Revenue Rewired

Jay Feitlinger and Sarah Shepard

Reimagine how you approach marketing, sales, and revenue growth with the Revenue Rewired podcast. Hosted by StringCan Interactive’s CEO Jay Feitlinger and COO Sarah Shepard, this podcast dives into the biggest challenges mid-market B2B companies face. Weekly this dynamic duo breaks down complex strategies into actionable insights to help you align your business, maximize ROI, and drive measurable growth. No jargon (ok maybe a lil), but mainly just straight talk to fuel your revenue engine. Tune in and take your business to the next level.

  1. 1D AGO

    Ep 57: The Real Reason AI Isn't Clicking for You, And the Easy Fix

    You've sat through the webinars. You've read the threads. You're still not sure AI is actually working for you. That's not a knowledge problem. It's a starting point problem. Jay and Sarah skip the productivity playbook and go personal. They share the real ways they started using AI for themselves first, from decoding MRI reports to building a compound interest app at the dinner table, and why that's the move that actually builds confidence to use it in business. No framework. No course. Just honest reflection from two operators who've been in the AI weeds for three-plus years. If you're burned out on AI hype but still haven't found your version of it, this episode's for you. KEY TAKEAWAYS • Why starting personal beats starting professional? The fastest path to using AI in your business is using it for something you actually care about first. That low-stakes repetition is what makes the business application feel obvious later. • What "building on sand" actually costs you. Don't design your workflows around a single tool's features. Platforms shift overnight. The goal is AI fluency, not AI dependency. • How your personality should drive which LLM you use. ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity aren't interchangeable. Try them before you commit. Your cognitive style matters more than the feature list. • Why the privacy risk is smaller than you think. Sarah's filter: if you wouldn't mind anyone seeing this information, you don't need to be nervous about putting it into an LLM. That reframe removes paralysis without removing caution. • What happens when your team experiments out loud? AI literacy spread at StringCan because leaders shared what they were trying, not just what worked. That culture of experimentation is what drives client conversations now. EPISODE CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome and Sarah's Paris trip 02:17 Why we're done talking about AI productivity 04:16 Jay's origin story: from intimidated to obsessed 07:23 Sarah's start: from fantasy football to health reports 10:14 The danger of betting everything on one tool 13:27 How to think about privacy risk 16:25 Match the LLM to your personality 19:33 Using multiple LLMs against each other 25:32 Jay's three personal AI wins ABOUT THE HOSTS Jay Feitlinger is the CEO of StringCan Interactive and co-host of Revenue Rewired.  Connect with Jay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/ Sarah Shepard is the COO of StringCan Interactive and co-host of Revenue Rewired.  Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/ ABOUT REVENUE REWIRED Revenue Rewired is a podcast for B2B marketers, sales leaders, and business owners navigating the intersection of sales and marketing. Every episode delivers actionable insights for mid-market companies that are serious about growing revenue strategically. Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com Website: www.stringcaninteractive.com  Get the Revenue Rewired book: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Rewired-Identify-Leaks-Costing-ebook/dp/B0FST7JCXQ  Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/revenue-rewired-7423414515779936256/  KEYWORDS:2026 AI in B2B sales, B2B leadership podcast, business growth podcast, CEO leadership podcast, B2B go-to-market 2026, revenue efficiency, B2B business podcast, custom GPT strategy, AI tools for business owners, ChatGPT vs Claude, personal AI use cases, LLM comparison 2026

