The Innovative Revenue Leader

Seth Marrs
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Management

This podcast explores the future of sales performance, giving Chief Revenue Officers and other growth leaders the insights, tools, and stories they need to lead with confidence. Through candid conversations with top executives, analysts, and tech innovators, we uncover how to harness data, optimize talent, and build tech-enabled sales teams that win. Listeners will walk away with actionable strategies to drive growth, outpace change, and future-proof their revenue engine.

  1. 3d ago

    Beyond the Feature War - Kylie Fuentes - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #51

    Take your go-to-market architecture to the next level with powerful insights on closed-loop AI systems, persona-led revenue experiences, and human-centered design. It’s time to move past static prompt engineering and isolated point solutions to build an integrated revenue intelligence layer that perpetually learns from every customer interaction. Who better to teach you than former Salesforce SVP, former Zilliant Chief Product Officer, and current Chief Product Officer at Salesloft, Kylie Fuentes? You will learn how connecting the dots between sales planners and sales doers creates true operational efficiency, why designing for simplicity in the natural flow of work drives higher adoption, and how focusing on core human behaviors supersedes competing in feature-for-feature wars. Get motivated to eliminate workflow friction, harness rich revenue context, and unlock real personalization across the entire buyer journey! Takeaways: The Power of Closed-Loop Learning Systems: The next frontier of B2B revenue tech isn't manual prompt engineering, but building systematic loops where AI perpetually improves based on actual seller actions and closed deals.True Personalization in B2B Workflows: After 15 years of industry promises, generative AI and context graphs are finally unlocking customized, dynamic workflows tailored to individual sellers and buyers.Unifying Sales Planners and Sales Doers: Bringing together revenue forecasting (Clari) and execution (Salesloft) creates a single canonical data model, giving leaders aggregate visibility while giving reps focused, actionable task lists.Designing for the Natural Flow of Work: Modern AI architecture decouples the logic layer from the interface, allowing intelligence to be served up passively through voice, mobile, or third-party tools like Claude.Focusing on Human Problems Over Competitor Features: Product and revenue leaders succeed by solving deep, visceral customer pain points and replacing manual workarounds rather than chasing vanity feature lists. Quote of the Show: "No seller decided to get into business so they can tab around on 15 screens... When you put intelligence in a layer that can be consumed directly in the natural flow of work, that is going to be the real unlock for adoption." - Kylie Fuentes Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyliefuentes/Website: https://salesloft.comhttps://www.marzo.ai Ways to Tune In: Innovative Revenue Leader Website: InnovativeRevenueLeader.ai Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Hn0sJKCzneggQj3j4XKo3?si=02c4c44769dc41bb Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-innovative-revenue-leader/id1843401468 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/48477601-e33b-4c80-a4af-739863e58131 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-innovative-revenue-leader-6233089

    Beyond the Feature War - Kylie Fuentes - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #51

  2. Sep 9

    Shrinking the Distance: The Power of In-Person Sales - Robert Clarkson - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #50

