without changing your tech stack, adding new channels, or relying on more volume.You'll Learn:A simple way to prioritize accounts that actually drive pipeline so you know exactly who deserves your time today, this week, and this month.How to use buying signals without overcomplicating your workflow so effort stays focused on high potential accounts instead of busy work.The daily and weekly pipeline motions top SMB reps run themselves to create consistent momentum even when inbound and marketing support are light.The Speakers:James Buckley and Jonathan GardnerIf you want to catch The Daily Sales Show live, join hereFollow Sell Better to get the latest actionable tactics from sales pros at the top of their gameExplore our YouTube ChannelThank you to our sponsors: ZoomInfo

Most sellers say they are multi-channel, yet prospects still ghost them.James Buckley was joined by Donald Kelly and Charlotte Lloyd to show how to actually coordinate email, calls, LinkedIn, and a fourth channel so every touch builds on the last. This show reframed multichannel as a coordination problem, not a volume problem.You will learn how to decide which channel to start with based on real signals, how to keep one clear storyline across formats, and how to use channel switches as pattern interrupts when prospects say “send me information” or go quiet. The focus is on fewer, better touches that feel intentional instead of repetitive.By the end of the show, you will leave with a simple multichannel sequence you can run this week, plus clear rules for when to keep going, when to pause, and how to restart conversations without sounding desperate or annoying.You'll Learn:How to coordinate email, calls, LinkedIn, and other channels into one systemHow to choose the right channel first using signals instead of habitHow to restart stalled conversations using pattern interrupts across channelsThe Speakers:James Buckley, Charlotte Lloyd and Donald KellyIf you want to catch The Daily Sales Show live, join hereFollow Sell Better to get the latest actionable tactics from sales pros at the top of their gameExplore our YouTube ChannelThank you to our sponsors: Mixmax, Aligned and ZoomInfo

Most discovery calls stall because buyers stay safe, vague, and noncommittal.James Buckley was joined by Yael Morris and Celeste Berke Knisely to break down why deals are really lost in discovery and which questions actually move buyers toward a decision. This show focuses on getting past surface level answers and uncovering what makes change necessary now.You will learn how to ask uncomfortable but credible questions, quantify the cost of inaction, and uncover how decisions are truly made inside an account. Yael and Celeste will share repeatable question paths that turn vague responses into decision grade insight and build a clear case for change.By the end of the show, you will leave with discovery questions you can use immediately to surface urgency, expose real priorities, and drive a next step with purpose instead of another stalled follow up.You'll Learn:How to break through vague answers and uncover what buyers are protectingHow to build urgency by quantifying the cost of inaction during discoveryHow to uncover decision dynamics and end discovery with a clear next stepThe Speakers:James Buckley, Yael Morris and Celeste Berke KniselyIf you want to catch The Daily Sales Show live, join hereFollow Sell Better to get the latest actionable tactics from sales pros at the top of their gameExplore our YouTube ChannelThank you to our sponsors: ZoomInfo and RevPartners

In this episode, host Sandy Vance chats with Sophie Cheng, the Senior Vice President of Product Marketing at Sinch. They discuss the most common communication pitfalls and share a handful of remedies so you can start sending smarter messages. You'll walk away with tangible tips on how to: ✔️ switch from omnichannel to optimal channel✔️ leverage AI to fix your no-show problem✔️ build patient trust through advanced messagingIn this episode, they talk about:What Sinch does and how it uses AI to simplify and personalize communication for customersHow AI-driven communication is being applied in healthcare and what leaders need to understandWhy better communication leads to faster interactions, improved patient experiences, and higher conversion ratesHow omnichannel communication strategies streamline workflows for healthcare organizationsHow Sinch helps organizations identify the right channels and interfaces for their patient populationsWhat it means to operate at the speed of trust, and why transparency mattersHow AI can make patient interactions feel more empathetic and humanWhy organizations should never underestimate the impact of their communication strategyA Little About Sophie:Sophie Cheng is the Senior Vice President of Product Marketing at Sinch, the global leader in CPaaS and the company behind the Customer Communications Cloud. With more than 15 years of international marketing experience, Sophie has held strategic roles across Europe, Asia, and North America, partnering closely with Product, Growth, and M&A leaders to manage complex, global portfolios. At Sinch, she leads global product marketing, partner marketing, and analyst relations, helping organizations deliver seamless, trusted communication experiences across messaging, voice, and email.Before Sinch, Sophie served as VP of Global Product and Customer Marketing at ZoomInfo and led Product Marketing at Chorus.ai. A true global citizen, she has worked extensively across EMEA, APAC, and the U.S. Sophie holds advanced degrees from the University of St. Gallen and Singapore University and is an active member of the CMO Alliance.