    32 min
  2. APR 16

    Ep 56: The One Thing Your Team Knows About You That No One's Saying Out Loud

    Honest feedback doesn't fail because people don't have it. It fails because leaders haven't made it safe enough to give. Jay Feitlinger and Sarah Shepard pull back the curtain on the "One Thing" exercise they've run inside StringCan's quarterly planning for years, and why it took nearly two dozen iterations before it clicked. Jay walks through the format live, using Sarah as the example. They talk openly about what it takes to build a team where this kind of conversation not only survives but also becomes something people genuinely look forward to. If your review process leaves the room feeling unchanged, this episode is for you. KEY TAKEAWAYS: Why the feedback you're dreading to hear is almost never what your team actually brings up, and what that gap is really telling youHow one structured exercise can reveal the true trust level of your leadership team before you launch anything newWhat it looks like when a leader receives hard feedback in front of their team, and why it's one of the most powerful signals your culture is sending right nowWhy annual reviews are structurally broken and what a quarterly alternative actually looks like in practiceHow applying this exercise between sales and marketing could quietly dissolve the cross-department friction that's costing you revenue alignmentEPISODE CHAPTERS: 00:00 - When You Actually Look Forward to Hard Feedback 01:15 - Why Sarah's Buying Walking Shoes for France and What It Has to Do With Boredom on Purpose  03:47 - The One Thing Exercise: Where It Came From and Why It Works 06:13 - Trust Isn't a Value You Post on the Wall, It's How You Respond in the Room  08:51 - Jay Puts Sarah in the Hot Seat Live: Watch the Process in Real Time 13:19 - What Jay Actually Said to Sarah and Why It Mattered More Than a Performance Review  15:58 - Why High Performers Are Usually Hardest on Themselves and How This Exercise Resets That  20:30 - The Moment a Team Member Said This Was the Part of Planning He Dreaded Most  24:36 - How to Introduce This If Your Team Has Never Done Anything Like It 26:13 - Why Writing Feedback Down Instead of Saying It Out Loud Is a Red Flag 27:30 - What Happens When Sales and Marketing Do This Together ABOUT YOUR HOSTS Jay Feitlinger is the CEO of StringCan Interactive and co-host of Revenue Rewired. Connect with Jay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/ Sarah Shepard is the COO of StringCan Interactive and co-host of Revenue Rewired. Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/ ABOUT THE REVENUE REWIRED Revenue Rewired is a podcast for B2B marketers, sales leaders, and business owners navigating the intersection of sales and marketing. Every episode delivers actionable insights for mid-market companies that are serious about growing revenue strategically. Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com  Website: www.stringcaninteractive.com  Get the Revenue Rewired book: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Rewired-Identify-Leaks-Costing-ebook/dp/B0FST7JCXQ  Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/crm-swamp-you-built-jay-feitlinger-v4pee KEYWORDS: leadership feedback culture, B2B revenue alignment, sales and marketing alignment, quarterly planning process, EOS integrator visionary, leadership trust building, one thing exercise, radical candor leadership, mid-market growth strategy, revenue operations podcast, B2B leadership podcast, team feedback framework, executive team trust, performance feedback alternatives, Revenue Rewired podcas

    29 min
  3. APR 9

    Ep 55: Are You an AI Driver or Just a Passenger Princess?

    Most business leaders think they are using AI. They aren't. They're passengers. In this episode, Jay and Sarah break down the growing divide between AI drivers and AI passengers, and why that gap is closing faster than most leaders realize. From the myth of "saving time" to the hidden cost of AI procrastination, this conversation cuts through the noise and gets uncomfortably specific. If you have been waiting for the right moment to get serious about AI in your organization, that moment already passed. Here is how to catch up before your competitors make it impossible. Copy-pasting AI output makes you a passenger. Drivers push back, probe deeper, and use Socratic prompting to get results worth acting on.AI does not save time. It raises the ceiling on what you can accomplish. Leaders who miss that distinction end up with burned-out teams and bloated AI bills.Your CMO is not your AI person. AI is a business-wide operating shift, not a marketing function. Someone needs to own it at the organizational level.Doing nothing is still a decision, and it has a price. AI is already inside the tools you are paying for. There is no budget excuse and no good reason to keep waiting.Run the same prompt through multiple LLMs. ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity each have different strengths. Testing across platforms surfaces better answers and blind spots you would have otherwise missed.0:00 Jay is back from Sicily with jet lag, Sarah is two weeks from a two-month trip, and somehow the podcast is still happening 2:05 The driver versus passenger framework and why it is starting to matter in how organizations evaluate AI maturity 4:59 Why generic prompts produce generic results and what it actually looks like to push back on an AI system until it gives you something useful 7:59 The saving time myth and why the hours you free up just fill with more work, which is actually the point, but also kind of the problem 10:34 How Jay and Sarah use AI across operations, SOPs, and leadership planning, and why none of it works if it does not start at the top 15:13 Jay's personal story about building custom GPTs for his college-aged daughters and why fear of the future was the thing that finally got him moving 18:48 The mental residue that builds up when leaders keep pushing AI decisions off, and why the first move does not need to be expensive or complicated 20:21 A real breakfast conversation with a mid-market business owner who assumed AI was a young person's tool, and what that assumption is quietly costing him 23:31 Why handing AI ownership to your CMO is a mistake, and what a more honest org structure around this actually looks like 26:56 Ryan from their ops team shares a simple habit: run the same prompt through multiple platforms and see what comes back differently 29:43 Sarah's somewhat controversial answer to the question every overwhelmed business owner eventually asks Jay Feitlinger https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/ Sarah Shepard https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/ StringCan Interactive is a B2B marketing agency that helps mid-market companies build revenue strategies that stick. Website: www.stringcaninteractive.com   Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com  Buy the Revenue Rewired Book: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Rewired-Identify-Leaks-Costing-ebook/dp/B0FST7JCXQ  AI driver vs AI passenger, AI adoption for business leaders, AI strategy for mid-market companies, AI productivity myth, AI maturity framework, B2B AI strategy, leadership and artificial intelligence, ChatGPT for business, AI tools for executives, AI policy vs compliance, LLM comparison for business, Revenue Rewired podcast, StringCan Interactive, AI ROI per employee, time to failure AI metric, Socratic prompting AI, AI for SMBs, AI competency evaluation, AI passenger princess, business AI mindset Key TakeawaysEpisode ChaptersAbout the HostsAbout Revenue Rewired and StringCan InteractiveSEO Keywords