    Take your go-to-market strategy to the next level with powerful insights on shrinking the distance between your business and your customers, balancing revenue metrics with market narrative, and building long-term trust with investors. It’s time to move beyond simple friction reduction, align compensation plans with true customer outcomes, and foster a competitive edge in today's fast-moving FinTech environment. Who better to guide you than FinTech industry veteran, global revenue executive, and Chief Revenue Officer for SMB & Clover at Fiserv, Robert Clarkson? You will learn how to amplify the voice of the customer inside product development, construct compensation plans that drive customer satisfaction, and lead high-performing teams with curiosity and empathy. Get motivated to get out from behind the screen, connect with your teams and customers in person, and define a wider trajectory for your enterprise! Takeaways: Shrinking the Distance to Customers: Big companies succeed by feeling small; utilizing in-person meetings and direct communication creates accountability and deeper customer alignment than remote tools alone.Selling Outcomes, Not Products: Buyers don't want a linear sales pitch; they want a partner who can evaluate and enable their desired business outcomes.The Dual Role of the CRO (Numbers & Narrative): A CRO must master the "numbers" (ARR, logo retention, upsell) while shaping the "narrative" (market expansion, product roadmap, internal customer advocacy).Building Trust and Trajectory: For public markets and investors, revenue leaders must deliver trust by hitting projected targets and trajectory by demonstrating sustainable, long-term growth opportunities.Outcome-Based Compensation: Aligning sales compensation with customer success and product adoption, rather than just the initial signed contract, drives higher retention and customer lifetime value. Quote of the Show: "People don't buy products, they buy outcomes. It's not about selling, it's really about evaluating potential ways to get to the desired outcome for our customers." - Robert Clarkson Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-clarkson-69576b2/Website: http://www.fiserv.com Ways to Tune In: Innovative Revenue Leader Website: InnovativeRevenueLeader.ai Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Hn0sJKCzneggQj3j4XKo3?si=02c4c44769dc41bb Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-innovative-revenue-leader/id1843401468 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/48477601-e33b-4c80-a4af-739863e58131 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-innovative-revenue-leader-6233089

    Shrinking the Distance: The Power of In-Person Sales - Robert Clarkson - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #50

  3. Sep 2

    The AI-Native CRM Revolution - Christopher O’Donnell - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #49

    Take your sales strategy to the next level with powerful insights about the fundamental shift from static legacy databases to AI-native CRMs and context graphs. It’s time to eliminate administrative CRM burden, reclaim selling capacity, and empower reps to spend their time face-to-face with buyers. Who better to teach you about it than SaaS growth operator, product framework author, former HubSpot product leader, and founder & CEO of Day.ai, Christopher O'Donnell? You will learn how AI-native systems synthesize unstructured conversation data, gain confidence in automating pipeline analysis, and smash common sales misconceptions about manual CRM updates to bits. Get motivated to transition your revenue team into a modern, high-velocity selling organization destined to maximize sales results. Takeaways: Shifting from Saving Time to Spending Time Better: The true ROI of AI in revenue operations is not merely cutting hours, but reallocating rep capacity back into high-value, face-to-face selling.The Death of Manual CRM Updates: AI-native platforms eliminate the need for reps to block out calendar time to manually log notes or update pipeline stages from memory.The Power of the Context Graph: Unlike rigid relational databases, context graphs link emails, calls, Slack messages, and contracts together, allowing AI agents to dynamically map relationships and detect patterns.Understanding the AI "Harness": A harness provides foundation models with domain-specific tools, instructions, and context, enabling LLMs to perform professional-grade, complex enterprise tasks.Closing the Customer Memory Loop: Future-ready go-to-market systems automatically link front-line prospect feedback directly to product, legal, and executive leadership to solve systemic deal friction in real time. Quote of the Show: "It's not about saving time, that was the initial hope with this stuff. It's about spending time better. You're giving sales professionals more better time face-to-face selling and doing what salespeople do best." - Christopher O'Donnell Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markitecht/Website: https://day.ai Ways to Tune In: Innovative Revenue Leader Website: InnovativeRevenueLeader.ai Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Hn0sJKCzneggQj3j4XKo3?si=02c4c44769dc41bb Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-innovative-revenue-leader/id1843401468 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/48477601-e33b-4c80-a4af-739863e58131 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-innovative-revenue-leader-6233089

    The AI-Native CRM Revolution - Christopher O’Donnell - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #49

  4. Aug 26

    Closing the Knowing-Doing Gap - Ariel Hitron - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #48

