Revenue Builders

Force Management
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated weekly

Welcome to the Revenue Builders podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and executives. Hosted by Five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management’s Co-Founder John Kaplan, the show goes in the barrel, behind the scenes with the people who have been there, done that and seen the results. Revenue Builders covers the best practices for scaling and growing your business, while sharing the pitfalls to avoid. Great conversation. Solid interviews. Tangible takeaways to help you succeed. If you enjoy our content, please subscribe, rate and review the show to help us reach more people. This show is brought to you by: Force Management where we help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Check out forcemanagement.com more information.

  1. 2 days ago

    How to Hire Better Salespeople Than Yourself and Lead Them to Win

    Michelle Bove didn't start in enterprise software – she started as a soccer referee in seventh grade, hustling for an extra $10 per game, then moved into door-to-door sales at a three-person startup where she learned rejection quickly and loved it even more. That hunger never left. Today, as an AVP of East Sales at Wiz, she's built her career at some of the sharpest sales cultures in software history (PTC, AppDynamics, Zscaler), closed deals nobody else could get into, and turned around entire teams by replacing broken managers instead of blaming reps. In this conversation, she breaks down the real mechanics of winning: why likability is underrated, how to hire people better than you, why skip levels work when done transparently, and what it actually costs to prove yourself as a young female leader in cybersecurity. Her philosophy is simple: science plus art. Discipline and processes without human connection will only get you halfway there. Michelle Bove is an AVP of East Sales at Wiz and has built her career at PTC, AppDynamics, and Zscaler – some of the sharpest sales cultures in enterprise software. She's known for closing deals nobody else could get into and turning underperforming teams into world-class organizations. Connect with Michelle: LinkedIn Resources mentioned: Profession Profiles International assessments Key takeaways from this episode: 00:00 – Introduction and Michelle's origin story from soccer referee to enterprise sales leader 06:44 – Why likability is the most underrated sales competency and directly impacts your ability to build champions and close deals 20:00 – Why tailored coaching based on individual strengths and weaknesses beats cookie-cutter management 36:30 – How to run skip levels the right way: prep, conduct, document, share back with managers, and follow up without alienating people 47:50 – Operating rhythms in practice: daily prospecting, 15-question deal reviews, and deep customer research that actually moves deals 51:00 – Why in-person customer engagement beats remote-only selling for strategic accounts and mega-deals, even in the AI era 59:45 – The hardest part of her job: being a young female leader in a male-dominated space and proving herself every room she walks into Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results.   This show is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale.   Connect with Us:  LinkedInYouTubeForce Management

  2. 6 days ago

    The SNL Lesson on Talent and Fit with Lindsay Shookus

    High-performing teams create the conditions for talent to succeed. In this Revenue Builders segment, Lindsay Shookus shares lessons from Saturday Night Live on cultural fit, team buy-in, trust, and performance under pressure. Drawing from examples of SNL talent who found success in different environments, Lindsay explains why fit often determines whether strong people can thrive inside a specific team rhythm. She also shares how leaders can create safety for risk-taking, give teams ownership in new hires, and reduce the pressure on individuals by helping them trust the room around them. Lindsay Shookus spent 20 years at Saturday Night Live, including 10 years as a producer, where she led talent booking, worked with celebrity hosts and musical guests, and helped scout and recruit cast members. She is a four-time Emmy Award winner, a former producer on 30 Rock, and the co-founder of Women Work Hard, a community supporting female entrepreneurs and leaders. Connect with Lindsay: Website Resources mentioned: Women Work Hard on IG Women Work Hard Website Rethinking Success by J. Douglas Holladay Listen to the full episode: How Saturday Night Live Builds Teams That Perform Under Pressure with Lindsay Shookus Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results.   This show is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale.   Connect with Us:  LinkedInYouTubeForce Management