    34 min
  4. APR 2

    Ep 54: Why Your CRM Is a Swamp And How to Fix It

    Most companies assume their CRM problem is a tool problem. It isn't. In this episode, we expose the real culprit: the broken system living inside the tool. From cycling through four CRMs in 16 years to a client who found only 13 usable contacts after weeks of launch prep, Jay and Sarah break down exactly why CRM swamps form, and what it actually takes to drain them. If your team has ever imported contacts and forgotten them, switched platforms hoping for a fresh start, or wondered why nobody trusts the dashboard, this episode was made for you. The tool is not the problem; your system is. Discover why switching CRM platforms without fixing your internal processes just recreates the same swamp.Nobody owns it, so nobody fixes it. Learn why the absence of a dedicated CRM owner is the single fastest path to data rot.Your bloated database is quietly raising your bill. Jay shares a real story where one unchecked import doubled a company's HubSpot contact count and they didn't find out until renewal.Clean data isn't optional once AI enters the picture. Find out why the future value of your AI investment is being decided right now by the hygiene of your CRM and what to do before it's too late.Being ruthless with your database is a competitive advantage. Sarah walks through how StringCan eliminated 90% of their own database during a migration and why it made them faster, not weaker.Chapter 2:04 The question that exposes everything If your CRM disappeared tomorrow, would your business get better or worse? Why does this single question cut through the noise faster than any audit? 4:09 Four CRMs in 16 years — StringCan's honest confession From spreadsheets to Pipedrive to Salesforce to HubSpot and back again. Why did even the experts fall into the shiny object trap? 7:46 The number one root cause nobody talks about: no owner Why CRMs fail before a single contact is entered, and the two executive motivations that launch a CRM for the wrong reasons. 12:36 Welcome to the CRM swamp — and why you are not alone The set-it-and-forget-it mentality explained. How bad data hygiene is already sabotaging your AI strategy, whether you have started using AI or not. 16:18 A real client: 12 sales reps, zero consistency, total chaos Jay breaks down what happens when aggressive revenue goals collide with a CRM nobody is managing and why one rep was only logging in on Fridays. 20:22 Be the ruthless closet cleaner, how to migrate the right way Sarah's case for deleting 90% of your database before migrating, why FOMO about contacts costs you clarity, and what quality over quantity looks like in practice. 24:05 The re-opt-in gamble that paid off A client with 50–60K contacts needed to launch ABM. Here is the uncomfortable strategy that actually worked, and why losing contacts was the win. 27:20 Change management: the most underrated CRM skill Why your rollout needs ground-level champions, not just executive dashboards, and the difference between running a focused pilot and just playing with the tool. Keywords: CRM strategy, revenue operations, sales marketing alignment, data quality, pipeline management, HubSpot, CRM adoption, B2B marketing, mid-market growth, sales process, marketing strategy, lead management, revenue systems, customer database, funnel optimization, CRM migration, database hygiene, change management, ABM strategy, AI data readiness. Revenue Rewired is a podcast for B2B marketers, sales leaders, and business owners navigating the intersection of sales and marketing. Hosted by Jay Feitlinger and Sarah Shepard, each episode delivers actionable insights for mid market companies looking to grow revenue strategically. Contact Us: Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com Reach out to the hosts on LinkedIn: Jay Feitlinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/ Sarah Shepard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/ Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/crm-swamp-you-built-jay-feitlinger-v4pee

    39 min
5
out of 5
19 Ratings

About

Reimagine how you approach marketing, sales, and revenue growth with the Revenue Rewired podcast. Hosted by StringCan Interactive’s CEO Jay Feitlinger and COO Sarah Shepard, this podcast dives into the biggest challenges mid-market B2B companies face. Weekly this dynamic duo breaks down complex strategies into actionable insights to help you align your business, maximize ROI, and drive measurable growth. No jargon (ok maybe a lil), but mainly just straight talk to fuel your revenue engine. Tune in and take your business to the next level.