    Take your sales strategy to the next level with powerful insights about real-time AI sales coaching, deal-specific enablement, and bridging the gap between training and live execution. It’s time to move beyond generic top-down certification and empower reps with an AI partner that helps them win the exact deals in their pipeline. Who better to teach you about it than tech entrepreneur, product builder, and sales leader Ariel Hitron? You will learn how to integrate CRM data, call transcripts, and sales methodologies into personalized rep coaching, gain confidence in deploying AI agents for live call analysis, and smash common sales enablement misconceptions to bits. Get motivated to develop a revenue team of your dreams that’s destined to master sales execution and maximize your revenue results. Takeaways: Transition from Top-Down to Deal-Specific Coaching: Enablement is shifting from corporate-mandated certifications to personalized, real-time advice tailored to the specific deals a rep is working on right now.Synthesizing Disparate Data Sets: True AI coaching value happens when CRM deal stages, live call transcripts, playbooks, and competitive intelligence are unified into a single context-aware agent.Evaluating Applied Execution Over Knowledge: High-performing revenue organizations judge skill mastery not by whether a rep knows a methodology, but by whether they demonstrate it on live customer calls.Data-Driven Seller Motivation: Sales professionals respond best when shown concrete evidence, such as how peer top-performers win higher deal sizes,  rather than generic training mandates.Continuous AI Learning Loops: Modern sales tech creates a self-improving feedback loop where insights from live customer calls continuously refine practice scenarios and deal guidance. Quote of the Show: “The sales conversation is like a performance, it’s the moment of truth.” - Ariel Hitron Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arielhitron/Website: https://secondnature.ai/ Ways to Tune In: Innovative Revenue Leader Website: InnovativeRevenueLeader.ai Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Hn0sJKCzneggQj3j4XKo3?si=02c4c44769dc41bb Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-innovative-revenue-leader/id1843401468 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/48477601-e33b-4c80-a4af-739863e58131 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-innovative-revenue-leader-6233089

    Closing the Knowing-Doing Gap - Ariel Hitron - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #48

  5. Aug 19

    Momentum Over Perfection - Heather Rinke - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #47

    On this episode of Innovative Revenue Leader, host Seth Marrs sits down with Heather Rinke, Salesforce Product Director at Sercante, TEDx speaker, and a nearly two decade Salesforce veteran with 18 certifications to her name. Heather has spent her career helping organizations get real value out of their CRM, and in this conversation she explains why so many sales leaders see the tool as a burden rather than an asset, why the marketing to sales handoff is usually the most fragile point in the pipeline, and how bad data quietly undermines every AI initiative built on top of it. The conversation moves from tactical fixes (automating stage progression, aligning teams around a shared definition of the buyer journey) to a bigger philosophical point: technology only works when the people using it are actually enabled to use it well. Heather closes with a personal reflection on trading perfectionism for momentum, advice she wishes she had gotten the day she graduated college.  Takeaways: Friction in the CRM is a symptom, not the problem. When reps build shadow spreadsheets or keep private notes to manage deals, it usually means the system was built for management oversight rather than active selling. Fix the root cause, not the symptom.Start with the marketing to sales handoff. Heather calls this the most fragile point in most pipelines. Misaligned definitions of "qualified" between teams create real revenue leakage and a frustrating buyer experience.Anchor your stages to the buyer's journey, not your internal process. Bring sales, marketing, customer success, and IT into the same room to agree on milestones, ownership, and what information needs to be captured at each step.Automate stage progression wherever possible. Instead of relying on manual updates that happen ten minutes before the weekly pipeline call, connect stage changes to behavioral and event driven triggers so the pipeline reflects what is actually happening.Clean your data before you scale AI. Duplicate contacts, outdated titles, and stale records do not just sit there quietly. They get amplified the moment you layer AI on top, turning small data problems into fast, confident mistakes.Enablement determines adoption, not the tool itself. Standing up new technology without training the team on why it matters and how it helps them personally is one of the most common reasons AI and CRM initiatives fail.Trade perfectionism for momentum. Ship the work, gather feedback, and iterate. Waiting for something to be flawless costs you the opportunities that come from moving quickly. Quote of the Show: "Buyers don't care about your internal process. They're expecting one continuous journey." - Heather Rinke  Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherrinke/Website: https://www.sercante.com/ Ways to Tune In: Innovative Revenue Leader Website: InnovativeRevenueLeader.ai Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Hn0sJKCzneggQj3j4XKo3?si=02c4c44769dc41bb Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-innovative-revenue-leader/id1843401468 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/48477601-e33b-4c80-a4af-739863e58131 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-innovative-revenue-leader-6233089