Most sellers are chasing intent signals that create noise instead of pipeline.Will Aitken was joined by Michael Saruggia to break down what intent actually is, what it is not, and why so much third-party intent data misleads reps. This show focused on separating real buying signals from activity that looks interesting but goes nowhere.You will learn how to validate whether a signal reflects true buying motion using a simple credibility checklist, and how to apply industry knowledge to make signals meaningful. Michael will walk through where real intent comes from, including first-party data, unique triggers, and observable behavior that points to change.By the end of the show, you will leave with a practical method to turn intent into outbound plays you can run immediately. You will know how to answer why this prospect, why now, and why you, plus how to follow up and switch channels when a strong signal does not get a response.You'll Learn:How to tell real buying intent from weak or misleading signalsA simple framework to turn intent into a clear reason to reach outOutbound and follow-up plays to activate intent across email, phone, and LinkedInThe Speakers:Will Aitken and Michael SaruggiaIf you want to catch The Daily Sales Show live, join hereFollow Sell Better to get the latest actionable tactics from sales pros at the top of their gameExplore our YouTube ChannelThank you to our sponsors: ZoomInfo and Aligned

Here's a question that hits every sales professional right in the gut: What do you do when your email prospecting tanks and you're staring at response rates that are circling the drain? That's the question Tara asked on a recent episode of Ask Jeb on The Sales Gravy Podcast, and it's one I hear constantly from SDRs, account executives, and even sales managers who've convinced themselves that cold calling is outdated. If you're nodding along, thinking email is the future and cold calling is dead, you need to wake up. Email efficiency is going down without bounds, and if you're not picking up the phone, you're leaving money on the table. The Hard Truth About Email Prospecting Let me be blunt: Your email isn't failing because the channel is broken. It's failing because what you're doing is terrible. Before you blame the medium, look in the mirror. Did people ignore your email because you sent them something genuinely personalized and valuable? Or did they ignore you because you followed up thirteen times in five days? Did they ghost you because your seven colleagues already called them that same day? The brutal reality is that most salespeople treat email like a spray-and-pray numbers game. They blast generic messages, add zero personalization, and then wonder why nobody responds. Meanwhile, they avoid the one thing that actually works: picking up the phone and having real conversations. Why Cold Calling Will Always Matter Cold calling isn't going anywhere. It never has been, and it never will be. You want to know why? Because sales is a human business. People buy from people they trust, and you can't build trust through automated emails that sound like they were written by AI. A phone call gives you something email never can: the ability to prove you're a real human being who's genuinely there to help, not just to pitch and sell. When you call someone and say, "Hey, I sent you an email last week with this case study because I saw you talked about this at the Outbound Conference," you're showing them you did your homework. You're not just another robot in their inbox. Here's a line I love: "Would I be the worst salesperson in the world if I didn't also try to call you?" It's honest, it's human, and it cuts through the noise. You Don't Know What to Say? Make the Calls The number one excuse I hear from salespeople: "I don't know what to say." Here's my advice: Make one hundred calls and talk to people. They'll teach you. You're going to learn what not to say. You're going to start seeing patterns in how your prospects think, what problems they face, and what language matters to them. This is how you develop business acumen that separates you from the pack. You can't learn it behind a keyboard. I was in an alignment call today with a new client, and they said, "You totally understand us." Why? Last week, I was with a business adjacent to their industry, learned their language, and pulled that knowledge into the next call. Use Tools to Compress Your Learning Curve Use tools like ZoomInfo to accelerate your learning curve. At Sales Gravy, we use it every day to find information about people, see what they're doing on our website, and get intent signals that build our lists automatically. You can use these tools to learn the language of industries you're breaking into. You can see company news, understand their challenges, and show up on calls sounding like you belong. But here's the key: The tool doesn't make the call for you. It gives you the ammunition. You still have to do the work. Be Strategic and Resourceful Here's a strategy most salespeople are too lazy to try: If you're having trouble getting through to a decision maker, call someone else in the company who'll actually talk to you. Selling HR services? Call a sales rep. They'll talk your ear off about the company and might even make an introduction. Try this: "Hey, I know you're in sales. I've been trying to get hold of Joseph for nine months. Is there any way you could help me out?" That's not being cheesy. That's being resourceful. But you have to be genuine. You can't just ask for something without building rapport. Your Action Plan If you're struggling with email effectiveness: Pick up the damn phone. Stop making excuses about why cold calling doesn't work. It works if you work it. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Introducing yourself to strangers will never be easy, but it's the price of admission for being great at sales. Use data strategically. Build sequences that interweave multiple channels over 30, 60, 90 days. Email, phone, LinkedIn, video. Give yourself the best odds. Don't oversell on the cold call. A little interest isn't an invitation to vomit your pitch. Your job is to earn the next conversation. Make one more call. At the end of the day, when you're tired, make one more call. That's where discipline separates winners from everyone else. The Bottom Line Email isn't dead, but it's not a magic bullet. Cold calling isn't outdated. It's the foundation of everything we do in sales. Stop hiding behind your keyboard. Stop blaming the tools. Stop making excuses. The shortest path to a meeting is through a real conversation. That's how you build relationships, develop trust, and separate yourself from every other salesperson who's too afraid to dial. Get outside your skin. Be genuine. Be there to help. And pick up the phone. Ready to take your prospecting skills to the next level? Join us at one of our upcoming Sales Gravy LIVE events where you'll learn directly from top sales leaders and get hands-on coaching to transform your results.

Here’s a question that hits every sales professional right in the gut: What do you do when your email prospecting tanks and you’re staring at response rates that are circling the drain? That’s the question Tara asked on a recent episode of Ask Jeb on The Sales Gravy Podcast, and it’s one I hear constantly from SDRs, account executives, and even sales managers who’ve convinced themselves that cold calling is outdated. If you’re nodding along thinking email is the future and cold calling is dead, you need to wake up. Email efficiency is going down without bound, and if you’re not picking up the phone, you’re leaving money on the table. The Hard Truth About Email Prospecting Let me be blunt: Your email isn’t failing because the channel is broken. It’s failing because what you’re doing is terrible. Before you blame the medium, look in the mirror. Did people ignore your email because you sent them something genuinely personalized and valuable? Or did they ignore you because you followed up thirteen times in five days? Did they ghost you because your seven colleagues already called them that same day? The brutal reality is that most salespeople treat email like a spray-and-pray numbers game. They blast generic messages, add zero personalization, and then wonder why nobody responds. Meanwhile, they avoid the one thing that actually works: picking up the phone and having real conversations. Why Cold Calling Will Always Matter Cold calling isn’t going anywhere. It never has been, and it never will be. You want to know why? Because sales is a human business. People buy from people they trust, and you can’t build trust through automated emails that sound like they were written by AI. A phone call gives you something email never can: the ability to prove you’re a real human being who’s genuinely there to help, not just to pitch and sell. When you call someone and say, “Hey, I sent you an email last week with this case study because I saw you talked about this at the Outbound Conference,” you’re showing them you did your homework. You’re not just another robot in their inbox. Here’s a line I love: “Would I be the worst salesperson in the world if I didn’t also try to call you?” It’s honest, it’s human, and it cuts through the noise. You Don’t Know What to Say? Make the Calls The number one excuse I hear from salespeople: “I don’t know what to say.” Here’s my advice: Make one hundred calls and talk to people. They’ll teach you. You’re going to learn what not to say. You’re going to start seeing patterns in how your prospects think, what problems they face, and what language matters to them. This is how you develop business acumen that separates you from the pack. You can’t learn it behind a keyboard. I was in an alignment call today with a new client, and they said, “You totally understand us.” Why? Because last week I was with a business adjacent to their industry, learned their language, and pulled that knowledge into the next call. Use Tools to Compress Your Learning Curve Use tools like ZoomInfo to accelerate your learning curve. At Sales Gravy, we use it every day to find information about people, see what they’re doing on our website, and get intent signals that build our lists automatically. You can use these tools to learn the language of industries you’re breaking into. You can see company news, understand their challenges, and show up on calls sounding like you belong. But here’s the key: The tool doesn’t make the call for you. It gives you the