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Ep. 147 - Building the Revenue Engine with Chris Kobus - Part 1 Oct 07, 2026

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In Part 1 of Selling Intelligence, Chris Kobus, Chief Revenue Officer at Genlogs, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to explore what it takes to build a revenue engine that can scale across people, markets, and changing business priorities.Chris shares his leadership philosophy around developing talent from within and explains why experience alone does not determine whether someone can succeed in enterprise sales. He discusses the importance of finding people with the right attitude, drive, and willingness to learn, then giving them the coaching, playbooks, and real-world exposure they need to grow.The conversation also examines the expanding role of the modern CRO. Chris explains why revenue leadership goes far beyond managing sales and hitting the current quarter’s number. From pipeline and ICP strategy to marketing, business development, channels, pre-sales, and revenue operations, the CRO must understand and manage the full revenue lifecycle while preparing the organization for what comes next.Chris also shares how Genlogs approaches verticalization across very different buyer markets, why specialized go-to-market playbooks matter, and how leaders can introduce change without creating unnecessary chaos across the organization.What You’ll Learn:Developing Talent from Within: Why attitude, curiosity, drive, and willingness to learn can matter as much as previous enterprise sales experience.Leading from the Field: How revenue leaders can build trust and develop stronger teams by working alongside sellers instead of managing from an “ivory tower.”Coaching Beyond the Playbook: Why frameworks like MEDIC only create value when leaders continually challenge sellers on discovery, economic buyers, budget processes, urgency, and deal strategy.Owning the Full Revenue Lifecycle: How the CRO role extends beyond sales to pipeline, ICP strategy, marketing, business development, channels, pre-sales, revenue operations, retention, and expansion.Balancing Today and Tomorrow: Why CROs need to manage current-quarter performance while anticipating future growth needs and identifying where the revenue engine could break.Verticalizing with Purpose: How specialized go-to-market playbooks can help teams navigate different buyer environments without creating organizational chaos.Key Topics:Building and developing high-performing revenue teamsPromoting BDRs and other talent from withinHiring for attitude, drive, and growth potentialMEDIC, discovery, and enterprise sales coachingConsulting skills and value engineering in go-to-market leadershipThe difference between a CRO and VP of SalesOwning the end-to-end revenue lifecyclePipeline, ICP, TAM, and annual operating plan alignmentBalancing short-term execution with long-term growthBuilding trust through transparency with executive leadershipVerticalization and specialized go-to-market playbooksScaling the revenue engine without creating organizational chaosGuest Spotlight: Chris KobusChris Kobus is Chief Revenue Officer at Genlogs, a freight intelligence company. His career began in consulting at Accenture before he moved into value engineering and technology go-to-market leadership. That background shaped his approach to customer value, team development, and building scalable revenue organizations. At Genlogs, Chris oversees a broad revenue mandate spanning sales, marketing, business development, channels, pre-sales, and revenue operations.Resources & Mentions:GenlogsAccentureMEDICIdeal Customer Profile (ICP)Total Addressable Market (TAM)Annual Operating Plan (AOP)Accelerant Growth Solutions (AGS)🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more insights from revenue leaders building the next generation of go-to-market organizations. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.Mark Petruzzi (00:29)Welcome to Selling Intelligence. I'm Mark Petruzzi.KK Anderson (00:33)And I'm KK Anderson.Mark Petruzzi (00:34)And most revenue leaders inherit a title before they inherit the job. You get handed a quota, a team, and a seat at the table, and you spend the next few years figuring out how much of the business actually belongs to you. Our guest today runs one of the broadest CRL mandates we have covered on this show: sales, marketing, biz dev channels, pre-sales, and revenue ops.would have done in line into customer success as well.KK Anderson (01:04)Chris Kobus is Chief Revenue Officer at Genlogs, a freight intelligence company that recently closed a $60 million Series B. He started his career in consulting at Accenture before moving into a value engineering role at a supply chain technology startup. And that background shapes how he builds go-to-market motions today. He's also selling into a market that has never had to buy what he's selling before.Which means his team has to help buyers see a problem they didn't know they had. Chris, welcome to selling intelligence.Chris Kobus (01:38)Hi everyone, thanks for having me.Mark Petruzzi (01:40)Yeah, we're happy to have you here, Chris. Thank you. So let's jump with our first topic, leadership philosophy. And a real core point on that, team development over just our recruiting. So you said that developing a repwho didn't originally know enterprise go to market can be just as important a win as landing a new customer. What does that development process actually look like on your team?Chris Kobus (02:04)Yeah, it's a good question, Mark. I think there's a couple of things that I would address there. I think that at the end of the day, having quality people is incredibly important. But I also think that it's just as important, if not more important, to make sure you have the right people and the right skill set and they're not always one and the same. so in my experience, I've worked with several folks that maybe didn't have the right set of experiences as they got into more of an enterprise sales motion, but were very eager to learn. They had the rightperspective, the right appetite, if you will, to understand what it takes to win, to understand what questions and tasks and what they need to pursue with customers, and to understand what winning looks like and and sort of what the the task at hand is. in terms of working with those individuals to develop them, I think it takes a couple things. And there's a couple things that I would certainly highlight that I think are relevant for my experience.number one, and this is sort of philosophy I have as a go-to-market leader, is the team has to see you sort of in battle, right? I have always been very against what I think many call sort of the ivory tower approach, which is, you're sitting in front of Salesforce or in front of Slack or in an office or whatever, and saying, like, hey, where are the numbers? What's happening here, et cetera. and I think what's really important as a leader is the team sees you in battle with them.And that can be your presenting to a customer a business case or helping them to find a use case. It could be you working with a customer to help them negotiate. It could be you working with other teams to make sure we're driving all the right, the right motions. so I say that and I relate it back to the question around what does it take to sort of develop those people. I think having that mindset of being in battle with them, I think is really important. I also think what's equally important is you have to have the playbook.Right. So one of the things that I'm very passionate about that I know many, if not all, sales leaders in the enterprise tech space are passionate about is medic, right? And understanding it's more than just an acronym, which is a phrase I've heard thrown around quite a bit. so constantly challenging sellers that maybe don't have the experience with Medic or don't, maybe haven't figured out how to identify a champion in an account or an economic buyer or so on.Challenging them when they think that right they have the right answers in a proper way to say, hey, you think maybe what a budgeting process looks like or who the economic buyer is. But have you asked them if they have budget authority? Have you asked them, if they don't have direct budget authority, how does budget get released? Have you asked them simple, simple questions around like how do they typically partner with technology vendors? What needs to get done? And I think that appropriate constant challenging.is where I've seen people that have the right perspective, they maybe have the right experience, get ramped up very quickly. and the last point I'd mention on this particular topic is to me it's really important. and the reason it's so important is everyone's Rolodex will eventually come dry. Right. And I say that in the following sense is you can have several open head count and have all the confidence in the world that you have the right folks in your network with the right experience and the right perspective that are going to come in and be successful.But that will not work every time. That will either run dry or you will have to rely on folks that maybe, that would had been with the company that are that are entering a new role or getting into the business by some other channel that don't necessarily have the right experience, but have the right perspective, right, on what it takes to win. So I think, being in the field, demonstrating to them sort of that you want to be in the field with them.that you're willing to put in the work yourself. and then constantly challenging them. It's not like here's a lesson on medic. I'll go back to that example, and we're all done, but constantly challenging them on how they're doing discovery, how they're thinking about budget release cycles, how they're thinking about working with closed plans, driving urgency, I think is what balances out how coming in with the right perspective and then rapidly building that right skill set.KK Anderson (05:24)Good stuff, Chris. it's the attitude. And if when you say perspective, like it's their attitude. If they've got that grit, the unconditional commitment, the will, the personal accountability to be able to execute, then with your playbook or your process or your structure around how your customers buy and how you sell.then they're gonna have a much greater chance of being successful. And, they don't need to have, 20 years as an enterprise at seller to be able to come work with you. So I love that. so take me through like the the interview process. Let's say, you're promoting from within. I imagine that's like a BDR role. what are you listening for in an interview, that tells you that someone has all of that or andthey've got that grit and that attitude.Chris Kobus (06:09)Yeah, it's a good one. I think the one of the first things I look for are they eager, driven, and motivated and to your point, have the right attitude to go above their swim lane or outside of their swim lane. So we have a really amazing team of BDRs here at Gen Logs. And I am very passionate about and and I know Gen Logs is as well, if we have the right people in the business to find ways to promote from within.And one of the things that I look for is has that individual, and let's use the BDR, a business development rep as maybe example, typically their mandate to the business is to work with business development leadership and then their their account executive teammates to go after target accounts, to create healthy dialogue and conversations with accounts that would fall in line with our ICP, our ideal customer profile, to generate quality pipeline for the reps to then push to closure.One of the things I look for when we consider moving BDRs into an account executive role or at least evaluating that is do they have the drive to sort of go above and beyond their mandate? So what do I mean by that? Right. Well, what I mean by that is it's more than just their metrics around how much pipeline they've generated. It's their eagerness to say, hey, I'd love to sit on a discovery call, even though this is qualified and I've kind of hit my metric with it. I'd love to sit on a discovery call with an account executive to understand how they do it.What questions do they ask? how do they think about defining use cases? How do they think about starting to ask questions around Medic? And I think what happens there is not only do you have resources that have been successful within sort of their mandate, but then they start to build knowledge and in many cases obtain tribal knowledge if they're sitting on customer meetings or discovery calls or whatnot, they're starting to build experience and tribal knowledge around what it takes to deliver in that next role.so that's absolutely one of the first things that I sort of challenge on and sort of try to certainly try to understand. and I think the second thing that I'd highlight is the eagerness to just generally the eagerness to understand what you want next in your career. not every business development representative wants to be an account executive. Some want to move into leadership, some pre-sales or partnerships or something else. I always look for understanding.What does that individual or that teammate want in the next phase in their career? and I think the importance there, and the importance with many things when it comes to promotions, when it comes to hiring from within, is finding the equilibrium between what's right for the business and what's right for the teammate. And they're not always one-on-one, but if you can find that equilibrium between here's what the business needs, here's the need, and here's what the teammate wants in the next part of their career, and we see general alignment there.That's where I find the most success to occur.Mark Petruzzi (08:32)So Chris, that's really helpful and it ties back to lots of the things we do even at AGS, Accelerant Growth Solutions. we have been working, KK especially for a longer period of time, has been working withincredible assessments that help you determine in the hiring process exactly what's behind the interview per se. if they really do have that grit or that curiosity that you're looking for in all these other areas. So that's something that we do the same way you do. just trying to figure that out on an interview, but we also love havingthe good old data behind it as well.Chris Kobus (09:09)Yeah, I think the one thing I would address there, I like the way you phrase it, That the data is important, So if you're looking at a teammate to promote from within or bring in an outside resource, I think looking at numbers is crucially important. whether that comes from references or directly from the candidate. at the end of the day, I'll leave it here. one phrase that I love that's often thrown around sales isIt's the easiest function of the business to measure success. Like did you hit your numbers or or did you not?Mark Petruzzi (09:31)Yeah,that's really what it's all about. So Chris, you started at Accenture and moved into a value engineering role at a support.supply chain startup before you ever were in a quota carrying seat. How did that path shape the way you build and coach teams today?Chris Kobus (09:45)Yeah, that's one of the parts of my experience and sort of my story as it relates to my career that I'm most proud of and I often most reflect on. I started my career, as you said, way back when at Accenture. and a large part of my mandate was working with clients and and large scale enterprises to deploy technology, test technology, design technology, recommend technology, and so on. and it wasn't necessarily selling rule…

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Ep. 146 - Solving the Go-to-Market Riddle with Rick Nee - Part 2 Sep 30, 2026