  3. 13 Aug

    Reps Who Skip the Story Lose the Deal with Rob Potter

    Most sales conversations still lean on product specs, and most leadership still gets reduced to quota math, until the market gets hard and both approaches break down. Rob Potter, CEO of Oomnitza, joins John Kaplan and John McMahon to argue that revenue and retention run on the same fuel: story, evidence, and belief rather than pressure. Shaped by three decades under RSA and EMC leaders like Art Coviello and Mark Thurman, Potter explains why technical credibility alone creates gaps in a sales motion, how staged delegation and reverse-timeline planning scale a team without inflating cost, and why transformative leaders keep people through a missed quarter while transactional leaders lose them the moment the number slips. Rob Potter is CEO of Oomnitza, an enterprise technology management platform, and a venture partner at SYN Ventures. His path to the corner office ran through engineering and sales leadership roles at IBM, WRQ, Symantec, and RSA/EMC, where he worked alongside leaders including Art Coviello and Joe Tucci before running revenue organizations of his own. Connect with Rob: LinkedIn Resources mentioned: Force Management's Command of the Message® Force Management's Conversation Guide Key takeaways from this episode:  04:06 - How a mentor redirected Potter from veterinary school to engineering, and how an IBM customer engagement pulled him out of coding and into sales. 14:15 - Why staged delegation, bringing team members in at the right sales-cycle phase rather than all at once, is what separates scalable sales leaders from expensive ones. 19:29 - The single metric Mark Thurman drilled into him: growth rate quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year matters more than revenue alone. 20:41 - What RSA and EMC's top leaders had in common: honesty, transparency, and empathy, especially when navigating layoffs. 27:48 - Why passion is contagious in an organization, and why it only exists downstream of belief built on evidence. 31:37 - The storytelling framework Potter coaches into every rep: journey, problem, outcome, not product spec. 38:22 - Why AI guardrails have to differ by function, and the hidden long-term cost of building AI in-house instead of buying it. Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results.   This show is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale.   Connect with Us:  LinkedInYouTubeForce Management

  4. 9 Aug

    Why Great Sellers Hold the Line in Discovery with Stuart Gwynn

    Enterprise sellers often lose deal quality by moving too quickly from customer pain to product answers. In this Revenue Builders minisode, Stuart Gwynn of MongoDB explains why the best sellers slow down in discovery, hold the line with the customer, and use disciplined qualification to determine whether a problem is real, urgent, and worth solving. Stuart shares how pipeline creates the courage to qualify out, why team preparation matters before strategic customer conversations, and how trust is built when sellers demonstrate that they understand the customer’s business before prescribing a solution. Stuart Gwynn is an enterprise sales leader at MongoDB who has exceeded goal every year since joining the company in 2019. Before MongoDB, he spent seven years at Pure Storage, rising from SDR to named account rep and finishing as one of the company’s top performers before moving into strategic enterprise selling. Connect with Stuart: LinkedIn Episodes mentioned: The Discipline Behind Scaling from PLG to Enterprise with Sahir Azam Why Sales Execution Wins in an AI-First World with Brian McCarthy, President of Global Revenue and Field Operations at Cursor Listen to the full episode: The Discipline Behind Nine-Figure Deals with Stuart Gwynn Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results.   This show is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale.   Connect with Us:  LinkedInYouTubeForce Management

  5. 6 Aug

    The Hard Moments That Build a CEO with Mark Thurmond

    Senior leaders are often judged in moments they could not plan for. Mark Thurmond’s path from sales rep to co-CEO of Tenable was built through consistent execution, difficult operating assignments, and crises that demanded calm before certainty. He explains what the RSA breach taught him about transparency and customer trust, how he and Steve Vintz kept Tenable moving after the death of CEO Amit Yoran, and why the strongest leaders build followership before they need it. The conversation also covers choosing learning over title, using AI to raise seller productivity, and leading a product-to-platform shift as a company-wide operating change. Mark Thurmond is Co-Chief Executive Officer of Tenable, where he oversees the company’s go-to-market functions across sales, marketing, customer success, professional services, and technical support. His career includes senior operating and sales leadership roles at EMC, RSA, Qlik, and Turbonomic. Connect with Mark: LinkedIn Key takeaways from this episode:  00:00 - What early international experience teaches leaders about operating across markets, cultures, and teams. 04:34 - Why transparency during a crisis can strengthen customer trust instead of weakening it. 10:19 - What leaders must control when uncertainty, emotion, and outside pressure start to take over. 12:22 - Why rigid career planning can distract high performers from the opportunities that actually move them forward. 15:05 - What a leader’s ability to attract former colleagues reveals about their credibility and influence. 17:04 - Why the most valuable career moves often create discomfort before they create advancement. 29:00 - A look inside what leadership demands when personal grief and business continuity collide. 34:08 - What executives often overlook about the connection between proactive health and decision-making capacity. 41:30 - Why a company’s approach to AI partnerships may determine whether it separates or falls behind. 53:00 - What many leaders underestimate about moving from a product business to a platform strategy. Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results.   This show is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale.   Connect with Us:  LinkedInYouTubeForce Management