ammunition. You still have to do the work. Be Strategic and Resourceful Here’s a strategy most salespeople are too lazy to try: If you’re having trouble getting through to a decision maker, call someone else in the company who’ll actually talk to you. Selling HR services? Call a sales rep. They’ll talk your ear off about the company and might even make an introduction. Try this: “Hey, I know you’re in sales. I’ve been trying to get hold of Joseph for nine months. Is there any way you could help me out?” That’s not being cheesy. That’s being resourceful. But you have to be genuine. You can’t just ask for something without building rapport. Your Action Plan If you’re struggling with email effectiveness: Pick up the damn phone. Stop making excuses about why cold calling doesn’t work. It works if you work it. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Introducing yourself to strangers will never be easy, but it’s the price of admission for being great at sales. Use data strategically. Build sequences that interweave multiple channels over 30, 60, 90 days. Email, phone, LinkedIn, video. Give yourself the best odds. Don’t oversell on the cold call. A little interest isn’t an invitation to vomit your pitch. Your job is to earn the next conversation. Make one more call. At the end of the day when you’re tired, make one more call. That’s where discipline separates winners from everyone else. The Bottom Line Email isn’t dead, but it’s not a magic bullet. Cold calling isn’t outdated. It’s the foundation of everything we do in sales. Stop hiding behind your keyboard. Stop blaming the tools. Stop making excuses. The shortest path to a meeting is through a real conversation. That’s how you build relationships, develop trust, and separate yourself from every other salesperson who’s too afraid to dial. Get outside your skin. Be genuine. Be there to help. And pick up the phone. Ready to take your prospecting skills to the next level? Join us at one of our upcoming Sales Gravy LIVE events where you’ll learn directly from top sales leaders and get hands-on coaching to transform your results.

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.

Gabe Lullo is the CEO of Alleyoop, a sales development agency working with industry giants such as ZoomInfo, Salesloft, and Adobe.   He has trained over 8,000 salespeople across diverse businesses and, during his tenure in Alleyoop, he has personally hired and managed more than 1,500 BDRs.   With over two decades of experience in sales, marketing, and executive recruitment, his strategies have significantly driven Alleyoop's growth and shaped its corporate culture.   Beyond his career accomplishments, Gabe graduated from the Barney School of Business at the University of Hartford, and his leadership ethos is rooted in cultivating environments that prioritize both professional development and individual success.   Socials: linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lullo/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabelullo/ Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL61t3M6geW84XNxsfKI5iARqa6_M9MuSy   Episode Summary:   In this episode, host Lyndsay Dowd talks with Gabe Lullo, the CEO of AlleyOOP, a sales-as-a-service company that specializes in helping businesses scale through effective outreach. Gabe shares his unique journey from recruiting to running a company that makes over 11 million cold calls a year.   The conversation dives deep into the realities of building high-performing revenue teams that last. Gabe and Lindsay discuss the difficult but necessary decision to fire toxic top performers to protect company culture. They also explore how to keep Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) motivated in a grueling role, the critical importance of a "video-on" culture for remote teams, and why LinkedIn is no longer optional for modern executives.   Key Takeaways:   - Culture Over Revenue - Mindset is 50% of Success - Video is Essential for Remote Trust - LinkedIn is a Must-Have   Episode Chapters:   00:00:00 – Intro to Gabe Lullo and AlleyOOP 00:02:17 – Gabe's background: From fundraising at 11 years old to recruiting 00:06:00 – The three pillars of success: People, Process, and Technology 00:07:40 – Why you should fire your toxic top performer 00:10:14 – Culture as a KPI and the "shadowing" interview process 00:13:19 – What is AlleyOOP? (The "unsung hero" of sales) 00:18:18 – The SDR Mindset and daily "Power Up" videos 00:21:26 – Why a "camera on" culture matters in remote work 00:24:05 – What inspires Gabe and his legacy 00:26:43 – Why leaders and employees must be on LinkedIn 00:31:26 – Where to find Gabe and his podcast, Do Hard Things

This episode is the audio from our recent webinar on the state of outbound. Sean Dwyer of ZoomInfo joined us to share what's changing, what's working, and how the best teams are adapting their outbound motion in 2026. Check out more free content and get coaching at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://outboundsquad.com.⁠