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In Part 2 of Selling Intelligence, Rick Nee, Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz AI, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to explore the people and culture behind a scalable go-to-market organization.Rick explains why vertical specialization should go beyond assigning sellers to industries. Sales leaders need to develop enough expertise to become trusted voices in their markets, understand the problems their customers face, and bring insights that make conversations more valuable and less transactional. He shares how Alcatraz encourages sales directors to treat their vertical like their own business, develop informed opinions, participate in industry conversations, and build deeper customer relationships over time.The conversation also explores Rick’s approach to building talent from within. He explains why visible career paths for SDRs can strengthen culture and retention, how internal promotions can create momentum throughout the organization, and why leaders should look beyond the traditional SDR-to-AE path when developing emerging talent.What You’ll Learn:Building Vertical Thought Leaders: How sales directors can develop deeper industry expertise and become trusted resources for customers rather than purely transactional sellers.Treating a Vertical Like a Business: Why sellers should think like business owners within their vertical and use events, speaking opportunities, associations, customer conversations, and content to build credibility.Using Team Selling for Complex Buyers: How sales, engineering, product, and customer success can work together to build trust and support conversations across different levels of the customer organization.Developing SDRs From Within: Why Rick prefers creating internal career paths and how visible promotions can show SDRs that there is a real opportunity to grow inside the organization.Finding the Right Next Role: Why SDR development does not always have to lead to an AE position, and how leaders can identify strengths that may fit account management, renewals, customer success, or other roles.Building a Culture That Retains Talent: How internal mobility, leadership attention, and meaningful development opportunities can contribute to stronger retention in a startup environment.Key Topics:Vertical specialization and industry expertiseSales directors as industry thought leadersBuilding trusted, non-transactional customer relationshipsCustomer advisory boards and team sellingDeveloping SDRs into future GTM leadersInternal promotion versus external hiringCareer mobility across sales, CS, renewals, and channel rolesSales culture and employee retentionUsing data to continuously improve GTM decisionsThe continued importance of human selling in an AI-driven environmentGuest Spotlight: Rick NeeRick Nee is Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz AI. In this two-part Selling Intelligence conversation, Rick shares his approach to scaling go-to-market organizations through vertical specialization, data-driven decision making, talent development, and strong internal culture.In Part 2, he focuses on developing people from within, helping sellers build meaningful industry expertise, and creating career paths that allow talent to grow alongside the organization.Resources & Mentions:Alcatraz AIDaniel PinkTo Sell Is Human by Daniel PinkPeter DruckerCustomer advisory boardsVertical pod structureSDR career development and internal promotionSelling Intelligence Featured by FeedSpotSelling Intelligence has been selected as one of FeedSpot’s Top 20 SaaS Sales Podcasts. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favorite podcasts alongside blogs and news in one place.https://podcast.feedspot.com/saas_sales_podcasts/🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with revenue leaders building the next generation of go-to-market organizations.Mark (00:38)Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. If you're just joining us, this is part two of our conversation with Rick Nee, Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz. Go back and listen to part one when you get the chance, but you can also start right here with us.KK Anderson (00:53)Now, three things from part one worth carrying forward. Rick's team went from three people to 25 in two years while the business tripled. He organizes by vertical pod rather than by segment or geography. And each pod runs its own PL, which is why he can walk into a board meeting after his six coffees and Starbucks every 30 days and not locking himselfMark (01:15)Yeah.KK Anderson (01:16)in a room. He can walk into a board meeting with data.and return a figure instead of a headcount request. And before he changes any structure, he goes to that data, he forms his hypothesis because at the stage that he is in with Alcatraz, guessing gets really expensive really fast.Mark (01:33)Part two is the part most leaders find hardest to copy. The people, Rick, let's pick it back up.Rick Nee (01:39)Yeah.KK Anderson (01:39)All right, Rick. Okay, so let's talk about the sales director who wears a marketing hat, right? You ask your vertical sales directors, and I love this by the way, to put a marketing hat on and become thought leaders and to brand themselves as thought leaders in their industry. Like tell me why and what does that look like in practice?Rick Nee (01:59)Yeah, so it's something that I'm pretty passionate about. And I think it goes it ties back into this vertical strategy we were talking about, right? KK. So imagine you're just selling into enterprise, you're jumping from a finance meeting into an airport meeting into a higher ed meeting. there's just not enough time in the day. I you know, the data says that your average sales director, count executive spends40 to 50% of their time internally, data cleanup, internal meetings, et cetera. Right. And so you you know that that we're always putting more on them than than they can do. So with the verticals, what we've sort of are thinking holistically is, hey, how do you become a thought leader in this so that it's a trusted relationship? To your point, with AI and just the amount of noise out there. I think.And users are astute and they know when it's transactional and when they know you're actually trying to serve them. sounds cliche, but it's true.I tell the story to a lot of folks that one of my best sales directors at my prior company, Authenticate, we had a vertical structure and he had so many trusted relationships and he was sort of a thought leader in in the threat space that the threat intel space thatHe was a intermediary for folks that he had sold to into their next job when they had lost their job. so he was sort of a middleman that, but he was so pluggedKK Anderson (03:11)Yeah.Rick Nee (03:11)into the vertical. and now, of course, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? That end user champion that's now leaving and going somewhere else, they're gonna, they're probably gonna buy that the product at another place. But we're asking our sales directors.with the help of our product team and our product marketing team to think, okay, this is your business. This is your vertical. If you were a business owner and this was your company and you were only focused on this vertical, what and why would you do it? And that might mean, okay, I need to go to these specific shows that are focused on my industry. maybe I want to get a speaking spot.And I want to talk specifically about perhaps a pain point or how customers are being served, right? And so you get that angle. it might be associations, it might be a blog post. but all of that is, learning that happens as that sales director has time and seats. So to be clear, right, when you hire somebody.Okay, if they're plugged into that industry already, you're hiring somebody in the financial services that's coming to your company, easy, right? They're already plugged in, they probably have a pretty decent understanding. But for us, we got the right people on the bus and just said, hey, you're pretty passionate about security. You're enough about financial services or tech or whatever your vertical is, but now we're gonna ask you to dig deeper. And you're gonna do some some homework, you're gonna learn, you're gonna work with our team, our leadership team, and you're gonna start to take all of the things that you have learned.And form an opinion. Form an opinion that adds value to your end customers that you can share. Whether it's a customer advisory board, too, that's another thing we're starting. form opinions, be a thought leader. And again, there's others that are helping, but as you get into that 12-month, 18-month, two years with the sales director, then all of a sudden you're learning from them. And that's where I know when it's working. When I have a question about earports.I call our sales leader that runs critical infrastructure and I say to him, Hey, why don't they turn on this feature? Or what what did what are they doing here? And then he'll just educate me on that. And so again, I I just think the end users, they're looking for nuggets. They they've done enough inform research on your product and they probably have done some homework, but they're, you know, they're looking forHow you plug them into another part of the network, maybe trends that you're seeing. It's nothing to do with necessarily selling them anything else, although that will help. and it's not transactional. and it's working very, very well for us. it's something that takes time, and you can't do it with 10 verticals of your series A. You might only pick one vertical, but I would say give it a shot. Pick that vertical whereyou have the best product market fit signal or the most traction and lean into that and then copy and paste once you have enough revenue or cash to to to invest in additional verticals, et cetera. So that's what we did is sort of let's pick the ones that make sense and then build out from there.Mark (05:50)So what if what if one of your directors is leading a session with chief information security officers at a customer advisory board? What goes into getting someone ready to hold that room?Rick Nee (06:02)Team selling. so for that, candidly, the way that the way that we think about it is if the sales directors are dangerous enough, and again, like when you're thinking about who you need to hire, I I just think it's better if you hire someone that understands the industry and is maybe a little bit more on the technical side. Nonetheless, if you're around that sort of session, you're probablyworking with your head of engineering, your head of product, it might be success in some. It's probably someone that is thinking a little bit more deeper technically. But I think if you're doing that right and you have enough trust and you've earned their respect, then I think, bringing a larger group together always works. it could be it could be at that level, could also be at the director level.whoever, there's different avenues that we're going when we're thinking about customer advisory board. It could be the top, could be the middle of the funnel, it could be sometimes even the end users that are actually deploying the product. That's we believe a bottom up and a top down when we're thinking about these things because they both play a pretty critical role in not only buying your product, but actually using it and buying more of it.KK Anderson (07:00)Goodstuff. Rick, let's shift gears for a minute and talk about, building up.and we spoke about this a lot, and I and I think this is it probably says a lot about the culture of the organization that you've built there, but you promote from the SDR seat up rather than hiring senior talent in from the outside. walk us through that ladder and and kind of what what your decision is there.Rick Nee (07:22)This is something I'm probably most passionate about. And I think everyone's heard that quote from Peter Drucker, culture each strategy for breakfast. you could have an okay product, scale to the moon with the culture in a team that is fully bought in and is rowing where the sum is greater than the parts, or can or you could have the inverse, you could haveA fantastic product with a bad culture and and and not do well at all. And I'm sure there's use cases or examples of both. I on the culture side, I prefer to hire SDRs ground up as we build them into the org. And why is that? Well, if you interview a lot of go-to-market teams, you'll hearthings like 40% turnover in SDRs. and then I'm asking, okay, is it enablement? are they too junior? but often what I hear, KK, is well, I've been an SDR for 16 months, 18 months, and I there's just no there's no path to promotion. And so I said, okay, leaning to that and say, well, what what's this about? Well, you know,The sales leader came in, and as he or she has expanded, they bring in from the outside. That is a very demoralizing thing. That doesn't mean everybody is built from the ground up, but when you're thinking about your pods, SDRs that go and do maybe junior account executives, perhaps renewals, junior customer success based on their personality. Once you have four, five, six, seven of them promoted.It becomes infectious. It becomes it becomes infectious. It just sort of like new SDRs come in and they say, Okay, I have a shot here. If I put my head down and I lean in and then they're getting trained from someone that's just been promoted, and it's just sort of thisKK Anderson (08:57)Right.Rick Nee (08:58)goodness that sort of permeates through the org, it's a wonderful thing. Now, there are certain roles where you're like, Look, it's 20 I I need somebody with 20 years experience. it's a veryKK Anderson (09:07)Of course.Rick Nee (09:08)They need a secret clearance, right? Okay. But butKK Anderson (09:11)Yeah.Rick Nee (09:11)not everybody sort of gets that. The the second piece to it is when you're hiring from SDR and then you promote them up, the economics are often much better as you promote them, right? So you could just pick a number, right? So let's just say an SDR is making 50K and youKK Anderson (09:27)Mm-hmm.Rick Nee (09:27)pull them into an account executive role.in 18 months and they go from a 50k OTE to a hundred K. This is like life changing stuff for them, right?KK Anderson (09:36)Yeah, heck yeah it is.Rick Nee (09:37)right. it's all context and and it's relevant. Now if I were to go get that same, let's say, four to six years experience and I wanted to go get them from SaaS Company X, might be 175K.And it's an unknownIt's an unknown variable, right? I mean, you can interview somebody and you have a good idea, but are they a good culture fit? Do they really do what they say they do? I mean, hopefully they do. And then you save on the just the the recruiting, the recruiting piece and you know, the fees you in there.KK Anderson (10:02)Sure. Mm-hmm.Rick Nee (10:03)I tell the SDRs, I meet with a lot of the SDRs one on one and maybe I'm one of the only CROs that that does this, but when I see an SDR with a lot of promise, I'm on their calendar and I'mAnd and I have we have a profile of what we want for that role.KK Anderson (10:17)Mm-hmm.Rick Nee (10:17)generally athletes maybe had a job in college, there's very certain things we're looking for with like that that speak to your work ethic. Cause it's a hard job. But I'll get on the counter one of the one of these higher performing ones and say, Hey, hang tight for three more months. We're gonna find you a new role. This is thi…

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Ep. 145 – Solving the Go-to-Market Riddle with Rick Nee - Part 1 Sep 23, 2026

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In this episode of Selling Intelligence, Rick Nee, Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to unpack what happens after a company reaches product market fit and the challenge shifts from finding customers to building a go-to-market organization that can scale.Rick explains why revenue leaders should resist bringing a fixed playbook into a new company and instead use customer behavior, sales data, and the buyer journey to determine what the organization actually needs. He shares how Alcatraz has built its revenue structure around vertical pods, creating tighter feedback loops between sales, SDRs, customer success, and other customer-facing roles.The conversation also dives into the importance of cleaning CRM data before making strategic decisions, identifying the metrics that actually matter, and reverse engineering performance by vertical to determine where to invest people, capital, and resources.What You’ll Learn:Scaling After Product Market Fit: Why the GTM motion that wins your first customers may not be the one that gets you to the next stage of growth.Playbooks as Starting Points: Why proven sales frameworks should inform your strategy rather than dictate it.Building Around the Buyer Journey: How customer needs and sales complexity should shape hiring, team structure, and resource allocation.The Power of Vertical Pods: How organizing teams around specific industries can improve knowledge transfer, customer understanding, and feedback loops.Reverse Engineering Revenue Data: How sales cycle length, deal size, win rates, pipeline coverage, and land versus expand behavior can reveal where growth opportunities actually exist.Cleaning Data Before Scaling: Why CROs need to validate CRM data and remove misleading outliers before using it to guide major GTM decisions.Key Topics:Scaling a GTM organization after product market fitBuilding a data-driven revenue strategyWhy one-size-fits-all sales playbooks fall shortVertical pod structures and feedback loopsSales cycle and deal size analysis by verticalPipeline coverage and win ratesLand and expand revenue motionsCRM data quality and RevOpsGeneralists versus specialists in early-stage companiesUsing AI to pressure test assumptions and uncover blind spotsPrioritizing high-impact GTM initiatives instead of changing everything at onceGuest Spotlight: Rick NeeRick Nee is Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz, a Cupertino-based company focused on facial authentication for physical security. As a revenue leader, Rick focuses on solving the go-to-market challenges that emerge after product market fit, using data to determine how teams should be structured, which verticals deserve investment, and where companies can scale most effectively.In this conversation, Rick shares a practical approach to building revenue organizations around real customer behavior rather than assumptions, industry benchmarks, or rigid playbooks.Resources & Mentions:AlcatrazHubSpotClaudeCRM and RevOps data analysisVertical pod GTM structuresAGS Two Millimeter Club🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with revenue leaders on building smarter, more scalable go-to-market organizations.Mark (00:30)Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. I'm Mark Petruzzi here with my co-founder and co-host KK Anderson.KK Anderson (00:37)Here's a number we're sitting with. A sales organization that goes from three people to 25 in 24 months has effectively rebuilt itself every quarter. Most leaders in that position reach for the standard playbook because it's the fastest thing available. But our guest today treated the playbook as a starting point instead of an answer and went to his own data to decide what to keep.Mark (01:00)Rick Nee is Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz, the Cupertino company replacing badges with facial authentication, backed by more than $100 million in capital and trusted by Fortune 100 Enterprises AI data centers, airports, universities, and professional sports teams. Rick, welcome to Selling Intelligence.Rick Nee (01:23)Thanks for having me. I am very excited to be here. this is exciting and these are topics that I'm pretty passionate about.Mark (01:28)Excellent. All right, first topic, solving the go-to-market riddle. You have said that stage the stage that energizes you the most is the one right after product market fit. When finding customers who want to buy is no longer the problem. Describe what actually changes for a revenue leader at that moment.Rick Nee (01:46)It's a great question. So I didn't figure this out so a little bit later in my career. People ask, hey, do you want to work at a startup? And that can mean a lot of different things, a series D with a thousand customers versus a pre-series or series A, where you're trying to find that product market fit. And so I think you have to like think about where you want to be on that journey. and then if we really define what product market fit means.I was listening to someone the other day from HubSpot and they said, product market fit doesn't mean two two customers that have bought your product and hey, we have figured this out. when I define product market fit, I'm looking at, okay, a subset of customers have not only bought your product, they're using it and you've retained them. And so then there's that there's that point, that drop, that inflection point where, okay, we now have a growing set of customers that not only are buying, but are alsostaying with us. And so when you get to that part of the journey, it often requires a remodel. And the folks and the in the way that you were going to market to get those first customers is not necessarily what's going to get you to the next level. I call folks that are in that series A, I call them pirates. They're just out there, they're with the founder. They might be that founder led AE. They're literally trying to figure out what is going to stick, right?And it often is not what they initially think. when I came to Alcatraz, they had already figured out was interested and who was buying our And so then I that what the GTM riddle, what excites me about that is then you have to take a look at it and you have to say, okay, what type of salesperson do I need? Are we an enterprise motion? Are we a mid-market motion? Are we a director? Are we channel?do we need hunters and farmers or both? what use cases and personas and verticals should we focus on? What custom what sets of customers should we say no to? So when you look at all of that based on some of those first customers, you'll find that you're gonna have to make some changes. And it doesn't mean you just rip and replace, it means there's iterations and you're still testing. But I thinkThat is where I love to thrive, where you start to build what I would call truly for scale. I know that everybody likes to say, hey, scale. You know, everybody wants the But really thinking about how you're gonna build, because if you do it the wrong way, you're gonna build and attenuate out in a in a in a bad way, right? And so you wanna obviously get it right. But that's where I like to come in. I don't wanna go figure out if this productis gonna gain traction in the market. And some people live for that, right? And if you do, then that's where you should go. But for me, it's sort of figuring out this riddle and how doyou get to the next five hundred customers or whatever set of AR, whatever your goal may be.KK Anderson (04:14)Soyou touched on it a little bit, but if you don't mind, go a little bit deeper and walk us through the the pieces of this riddle or puzzle, like as you call it, as you see them today, and maybe even give us give us some glimpse into what you're thinking about as you're moving into to 2027 with your how you're gonna put the pieces of that riddle together for Alcatraz.Rick Nee (04:34)Well, I mean, first you have to start with what you think about your playbook and you think about what you know, what riddle you're trying to solve. There are there are real stakeholders with real goals that may not necessarily be the ones that you you're marching towards, but they are what they are, right? You have the board, you have investors, you have the CEO, you different different folks and stakeholders that are like, This is what we need to do.So I think the lens that you immediately have to take as you're figuring out this riddle is what is the most efficient and effective way to get an ROI and to grow sales fast? And often that means reverse engineering the data, right? everyone talks about AI, but if you look at Claude and you pipe that into your HubSpot and you start to cue the different leading and lagging indicators.You should be able form a pretty strong hypothesis of what you should and shouldn't do as you march down a path, which is an annual number. and and that let's face it, the average CRO lasts 14 or 16 months, depending on which data you're looking at in this as world. So I I would say if you're you're figuring out that riddle, it let's keep it simple, stupid. Let's look atEight to ten metrics and be clear-eyed on what we should make our immediate, what I'll call low-hanging fruit. And let's go get some quick wins as we're thinking about that remodel. Earn some trust. You can actually miss your first or second quarterly target if it's trending in the right direction with the plan, right? So I'm looking at okay, which verticals? Who do I have here that can actuallyStay with the company as we as we scale. Again, a series A pirate, a hunter, might not necessarily be the right fit for a series B. You're going to look at which use cases, the sales cycling, your win rate, your your deal size land versus expand. And then through all of that, you can start to put in place what I would call your vertical structure, which I know we're gonna talk a little bit about today, but I thinkMost CROs that come into these roles at this point, I think what happens when they're trying to solve this riddle is is they see eight, ten, twelve, fourteen things that they could do and they try to do all of them when they should probably only be doing one or two of them and go get those wins and then go build out from there.Mark (06:41)Excellent. So Rick, most earlier stage CROs and are in a standard shape. They come in, there's a sales director of some sort, an SDR, customer success person. What do you what do you keep from that initial structure and shape? And where do you immediately give yourself permissions to kind of blow it up and start again?Rick Nee (07:01)So a few things. I love this question. And I would say 10 years ago I was probably at fault for what I'm gonna tell you say not to do. but I guess as you get older and you've been through this a few times, you you learn you learn from those mistakes and you and you try to do the right thing moving forward. And and for me, you see this a lot with job this you see this a lot with job roles, open CRO roles or VP of sales roles. It's like we're looking for someone with a playbook.And it's like, okay, great. Well, the playbook for cyber company A or physical company B doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna take that playbook and it's gonna be a perfect overlay. And if anyone says that, I have a playbook and it will I can just turn this thing on, then you should run the other way. I think there's a lot that we've learned in the industry. I think there's more data.There's more networking opportunities. There's podcasts like this where there's lots of nuggets and things that you can extract from, right? I was listening to one six months ago and a CRO had said, hey, you should really look at your webinars and doing them this way. And I thought, that's a great idea. I haven't haven't looked at that. So great. So that, you know, you you're gonna take some of those new things and add it. But I would say any playbook that you're gonna bring in and assume it's gonna work somewhere else. Let's say it's 50.To 70% applicable, which means there's a pretty big could be 50%, it could be 30%, that you're gonna have to call audibles and and lean into what the business needs, right? so for us, vertical pod, everyone's gonna tell you, hey, you're gonna need a sales director, you're gonna need an SDR, you're gonna need success person, you're gonna need, you're gonna need this.I think, yes, I think the I think the clarity of role is very important. But you know, for us, it's been SDR sales directors. we have our inside sales rep that look that is doing some of that success stuff and some of the renewal stuff. We have channel account managers that are doing a little bit of a a different role than you would see in other orgs where they're helping us drive lead generation, but not necessarily deals. and we've had to like lean in heavily. We have found through our data.That service and support is super critical to retaining and expanding customers. Sounds obvious, but when you have an early Series B company and you have cash and you're making investments, the easy button is to say, I'm just gonna go hire more sales directors. I'm gonna go hire more SDRs. I'm go. And I think before you do that, you should understand your buyer journey and look at the complexity of what you're selling. And my last company, out of the box cloud cyber tool.The post and pre-sale support on the technical side was not as great. And so the the answer was you should accelerate sales directors and SDRs. Here, we are selling a physical security solution that's very simple to deploy, but based on what our customer wants with that, and if they're doing an on-prem deployment or they're gonna they want us to be baked into their environment, those are a little bit more complex. And so we have found we need.Just as many folks post-sale as we do pre-sale. again, that was not something from my playbook. So I think you have to look at the buyer journey. You have to look at what's working, where customers are happy, where things are sticky, and and go there. And and don't be afraid to question those that are overly dogmatic on hey, you need to be using these AI, these nine AI tools, and you need to have a person, a success team that's this big based on the series or revenue or.Then you should I should always start with the well, why? What are they doing?What are they not doing? What what is this role doing? And so I'm a big believer in giving folks enrolls multiple things to do, to stretch them where they might be doing renewals and mid market sales, or they might be doing success and post sale this or deployment and and pre-sales engineering, whatever. I just I think you have to look at what's right.And the gift that keeps on giving there, Mark, is a lot of thought leaders in the in the go-to-market space will say, Well, you need this size team and you need to do this. And then I think the answer is, well, I have limited capital. So I have to I have to make the most efficient, effective investments here. And often that means a series B whereYou're asking people to do multiple things. And then it's into a role that's not the traditional customer success role. It's not a traditional renewal specialist. They're doing multiple things. I think the more you grow up and you go to Series C, Series D, or IPO, then specialization probably becomes more and more relevant, right? but I think at B, you still want folks that are a bit ofgeneralists in some of the roles that they're doing so that you ca…

