Revenue Problem Solvers

Operationalize

Revenue Problem Solvers is the sales and revenue leadership podcast for founders, executives, and operators who are done with generic advice. One question drives every conversation: what's the most significant revenue initiative you've ever led, or the most challenging problem you've solved or are currently solving? The conversations span the entire GTM function from sales, marketing, ops, CS, product, leadership, and AI. Real stories. Specific lessons. No filler. New episodes weekly.

  1. Your Health Score Is Green. Your Customer Already Left. | Lukas Alexander

    4d ago

    Your Health Score Is Green. Your Customer Already Left. | Lukas Alexander

    Your customer's health score looks fine. Their relationship with your team already went cold months ago, and that's the part most CS teams never catch in time. Lukas Alexander, VP of Customer Success at ChurnZero and former 8-year CS leader at Cision, joins Karl to break down why multi-year deals don't actually solve churn, they just delay the conversation you should be having in month two. They dig into why relationship data now catches churn signals earlier than usage data ever could, why seat-based pricing is collapsing as AI lets one person do the work of five, and why CFOs are suddenly adding new scrutiny to every AI-adjacent renewal, even on accounts that have been stable for years. You'll walk away with a real framework for diagnosing why customers actually leave, a way to think about hybrid pricing while AI pricing models are still shifting, and a coaching tactic for arming your economic buyer to sell the renewal internally before it ever lands on a CFO's desk. Want more from Lukas? Find him on LinkedIn or connect with him at ChurnZero. This episode is brought to you by Virtual Causeway, helping B2B companies get found earlier in the buying process by the people who actually make the decision. Visit virtualcauseway.com and mention the show for a special rate. This is the Revenue Problem Solvers Podcast, built for revenue leaders who say the things they're actually stuck on and want a real answer. #RevenueProblemSolversPodcast

    48 min
  2. Why Your AI Rollout Might Be Increasing Your Churn with Julie Persofsky

    Jul 3

    Why Your AI Rollout Might Be Increasing Your Churn with Julie Persofsky

    Is your AI rollout quietly increasing your churn? Julie Persofsky has spent her career proving customer success is a growth engine, not a retention afterthought. She took Influitive from zero to $10 million in ARR while outselling the sales team from the existing customer base, and today over 80% of her client portfolio is AI companies. On this episode, she and Karl get into what's actually happening inside B2B teams racing to adopt AI in their go-to-market, and why most of them are making their problems worse, not better. You'll hear why scaling a broken process with AI just increases churn faster, why AI agents need training and a ramp period the same way a new hire does, and why some companies are finding their AI token spend costs more than the salaries of the people they replaced. Julie also breaks down her "AI sandwich" framework for keeping humans in control of AI decisions, and why being a buyer of AI products right now is one of the hardest positions in B2B. This one's for revenue leaders, RevOps, and customer success teams trying to figure out what to actually automate before they lose control of their go-to-market motion. Julie shares more of her thinking on LinkedIn and at achieveexponentialgrowth.com, including a free go-to-market and AI-readiness benchmark and a free CS-to-sales training course. This episode is brought to you by Virtual Causeway. Visit virtualcauseway.com and mention the show for a special rate. #RevenueProblemSolversPodcast

    50 min
  3. Your Sales Training Has a 35% Completion Rate. Eve Kedar's Had 80%.

    Jun 26

    Your Sales Training Has a 35% Completion Rate. Eve Kedar's Had 80%.

    The industry average for sales training completion is 30–40%. Most companies treat that number like a ceiling. Dr. Eve Kedar treated it like a problem worth solving. At Seagate, she built the Systems Selling Academy, a global enablement program that hit 80% completion and tied directly to a 20% lift in sales growth. Her approach wasn't more content or better modules. It was community, peer coaching, and accountability built into the structure from day one. In this conversation, Eve breaks down exactly how she did it. The weekly leaderboards reported to senior leadership, the global point-and-sticker system that made teams compete across time zones, and the peer coaching sessions where managers modeled failure from the front. She also shares three actions any enablement leader can take immediately: listen to call recordings and map them to your sales process, run loss reviews instead of just win reviews, and build peer coaching into the engine of your program rather than adding it as an afterthought. Eve is the author of Build a Kickass Sales Team and Build a Kickass Online Community, and runs EK Consulting at ekconsulting.io, helping funded software companies get their reps executing consistently. This episode is brought to you by Virtual Causeway who are helping B2B companies get found earlier in the buying process by the right people. Visit virtualcauseway.com and mention the show for a special rate.