In this episode of the Federal Help Center Podcast, Randie Ward pulls back the curtain on one of the most frustrating barriers in GovCon: finding the right person to talk to. From leveraging tools like ZoomInfo and federal data sources to dissecting agency budgets and understanding why program managers are intentionally harder to find, this episode shows how winning contractors turn research into access. Eric also explains why relationship-building isn't about one email or one call—it's about consistent, informed follow-ups that position you as prepared, professional, and serious long before an RFP is released. Key Takeaways Finding the right contact is often harder than identifying the opportunity Agency budgets reveal priorities before solicitations exist Relationships are built through persistence, not one-time outreach If you want to learn more about the community and to join the webinars go to: https://federalhelpcenter.com/  Website: https://govcongiants.org/  Connect with Encore Funding: https://www.encore-funding.com/ 

How Do Top Performers Stay Motivated When Sales Gets Hard? You know the feeling when you close a big deal.The rush. The quiet satisfaction of updating your pipeline. Maybe a quick high-five with your manager. And then, almost immediately, it fades. You're back to cold calls that go unanswered, emails that disappear into inboxes, and prospects who promised they were interested suddenly going silent. In sales, rejection isn't a side effect of the job. It is the job. That reality is exactly why most people don't last in sales. And it's why the people who do last tend to get paid very well. Over the past quarter, we talked with some of the most consistent sales leaders in the business. Here are four moments from the Sales Gravy Podcast that reveal how top performers stay motivated and close more deals, even when the work feels heavy. Find Your Carrot and Make It Specific Will Frattini, VP of Sales at ZoomInfo, keeps a small Christmas ornament on his desk. His daughter gave it to him when she was five. That ornament is his carrot. During a recent podcast conversation, Will explained that when sales gets hard, that ornament reminds him exactly why he keeps pushing. Not in an abstract or inspirational-poster way, but in a deeply personal one. It represents his family, his responsibility, and the future he's building for them. That distinction matters. Many salespeople say they're motivated by family, freedom, or financial security. Those values are real, but on their own, they're often too broad to sustain sales motivation during a brutal stretch of rejection. When you're fifty dials deep with no connects and another demo just canceled, vague motivation doesn't hold up. Will doesn't just think “my family.” He sees a moment, a memory, and a tangible reminder of what's at stake. That specificity gives his motivation weight. Top performers anchor their sales motivation to something concrete and emotionally charged. A down payment they want to make by a certain date. A trip they want to take without checking their bank account. A milestone that matters beyond quota. The more specific the carrot, the more powerful it becomes when sales gets hard. How to define yours: Write down one specific outcome you want to achieve in the next six months. Not “hit quota,” but the real-world result that quota enables. A number. A purchase. An experience. Put it somewhere you'll see it every day. Work With Customers Who Actually Value You One of the fastest ways to drain sales motivation is closing deals with customers who make you miserable. On an episode of Ask Jeb, Jeb broke down how companies grow faster by focusing on the right customers, not just more customers. When you're behind on quota late in the year, it's tempting to take anything that looks like revenue. Any company that shows interest. Any prospect willing to meet. You convince yourself that a deal is a deal. Then January arrives. That customer floods your team with support tickets, questions every invoice, demands exceptions, and slowly erodes the satisfaction of the win you celebrated just weeks earlier. Consistent performers learn to protect their energy. They get ruthless about fit. Not just company size or industry, but values. They ask questions like, “What do you value most in a partner?” and they listen carefully to the answer. Some buyers want constant responsiveness. Others value expert perspective and challenge. Some want efficiency and minimal interaction. None of those preferences are wrong. But only one aligns with how you actually sell. When sales gets hard, motivation comes easier when you're pursuing customers who respect your approach instead of fighting it. How to clarify your ideal customer: Look at your three favorite customers. The ones your entire team enjoys working with. What do they share beyond surface-level traits? How did they behave during the buying process? Those patterns matter more than any firmographic filter. Slow Down Before You Create Your Own Problems When pressure builds, speed starts to feel productive. You rush contracts. You promise timelines without checking internally. You say yes to custom requirements because slowing down feels risky. On an episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount, Jr. shared one of the most painful stories we heard this year. A $1.4 million deal with a pediatrics practice unraveled after someone rushed the process and placed the client into an early adopter program without a test