    Momentum Over Perfection - Heather Rinke - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #47

  6. Aug 12

    Enhance, Don’t Replace - Larry Peters - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #46

    AI isn't here to shrink your sales team, it's here to make every seller on it better. That's the game-changing perspective from Larry Peters, CRO of World of Dance and a revenue executive with over 15 years driving growth across the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, and major entertainment brands like Live Nation, AEG, and WME. You'll learn how AI is reshaping where sellers spend their time, why buyer expectations are rising as information becomes more accessible, and how hiring people who understand your buyer's world can outperform even the best technical sellers. Larry also breaks down his approach to coaching, why removing doubt from your team matters more than rah-rah motivation, and how the same "art and science" balance drives sales success, whether you're selling to the NFL or a Gen Z dance platform.  Takeaways: AI's real value in B2B sales isn't reducing headcount, it's freeing sellers from time-consuming research so they can spend more energy crafting a message that actually resonates with the buyer.Rising buyer expectations mean sellers can no longer lean on introductory small talk. Buyers increasingly expect sellers to already understand who they are and why the conversation matters before the call even starts.Larry has built winning sales teams by hiring people who come from the industries he's selling into, rather than technical experts unfamiliar with the buyer's world, because credibility and shared context close deals faster than product knowledge alone.Great salespeople stay focused on the customer's needs rather than their own company's capabilities. Larry credits this mindset to his early career in nonprofit fundraising, where he had to build trust and relationships with no product to sell.Larry's core coaching philosophy is removing doubt. He believes client hesitation ultimately traces back to a seller's own uncertainty about a product's value, so his primary job as a leader is building that conviction on his team.Rather than continuously cutting underperformers, Larry focuses on understanding what motivates each individual seller and coaching them up, treating people fairly without treating them all the same.Larry sees sales as equal parts art and science: process and preparation create the foundation, but the ability to build authentic relationships and tell a compelling story is what ultimately makes people buy. Quote of the Show: “All client doubt comes from the salesperson.” - Larry Peters Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larry-peters-/Website: http://www.worldofdance.com Ways to Tune In: Innovative Revenue Leader Website: InnovativeRevenueLeader.ai Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Hn0sJKCzneggQj3j4XKo3?si=02c4c44769dc41bb Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-innovative-revenue-leader/id1843401468 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/48477601-e33b-4c80-a4af-739863e58131 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-innovative-revenue-leader-6233089

    Enhance, Don’t Replace - Larry Peters - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #46

  7. Aug 5

    Moving AI from Novelty to Infrastructure - Jim Iyoob - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #45

