4d ago

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

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 Sneed Thurman 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 specific audiences. And it's not always the same way that you drive that content KK Anderson (03:23) Right. And Thurman (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 so Like 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 to That 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 t

Sep 9

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

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 Sneed Thurman 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 let The 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 I KK 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

Sep 2

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

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 Scott Denis 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 part One, 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 own AI 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 and being challenged by the same things. Dennis, welcome back. Denis Scott (01:28) Thank you 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? And Alan 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) Got it. 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 exactly Alan 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, again when 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 any Are 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 I Alan 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

Aug 26

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

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 Scott Denis 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 now It'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's Denis 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 so Mark 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 a much 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 director should 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 my Denis 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 I was 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 to Alan 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 prec

Aug 19

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

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 optimization Guest Spotlight: Lance Haffner Lance 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 ha KK 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 go Mark 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, or Mark Petruzzi (02:42) Yeah, yeah. Lance Haffner (02:43) the mo onto KK 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 the Point 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 insights KK 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 think KK 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 in KK 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 ou

Aug 12

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

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 growth Key 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 Global Guest: 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 #B2BSales Mark 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 that You 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

Aug 5

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

General Description AI 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 Learn Why 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 Topics The 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 principlesGuest Dr. 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 Mentioned SuccessClinic.comThe Human AI GapThe Caveman CalculatorGary VaynerchukAlex HormoziDale CarnegieHow to Win Friends and Influence PeopleFord Motor CompanyAGS Two Millimeter Club#SellingIntelligence #AIforSales #SalesLeadership #HumanAIGap #RevenueLeadership Mark 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 there Mark 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 is Taking 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? so That'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. Like because 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 s KK 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, it we 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 to KK Anderson (06:20) Right. But to get but to even get to that point where they're interested. Like that marketing Dr. Noah St. John (06:24) So I talked about the cav

Jul 29

Ep. 137 - The Human AI Gap: Why Your Team Isn’t Using AI to Its Full Potential with Dr. Noah St. John - Part 1