environment. The result was catastrophic. The client's live system crashed, HIPAA was violated, and the company lost not only the deal but $600,000 in annual recurring revenue. Top performers understand something most reps learn the hard way: smooth is fast. They build guardrails around high-risk moments. Before sending a contract, they align internally. Before committing to timelines, they check with the people who actually do the work. Slowing down at the right moments builds trust. It prevents chaos. And it preserves sales motivation by keeping you from spending the next quarter cleaning up mistakes made under pressure. How to build a slowdown system: Identify the three points in your sales process where you tend to rush. Proposals, negotiations, technical commitments. Create a short checklist for each and make it mandatory. Use AI to Think Faster, Not to Stop Thinking Sales demands constant context switching. Pipeline reviews. Prospect research. Discovery prep. Follow-up. Objection handling. The mental load adds up quickly. Victor Antonio recently shared an example of a window company using vision AI to diagnose broken window seals from photos. Instead of sending a technician, customers submit an image. The system verifies the issue, checks inventory, confirms warranty status, and schedules service automatically. AI hasn't changed what strong salespeople do. It's changed how quickly they get to the work that actually matters. Top performers use AI to handle tasks that drain energy but don't require judgment. Research summaries. Organizing notes. Drafting frameworks. That speed preserves mental bandwidth for conversations, strategy, and relationship building. Used correctly, AI supports sales motivation by reducing friction, not replacing effort. How to use AI without dulling your edge: List the tasks you repeat weekly that consume time but not insight. Let AI handle those. Keep anything involving trust, nuance, or decision-making firmly in your hands. Why This Matters for Sales Motivation Sales has always been hard. Cold calling was hard decades ago, and it's still hard today. You still have to find people, start conversations, build trust, and ask for commitments. What separates average reps from consistent performers isn't resilience alone. It's structure. Top performers know exactly what they're chasing and why it matters. They protect themselves from bad-fit customers. They slow down when it counts. And they use tools strategically to preserve energy for selling. They still get rejected. They still lose deals. They still have months where nothing goes right. But they don't drift. They don't panic. And they don't quit when the work gets uncomfortable. That discipline is what sustains sales motivation long after the initial excitement wears off. If you want a clearer target to aim at when sales gets hard, download the FREE Sales Gravy Goal Guide. It will help you define the goals that actually keep you focused, disciplined, and motivated—especially when rejection starts piling up.

How Do Top Performers Stay Motivated When Sales Gets Hard? You know the feeling when you close a big deal. The rush. The quiet satisfaction of updating your pipeline. Maybe a quick high-five with your manager. And then, almost immediately, it fades. You're back to cold calls that go unanswered, emails that disappear into inboxes, and prospects who promised they were interested suddenly going silent. In sales, rejection isn't a side effect of the job. It is the job. That reality is exactly why most people don't last in sales. And it's why the people who do last tend to get paid very well. Over the past quarter, we talked with some of the most consistent sales leaders in the business. Here are four moments from the Sales Gravy Podcast that reveal how top performers stay motivated and close more deals, even when the work feels heavy. Find Your Carrot and Make It Specific Will Frattini, VP of Sales at ZoomInfo, keeps a small Christmas ornament on his desk. His daughter gave it to him when she was five. That ornament is his carrot. During a recent podcast conversation, Will explained that when sales gets hard, that ornament reminds him exactly why he keeps pushing. Not in an abstract or inspirational-poster way, but in a deeply personal one. It represents his family, his responsibility, and the future he's building for them. That distinction matters. Many salespeople say they're motivated by family, freedom, or financial security. Those values are real, but on their own, they're often too broad to sustain sales motivation during a brutal stretch of rejection. When you're fifty dials deep with no connects and another demo just canceled, vague motivation doesn't hold up. Will doesn't just think “my family.” He sees a moment, a memory, and a tangible reminder of what's at stake. That specificity gives his motivation weight. Top performers anchor their sales motivation to something concrete and emotionally charged. A down payment they want to make by a certain date. A trip they want to take without checking their bank account. A milestone that matters beyond quota. The more specific the carrot, the more powerful it becomes when sales gets hard. How to define yours: Write down one specific outcome you want to