    Transform your revenue operations and elevate your customer experience strategy with actionable insights on integrating AI into core workflows, building trust through genuine sales curiosity, and creating a closed-loop feedback system. It’s time to move beyond surface-level metrics and leverage real-time interaction data to drive long-term business growth. Who better to guide you through this evolution than customer experience veteran, twice CX Hall of Fame inductee, and CRO of ETech Global Solutions, Jim Iyoob? In this episode, you will learn how to turn frontline contact center intelligence into actionable insights for marketing and training, align your cross-functional teams around a shared definition of success, and structure compensation plans that reward true customer retention over quick wins. Get inspired to move past rigid scripts, cultivate a mindset of genuine curiosity, and deliver effortless experiences that keep customers coming back. Takeaways Shift AI from Novelty to Infrastructure: The most successful organizations have stopped chasing shiny demos and are instead using AI to instrument and optimize their existing workflows to achieve measurable business outcomes.Implement a Closed-Loop Process: Leverage real-time interaction data to directly inform hiring, training, compensation, and cross-functional strategies across marketing and sales.Sell with Genuine Curiosity, Not Scripts: High-performing sellers ask thoughtful questions and focus on understanding the prospect's real pressure points rather than pitching generic features and benefits.Align Sales Comp with Customer Retention: Structure tiered compensation plans that keep sellers engaged long after the initial deal closes to ensure smooth implementations and long-term retention.Ditch Rigid Funnel Reports for Honest Assessments: Effective sales forecasting requires transparent, honest conversations about deal blockers and true buyer timelines rather than relying solely on static CRM data. Quote of the Show "The companies that are winning are the ones who stopped chasing the demo and really started instrumenting their own workflows." - Jim Iyoob Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimiyoob/Website: http://www.etechgs.com Ways to Tune In: Innovative Revenue Leader Website: InnovativeRevenueLeader.ai Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Hn0sJKCzneggQj3j4XKo3?si=02c4c44769dc41bb Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-innovative-revenue-leader/id1843401468 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/48477601-e33b-4c80-a4af-739863e58131 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-innovative-revenue-leader-6233089

    Moving AI from Novelty to Infrastructure - Jim Iyoob - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #45

  8. Jul 29

    The Future of Forecasting Compilation Episode - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #44

    Forecasting is often called the world's most dreaded admin task, but for top-performing revenue organizations, it's becoming one of the clearest signals of business health. In this special compilation episode, host Seth Marrs brings together four perspectives on the future of forecasting: Dana Therrien, Jamie Sacks, Nicola Miller, and Thorsten Reichenberger. You'll learn how forecasting is evolving from a once-a-quarter guessing game into a real-time, signal-driven discipline. Get insight into what separates immature forecasting practices from mature ones, why management consistency matters more than the technology behind it, and how AI and analytics are reshaping the role sellers play in predicting the future of their pipeline. Takeaways: Forecasting maturity progresses through distinct stages, from anecdotal and rep-opinion-driven to fully signal-based and proactive, with the biggest differentiator being management consistency rather than technology itself.Sellers are shifting away from rigid dashboards toward asking natural-language questions of their data, giving revenue teams faster, more flexible access to the insights they actually need.Real transparency in forecasting can create organizational tension, since honestly exposing pipeline health is often more uncomfortable than defending a number leadership feels confident about.Simplifying what's required of sellers, rather than adding more definitions and process, has been a major driver of forecast accuracy improvements at scale.At the enterprise level, usage-based and consumption forecasting is best handled with data and algorithms rather than asking individual sellers to predict outcomes they can't reasonably control.As AI and analytics mature, the seller's role in forecasting is expected to shift from manual prediction toward accountability paired with better tools and signals to act on. Quote of the Show: "If you've got a big enough inventory, you can replace them with other ones, and then you start to make your forecast." - Dana Therrien Links: Nicola’s LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolamiller013/Thorsten’s LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/thorsten-reichenberger-b03b101/Dana’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danatherrien/Jamie’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-sacks-2b20802a/?skipRedirect=true Ways to Tune In: Innovative Revenue Leader Website: InnovativeRevenueLeader.ai Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Hn0sJKCzneggQj3j4XKo3?si=02c4c44769dc41bb Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-innovative-revenue-leader/id1843401468 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/48477601-e33b-4c80-a4af-739863e58131 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-innovative-revenue-leader-6233089

    The Future of Forecasting Compilation Episode - Innovative Revenue Leader - Episode #44
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

This podcast explores the future of sales performance, giving Chief Revenue Officers and other growth leaders the insights, tools, and stories they need to lead with confidence. Through candid conversations with top executives, analysts, and tech innovators, we uncover how to harness data, optimize talent, and build tech-enabled sales teams that win. Listeners will walk away with actionable strategies to drive growth, outpace change, and future-proof their revenue engine.

Information

  • Creator
    Seth Marrs
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    50
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Sandler Systems, LLC. 
  • Show Website
    The Innovative Revenue Leader

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