  6. 2 Aug

    Where AI Is Actually Working in Revenue Teams with Alex Bilmes

    In this clip, Alex Bilmes, CEO of Endgame, joins Revenue Builders to share what his team learned from analyzing more than 30,000 real AI workflows across go-to-market teams. The data shows AI gaining traction in account intelligence, conversation readiness, deal acceleration, pipeline inspection, and team enablement. But the larger lesson is that the strongest teams are not just using AI to generate decks, briefs, or follow-ups faster. They are using it to create shared understanding across reps, managers, executives, RevOps, and cross-functional teams. For revenue leaders, the opportunity is not simply more automation. It is connecting the organization around the same account context, methodology, and customer truth. Alex Bilmes is the CEO and founder of Endgame, a revenue intelligence platform built for go-to-market teams. His work focuses on helping revenue organizations centralize customer, methodology, and account knowledge so both humans and AI agents can operate from a consistent foundation. Connect with Alex: LinkedIn Listen to the full episode: Revenue per Employee Is the New Endgame with Alex Bilmes Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results.   This show is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale.   Connect with Us:  LinkedInYouTubeForce Management

  7. 30 Jul

    Why Partner Leaders Must Master the AI Landscape to Win Hyperscaler Partnerships with Alan Chhabra

    AI partnerships are no longer won by managing a channel or securing a marketplace listing. Leaders must understand how countries, power, cooling, chip fabrication, hyperscalers, model providers, software companies, and enterprise risk fit together before they can build an effective partner strategy. Returning to Revenue Builders, Alan Chhabra explains how Cerebras navigated the technical and political realities of working with AWS, why successful partner leaders need more than relationships, and how sovereignty is changing infrastructure, model selection, and cloud decisions. He also examines why software companies are moving aggressively on AI while traditional enterprises remain more cautious. Alan Chhabra is the Executive Vice President of Worldwide Partnerships at Cerebras Systems, where he leads global partner expansion across hyperscalers and the broader AI ecosystem. He previously spent nearly a decade building MongoDB’s global partner network and held senior leadership roles at BMC Software. Connect with Alan: LinkedIn Other Revenue Builders episodes with Alan: The Ideal Partnership with Alan Chhabra Key takeaways from this episode:  00:00 - Why the infrastructure behind AI may matter more than the applications built on top of it. 12:26 - What the shift from data to AI changes about how partner leaders map the market. 16:06 - Why understanding the full AI stack is a prerequisite for building the right partnerships. 27:48 - A look inside what it really takes to navigate the politics of a hyperscaler partnership. 36:00 - The four capabilities CEOs should test before hiring an AI partner leader. 48:34 - What leaders often overlook about the role of sovereignty in shaping AI infrastructure decisions. 56:25 - Why software companies and traditional enterprises are moving at very different speeds on AI adoption. Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results.   This show is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale.   Connect with Us:  LinkedInYouTubeForce Management

  8. 26 Jul

    How Elite Performers Manage Pressure Before the Moment with Dr. Michael Gervais

    High-pressure sales moments test a leader’s ability to stay composed, present, and clear when the outcome matters. In this minisode, Dr. Michael Gervais explains how elite performers manage activation before critical moments, from major buyer meetings to executive presentations. He breaks down the difference between useful nerves and disruptive anxiety, then outlines the mental skills that help leaders regulate pressure: awareness, breathing, and self-talk. For revenue leaders, this conversation offers a practical lens on preparing the mind before the stakes arrive. Dr. Michael Gervais is a performance psychologist, the founder of Finding Mastery, host of the Finding Mastery podcast, co-creator of the Performance Science Institute at the University of Southern California, and author of The First Rule of Mastery: Stop Worrying About What People Think of You. He has worked with Olympians, world champions, MMA fighters, Fortune 100 CEOs, and elite teams to help them train their minds for high-pressure performance. Connect with Dr. Gervais: Website Podcast IG Facebook LinkedIn Resources mentioned: Dr. Michael Gervais' Morning Mindset Routine The First Rule of Mastery: Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You by Michael Gervais, PhD Rethinking Success: Eight Essential Practices for Finding Meaning in Work and Life by J. Douglas Holladay Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella Listen to the full episode: Training the Mind for High-Stakes Sales: How FOPO Hurts Executive Presence with Dr. Michael Gervais Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results.   This show is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale.   Connect with Us:  LinkedInYouTubeForce Management

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Welcome to the Revenue Builders podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and executives. Hosted by Five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management’s Co-Founder John Kaplan, the show goes in the barrel, behind the scenes with the people who have been there, done that and seen the results. Revenue Builders covers the best practices for scaling and growing your business, while sharing the pitfalls to avoid. Great conversation. Solid interviews. Tangible takeaways to help you succeed. If you enjoy our content, please subscribe, rate and review the show to help us reach more people. This show is brought to you by: Force Management where we help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Check out forcemanagement.com more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Force Management
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    370
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2022 - Force Management
  • Show Website
    Revenue Builders

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