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Ep. 144 – Building Predictable Pipeline and Breaking Revenue Silos with Thurman Sneed - Part 2 Sep 16, 2026

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General Episode Description:In Part 2 of Selling Intelligence, Thurman Sneed, Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, returns to show how the same “do the math” mindset can transform everything from account coverage and customer conversations to seller development and AI adoption. Thurman explains why Marigold moved from a round robin model to vertical specialization, how CSMs and SDRs can grow into revenue generating roles, and why a tighter ICP helps teams focus their resources where they can create the most impact.The conversation also explores how sellers can use customer data and benchmark insights to build stronger business cases and quantify value for executives. Thurman shares how his team is applying AI to sales coaching, account preparation, pipeline generation, and churn prediction, while keeping human judgment at the center. The goal is not AI for the sake of AI. It is using technology where it can genuinely improve speed, capacity, decision making, and revenue outcomes.What You’ll Learn:Vertical Specialization: Why moving away from round robin account assignment can help sellers develop deeper industry expertise and become trusted advisors.Turning CSM Knowledge into Revenue: How customer success teams can use their existing customer knowledge and relationships to identify expansion opportunities.Building the Next Generation of Sellers: Why giving SDRs opportunities to own and close smaller deals can accelerate their development and create stronger career paths.Getting Serious About ICP: How focusing on the right markets and customers can improve efficiency across sales, marketing, and customer success.Selling with Customer Math: How benchmark data and ROI calculations can help sellers turn value propositions into compelling executive business cases.AI That Earns Its Place: How AI can improve sales preparation, coaching, research, pipeline generation, and decision making without removing human judgment.Using AI to Predict Churn: Why clean, accessible data is critical for identifying customer risk before it becomes a lost account.Key Topics:Vertical sales specializationIdeal customer profile strategySDR development and career progressionCustomer success expansion opportunitiesROI based sellingBenchmark data in sales conversationsExecutive level value sellingAI enabled sales coachingSales productivity and capacityAI and revenue team efficiencyChurn prediction and customer retentionHuman judgment in AI driven salesGuest Spotlight: Thurman SneedThurman Sneed is the Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, where he leads sales, customer success, revenue operations, and marketing. With a career that began in accounting and auditing before expanding into operations and revenue leadership, Thurman brings a distinctive financial and operational perspective to the CRO role. His leadership philosophy centers on disciplined execution, data driven decision making, cross-functional alignment, and helping teams turn ambitious revenue goals into practical, achievable actions.Resources & Mentions:MarigoldVertical coverage modelsIdeal Customer Profile strategyROI calculators and benchmark dataAI enabled sales coachingChurn predictionThe Two Millimeter Club by AGS🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more GTM insights from leading voices in sales, revenue, and business growth. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.Mark (00:38)Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. If you're just joining in, you're in the right place. And if you come straight from part one, we picked up where we left off.KK Anderson (00:48)In part one, Thurman Sneed made three things clear. He came into the revenue seat through accounting and operations rather than through a quota. And that lens is why he thinks in arithmetic. He discovered that the individual level math he assumed his managers were doing with sellers was not actually happening. And he treats every function inside the company as a customer, which is what makes the outside selling work.Mark (01:14)So in part two we get practical. Thurman rebuilt the coverage model, taught people who have never carried a quota to carry one, pointed the same math at his customers, and now deciding where AI belongs in all of this. Thurman, welcome back. Let us pick up right here.Thurman (01:33)Thank you, Mark.Mark (01:34)So Thurman,Rebuilding the coverage model. So Thurman, you inherited a model where accounts were assigned round robin and reps were specialized by platform. What was the first change you made and why that one first?Thurman (01:48)Yeah, the first thing that we did is we decided that we were going to have a vertical coverage model as opposed to round robin. And I made that first because I wanted fo I wanted our sales team to learn the customer, to, to learn the terminology, to be very specific, and to enjoy, what they were doing every day, as opposed to today I wake up and I'm gonna be serving.this industry, the next day, I get a hospital, the next day I get an amusement park. It didn't seem fair, just from a basic level, so why not assign to a vertical and become specialist in that space?KK Anderson (02:23)So and in doing that allows them to almost brand their expertise and be thought of as trusted advisors and being able to solve the business problems that your customers are out there facing.Thurman (02:35)Yes, truly to be able to solve it in a in a very meaningful way because they understand how they drive their outcome. So back to doing the math, how do they actually need to produce their pipeline, their conversions, their sales, whatever that might be, even if it's a not for profit, how do they need to drive more donations? if it's a government entity, what are they trying to produce as an outcome as opposed to it being so different in every conversation?KK Anderson (03:03)Right. And your your product at Marigold is you know, they're they're looking for they're using Marigold because they want to drive business and communications and conversions and so that's that's really important. Mm-hmm.Thurman (03:18)With specificaudiences. And it's not always the same way that you drive that contentKK Anderson (03:23)Right. AndThurman (03:24)to those audiences.KK Anderson (03:25)it's definitely a way to create differentiation, When you can help with their problems. So you gave people who had been processing renewals for years a quota. So they're not used to a quota. It's kind of like handing the finance guy a quota, like you got,Thurman (03:39)This is that.KK Anderson (03:39)and you told them, you know, you're gonna train them and tell them to take advantage of of what they did not realize they already knew. And soLike what what did that teaching look like week to week? We have so many, we have so many customers. I've seen it a hundred times, where all of a sudden a CSM turns into a, quota carrying member of the sales team. So tell us how you did it.Thurman (04:00)Well, one of the first things is to inject confidence in what they already knew. They have been involved in so many customer conversations. So many times a customer has has actually explained to them the pain that they are actually that they endure. And I love it when it's a case of when we bring on a new customer and that CSM is onboarding them and they're connecting with the challenge that they were having elsewhere.Right. So they have learned that or they were learning that over the years, but not necessarily turning that lens and looking at it from a different angle. What if I took these customers that I have made happy and asked them to introduce me to another department at a university? Or is literally leveraging the relationships that they had built with their customer set? Right.And so the training became more of let's inject the confidence because you know the platform better than some of our brand new sellers right now. You actually live in the platform. You've lived the customer experience. You've gone through the benchmark conversations and the performance conversations with a customer. Change that lens to someone that is reaching out that has not experienced that yet.Mark (05:12)Yeah, and I love how, Thurman, you're taking this more into the prescripted side. So let's go even a little further. you moved your SDRs from setting meetings to owning and closing the smaller deals themselves. What does that do for a seller's development, particularly an early stage seller, that handing off the meeting could never do?Thurman (05:34)Yeah, and we didn't move them holistically, but what I wanted to do was to ensure that our SDR team had a career path and that they understood that career path very early versus late. Right. And so ultimately that close closing of the deal is what we all think of, that's the account executive, But if we could help them get a little feel for why am I passing off this customer that I can go ahead and assist now?I understand why why do I need to set up a meeting and make them wait a few days or a period of time when I can go ahead and service service them? And that's what an AE needs to do, If I can solve that pain, I can hear that pain, I'm hearing the challenges. Let's just go ahead and close the deal. and when they get ready and they're further into their career, a year, 18 months into their career, and they're ready to go toThat transition is so much faster. But at the same time, what it allows is it allows me to know who really does not want to do sales. Right. And do you want to be an SDR for from a career perspective? That's also okay. Do you want to transition and become a CSM one day? That's also okay. Right. But it allows those that are in this position that we traditionally think of as our bench for sales.to be able to make that career decision very early.KK Anderson (06:54)So y you put it you in one of your th your therminisms, In the in our prep video was we started talking. you put it as eighty twenty, stop fishing in oceans, fish in lakes and ponds, do the math. No, how do you pick which lakes?Thurman (07:08)With to to be maniacal about the true ICP. weKK Anderson (07:12)Love that.Thurman (07:12)and again, there's it's easier coming out of my mouth than it sometimes is, but it's actually possible. Especially, you know, you go into a situation, it's like, wow, we're marketing to such a large audience. How can we make sure that a smaller audience actually hears us, though? And is thatWhen you do the math, is that gonna have more ROI and efficiency than trying to be so wide? And every single time it does. And so I used this literally the other day and I had to explain it, but I said, I'm fishing for wells and ponds. I know that that doesn't sound right, but I think everybody understands what I'm trying to say. I'm gonna focus on this vertical and I am going to go after fewer, right?wells in that pond because I'm so focused and I know that we can serve them, When you fish in too big of an ocean, you're trying to sell sell to everyone, you're not helping your marketing team, you're not helping your sales team and helping them get educated, on a space that we can work. You're not you're not helping those SDRs. Everybody's kind of everywhere and not knowing how to really hit the outcome.KK Anderson (08:18)I love it. We had a guest recently on our podcast and his his saying was you can't teach a fish to climb a tree.Thurman (08:26)I like that. I might have to have it to reuse that one.KK Anderson (08:28)We're gonna have to have some outtakes. Outtakes of all the the fun analogies that we get on the show.Mark (08:29)Yeah.Thurman (08:34)Yeah.Mark (08:34)All right, so let's to our next topic here. so you've taught your team how to do the math from a sales perspective. Let's go into a little bit of doing the math for and with the customer. So your company has years of benchmark data sitting inside a platform that nobody was using in a sales conversation. What changed the first time?a seller put it in front of a customer and how has it evolved from there?Thurman (09:03)Yeah, this this is probably one of the most fun things because this this ties into the teaching. It's and it also ties into the cross-functional are CSMs using this with customers. This is where you are. But guys, wait a minute. Salespeople, about this on the front end? That's exactly what your prospects are trying to achieve. So the first time this happened, a rep put together their own ROI calculator.And they said it to the customer that was apprehensive about going ahead and signing a deal. And they needed to be able to show this to their board member to get approval. That was the that was the very first time. And then the next thing you know, is like we have a signed deal in two days. It was just it's awesome to see because I wasn't involved in it. It was the teaching starting to take place. I have this information that you actually don't have. This is how you compare to others and how.Our software, our recommended change in process is gonna help you achieve these numbers.KK Anderson (09:58)You told us about one one of your sellers walked a CEO through what a cheaper alternative would have cost him in emails. You know, Marigold is an email communication platform.Thurman (10:07)Yes.KK Anderson (10:09)and like what it would cost him in emails that never reach an inbox. And you know, heThurman (10:14)soKK Anderson (10:14)came back and signed the next day. Tell tell us a little bit about that story.Thurman (10:17)Yeah, thisone had to do with deliverability. And we know that you know some platforms don't have as high deliverability rates as others. and the rep explained, hey, you can go with that option, but let me just give you one metric, deliverability, right? And if you do the math on that deliverability, you may have forty thousand fewer emails hitting the inbox. How would that if you go through your math and your conversion, howKK Anderson (10:40)Yep.Thurman (10:41)would that translate into the lower tiers? And it becamethe light bulb moment for the CEO when he signed the next day. SoKK Anderson (10:49)Right.Thurman (10:50)just awesome.Mark (10:50)Love it.KK Anderson (10:51)And it's ironicMark (10:51)SoKK Anderson (10:52)too, 'cause it's all part of the conversion math for a seller, right? How manyThurman (10:56)Yes.KK Anderson (10:57)emails do you have to send to get these conversions to get the get the conversation? So yeah, cool.Mark (11:02)So Thurm Thurman,Thurman (11:03)Exact same.Mark (11:04)yep, what what about what has to be true about a seller before you really can trust them to make a numbers argument in front of an an executive?Thurman (11:13)But they get the numbers for themselves.KK Anderson (11:17)That's so good.Thurman (11:19)Yes. and that's why I wanna make sure that they get the numbers for themselves. If they can do the math for themselves, they can do the math for any customer.KK Anderson (11:26)Right. So, for our CRO audience out there, you know, most most of most companies, most BDB companies are probably sitting on all kinds of data that they have not ever thought about being able to quantify and turn into an ROI, or selling argument. would you agree with that? Like I just like kind of what comes to mind as I as I say that, do you think that'sThurman (11:47)When I go back through the history of the many companies that I've worked for, IKK Anderson (11:50)Mm-hmm.Thurman (11:51)absolutely agree with that. And it it goes back to and I this happens unnaturally or naturally, I guess you would say, that folks end up in silos and you just don't know. And it's just if you don't end up in environments where you're sharing and speaking and finding…