    48 min
  4. 21 Years to $10M: What a Founder Stops Doing When the Growth Finally Kicks In | Ben Buckley

    Jun 19

    21 Years to $10M: What a Founder Stops Doing When the Growth Finally Kicks In | Ben Buckley

    He got fired for a DUI. Started a side hustle to buy diapers and formula. Twenty-one years later, his company clears over $3 million a month. Ben Buckley is the founder and CEO of Digital Dreams, an 8-figure commercial AV integration company that has installed LED walls and enterprise security systems for Apple, Samsung, Salesforce, and Madison Square Garden. He runs it with zero paid ads, zero KPI dashboards, and zero formal sales goals. In 2019, Ben set a goal to hit $10 million in revenue. He hit it last year. And he knows exactly why it took so long — he was the one holding the company back. This episode gets into the real sequence of founder-led scaling: when to duplicate yourself in the field, how to find the hire that changes everything, why owning your customer relationship is non-negotiable, and what it actually takes to hand off sales without losing what makes you good at it. Ben also shares why he pulled back from operating in 31 states, how he gave away 10,000 residential customers for free, and what a CEO coach taught him about reference checks that he almost skipped. If you're a founder who's still the salesperson, the operator, and the closer all at once; this one is for you. You can see the work Ben's team does at Digital Dreams Installs on YouTube and TikTok. This episode is brought to you by Virtual Causeway. Virtual Causeway is helping B2B companies get found earlier in the buying process by the right people. Visit virtualcauseway.com and mention the show for a special rate.

    53 min
  5. The AI Champion at This $6M Company Is Not the CTO. Here's Why | Chris Fossenier

    Jun 12

    The AI Champion at This $6M Company Is Not the CTO. Here's Why | Chris Fossenier

    Most AI adoption advice sounds the same. Add the tool. Run the pilot. Hope the team figures it out. Chris Fossenier, Chief Growth Officer at Member Solutions and former corporate AI Champion at Vendasta, has a different playbook. And he's got results to prove it. In this episode, Chris breaks down exactly how he built a functioning AI revenue engine inside a real $6M business, with a non-technical team, and from the ground up. His content writer completed all of Q2's content in two weeks using an agent team she built herself in Visual Studio Code. His sales reps clean up pipeline and run targeted campaigns without touching a developer. His whole team queries company databases by asking questions in plain English. The framework is practical: one-on-one problem sessions to create a paradigm shift, read-only data governance, OKRs as the only filter for whether a tool survives, and a stack built around Claude, VS Code, and platform-native MCPs. If you're a revenue leader trying to move past AI experimentation and build something that actually runs, this is the episode. Chris is available for AI strategy sessions at ex10x.com and is active on LinkedIn. This episode is brought to you by Virtual Causeway. Visit virtualcauseway.com and mention the show for a special rate.

    47 min
  6. Jason Kraemer Shut Down a 16-Year Agency on Purpose. Here's What He Built Next.

    Jun 5

    Jason Kraemer Shut Down a 16-Year Agency on Purpose. Here's What He Built Next.