General Episode Description: In this episode of Selling Intelligence, Dr. Noah St. John, bestselling author, performance expert, and founder of SuccessClinic.com, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to explore why so many organizations continue to struggle with execution despite investing heavily in technology, training, and AI. Drawing on nearly three decades of research and more than 250 documented client success stories, Noah argues that the biggest barrier to growth isn’t a lack of skills or better tools. It’s what he calls the inner game. While most organizations obsess over CRM systems, AI platforms, sales methodologies, and go-to-market strategies, they often ignore the beliefs, mental patterns, and internal wiring that determine whether those investments actually translate into performance. The conversation introduces Noah’s concept of the Human AI Gap, the growing disconnect between our 200,000-year-old human brain and the fastest-moving technology ever created. He explains why fear often outweighs logic when organizations introduce AI, why employees naturally resist change, and why leaders must address human psychology before expecting meaningful AI adoption. Mark, KK, and Noah also discuss the distinction between the inner game and outer game, the role beliefs play in sales performance, why coaching mindset creates exponential business growth, and how understanding different personality patterns can help leaders guide their teams through the AI revolution. What You’ll Learn: The Inner Game vs. Outer Game: Why technology, sales processes, and AI tools only work when the underlying human mindset supports them.The Human AI Gap: Why our evolutionary wiring naturally resists rapid technological change and what leaders can do about it.Why Performance Plateaus: How limiting beliefs create invisible ceilings that prevent teams from reaching their full potential.Leading Through AI Adoption: Why transparency, communication, and psychology matter more than simply deploying new AI tools.Understanding Human Behavior: How Noah’s four “Caveman Types” help explain different reactions to AI, change, and leadership. Key Topics: The inner game versus the outer gameBeliefs and their impact on performanceWhy mindset alone isn’t enoughBreaking through performance ceilingsThe psychology behind business growthCoaching leaders for exponential resultsThe Human AI GapHuman psychology and AI adoptionFear versus greed in organizational changeThe internet revolution versus the AI revolutionWhy AI adoption creates resistanceThe caveman brain and modern technologyFour Caveman Types: Chief, Spark, Keeper, and WatcherLeadership during periods of rapid AI transformationBuilding trust during organizational changeWhy transparency reduces fearHuman behavior in sales organizationsAI implementation and executionPsychology-driven leadershipHigh-performance coachingGuest Spotlight: Dr. Noah St. John is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, business growth strategist, and founder of SuccessClinic.com. Over nearly 30 years, he has authored 27 books and helped hundreds of entrepreneurs and organizations improve performance through his research on mindset, productivity, leadership, and human behavior. His work combines neuroscience, psychology, and business strategy to help organizations overcome internal barriers to execution. Through his coaching and frameworks, clients have documented growth ranging from 600% to more than 1,500% across multiple industries. Resources & Mentions: Permission to SucceedPower HabitsThe Human AI GapThe Caveman QuizDale CarnegieChicken Soup for the SoulAGS Two Millimeter ClubArtificial Intelligence (AI)CRM platformsLeadership coaching🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with today’s leading experts in sales leadership, AI, revenue growth, and go-to-market strategy. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mark Petruzzi (00:28) Welcome to Selling Intelligence. This is the full conversation with Dr. Noah Saint John. We have broken it into chapters in the description. Take it from the top or jump to the segment that's most relevant to where you are right now. Enjoy the show. Mark Petruzzi (00:28) Welcome to Selling Intelligence. This is the full conversation with Dr. Noah Saint John. We have broken it into chapters in the description. Take it from the top or jump to the segment that's most relevant to where you are right now. Enjoy the show. I'm Mark Petruzzi. KK Anderson (00:43) And I'm KK Anderson. Mark Petruzzi (00:45) Every revenue leader has watched the same thing play out. You hire strong people, you buy the technology, you fund the training, and performance still does not move. It does not improve. Our guest today argues that the constraint is not the skill set or the stack. It's what he calls the inner game, the internal wiring that determines whether any of it actually gets used. And Noah St. John has Close I spent close to thirty years studying it. We're really excited to have you here as well. KK Anderson (01:16) Dr. Noah St. John has authored 27 books. 27. Built more than 200 client funnels and documented more than 250 case studies of clients adding between 600 and 1,500% growth. He's also coined the term we are going to spend most of this conversation on called the human AI gap. We are running a 200,000 year old brain. against the fastest technology ever built. And the distance between the two is where execution breaks down. Noah, welcome to selling intelligence. Dr. Noah St. John (01:50) Thank you. It's great to be here. Mark Petruzzi (01:51) No as you have been doing this work since nineteen ninety seven. A lot has certainly changed in how industry talks about mindset and performance today than back then. What is your framework address that the standard mindset conversation misses? Dr. Noah St. John (02:06) Well, it's interesting you bring that up, Mark, because from my perspective, the conversation hasn't changed that much out there. They're basically saying the same thing they always have. I started in a three hundred square foot basement apartment with eight hundred dollars and a book on HTML. So I had nothing. I had no money, no marketing experience, no sales, no training of any kind like that. But what I did have Was something that I bet every single person listening to this program also has. And that is a deep burning desire to make a difference, to make an impact, to help people all around the world. And so I had been studying personal growth and reading literally hundreds and hundreds of success and self-help books for decades. And they all basically said the same thing: set your goals, work hard, use affirmations, all the same thing we've heard a million times. And I really tried to apply those things. I worked as hard as I could, but as hard as I tried, I couldn't seem to get ahead. I just couldn't get it to work. And so I was so frustrated by that that I realized that I've got to find a better way. And so after reading all those hundreds of books and spending so many years, that's when I realized, and I had literally had a flash of insight back in 1997. That's when I that's why I started the company back then. And I realized that we had been taught. How to succeed. We've been reading all these books called How to Succeed Books. Well, of course, that makes perfect sense, right? If you want to do something, you want to know how to do it, right? How to succeed. But what I realized is there was something that they were all missing. All of these books and all these trainers, all these gurus were missing right from page one. And that was they forgot to tell us that for millions of people, they never gave themselves permission to succeed in the first place. So, really, from my perspective, the conversation out there has really not changed that much. But the conversations that I'm having with my clients, that's what's really causing those increases that you mentioned a moment ago 600%, 800%, 1500% increases because of my frameworks. KK Anderson (03:57) and these are all in in sales, right? In go to market. That's the primary target audience for your programs. Dr. Noah St. John (04:04) Yeah, well, I mean, it's really all across industries. it's across literally dozens and dozens, scores of industries. real estate, chiropractic, health, healthcare, wealth managers, SaaS companies, just it literally runs the gamut because what I'm teaching is about the human the human KK Anderson (04:20) Mm-hmm. Dr. Noah St. John (04:21) mechanism. And as I have often said to my clients and in my keynote speeches when I give keynote presentations. You know, people who are running companies as an example, people who are in charge of companies or in charge of teams, divisions, organizations, they have all of the outer game stuff. They have all of the KK Anderson (04:35) Right. Dr. Noah St. John (04:36) outer things that they're supposed to be doing. But what are they doing to protect the three pounds of gray matter that runs the whole thing, that runs the whole team, that runs the whole organization? Usually the answer is nothing or not much. So that's what KK Anderson (04:48) Right. Dr. Noah St. John (04:49) I protect. And that's one of the reasons we see these enormous increases. KK Anderson (04:52) and so that's the term you use, inner game, right? Outer game Dr. Noah St. John (04:55) Yes. KK Anderson (04:56) and inner game. I love that by the way. Dr. Noah St. John (04:58) Yes. KK Anderson (04:59) and so walk us through what that distinction means in practice. So like our audience is largely chief revenue officers and heads of sales. So if you're s if you're talking to you know, one of a CRO sitting in a chair right now, like what should they be doing with the inner game and Dr. Noah St. John (05:16) Well, it really comes down to the fact that I am the nerdiest nerd in this industry. I'm such KK Anderson (05:22) Yeah. Dr. Noah

Selling Intelligence (formerly Selling the Cloud)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ep. 137 - The Human AI Gap: Why Your Team Isn’t Using AI to Its Full Potential with Dr. Noah St. John - Part 1

Ratings & Reviews

About

Information

You Might Also Like

Selling Intelligence (formerly Selling the Cloud)

Episodes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ep. 137 - The Human AI Gap: Why Your Team Isn’t Using AI to Its Full Potential with Dr. Noah St. John - Part 1

Ratings & Reviews

About

Information

You Might Also Like