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Ep. 143 – Building Predictable Pipeline and Breaking Revenue Silos with Thurman Sneed - Part 1 Sep 09, 2026

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General Episode Description:In this episode of Selling Intelligence, Thurman Sneed, Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to unpack a simple but often overlooked discipline in revenue leadership: do the math. Drawing from his background in finance, operations, and revenue leadership, Thurman explains how sellers can turn an intimidating quota into a practical action plan by understanding their pipeline, win rates, gaps, and the time they have left to close them.The conversation also explores how Thurman’s finance background shapes the way he approaches forecasting, pipeline quality, and cross-functional leadership. He shares why revenue teams need a single source of truth, how leaders can eliminate bloated pipeline, and why sales, marketing, customer success, and RevOps perform better when they understand each other’s goals and operate as one connected revenue organization.What You’ll Learn:Do the Math: How to break quota goals into pipeline requirements, win rates, and achievable daily actions.Pipeline Gap Planning: How sellers can use existing pipeline, marketing, SDRs, and customer success relationships to build a realistic path to quota.The Value of Time: Why starting pipeline generation early gives sellers more ways to close the gap and avoid end-of-year pressure.Forecasting with a Finance Mindset: How financial discipline helps leaders identify inflated pipeline and focus on opportunities that are actually real.One Source of Truth: Why shared data and reporting create better conversations across sales, marketing, finance, and operations.Breaking Revenue Silos: How understanding the goals of adjacent teams can improve selling, customer handoffs, retention, and overall revenue performance.Key Topics:Pipeline math and quota attainmentIndividual seller forecastingWin rates and pipeline coveragePipeline quality and deal qualificationRevenue forecastingFinance driven revenue leadershipSales accountability and coachingCross-functional revenue alignmentSales, marketing, and customer success collaborationBreaking organizational silosSingle source of truth for revenue teamsGuest Spotlight: Thurman SneedThurman Sneed is the Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, where he leads sales, customer success, revenue operations, and marketing. With a career that began in accounting and auditing before expanding into operations and revenue leadership, Thurman brings a distinctive financial and operational perspective to the CRO role. His leadership philosophy centers on disciplined execution, data driven decision making, cross-functional alignment, and helping teams turn ambitious revenue goals into practical, achievable actions.Resources & Mentions:MarigoldPipeline management and forecastingRevenue OperationsCross-functional revenue alignmentThe Two Millimeter Club by AGS🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more GTM insights from leading voices in sales, revenue, and business growth. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.Mark (00:30)Welcome to Selling Intelligence. I am Mark Petruzzi here as always with KK Anderson. Today we are talking about a phrase that most revenue leaders say and almost nobody actually does.KK Anderson (00:43)Do the math. Our guest uses it with his team constantly, and the first time you hear it, you might think it sounds a little cold, but it's quite the opposite. He uses it to take a seller who is convinced they are going to miss and show them on paper why they are not and how they can close the gap.Mark (01:02)So Thurman Sneed is the chief revenue officer at Marigold. He started his career as an auditor at Arthur Anderson, spent years running go-to-market operations. He has sat in the chief operating officer seat, and now leads revenue. Thurman, welcome to the show.Thurman (01:20)Thank you, Mark. Glad to be here.Mark (01:22)Welcome to Selling Intelligence. I am Mark Petruzzi with KK Anderson and this is the show for revenue leaders who would rather diagnose than guess.KK Anderson (01:32)Here's the thing that got our attention. Our guest spent years in operations assuming that sales managers underneath him were sitting down with individual sellers and walking them through their numbers. Then he took the revenue seat and found out that they were not. Not the team level math, the individual level math.Mark (01:49)Thurman Sneed, aka the Thurminator, I've heard that recently, is the chief revenue officer at Marigo, where he owns sales, customer success, revenue operations, and marketing. He came up through accounting and operations rather than through a quota, which makes him a rare profile in this seat and a very powerful one. Thurman, thanks for being here.Thurman (02:14)Thank you, Mark, for having me. I'm excited.Mark (02:16)So you have a phrase your team hears from you constantly. Do the math. Take us inside the first time you sat down with a rep and actually did it. What went on that that page?Thurman (02:28)Well, the first thing that went on that page was a little bit of a challenge in asking what is your current pipeline? And you might think that the person would reel that off just really quickly, but it wasn't that quick. So the but that was the first part of the math. What is your current pipeline? Okay. So once we get to that number, I ask a second question. What is your win rate? Your personal win rate.On top of what is the win rate for that vertical, that industry? What what have others experienced potentially? Especially in the c in this particular case, it was a new rep. And I wanted to make sure that this individual knew the history of this particular vertical. And so we went on a journey for every step. That win rate, I letThe individual rep picked what they wanted to use versus the historical because they were more conservative than the historical. The second piece of that was all right, there's a gap there once you exhaust your existing pipeline. Let's take that gap, apply that same win rate the opposite way, right? And that's that's how much pipeline you need to be able to see that has the potential to close in the in the rest of the year.So you can think about that and say, I like to think of things in a very similar way that I do in real estate because I love investing in real estate. But how many different ways can you close that gap now with 11 months left? Way one, marketing didn't turn off. So you're going to continue to get some business from marketing inbound leads. Number two, you have an SDR that's assigned to work with you.What are you two going to work together to go get from two perspectives? One from a new division or cross-selling type of perspective, and one from a new logo in your territory perspective. But how are you going to map that out and drive the amount of pipeline that you want to see and close, still applying that same win rate to it? And then the last piece I wanted them to understand.Is don't forget that there's a CSM in the organization or CSMs, it could be plural, that are also working in your same vertical. Have you had a conversation with them? Have you become friends? Are you all working as a team to realize that part of you closing your number is actually them introducing you to people that they know, giving you referrals?And so by the time we finished that conversation, someone that was thinking, my God, how in the world am I going to hit my quota? It had been put into more digestible chunks and an action plan that they could go and take and say, most importantly, if I start this today versus starting this six months from now, I'm going to blow my quota out. Right. And that's what IKK Anderson (05:12)I love it.Thurman (05:13)want this individual to leave the table with.KK Anderson (05:15)I love it. And you if you've got someone's average deal size, you've got their win rate, you've got, their quota, you can so easily back into the number of activities that they need to generate to be able to, you know, and then have your conversion rates every step of way. You need to make this many phone calls and this many people, this percent will answer, this percent won't. The ones that answer, this percent will be a qualified, this percent won't.For the ones that are qualified, and it just goes trickles trickles down. But to the point where that every single day, well, I mean, like for me, for example, if I don't have at least 10 calls that are related to a an op a business opportunity on my calendar, there's a big problem. Right.Thurman (05:58)Yes.KK Anderson (05:59)And so, and I know that I need to reach out to, you know, a hundred people a week.And if I do that, then then I'm gonna be able to feed, feed that, feed that pipeline. And so, and you mentioned a new rep, and the new rep has a lot of resources behind them, like you said, through SDR and CSM and getting referrals. Tell me about how you apply this for like your your long-standing reps who aren't who maybe they know what they need to be doing, but they're not doing it.Thurman (06:25)It's exactly the same math, believe it or not. And the and the thing is the beauty of it being a new rep is that the new rep gets to start it from the beginning of their journey. For a rep that has been doing it, they might have picked up the habits of not doing the math and sitting down, not just at the beginning of a fiscal year, but all the time. Because once that becomes a consistent thing, they will never find themselves without pipeline. But we all know.We find we find reps that end up in a situation where they don't have pipeline and it's because they stopped doing the math.KK Anderson (06:57)That's right.Mark (06:58)So Thurman, you put time into the equation as well, not just the overall pipeline. So what does a seller understand differently once they see what eleven months buys them compared to ten months compared to less than that?Thurman (07:15)Yeah, so what a what a rep is gonna see is that they're gonna run out of time if they don't start today. if youMark (07:20)Mm-hmm.Thurman (07:20)if you if you and it goes it could actually apply to anything in our lives, and that's that's really the way that I try to bring it home. Most of us have something personal that we want to try to take care of in a certain period of time, and it's it makes the conversation easier.When you can apply it back to the business perspective too. Right? So you can only get so far if you run out of time. You some at some point in time, the end of that quota year happens. And I can do, I can do nothing about it. Whether that is going to my marketing team and saying, hey, can we make a correction? Whether that is going to my CSM and saying, Hey, can you introduce me to this person today versus three months from now?Every every bit of that time makes a difference.KK Anderson (08:08)So every CRO listening right now, Thurman, I could almost guarantee it has a seller on their team who is qu probably quietly certain they are they're gonna miss their number. They're not gonna they're not gonna hit it. What are what are if you are that CRO and you have a seller in that position, like what's the first thing you're gonna do with them? The first three numbers you're gonna put in front.Thurman (08:31)Well the first the first numbers that I'm gonna put in front of them isDid you what did you do last year? Or what did you do last period? And try to get to the point of understanding how did that occur? Did that occur through volume? Did that occur through some anomaly? Because again, back to if you're if you didn't do the preparation before, you only can drive so much in a certain period of time. So do you need to go produce an anomaly?for whatever that anomaly might be in your size of business, or do you need to go after volume? and those those can be those can result in different actions. So the first thing is what is the gap? How can I actually close that gap? Can I close that gap with three or do I need 20 types of things toKK Anderson (09:15)And then you put them on some kind of a tighter accountability cadence with you?Thurman (09:19)Tighter,tighter account yes, tighter accountability with the management team, tighter accountability with marketing,KK Anderson (09:25)Mm-hmm.Thurman (09:26)to go and close that gap in a meaningful way. Everything needs to come down to the point that it's achievable. Not not something that is a pipe dream, so to speak. It needs to be written down in a way that the rep believes that their counterparts believe when I say counterparts, their teammates believe that it can be achieved.KK Anderson (09:45)Mm-hmm.Mark (09:45)All right. Well, let's, Thurman, let's take you back to your your journey from the finance seat to the revenue seat. you started your career as an auditor and an accountant, and somewhere along the way, I would imagine that somebody, CIO or someone else, tapped you on the shoulder and told you to go lead a CRM project. And I do know that you've you got into the first C.CRM project and you said you had some really big takeaways, especially from your finance perspective to begin with. What did what did you see by working with the sales team for the first time in your career?Thurman (10:25)Well, working with I realized I worked with fine, I mean with the sales team from the jump, really. so when I left Arthur Anderson and I got into my first role, I didn't think of it that way. I was still in fine finance and including the opportunity that you're alluding to, I was still squarely in finance. but I was in a cross functional type of finance role. I was to help them do their pipeline management.I was to help them do their forecasting, even revenue recognition off the deals that they booked. And so because of that, I just I developed a a different type of relationship than a lot of people developed, mainly because of the setup of that type of organization and how we were in the middle and the glue between the sales team and the rest of the organization.KK Anderson (11:12)So for years you were the right hand to a series of CEROs doing doing the work they were uncomfortable right? Going to finance, going to marketing, building the report. So what what does a revenue leader gain when they stop hand handing those conversations to somebody else?Thurman (11:30)To me, you gain respect and the ability to have conversations when in a non-threatening type of way. I think a lot of times when a CRO would go to a finance person, it becomes a you better do this, or I need you to do this, or that type of thing. And having that finance background, I could understand why finance might say no. And then I could return that back around into.why finance would say yes. And I could only do that because of that, that finance background that I had. And I because I knew what they were trying to protect the company from or what have you. Same thing from an operational perspective is when we when we would develop reports and things along those lines, I wanted to avoid people coming into a room and saying your report is wrong. Or those are not the numbers that I see.And so because I was in that again, finance operational type of lens all the time, we I want to remove those types of barriers. Here's our single source of truth. We're all going to come to the meeting and we're going to use the same report. And at first, that is extremely uncomfortable for people to do. One, because they want to speak from their report and their lens. And another is that's not gonna necessarily show me in the greatest light, right?But when onceKK Anderson (12:46)Yeah.Thurman (12:47)you start to operate as a team and you pull the thread all the way through, and everybody understands, what, we have the same goal. At the end of t…

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Ep. 142 – Measuring AI ROI and Turning Adoption into Business Outcomes with Denis Scott - Part 2 Sep 02, 2026