    He ran an agency for 16 years. Then walked away from it on purpose. Not because it failed. Because after looking at his own numbers, Jason Kramer realized the project model was structurally designed to let revenue leak out. Money already earned. Clients already won. Just falling through the cracks because the model wasn't built to hold them. In 2018 he founded Cultivize, a CRM consultancy built on retainer relationships. His clients have since tracked nearly $40 million in recovered pipeline revenue. In this conversation, Jason breaks down exactly how he made the shift: how he built a pricing model in Excel by analyzing hundreds of real projects, how he prepared individualized presentations for existing clients using their own spending history, and how he converted over 70% of them to retainers without losing the relationship. He also shares the three actions any service business can take right now to start the transition, and why most business owners are scared of the wrong thing when they think about leaving project work behind. If you work with clients on a project basis and you've ever wondered whether there's a better way to structure it, this episode is the answer. Connect with Jason and access free resources on CRM and lead nurturing at afterthelead.com. This episode is sponsored by Virtual Causeway. Visit virtualcauseway.com and mention the show for a special rate.

    44 min
  7. Why Your LinkedIn Content Gets Zero Pipeline (And How to Fix It) | Eli Igra Serfaty

    May 29

    Why Your LinkedIn Content Gets Zero Pipeline (And How to Fix It) | Eli Igra Serfaty

    LinkedIn is the most misunderstood platform in B2B, and most revenue teams are paying for it in flat pipeline. Eli Igra Serfaty has built his entire practice around LinkedIn, working with clients from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies. In this episode, he dismantles the misconceptions that keep B2B teams busy on LinkedIn without generating results. You'll hear why impressions are the wrong metric entirely, how to identify real buying signals buried in your LinkedIn activity, what content formats to mix and why, and why automation tools - including popular engagement pods - can trigger account deletion with zero warning from LinkedIn. Eli also addresses the company page versus personal profile debate with a practitioner's directness: personal profiles carry the organic reach, and teams that activate individual voices consistently outperform those running LinkedIn through a brand account. His advice for where to start: write the post. Stop overthinking it. The format you never use is the only one that loses. If you're investing time or budget in LinkedIn and not seeing pipeline, this episode gives you a clear reset. Follow Eli on LinkedIn to continue the conversation and access his frameworks directly. This episode of Revenue Problem Solvers Podcast is sponsored by Virtual Causeway, B2B demand generation experts. Visit virtualcauseway.com and mention the show for a special rate.

    56 min
  8. Your Biggest Revenue Problem Isn't Sales. Former MetLife VP, Jennifer Doty

    May 22

    Your Biggest Revenue Problem Isn't Sales. Former MetLife VP, Jennifer Doty

    Most companies treat operations as a cost center. Jennifer Doty built a career proving it is actually a revenue engine, and that the gap between sales and delivery is where most revenue gets quietly lost. Jennifer spent nearly 20 years at MetLife, ultimately leading all of US group benefit operations, a function of over 1,000 people. She now serves as VP of Operations at Three Flow, a benefits technology platform. Her work sits at the intersection of revenue strategy, operational delivery, and organizational change. This conversation covers the framework she uses to align sales and operations around a shared revenue target, the $10M cost reduction she navigated inside MetLife without losing performance, and the service model transformation that required getting a 1,000-person team to change how they worked, down to the individual level. She also gets into how to identify drivers versus passengers on your team, what daily huddles actually accomplish during a change rollout, and why the moment she knew the transformation was working was when people started saying "sign me up" instead of pushing back. If you lead a revenue team, an operations function, or both, this episode will change how you see the relationship between delivery and growth. Connect with Jennifer at jenniferdoty.com or find her on LinkedIn. This episode is brought to you by Virtual Causeway, B2B demand generation specialists. Visit virtualcauseway.com and mention the show for a special rate. Revenue Problem Solvers Podcast; because most revenue problems aren't where you think they are.

    48 min
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About

Revenue Problem Solvers is the sales and revenue leadership podcast for founders, executives, and operators who are done with generic advice. One question drives every conversation: what's the most significant revenue initiative you've ever led, or the most challenging problem you've solved or are currently solving? The conversations span the entire GTM function from sales, marketing, ops, CS, product, leadership, and AI. Real stories. Specific lessons. No filler. New episodes weekly.

Information

  • Creator
    Operationalize
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    55
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Operationalize
  • Show Website
    Revenue Problem Solvers