achieve in the next six months. Not “hit quota,” but the real-world result that quota enables. A number. A purchase. An experience. Put it somewhere you'll see it every day. Work With Customers Who Actually Value You One of the fastest ways to drain sales motivation is closing deals with customers who make you miserable. On an episode of Ask Jeb, Jeb broke down how companies grow faster by focusing on the right customers, not just more customers. When you're behind on quota late in the year, it's tempting to take anything that looks like revenue. Any company that shows interest. Any prospect willing to meet. You convince yourself that a deal is a deal. Then January arrives. That customer floods your team with support tickets, questions every invoice, demands exceptions, and slowly erodes the satisfaction of the win you celebrated just weeks earlier. Consistent performers learn to protect their energy. They get ruthless about fit. Not just company size or industry, but values. They ask questions like, “What do you value most in a partner?” and they listen carefully to the answer. Some buyers want constant responsiveness. Others value expert perspective and challenge. Some want efficiency and minimal interaction. None of those preferences are wrong. But only one aligns with how you actually sell. When sales gets hard, motivation comes easier when you're pursuing customers who respect your approach instead of fighting it. How to clarify your ideal customer: Look at your three favorite customers. The ones your entire team enjoys working with. What do they share beyond surface-level traits? How did they behave during the buying process? Those patterns matter more than any firmographic filter. Slow Down Before You Create Your Own Problems When pressure builds, speed starts to feel productive. You rush contracts. You promise timelines without checking internally. You say yes to custom requirements because slowing down feels risky. On an episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount, Jr. shared one of the most painful stories we heard this year. A $1.4 million deal with a pediatrics practice unraveled after someone rushed the process and placed the client into an early adopter program without a test environment. The result was catastrophic. The client's live system crashed, HIPAA was violated, and the company lost not only the deal but $600,000 in annual recurring revenue. Top performers understand something most reps learn the hard way: smooth is fast. They build guardrails around high-risk moments. Before sending a contract, they align internally. Before committing to timelines, they check with the people who actually do the work. Slowing down at the right moments builds trust. It prevents chaos. And it preserves sales motivation by keeping you from spending the next quarter cleaning up mistakes made under pressure. How to build a slowdown system: Identify the three points in your sales process where you tend to rush. Proposals, negotiations, technical commitments. Create a short checklist for each and make it mandatory. Use AI to Think Faster, Not to Stop Thinking Sales demands constant context switching. Pipeline reviews. Prospect research. Discovery prep. Follow-up. Objection handling. The mental load adds up quickly. Victor Antonio recently shared an example of a window company using vision AI to diagnose broken window seals from photos. Instead of sending a technician, customers submit an image. The system verifies the issue, checks inventory, confirms warranty status, and schedules service automatically. AI hasn't changed what strong salespeople do. It's changed how quickly they get to the work that actually matters. Top performers use AI to handle tasks that drain energy but don't require judgment. Research summaries. Organizing notes. Drafting frameworks. That speed preserves mental bandwidth for conversations, strategy, and relationship building. Used correctly, AI supports sales motivation by reducing friction, not replacing effort. How to use AI without dulling your edge: List the tasks you repeat weekly that consume time but not insight. Let AI handle those. Keep anything involving trust, nuance, or decision-making firmly in your hands. Why This Matters for Sales Motivation Sales has always been hard. Cold calling was hard decades ago, and it's still hard today. You still have to find people, start conversations, build trust, and ask for commitments. What separates average reps from consistent performers isn't resilience alone. It's structure. Top performers know exactly what they're chasing and why it matters. They protect themselves from bad-fit customers. They slow down when it counts. And they use tools strategically to preserve energy for selling. They still get rejected. They still lose deals. They still have months where nothing goes right. But they don't drift. They don't panic. And they don't quit when the work gets uncomfortable. That discipline is what sustains sales motivation long after the initial excitement wears off. If you want a clearer target to aim at when sales gets hard, download the FREE Sales Gravy Goal Guide. It will help you define the goals that actually keep you focused, disciplined, and motivated—especially when rejection starts piling up.