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General Episode Description:In Part 2 of this conversation, Denis Scott continues the discussion by exploring what AI accountability looks like inside boardrooms, executive teams, and private equity backed organizations. He explains why leaders must move beyond tracking AI adoption and begin measuring how AI investments contribute to business performance, operational efficiency, and long term enterprise value.The conversation also examines what separates AI mature organizations from those still experimenting with adoption. Denis shares why AI fluency is becoming a competitive advantage, how organizations can build stronger measurement frameworks, and why the future belongs to companies that combine human judgment with AI driven execution.What You’ll Learn:What boards expect to see when evaluating AI investmentWhy AI measurement is becoming essential during due diligence and company exitsHow AI maturity differs from simple AI adoptionWhy AI fluency creates stronger business outcomesHow marketing leaders can measure AI performance inside their teamsPractical ways organizations can improve AI adoption across departmentsWhy adaptability is becoming one of the most valuable leadership skillsHow to balance AI efficiency with human creativity and decision makingKey Topics:AI governanceAI measurementPrivate equity and AIBoard reportingAI fluencyEnterprise AI strategyMarketing leadershipBusiness outcomesAI adoptionOrganizational changeAI ROIExecutive leadershipGuest Spotlight: Denis ScottDenis Scott is the Chief Marketing Officer at Laradin, an AI execution intelligence company focused on helping organizations measure AI adoption, productivity, and business impact. Prior to Laradin, Denis held senior marketing leadership roles at OpenTable, Lyft, SurveyMonkey, Fanatics Betting and Gaming, CharterUp, and other leading technology companies, where he built data driven marketing organizations and enterprise growth strategies.Resources & Mentions:LaradinAI execution intelligenceAI fluencyAI ROIEnterprise AI measurementPrivate equity advisory🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with today’s leading revenue executives, AI innovators, and GTM leaders. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.Mark Petruzzi (00:00)Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. I'm Mark Petruzzi.Alan Rudolph (00:03)And I'm Alan Rudolph. This is part two with Dennis Scott, CMO of Laradin. Be sure to go back and listen to part one fascinating discussion. this broad, you know, where are we today in this in this AI world? But if you want to start here, let's bring you up to speed. Dennis Scott spent over 20 years in marketing at firms like Open Table and Lyft, SurveyMonkey, Fanatics, Betting, and Gaming before becoming CMO of Charter Up. In partOne, he told us what brought him into Laradin, an AI execution intelligence company built to answer the question most enterprises cannot answer today. Is the AI spend actually working? He walked us through why 72% of enterprises call AI adoption their biggest challenge. I mean, just fascinating data. And how does Laradin Scott platform reveal when companies finally see their ownAI usage data.Mark Petruzzi (00:59)So in part two, we get into the boardroom where we love to be. What this means for private equity bac pr private equity backed companies staring down an exit, and what it actually looks like on the other side once an organization gets measurement done right, whether they are a private equity portfolio company, other s medium sized organizations, or even the enterprise ones. We're all stressing andbeing challenged by the same things. Dennis, welcome back.Denis Scott (01:28)Thankyou for having me back. This is great. Yeah, I really enjoyed the conversation in the first one.Alan Rudolph (01:32)You know, Dennis, as I sit in board meetings where AI spend is being, addressed at a line item level, and sponsors are asking about measurement, about business value, and management teams are trying to defend what they did, why they did it, where where is my expense? Where's my capital allocation, etc.? What should a portfolio company CEO be able to show a board today that most simply cannot?Denis Scott (01:58)Yeah, this is exactly where our product lands often is in board conversations, right? And so we are finding that teams are leveraging our Larid and data to have those conversations. And so what they're really trying to show the board is is really the two thing, well, three things I should say. One, how has our organization adopted AI, So is it is it only engineering? Is it across functions? What what does it look like AI within within the the company?The second thing is, what does our spend look like on AI? AndAlan Rudolph (02:30)Mm.Denis Scott (02:31)that number, whatever that number may be, naturally that leads to, well, I don't know, is that good or bad? Are we spending enough or are we doing too little? so then that naturally leads to, well, what are the business outcomes from that investment? And so as a marketer, I think about you ask those same questions around a marketing budget, Like, wow, this is an investment. What are we getting for that?How is it looking?Alan Rudolph (02:52)Mm.Denis Scott (02:52)How is it impacting the business? And so really leaders should be able to go into those boardrooms and have that conversation. And that's exactly why we find a lot of organizations coming to us and saying, I have this problem. I don't know how to answer these questions. Right.Alan Rudolph (03:07)Gotit.Mark Petruzzi (03:07)So Dennis, with the world class companies that you have been the marketing leader of and the rooms you have been in with executive teams on board having to defend your budgets and proving impact, what's the difference between a CMO who can walk into that conversation with data and the one that who's still working off of andotes?Denis Scott (03:29)I think it's the a piece, and I'm glad you asked that, Mark. It's a piece that's really helped me define my own career. I actually learned early on that senior marketing leaders that were really successful actually are are able to speak to data and look at things like ROI and investments and budgets and forecasts.I think now marketing leaders are actually facing this new question, which everybody's facing, which is not only what is your marketing investment, but how are you leveraging AI with that? And being able to speak to those, I think is really starting to separate the the CMO world in many ways. I've always realized going into a conversation with CEOs and CFOs,The creative is great and they love to see that and that represents the brand, but they're naturally going to ask you, what are the outcomes? Right. And so I think AI is the same way for marketing leaders. What are the outcomes? What are you seeing from that? so I just think I've seen it all over LinkedIn that the the role of a CMO has changed to sort of almost like a part data analyst slash engineer in some ways, right?Alan Rudolph (04:35)awesome. So put your put yourself in the seat of a portfolio company six months before sale. What would you tell them to start measuring right now so that when AI adoption gets discussed during the due diligence process, you can drive the conversation versus, sort of s you know, the blank stare what as the questions get asked.Denis Scott (04:57)Yeah, I think the the idea here, Alan, is you want to be concrete, You want when posed that question, you want to be able to say, this is how we're using AI. This is how much it's costing us, and this is what we're using it for. And that's how this drives the business, right? And if you think about a conversation where you walk in and say, Hey, we have great AI adoption. we think the costs are this. I don't know exactlyAlan Rudolph (05:20)Mm-hmm.Denis Scott (05:21)what it's doing.It's going to be tricky because as on those exits, a lot of that is the a lot of the due diligence is around the numbers, And so the more concrete you can be across all of those numbers, the more confidence you're gonna build in and be able to close that deal. I just think we we can't avoid that these questions are coming around AI for everybody,Mark Petruzzi (05:42)Yeah, and just to remind everyone that we use these examples around private equity for two reasons. One is we have a very successful private equity group that Alan leads for us at AGS. but even Alan is not a private equity own only guy. He's been in in in many publicly traded companies and other types of companies throughout his career. So Dennis, when you when you look at that, againwhen you're dealing with a public company, you have a very, very distinct process where everything is being analyzed of every quarter of every year. is is this a good analogy that we're doing with private equity? Because now private private equity has has built those kind of processes. They look at it very similar to what what needs to happen for a public company from a reporting perspective. Is there anyAre there any differences or is it just a nice setup that just allows you to work with companies, whether they are, private equity owned or whether they are public organizations as well?Denis Scott (06:43)It's good question, Mark. I think about it in terms of of of one of the words I love to use for marketers as well is accountability. And IAlan Rudolph (06:50)Mm-hmm.Denis Scott (06:51)I think that's really the idea behind the process. every three months, when I worked in public companies and I worked in prepping for their earnings calls and even joining their earnings calls, marketing was always a big topic, And it was because, outside of salaries and if you were in a retail company leases.Marketing was one of the larger line items. So naturally analysts would push on that, right? And say, Well, how's this working? And I used to think to myself after we got off the call, okay, I've got three months until I have to be able to say something again of what we've done. Right. And it sort of it creates that sense of urgency. Like I can't go backAlan Rudolph (07:23)Right.Denis Scott (07:27)and say, Well, I didn't do anything the last three months, And I think in a world where AI is changing.not weekly. I mean, it's changing daily, if not hourly, To to wait three months feels fair because three months from now, who knows what AI is going to look like, what models are out there, how teams are usingAlan Rudolph (07:44)Mm.Denis Scott (07:45)it. And so I think private equity adopting that notion of that kind of quarterly check-in and what's changing what is completely fair in a world that's moving this fast. so yeah.I liked the model that held me accountable as a CMO for sure. and so I think adopting that, I just think the complexity of it might be doing that across a whole portfolio of companies is is obviously more complex, You have to be theMark Petruzzi (08:06)Yes. Yeah.Alan Rudolph (08:07)Yep, yep.Denis Scott (08:08)analyst for a lot of earnings calls, if you will.Mark Petruzzi (08:11)Yeah.Yeah.Alan Rudolph (08:11)Yeah.Mark Petruzzi (08:12)And the good news with private equity firms, almost all of them are managing very tightly to each quarter. So it's really no different than a public approach. Matter of fact, some of them are are really looking at every one of those numbers monthly as well to make sure they don't find themselves behind the eight ball. Okay. So the next topic, the path forward, what AI mature organizations actually look like. These are thethe ones that you described that have really built up their acumen versus, a lot of companies that are still just trying to get a feel for AI. So whenAlan Rudolph (08:48)Mm.Mark Petruzzi (08:49)you look across organizations already using Laradin's data well, what do AI mature ones actually do differently day to day? Not just what shows up on a dashboard.Denis Scott (09:00)Yeah, it it's interesting. I think the the even the idea that organizations are are coming to Lariden shows that they are very aware of of this AI challenge, the the ones that may not be thinking about this yet. And we have conversations with companies that are very frank and say, Hey, I haven't we haven't really even started our AI journey yet. Can you can you help us here, That that does still exist. ButIf you think about it, we have clients across so many different verticals, We have healthcare,Alan Rudolph (09:29)Mm-hmm.Denis Scott (09:31)tech, travel, construction, right? AI is one of the most interesting things in our lifetimes of how it's really across every industry. I mean, doctors are using like it's just so interesting, the adoption of it. And I think those that are embracing it and what we see in our data is.Some of our early customers are actually some of the most proficient, users of AI and really driving value out of it. And it in some ways it was almost like a gut check, Like I'm doing this right. and so I think those organizations that have been embracing it, open-minded to it, and also finding pockets where it could be better or I'm not using the right tool, those sort of things, those companies are actually seeing a tremendous amount of value.not only in understanding their data, but also just in knowing where they're at. And the horizontal nature of our product, there's also usually an opportunity, you'll find a function or a team where it's like, as much as w these teams are using it, this team is maybe lagging a little bit. Right. And so it also gives you a little a sense of focus. And I think that's what really separates them is that all teams are are leveraging AI across the organization to drive more of those business outcomes in their areas.Alan Rudolph (10:42)Got it. Great Dennis. so as you're talkingMark Petruzzi (10:43)Before weAlan Rudolph (10:44)about these with these different, pros customers today across all these industries, you track something called AI fluency, different than just adoption. What's the difference, Why does the leadership team need to care about fluency versus adoption?Denis Scott (10:59)So the easiest way to describe this is adoption. And I'll go back to a world that I lived in. And when we had to report to our private equity owners on on that quarterly basis, I would generally just ask my teams, are you using AI? And it was a yes, no, right. And then,Alan Rudolph (11:16)Hmm. Yep.Denis Scott (11:17)generally it was a survey, and then I would say, Is it working? And a hundred times out of a hundred, everybody would say, Yes, right, becausewere set, were told, hey, you gotta adopt AI, and you don't want to say, no, it's not really working for me. Right. and so adoption tends to be yes-no type question throughout teams and functions. And you you always find there are teams not adopting it, and there's reasons why, or maybe it doesn't make sense.Alan Rudolph (11:40)Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.Denis Scott (11:42)or maybe they don't even have access to tools, I mean, and so it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a yes-no question. Fluency for us is reallyHow are you using these tools? Right. Are you just using the tool to do research that you could potentially do through search that, is now costing the company money that, you know, doesn't have to?Alan Rudolph (12:04)Used to be free,Denis Scott (12:05)free. That's right. Yeah. Or, the advertiser paid for it. Now it's your company's paying for it, right? And so do I need to be using AI for this? Is that the right tool?versus all the way up to like, hey, we're actually creating great code at a faster rate and we're using it for code review in this way. Like that's how we start to score what a…

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Ep. 141 – Measuring AI ROI and Turning Adoption into Business Outcomes with Denis Scott - Part 1 Aug 26, 2026

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General Episode Description:In this episode of Selling Intelligence, Denis Scott, Chief Marketing Officer at Laradin, joins Mark Petruzzi and Alan Rudolph to explore one of the biggest questions facing business leaders today: how do you measure whether AI is actually delivering business value?Drawing from his experience leading marketing at companies like OpenTable, Lyft, SurveyMonkey, and Fanatics, Denis explains why AI adoption is no longer enough. Organizations now need visibility into how AI is being used, where it creates measurable outcomes, and where it introduces unnecessary complexity. The conversation explores the challenges of measuring AI investments, hidden AI costs across organizations, and how executives can connect AI usage directly to business performance.What You’ll Learn:Why AI adoption alone is no longer a meaningful success metricHow organizations can connect AI usage to measurable business outcomesThe hidden AI costs most companies fail to trackWhy measuring AI proficiency matters more than measuring adoptionHow AI improves workflows when applied to the right business processesCommon mistakes organizations make when introducing AI into daily workWhy executive teams need visibility into enterprise wide AI usageHow AI measurement helps boards, CFOs, and executives make better investment decisionsKey Topics:AI measurement and ROIEnterprise AI adoptionAI proficiency versus adoptionHidden AI costsAI workflow optimizationMarketing leadershipExecutive decision makingAI governanceBusiness outcomesAI productivity measurementBoard reportingEnterprise technology strategyGuest Spotlight: Denis ScottDenis Scott is the Chief Marketing Officer at Laradin, an AI execution intelligence company focused on helping organizations measure AI adoption, productivity, and business impact. Prior to Laradin, Denis held senior marketing leadership roles at OpenTable, Lyft, SurveyMonkey, Fanatics Betting and Gaming, CharterUp, and other leading technology companies, where he built data driven marketing organizations and enterprise growth strategies.Resources & Mentions:LaradinComscoreOpenTableLyftSurveyMonkeyFanatics Betting and GamingCharterUpAI execution intelligenceAI ROI🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with today’s leading revenue executives, AI innovators, and GTM leaders. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.Mark Petruzzi (00:00)Welcome to Selling Intelligence. I'm Mark Petruzzi.Alan Rudolph (00:03)And I'm Alan Rudolph.Mark Petruzzi (00:04)Every company we work with has the same exact story right now. Budget is improved, tools rolled out, adoptions declared a win in some sort of a board deck, and almost nobody can tell you with real data whether any of it has moved the business at all.Alan Rudolph (00:22)Our guest built his career on the marketing side of some of the biggest consumer brands in tech, and now he's on the other side of that exact problem. Dennis Scott spent over 20 years leading marketing at Open Table, Lyft, SurveyMonkey, and Fanatics Betting and Gaming, and most recently served as CMO of Charter Up. He's now CMO of Laradin, an AI execution intelligence company built by the team that created the original.Digital Measurement Infrastructure at ComScore. Dennis, welcome to Selling Intelligence.Denis Scott (00:56)Hi everybody and Alan and Mark, thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.Mark Petruzzi (01:00)Excellent. So we'll jump right into topic one. it and it's entitled From Consumer Marketplaces to AI Measurement, Dennis's Plant Path to Laradin. So, Dennis, you spent your career building brands people trust. they trust the the those companies with their money and their time. Companies like Open Table, Lyft, SurveyMonkey.What did you see that pulled you towards an enterprise AI measurement company at this point in your career?Denis Scott (01:27)Yeah, I think I've had the fortune of working for some great brands throughout my career, which has been an incredible experience. But one of the things that, as a marketing leader, you're always accountable for is really the the measurement, given that you're you're usually one of the largest line items on a PL. And as we all know, this AI explosion three years ago, none of us were really living in this world. And nowIt's sort of the topic of the day every day, every and so as a marketing leader, one of the problems I saw was this is really hard to quantify and understand. And how do we how do we figure this out? And so when I learned and heard about Laridan and the team that was running it, I almost ran to it living here in the Bay Area, being surrounded by this AI challenge and opportunity.To know that somebody is actually solving how do I think about this? How do I understand this? And how do I communicate this to leadership, to boards, to investors?Alan Rudolph (02:26)Awesome. great intro, Dennis. So Laridan's entire pitch is built on radical honesty. Love that comment about what'sDenis Scott (02:34)Right.Alan Rudolph (02:35)actually happening within a company, within a company from an AI spend standpoint. And that's not always flattering, as we know in today's marketplace. So, how is marketing that kind of product different from marketing some of the journeys that you've been on more of a consumer brand?Denis Scott (02:52)Yeah, I steal from that old adage in marketing, half of my marketing is working, I just don't know which half. And so I think we should we should always be open to the idea that not everything is working. And you know, as a measurement platform and identifying opportunities for organizations through workflows, and we can get in deeper into that, I think it's actually important to share the good and the bad.Right, or I would say the good and the opportunity, right? And it is different than marketing a consumer brand because often a consumer brand, there's this this almost one-to-one relationship. Whereas in an enterprise type motion, you're you're solving across these large organizations, right? And those those opportunities that you're identifying.we are a very horizontal product working across all functions. You may not even know where those opportunities lie or where things are are going really well. And so I think you just are are talking about a one-to-many relationship and how we can help solve a f a, sort of organizational wide opportunity slash challenge, and so I think that's where.In a consumer brand, you could be talking to to people that fit your constituents, right? whatever it is.Alan Rudolph (04:05)Mm-hmm.Denis Scott (04:05)when I worked at Clorox, I worked on STP. It's like our our our target set was 18 to 34 year old males, And soMark Petruzzi (04:11)Mm-hmm.Denis Scott (04:12)that was that one-to-one relationship. Whereas now it's like, hey, you're talking to senior executives about, yeah, how do we understand this AI investment and what are the business outcomes we're seeing from it? So it's there's still a personal element to it, but it's amuch larger solved in some ways.Alan Rudolph (04:28)Got it.Mark Petruzzi (04:28)Yeah, and Dennis, what's interesting is when w as I've learned about Laradin over the last couple months, it strikes me as a company that is building that kind of consumer relationship just with executives rather than all consumers. So, and the way I look at it, especially having the the fact that I'm on two boards, any board directorshould be building their relationship with with Laradin because in that standpoint, these are all the things that at the board level and the senior executive level, these this is all the data you need to know, especially about something AI. And by the way, I think I'd like to take that quote you just made about marketing and make it about AI. because same thing, I know myDenis Scott (05:14)Right. Same thing.Mark Petruzzi (05:16)AI is working. I just, I just don't know which half.So and and every company, every single company, big and small, is going through that same challenge right now.Denis Scott (05:26)it's interesting, Mark. You sit in the right spot here for who our our target audience is, which is boards are asking these questions, investors are asking these questions. if you look at earnings calls a year ago, tokens didn't come up that often. Now that's skyrocketed as far as questions go,Alan Rudolph (05:43)Right.Denis Scott (05:44)But if you think about it, right, th I'm gonna make a silly statement, but if I used to say, hey, on an earnings call and Iwas fortunate enough to prep a lot of these and work side by side and be on these calls because marketing was such a large investment, right? So let's say marketing you're spending fifty million dollars, naturally they would say, Hey, what are you getting for that investment? How is that working? Right. Those are the right questions to ask. We often now find that in AI, it's like, hey, you're spending $50 million, what are you getting for that? And it's very hard to answer.I don't blame people. This is what we're solving, but but boards are asking those questions, investors are asking those questions, CFOs are asking those questions, And that's really what we're building and where our customers see the value is, shoot, I'm getting that question from my board and I don't know how to answer it. Right now I'm using surveys and asking people, and I think I know what people are using, and it's really kind of it's very, very challenging, to answer that.Mark Petruzzi (06:39)Yeah. And it has toAlan Rudolph (06:39)Yeah.Mark Petruzzi (06:40)be and it has to be so much more precise than that for it to really work. Meaning the the surveys, the feeling the feelings, the a lot of companies, even some big ones that I work with, are looking at wow, they just wanna get AI in the hands of their their employee base. It's not about that. It's it's it takes a lot more precision. So Dennis, you're a CMO of a company whoyou measure marketing and really every other function from an AI productivity standpoint. Does that change how you think about proving your own team's impact internally?Denis Scott (07:16)Yeah, it's a really interesting question. I mean, you kind of it's one of those the expression like you should be drinking your own water, your own champagne, whatever expression you want to use. So, we are an AI first company and we it's AI native built. really AI adoption across our company is a hundred percent, but we all use it. It's how you use it and how proficient you are. And that's part of what we get into at.Alan Rudolph (07:40)Okay.Denis Scott (07:41)can we help you understand how people are using AI, not just are they adopting it? Right. And so at a company where I'm at, I myself even as a CMO, I'm very hands-on in AI, I'm able to do a lot without having to ask other teams or other people. And I think that's how we approach a lot of what we do. Now it doesn'tIt doesn't replace the human element of measuring quality or understanding is that as a marketer on brand or not on brand and how do we word this? I kind of have a general rule of thumb. If it's under 500 words, write it myself. just because I want to get that voice and tone right. Sure, I use AI sometimes on longer pieces to to help get me started. And then I always go in with that human touch. But yeah, I think in in the type of company we work in, which I thinkIs honestly how a lot of companies are going to operate and lookAlan Rudolph (08:32)Hmm.Denis Scott (08:32)as they progress. Maybe we're a little bit ahead because we live and breathe this every day. but I think that's how companies will operate. And I actually think it's pretty exciting because what people end up doing is I spend my time doing the things I want to do rather than some of the things that usedAlan Rudolph (08:47)The same.Denis Scott (08:48)to be the the pain to try to get to. Right.Alan Rudolph (08:51)Right.Denis Scott (08:52)so you're actually taking humans and you're saying,You're doing the most important task in spending your time there rather than some of these other tasks that AI can just speed up and help you with.Alan Rudolph (09:01)Yeah. Great great feedback, Dennis. So let let's move on to a another topic, so relevant today, which is again, where where does Larin play? How do we measure? What kind of data is available to us? It's a fascinating statistic in terms of AI spend last year, six hundred plus billion dollars, Just a phenomenal number. and again, it all comes back to, when I think about how do we drive business value.Right.How do how does how do our customers, how do our clients, whether it's AGS, Larada, et cetera, how do they drive business value? So Larada's own research in terms of the research I've been doing found that 72% of enterprises say AI adoption has become their biggest challenge, Every C level executive, They want to do AI. How do I measure it? And obviously, 600 plus billion, if I'm not getting value, then it's ultimately hurting the bottom line.So walk us through what it actually looks like inside a company. What are leaders getting wrong?Denis Scott (09:57)Yeah, great question, Alan. I think what's really interesting is if we rolled back the clocks to a year ago, AI adoption was the topic of the day. And it was almost the sort of this binary question, yes or no? Are you using it? Are you adopting it? Yes. Okay, well,Alan Rudolph (10:11)Right, right.Denis Scott (10:11)great. That that adds to the value of your organization, Or no, it's like, you guys better learn how to do this, right? And so I think there was this almost mad rush to tell.as a leader, to tell your teams or to tell your organization we have to adopt AI, we have to do it. And I even lived in that world where it was was a mandate. Everybody has to be using AI, But that that tells you how at that time sort of almost uneducated were in what you could actually do with that kind of notion of like you have to useAlan Rudolph (10:39)Hmm. Yep.Denis Scott (10:40)it because there's a cost behind it, right? And that's exactly what you're speaking to with that investment. AndIn anything you do in business, when you have a large number like that, naturally the question is going to follow. And this is why Laridin exists. I mean, and Jim and Russ have really built their career around this. When you're throwing a lot of money at things, it doesn't mean it's right or wrong, but you're going to have to measure it and tell that story and understand it. And that's really what we've built. And so I think the challenge for leaders was we rush so fast to say, our team's using it yes or no.Alan Rudolph (11:14)Mm-hmm.Denis Scott (11:14)And nowthat we're a bit more sophisticated and understand these tools and quite honestly have seen examples, particularly this May, wherecompanies had spent their whole budget by April that we all know, and or somebody was spending five million dollars a day because they were gamifying, AI adoption and token spend. Well, all of a sudden it hit us of like, well, what what is the value? What is the business outcome? And I thinkThat's the number one question now, which is is a great question and probably the mostMark Petruzzi (11:37)Yeah.Denis Scott (11:41)important question that we get from organizations and senior execs and quite honestly boards as well is not only what is my spend and how do I make sure I'm getting that Because that is actually pretty complex to even get to that number,Alan Rudolph (11:53)Mm.Denis Scott (11:54)but then what…

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Ep. 140 - How Great CROs Build Revenue Engines That Actually Scale with Lance Haffner - Part 2 Aug 19, 2026

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General Episode Description:In this episode of Selling Intelligence, Lance Haffner, Chief Revenue Officer at Papaya Global, returns to discuss one of the biggest challenges facing modern revenue leaders: creating demand for problems buyers do not yet recognize. He shares practical strategies for validating market fit, identifying the right buyer personas, building effective sales processes, and knowing when it’s time to pivot.The conversation also explores the growing trust deficit created by AI in sales. Lance explains why AI should enhance, not replace, human interactions, how revenue teams can use AI to improve forecasting and sales execution, and why speed, simplicity, and transparency are becoming essential competitive advantages. Finally, he shares leadership lessons from building a CRO organization from the ground up and the timeless sales disciplines every revenue leader should never overlook.What You’ll Learn:How to create demand when buyers don’t yet recognize the problem they haveWhy validating market fit should come before scaling go to market effortsThe importance of identifying the right buyer persona before refining messagingHow continuous feedback loops help improve sales messaging and executionWhy AI should remove friction instead of replacing human relationshipsPractical ways AI improves forecasting, pipeline management, and coachingHow to recognize when a go to market strategy needs to changeLeadership principles for building high performing revenue organizations from scratchKey Topics:Creating new market demandMarket fit validationBuyer persona strategySales methodology and discoveryRevenue operations feedback loopsAI enabled sales executionBuilding trust in an AI driven buying environmentPipeline management and forecastingRevenue leadershipCRO best practicesCustomer experienceSales process optimizationGuest Spotlight: Lance HaffnerLance Haffner is the Chief Revenue Officer at Papaya Global, where he leads the company’s global revenue organization through its next phase of growth. With leadership experience spanning staffing, HR technology, and enterprise SaaS, Lance is known for building scalable revenue functions, applying data driven decision making, and combining AI with disciplined sales execution to accelerate growth.Resources & Mentions:Papaya GlobalScott Kirby, CEO of United AirlinesAI enabled sales organizationsRevenue OperationsSales methodologies including SPICED and Challenger🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with today’s leading revenue executives, sales innovators, and GTM operators. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.Mark Petruzzi (00:36)Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. I'm Mark Petruzzi.KK Anderson (00:40)And I'm KK Anderson. This is part two with Lance Hafner, Chief Revenue Officer at Papaya Global. Be sure to go back and listen to part But if you want to start here, let us bring you quickly up to speed. Lance told us how he has moved from staffing sales into HR and then into revenue leadership by applying a business enablement mindset where he wherever he sat and what it's taken to build papaya's first ever CRO function.While the company shifts from years of product investment into a scale up phase.Mark Petruzzi (01:12)In part two, we get into how Lance is building demand for a problem most buyers don't know they have yet, the trust deficit. Lance is watching this show up directly into his AI enabled sales motion. And we'll go into and we'll analyze how he uses AI day in and day out to diagnose what's actually happening inside his sales team. Lance, welcome back.Lance Haffner (01:36)Thanks, Laura. Thanks, KK. Happy to be here again.Mark Petruzzi (01:39)Great. So yeah, let's jump into creating demand for a problem buyers do not know they have. you've compared the awareness problem you're facing to introducing a genuinely new category. How do you build go-to-market motion around the pain point most buyers don't even know they have yet?Lance Haffner (01:56)This is such a great question. And and it's it's it's been salient a few times in my my career. if you look back over the years and you look back at the new we as consumers, things that have been launched in the consumer market. I remember this this thing in in two thousand and six, seven, Apple releases the iPhone and we didn't even know we needed a handheld computer device that didn't have keys. In fact, it was absurd to think about it.I was a Blackberry fan to be honest, and I wanted my keys and I resisted for two years.Mark Petruzzi (02:26)Ha haKK Anderson (02:28)Was it clipped on your belt, Lance? Did you have it clipped on your belt?Lance Haffner (02:32)I look, I may have had a clip. Yes, I may have had a clip. yeah. I mean look, we can goMark Petruzzi (02:36)I'm not gonna admit to that, Lance.KK Anderson (02:38)yes you are.Lance Haffner (02:39)back to you, we can go back to the days you had the pager clipped, right? Not less, yeah, orMark Petruzzi (02:42)Yeah, yeah.Lance Haffner (02:43)the mo ontoKK Anderson (02:43)Yeah.Lance Haffner (02:44)the Motorola Razor, onto the Blackberry telephone. But I know it's a consumer, that's really a consumer application review, but this thePoint still stands. We didn't know that we needed that. It's like we actually, in fact, some people took the antithesis side, the antithetical side of I hate keys, I don't want them. Not only do I not need it, is it not a pain? I don't want it. And so I think lots of CROs and businesses deal with this. You're it you're entering market with a new product. I want to be clear, sometimes it's not a new product. I, you know, in a prior job, it wasn't a new product, but it was a new application of that solution in market. but it's the same.Right? Whether it's new or not, it's the same. you're dealing with with the problem of of market awareness and creating that demand. So first and foremost, I think coming back up to my, in our prior conversation, when I talked about moving from moving into scale, make sure market fit exists. Even if people aren't aware they have pain, make sure you got a market fit fit. You're dealing with the insightsKK Anderson (03:40)Right.Lance Haffner (03:40)RevOps leader's creating, your Markovs leader who should who's likely.According to RevOps, the insights your product team has, particularly your product marketing team who's done the research, competitive analysis. They're reading, the analysts and seeing what the analysts are saying about you in market, about other solutions. Do you got the market fit? Let's agree that you do. You've done the analysis. There's not just a TAM, but ultimately you have some serviceable, addressable market that you can actually sell that product into. All right.That's point number one. Don't go off the gut thesis. I try to do it all the time. I gotta be honest. I'm preaching to myself here. We we get a thesis, we have bias on that thesis, and then we go look for everything to confirm the bias. No. Go look at the data and confirm that you actually have market fit and you actually have a market that you can sell, that you can service, and that you can obtain, and you can be successful successful. Number one. Number two, I you know.If anyone can figure out how to make it really successful, a product or a pain that people don't know they need or have a pain they don't know they have, they're gonna be wealthy. by the way, people have done that. And they are, they were very wealthy. So but I don't thinkKK Anderson (04:42)Ha ha ha.Lance Haffner (04:44)it's it's not easy. we one of my leaders, another colleague, I have the fish, the fish can't climb the tree colleague who's who's brilliant sells mine. And another one says, Lance, I call this normalized power.Having a conversation with the buyer, I'm going through my methodology process, I'm listening for the signals, and they just don't know they have pain. and I go back to the Apple versus BlackBerry method. None of us knew we had pain. In fact, it we had maybe an antithetical view of it. Not only do I not have pain, it sounds painful to go to a screen without prescribed buttons that are, can be precise. So so there's there's this normalized pain that exists.I think the key to getting through that is two things. One, you've got the right buyer persona. sometimes go back to my example of where you have a product and market. It's not a new product and market, but maybe it's a new application, new go-to-market motion. We're thinking of it differently and how the buyer can apply that. who is the buyer though? Because the buyer might have shifted. Formerly, you might have been working with the HR department.Now you're in finance and you're particularly a layer down inKK Anderson (05:45)Right.Lance Haffner (05:45)finance, maybe with treasury. Do you have the right buyer persona? Because if you don't, you have zero chance of helping them see the pain that they're that they they have. Okay, number one. So be dogged about landing on the right buyer persona and let that feedback loop happen. Listen to the sales calls, receive the sales feedback. Why am I not converting? Why am I disqualifying? Listen, watch, and be hyper quick.On pivoting. Go back to the bow tie we talked about, right? You're all on top of funnel here going through your sales stages. Your RevOps leader is acutely watching this and giving you real-time feedback and you're shifting. Could be your campaign in market right now and the pitch in the campaign. Could be a lot of things, right? But you're watching. And then lastly, I would say the process itself, and I already mentioned it, but the sales process you're going through has to be spot on because the process is there to help them identify the pain.Now, for 80 foot percent of what we sell, they know the pain. So it's easy. We know the pain before we go in generally, but we get that out of them through our sales process, whatever methodology you're using. I've used Spice by Winnie our friends at Winnie My Design, so roll out that in my lastKK Anderson (06:50)Mm-hmm.Lance Haffner (06:51)job, but but Matic Challenger, whatever you're using, right? Go through that pain process, and there, right, right, is in my opinion, kind of the inflection point of them understanding that they actually do have the pain. Andand that's the hardest piece to get through. So let me let me headline that just quickly because I said a lot of words. Do you have right market fit? Using the insights from your analysis through RevOps, marketing ops, through product marketing. don't have bias confirmation. Many of us want to believe, this is great. Let's go sell this. Let's apply this this way. Prove that out. Don't have bias confirmation. Come down here, think about your sales process.think through buyer persona. Are you are you now with the right buyer within the organization? And do you have the right pitch through pain or through your methodology? Excuse me, are you getting them through the pain process and helping them identify? And you and you have feedback loops that are telling you very quickly, real time, is it working or is it not? And you're pivoting. And by the way, I'm gonna sayKK Anderson (07:43)Mm. Love that.Lance Haffner (07:44)this last thing. This is gonna be hard for me to say. Give up when when you're done. When the data tells you.This isn't working. Stop investing resources because you're burning, you're burning money, you're burning funds, you're burning resources and opportunity of other things you can be selling. And I think that's a reallyKK Anderson (07:59)Right.Lance Haffner (08:00)important note here is then it's time to probably say, we tried this, it didn't work, let's close the book on it. And that's really hard for a guy like me to say.KK Anderson (08:08)Right. we have this, you know, I've been teaching this philosophy for, over a decade now. and I call it the two sale mentality. And that is that every sale, I don't care if you're selling Girl Scut cookies or you're selling multi-million dollar software, it's two sales. The first sale is getting your customer to articulate why they need to change. And the second sale is why you and why now. And soIt occurs to me as I listen to you speak, Lance, that that's exactly what you're doing when you're selling to someone who doesn't know they have a problem yet, their eyes haven't been open, you have to really nail that first sale and pull the pane. And once you get that, then you can go into, why papaya and why now?Lance Haffner (08:48)Why Papaya and why not? I love it, yeah. I love it. Okay.KK Anderson (08:52)okay, so yeah, and do you feel like your sales team is good at doing that? So as far as like selling value to something that they don't know that they need, like I think you're you nailed it when you talked about the sales process, but it really is everything, doing it in the right order.Lance Haffner (09:06)everything. Yeah. It is everything. And yes, I think so. I think look, I'm biased. I think I've got some extraordinary sellers and I think they really doKK Anderson (09:13)Right.Lance Haffner (09:14)care. Like let's let's maybe go to the we've been talking in kind of a technical manner, but let's go to our people. Yeah, I think they care and I think they do understand. Certainly they're motivated, they're sellers, but I think the best sellers do care about the value they can bring their customer. And I think that shows up in the processes they employ and the methods.They use to work through the sales process. So it's not just about identifying the pain. It's about I have conviction that I can help you. And this solution can save you time, it can save you money, whatever, whatever the value prop is. And and so yeah, I think my sellers are doing. I think they're fantastic, and I think they see they see the vision. And frankly, some of them are leading us, right? I've got some great sellers leading us, giving us market insights that we then back through process, very quickly take that in, the feedback loop.and iterateKK Anderson (09:59)Mm-hmm.Lance Haffner (10:00)w what we need to iterate to to help them be successful.KK Anderson (10:03)It's all about the loop.Mark Petruzzi (10:04)Beautiful.Lance Haffner (10:06)It's all about the lube.Mark Petruzzi (10:08)Lance, what tells you that the messaging is actually starting to land in the market? What what toolsLance Haffner (10:13)Yeah.Mark Petruzzi (10:14)and what approaches do you look at to really understand that?Lance Haffner (10:17)Yeah, don't overthink this. I think I'm an Occam's Razor fan, another colleague who brought that to me. Usually, thesimplest answer is the right answer. if you Mark, going back to what we started the call with, or as we talked about the CRO function, those insights will show up pretty quickly. now they may not be they're they're going to tell you a variety of things that may not be overly structural in nature, but if you have your system set up.From top of funnel through closed loss through to activation through retention. Go there. Remember the bow tie and to KK's point. We may have a really good sales process and pitch. We don't have market fit just yet, but man, the pitch sells it and we get it in, we install, but yet we turn six months later. That's no good. Those insights are telling you, they're giving you real-time feedba…

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Ep. 139 - How Great CROs Build Revenue Engines That Actually Scale with Lance Haffner - Part 1 Aug 12, 2026

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General Description:The path to becoming a Chief Revenue Officer doesn’t always begin in sales. In this episode of Selling Intelligence, Lance Haffner, Chief Revenue Officer at Papaya Global, shares how an unconventional career through staffing, recruiting, and HR prepared him to lead one of the most important functions inside a modern SaaS company.Lance explains why great revenue leaders must think like business operators first and sales leaders second. Drawing on his experience as Papaya Global’s first CRO, he discusses how understanding talent, operations, and organizational strategy creates a stronger foundation for scaling revenue than focusing on sales alone.The conversation also explores the evolution of the CRO role, why today’s revenue leaders must oversee the entire revenue bow tie instead of just the sales funnel, and how Revenue Operations has become one of the most strategic functions in modern go-to-market organizations. Lance shares practical insights on aligning marketing, sales, customer success, and product while avoiding common scaling mistakes as companies expand into new markets.What You’ll Learn:Why some of the best CROs come from unconventional career pathsHow an HR background can create stronger business leadersThe difference between managing sales and leading revenueWhy the modern CRO owns the entire revenue lifecycleHow the revenue bow tie changes the way organizations scaleWhy Revenue Operations has become the CRO’s most strategic partnerHow to identify gaps across the entire customer journeyBest practices for expanding into enterprise, mid-market, and SMB segmentsWhy every go-to-market motion requires its own operating modelHow product, marketing, sales, and customer success must work together to drive growthKey Topics:Chief Revenue Officer responsibilitiesFrom HR to CROBusiness-first leadershipStrategic HRRevenue bow tieRevenue OperationsSales and marketing alignmentCustomer lifecycle managementSaaS revenue strategyEnterprise salesMid-market expansionSMB go-to-market strategyProduct marketingMarket segmentationRevenue growthOrganizational designScaling SaaS companiesPapaya GlobalGuest:Lance Haffner is Chief Revenue Officer at Papaya Global, where he leads the company’s global revenue organization. Before becoming CRO, Lance built his career across staffing, recruiting, HR leadership, general management, and revenue operations. His unique perspective allows him to connect talent strategy, business operations, and revenue growth into a unified go-to-market approach that helps organizations scale more effectively.Resources Mentioned:Papaya GlobalRevenue Bow Tie FrameworkRevenue OperationsProduct MarketingEnterprise SaaSCustomer SuccessTwo Millimeter Club#SellingIntelligence #RevenueLeadership #ChiefRevenueOfficer #RevenueOperations #B2BSalesMark Petruzzi (00:29)Welcome to Selling Intelligence. This is the full conversation with Lance Hafner, Chief Revenue Officer at Papaya Global. We have broken it into chapters in the description. Take it from the top or jump into the segment most relevant to where you are today. Enjoy the show.Welcome to Selling Intelligence. I'm Mark Petruzzi.KK Anderson (00:51)And I'm KK Anderson.Mark Petruzzi (00:53)Most people who end up running revenue for a company came up through sales. Our guest today didn't. He started in staffing and headhunting, crossed into HR, and built his way into the C suite from a function most operators treat as compliance, not growth.KK Anderson (01:10)Lance Hafner is Chief Revenue Officer at Papaya Global, a global payroll and workforce payments platform, where he's the first person ever to hold that title. Before Papaya, he ran general management and then revenue for a large payments and payroll business. After building his early career full cycle and staffing sales, he's also one of the most hands-on AI users we've talked to on this show, using it daily.To diagnose his own sales team's performance, Lance, welcome to Selling Intelligence.Lance Haffner (01:41)Thanks, KK Mark. Happy to be here.KK Anderson (01:43)We are thrilled to have you. Let's let's dive right into our first topic and would love to learn about your journey from HR to CRO, which is certainly an unconventional path for the C suite. And you started in staffing and headhunting sales, moved into HR, you ended up running revenue for large business units. What's kind of the through line between those roles thatYou didn't see at the time you were on the journey, but when you look back now you can see it clearly.Lance Haffner (02:12)Yes, yes. So great question. And thanks again for having me today. I like to say when people see my HR background in my profile or we're having, a conversation, the us I would say eighty percent are a bit shocked, but to your point, unconventional. You're an enigma, Lance, and I agree with that. you don't you don't see it. But there are a few of us out there, we exist. so I as you said, I cut my teeth in in staffing.And so my my colleagues who are staffing, head hunting, recruiting, outsourcing my hats off.And back then we didn't call it SDR, but I was an SDR and made my way into account executive. Where to your point, full cycle AE, although I did have the SDR, I qualified a lot of my own and took that from top of funnel through through close one. And even working through to make sure my my recruits started, my recruits stayed, and I got my fee. So even through maybe activation back then as well.But and that led to an entrepreneurship role, which was great. I loved it. That was also very sales focused and continuing the staffing theme. but like a lot of young entrepreneurs and small businesses, it scaled up very quickly, it scaled down very quickly. and I found myself wanting to go back to work. So I did. And I went back in recruiting client side, and recruiting sits in HR. So that's really the nexus of my kind of staffing sales beginning roots to HR.And then I turned into an HR career that I decided I loved the discipline, I loved it for a variety of reasons. But one of the things that compelled me most is I saw a lot of compliance HR, which by the way, I don't want to discount that. it's required, we need it, it's important. But I also saw the need for strategic HR, particularly how does it enable the business to grow? Which is a bit of a, if we're all if we're being honest here, folks, that hey, I'm a strategic HR professional, I want to sit at the table and I want to enable the business to grow.You hear that all the time from HR pros. How do you actually make it happen? And I think I found my way into making it happen. And and that was that was kind of the path to HR. Any questions, comments? I'll pivot over to the how how that move into revenue and sales.Mark Petruzzi (04:13)Yeah, well, it's I mean, you and I have had this discussion already in the past, Lance, and the idea of coming from these unconventional or less conventional paths, I immediately reacted to that by saying, Wow, some of the best CROs that I know out there today have come from that kind of unconventional path.Lance Haffner (04:34)Yeah.Mark Petruzzi (04:34)So I don't think that means you don't, you shouldn't go into sales if that's what you want to do.But I think that means you really have to understand, everything in an organization. You have to look at it as a business person, not just a salesperson. And when you do that and you grow throughout your career, you typically turn into a a great CRO.Lance Haffner (04:58)yeah. Mark, hey, Kim, let me tag on that. I love it because I think we're gonna talk about this a bit later, about the CRO function itself and building it from scratch. Look, go back to that HR role and I wanna visualize something you just said that I think is important. I actually my mantra for my team and I was we are business professionals who do HR. And that that very simple statement was to kind of demonstrate, visualize this. We are not HR pros, although we are, let's be honest.We are business professionals, members of this business who are here to achieve the business's objective. And we will do that through our HR practice. Whether we're ensuring governance and compliance, whether we're ensuring total rewards, compensation, benefits are competitive, whether we're ensuring we're bringing talent in, acquiring it, developing it, whether we're ensuring that the C-suite as an HR pro you are workforce management strategies and everything you're doing propels the business through its people.You're taking your your lens of that discipline and applying it to business growth. No different than the CRO. you are a business professional pro executive who has to grow the business through the functions of sales, marketing, revenue operations, et cetera.Mark Petruzzi (06:01)Excellent. All right. So you've talked about bringing a business enablement mindset to HR instead of that old compliance mindset. So tell us a little more, take us a little deeper into what did that what did that actually look like in practice? And how did it change how your business partners saw the function? And again, we could touch on this, we don't have to go deep, and then really transition it into how do you take those mindsets.and bring it into the CRO role as well.Lance Haffner (06:31)Yeah, good good question. first and foremost, I already talked through the functions of HR generally. And it it can it can expand or or contract a bit, but the functions we talked through. and it's a vast discipline, right? You have you have professionals who come up and tell the rewards and do nothing else. you have professionals who come up in recruiting and stay there, et cetera, payroll, etc. and so I think the my perspective was this.My business has an objective. It wants to grow revenue. It wants to expand in regions, whatever that's that North Star is and the objectives that they have to achieve to hit that North Star. And then I back into my HR function. And what most, what is most critical to hitting that? Well, in HR, generally it's going to be talent acquisition and development. Bring the right talent in, retain, develop them, retain them, because without the people, you can't do that.Secondly, it's going to be workforce management. What does that mean? Well, so it's not just about bringing people in. That's sales, right? But let's talk about NHR, maybe the sales translation to segmentation coverage. Where do they go? How do they get there? What are their motions as professionals to achieve the objectives? How many engineers do I need? So that workforce management to ensure you've got, even though you have people coming in the door, those inputs are right, the right people, where you're placing them to achieve the objectives.and by the way, in this one's fundamental but and simple but often missed by HR pros, understanding what the business does. There I hate to say it, but I think there's some some of my colleagues out thereKK Anderson (07:56)Yeah.Lance Haffner (07:57)who don't fully understand their business. And they'll say to you, look, I'm an I'm an expert in ABC and total rewards and in recruiting or payroll. Great, and you should be. But I don't know. I can't I can't rationalize being the mosteffective HR pro executive without understanding truly the basis of your business and what it does.Mark Petruzzi (08:17)Yeah, and Lance, that alsoapplies to the sales rep level, even the CRO level. There are there are peopleLance Haffner (08:23)Exactly.Mark Petruzzi (08:24)there are people that are so into and focused on the craft of selling that they really don't truly understand what their in some waysLance Haffner (08:34)Yeah.Mark Petruzzi (08:34)what their product offering is and in other ways really why their company is successful.Lance Haffner (08:39)Mark, it's so right. How many times have you had a sales leader say, look, I can sell widgets, I can sell this, I can sell that? And there's almost this kind of implied, implicit, like it does I don't care what the business does. Now, depending on the context of that statement, it absolutely can be right. They're saying I know my craft and discipline and I can apply it anywhere. But some of them truly are like, yeah, I don't know, I don't care. I care about bringing the right, sales function. So I hear you, I totally.KK Anderson (09:01)So Lance, you are Papaya's first chief revenue officer. And it appears that you're shifting to a go-to market and a scale focus. So, so tell us about how you started. Like what did you have to build inLance Haffner (09:16)Yeah.KK Anderson (09:16)your first few months that, a CRO walking into an established seat wouldn't necessarily have to think about? Like tell us about how that journey began for you.Lance Haffner (09:25)Yeah, thank you, KK. So let's can I maybe a little context and I'll I'll get to yourKK Anderson (09:29)Sure.Lance Haffner (09:30)question. So I took my first CR role about four years ago, I think. and new to me as a CRO, I've been a GM president before that. So of course my remit of GM included revenue. but anyway, my point of being a a CRO as a first and even my last job was let'sLet's go understand exactly what the function and discipline of CRO is. What what does the revenue function represent And you really had this evolution over the past 20 to 25 years, particularly the Genesis being kind of SaaS and tech, right? And understanding that the B2B buyer is much different than it's ever been. And you need some function to bring the disparate revenue buckets or functions together, i.e. the revenue leader. So I had to go do some research.And if I'm being honest, you're kind of like, why would you ever become the CRO if you're even having to research what the CRO does? And I think for a variety of reasons I got the opportunity, one being such that that the GM role I was pretty successful in and had demonstrated that as a GM, I was very revenue focused. So back to your I think that's important, right? What is a CRO? And by the way, let's define it. The CRO is responsible from really cradle to grave revenue. What is cradle to grave?top of funnel and everything that's coming in funnel and the lead sources coming in top of funnel, bringing that through the funnel and pipeline to close one. By the way, that's that's that's marketing and growth up top of funnel, but also your sellers, your your SDRs, which could be growth down through your sales team, through conversion, and through activation and through retention. Let's and let's let's can we stop there for just a moment? A lot of folks when they when they discuss revenue,A lot of sales leaders really, but even some revenue leaders they talk about the funnel, right? You visualize the funnel, and the funnel has an end in some revenues leaders' mind. That end is close one. Great. But really, I think conventional or contemporary CROs in the past five years have started to evolve that to the revenue bow tie. Pivot the funnel on its side, everything coming in from the left. your lead sources, SDR.Growth inbound through marketing, lead gen, partners, self-source, whatever. I have a lead source that's coming through. I'm qualifying that lead into opportunity and I'm closing. and by the way, there's feedback loop there in the in the in the left side of the bow tie. Close one is center and great, but we're not done. We've got to activate revenue, particularly in an ARR business with SaaS, with with recurring revenue. We've got to expand it, we've got to retain it…

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Ep. 138 - High Tech Requires High Touch: Bridging the Human AI Gap with Dr. Noah St. John - Part 2 Aug 05, 2026

Show notes

General DescriptionAI is transforming every aspect of sales, but technology alone isn’t enough to drive better performance. In Part 2 of this conversation, Dr. Noah St. John returns to Selling Intelligence to explore why organizations investing heavily in AI, automation, and coaching still struggle to achieve meaningful results.Building on the Human AI Gap introduced in Part 1, Noah explains why trust has become the most valuable currency in business. He discusses the growing trust recession created by AI-generated content, the importance of authentic expertise over polished marketing, and why buyers must look beyond promises to evaluate real outcomes and proven results.The conversation also shifts to revenue leadership, where Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson explore how CROs and CEOs can help teams embrace AI without losing the human judgment, experience, and tribal knowledge that drive long-term success. Through practical examples, including Ford Motor Company’s AI missteps, Noah demonstrates why AI should amplify human capability instead of replacing it.What You’ll LearnWhy AI is creating a trust recession across sales, coaching, and advisory businessesHow to evaluate expertise by focusing on client outcomes instead of marketing claimsWhat “high tech requires high touch” means for modern sales organizationsWhy the Human AI Gap continues to limit AI adoption inside companiesHow revenue leaders can coach both the inner game and the outer gameWhy investment creates commitment and accelerates behavior changeThe hidden cost of replacing institutional knowledge with AIWhy tribal knowledge remains one of the biggest competitive advantages in businessHow AI should augment human expertise instead of replacing experienced professionalsPractical leadership lessons for navigating AI transformation under board and quota pressureKey TopicsThe trust recessionAuthenticity versus AI-generated credibilityClient outcomes as proof of expertiseHigh tech and high touch leadershipThe Human AI GapThe inner game versus the outer gameRevenue leadership under AI pressureOrganizational AI adoptionFord Motor Company AI case studyTribal knowledge and institutional experienceHuman judgment versus automationCoaching sales teams through changeAI implementation strategyLeadership during digital transformationInvestment and accountabilityBehavioral changeAI-assisted business growthDale Carnegie and timeless leadership principlesGuestDr. Noah St. John is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, performance coach, and founder of SuccessClinic.com. Over nearly 30 years, he has helped entrepreneurs, executives, and revenue leaders overcome the hidden mental barriers that limit performance. As the creator of the Human AI Gap framework, Noah combines neuroscience, psychology, and business strategy to help organizations successfully bridge the gap between human behavior and rapidly evolving AI technology.Resources MentionedSuccessClinic.comThe Human AI GapThe Caveman CalculatorGary VaynerchukAlex HormoziDale CarnegieHow to Win Friends and Influence PeopleFord Motor CompanyAGS Two Millimeter Club#SellingIntelligence #AIforSales #SalesLeadership #HumanAIGap #RevenueLeadershipMark Petruzzi (00:38)Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. I'm Mark Petruzzi.KK Anderson (00:42)And I'm KK Anderson. This is part two with Dr. Noah St. John. Be sure to go back and listen to part one. But if you want to start here, let us bring you up to speed. Noah has spent close to 30 years studying why capable people underperform. He has written 27 books and coined the term human AI gap, the distance between 200,000 year old brains, the caveman, as he calls it.And the fastest technology ever built, which of course is AI. In part one, he drew the line between mindset, which the industry has worn out, and what he calls the inner game, the unconscious programming that decides whether skill and technology ever get used.Mark Petruzzi (01:24)In part two, we get to the operator level. What Noah's highest growth clients do differently and what the inner game looks like under real quota and board pressure. Noah, welcome back.Dr. Noah St. John (01:35)Thank you, great to be here.Mark Petruzzi (01:36)So let's go to to our first topic of our second episode with Noah, and that is high tech requires high touch. The trust recession. You guys all know out there we talk about that trust recession often, and we really want to get some perspective from Noah on this as well. So, Noah, you also have talked about a trust recession in this space.Where there's too many people with strong marketing skills and weak t teaching ability, or c or strong sales skills and weak coaching ability, how does that dynamic show up for a B2B buyer who is evaluating a coaching or advisory investment right now?Dr. Noah St. John (02:17)Well, I mean, this is a huge topic, and I do talk about it a lot, as you mentioned. so very simply, it's exactly what you were saying is that there are a lot of great marketers, great self promoters, great salesmen, who suck at teaching. They suck at coaching, they just there's no thereMark Petruzzi (02:32)Yeah.Dr. Noah St. John (02:32)there, as I like to say. There's no there there. and so the problem is that is the very problem because they're so good at self promotion and marketing.Just lots and lots of people bought their stuff. They gave them money and they found out there's nothing here. Hello? What the heck is going on here? They promised the sun, moon, and the stars, and they gave me a pile of dirt, So it's it's really, really bad. I have my own spreadsheet. I call it the spreadsheet of death, you know, because I paid all these clowns tons of money. I mean, much more money than I'd like to admit, only to find out they can't teach every way out of a paper bag.So it's it's really bad. Now, obviously, I'm not alone in that. I spent a lot more than most people, probably, But the point is that, unfortunately, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people have experienced the same thing that I have, which is hello, you didn't tell me anything. So it's incredibly annoying and it's and it's and it's frustrating and it's painful and it's costly. And so I think one of the things that we have to do as leaders, if you are evaluating a B2B or a B2C.program, you know, and when I say life changing, I know that sounds like a cliche again, but that is what it really is because that has always been my focus isTaking care of the three pounds of gray matter that really is just ignored for the most part. And so one of the things that I think people need to do is look at the case studies. Look at the case studies, the real people who have gone through program including Gary Vaynerchuk.Jenny McCarthy, Stephen Covey, Jack Canfield, John Assarath, Neil Donald Walsh. I mean, you know, the luminaries go on and on. And then, of course, just the regular, everyday CEO, CMO, CRO, entrepreneur I have always said, I've always said this, that it's much more important that people have gotten results rather than.I say how much money I've made. Because when you look at those gurus out there, that's what they're always talking about. I made all this money. Look at my yacht. Look at my boat. Look at my helicopter. Now, nothing wrong with that. We all want nice things, right? We all want yachts and boats and helicopters. Nothing wrong with that. But my question always is: well, have you helped anyone else? And usually the answer to that question is, what? soThat's the problem. And so I and maybe I went overboard the other way. Maybe I've gone too far the other way. I don't know. But I'd rather brag about my clients than me. You'll notice I talk way more about my clients than myself for that precise reason. Because we live in a trust recession, I'm always like, Well, don't believe what I say. And I'll just have to say this because everybody knows it's there right now. You also have to make sure that those are actual human beings, on a video. Likebecause of course we all know that AI can create AI user generated content now. And it's pretty easy to spot still today at the time of this recording. I mean, I can tell in one second, and I think most people can too. I mean, but you just gotta be careful, because hell, it's the greatest thing in the world. Wait a minute, is that a human or not a human? Hmm. We just might want to check that.KK Anderson (05:21)Yeah. And you know, you could even ask, like, hey, are you human or are you not? Even when you're chatting with a website, is this an AI agent or is this a human that's named Linda? Right.Dr. Noah St. John (05:30)Right. Exactly.Well, I was talking about just the videos, you know, the actual videos that I mean we sKK Anderson (05:35)Mm-hmm.Dr. Noah St. John (05:35)we see AI UGC all over the place now. And again, as I said, it's it's relatively easy to spot now, but is it always gonna be easy to spot? Probably not. I mean, it's just gonna keep getting better and better. So you you you know, you better get in now before it gets worse.KK Anderson (05:48)So w when you think about what high touch actually looks like in practice for you at this point in your business, like what talk to me a little bit about how, thanks to AI, and creating the trust recession and then you're having to we have to go back now and accommodate for that. Like what does that look like for you and your business and for your clients? What's caused what's what's been successful, I suppose.Dr. Noah St. John (06:08)Well, I mean, itwe it doesn't have to be complicated. At least in my case, you know, what we do is a is a very simple intake form and we see where you are. We get a baseline of where you are over the last twelve months. By the way, when you go toKK Anderson (06:20)Right. But to get butto even get to that point where they're interested. Like that marketingDr. Noah St. John (06:24)So I talked about the cavemanbut there's also a caveman calculator So that's one of the things that I love is the caveman calculator. And you can actually see how much the caveman is costing you right now. So that's a really important point of if you are not if you haven't learned how to tame the caveman in your brain, you're gonna be paying the caveman. You're gonna be paying, as I call it, the caveman tax.Because it's absolutely one million percent is going to be holding you back. like Adam, that story I mentioned earlier. it takes longer to close a client typically now than it ever did for that precise reason. So, you know, as a business owner, you you want to make sure that you're putting out correct content, both in terms of video andAnd articles, blog posts, books, et cetera. Right.So that's the point, is that is why we do operate with high tech high touch. And that's one of the ways that we do it is making sure that everybody is accounted for at the level they're at at the time.KK Anderson (07:17)Okay. That's super interesting. and Noah, we're gonna jump to the next topic and we're gonna touch back on the inner game a little bit, but specifically as it re relates to a revenue operator. And I know you've worked with, CEOs and and leaders of all different, you know, types of businesses.And so and kind of thinking about that experience, like when you s when you strip away the tactics and the tools, what is the inner game pattern that separates those, client that has the exponential six hundred percent growth from one that's kind of stalls at thirty percent?Dr. Noah St. John (07:52)Well, as I mentioned earlier, you know, when when people listen to me, they get enormous growth. If they don't, then they won't.KK Anderson (07:58)Well they listen to you, which means they do the work.Dr. Noah St. John (08:01)exactly, And see, well, nobody's when you pay me money, you listen. That's the beautifulKK Anderson (08:03)Why would they not listen? Like what are the reasons that you come across why they don't? Right.Dr. Noah St. John (08:08)The people who invest, right? When they invest, they're invested, and that means boom, I want my ROI.I want my return on investment. Boom, I'm to take action. One of the things that I've known for is helping people to take action where they had been stalled previously. Right. I'll give you another example. I mean, I was talking with another client of mine, and he is has a very big biodiesel fuel.You know, a nine-figure business. And he is not a very loquacious person, very soft spoken, very hard close to the vest and so forth. and one of the times that we were talking in one of our earlier sessions, he said to me, Noah, I haveA Bachelor of Science from a major university. I'm not going to say the name of the university. Now, I almost fell off my chair when he said that, because this is not a man known for being, loquacious and being, big with his words. And I was like, wow, no kidding. Okay. And, now he has gone on to actually sell that company and make a very nice exit.My point of that is that when you are when you invest, you're invested. So for those of you listening and thinking that whether it's yourself or your team, so if you are a CRO who is pulling your hair out because you're saying, But Noah, I've given my team everything. I've given them all the tools, all the training, all of the things that they should be, they should just be exploding. I will always ask you, but have you helped them with their inner game?Or is that all outer game stuff? That's why I started this conversation with that Venn diagram I talked about. I mean, inner game, outer game. Ninety nine percent of people are spending all their time, money, and effort on outer game. It's not wrong, you to do it. But have you spent any time on the inner game?KK Anderson (09:36)And so are you te are you teaching the leaders so you're teachingthe leaders then how to coach their teams on the inter game or are you coaching the teams directly?Dr. Noah St. John (09:45)Well, both. It depends on what they want. Like I talked about, it was it's all bespoke and customized and personalized. So that goes back to the licensing that I was talking about.There's no more guesswork.Mark Petruzzi (09:54)So Noah revenue leaders are under enormous pressure right now, a specialDr. Noah St. John (09:58)Yes, yes.Mark Petruzzi (09:59)amount of pressure that we really haven't seen throughout at least my career. They're dealing with this AI transition process, their their overall team capacity, quota, quota, quota, and then the boards have gotten a lot more direct and vocal, going after sales leaders as well. SoWhat does the inner game look like when the stakes are as high as they are and the timelines are as short as they are?Dr. Noah St. John (10:24)Well, it's an incredibly stressful situation. You're absolutely right. And this is something that I help people with every single day. But the point is that AI has really changed the perspective of a lot of people in this way. They believe, mostly incorrectly, that if I just toss AI at this, then I'll just it'll solve all my problems. I'll make all this money. I'll give you an example of how this didn't work. and by the way, this was not a company that I was involved with.But Ford Motor Company, we all well know Ford Motor Company, they recently made big headlines because they fired all their what's called the gray beards, right? All the guys that had been on the front lines, you know, the engineers had been there for 30, 40 years, right? So Ford got all excited about AI and said, we don't need these gray beards,…

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