Selling Intelligence (formerly Selling the Cloud)

Mark Petruzzi, KK Anderson
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Selling Intelligence is the evolution of Selling the Cloud and designed for revenue leaders who are navigating the AI era. Hosted by Mark Petruzzi and Kristin "KK" Anderson, the show brings candid conversations with C-suite leaders across sales, marketing, and customer success on how AI is reshaping the way companies grow, sell, and compete. From agentic GTM strategies to AI-powered pipeline and revenue execution, each episode focuses on what’s actually working and how leaders are turning intelligence into performance. If you’re responsible for growth and trying to lead through the fastest shift in go-to-market we’ve ever seen, this podcast is for you.

  1. 3d ago

    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

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

  2. 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

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

  3. 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

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

  4. 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

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

  5. 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

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

  6. Jul 22

    Ep. 136 - The Trust Recession, the Death of the BDR, and the Return of the Full Cycle AE with John Tecce - Part 2

    General Episode Description: In Part 2 of this Selling Intelligence conversation, John Tecce, Vice President of Growth at 2X, explores what the next generation of go-to-market organizations will actually look like as AI, automation, and human expertise continue to converge. John explains why the future isn’t about replacing people with AI, but combining human judgment with agentic workflows to create faster, more adaptive revenue teams. He shares how organizations can break down departmental silos, rethink traditional operating models, and shift from fixed headcount to more flexible, scalable growth strategies. The discussion also dives into practical examples using platforms like Gong and Clay, why most AI initiatives stall before delivering business value, and how today’s revenue leaders can prepare their organizations for a fundamentally different way of working. What You’ll Learn: Human Agentic GTM: What human agentic go-to-market really means and why software, services, AI, and people are converging into one operating model.AI Plus Human Judgment: How platforms like Gong and Clay become exponentially more valuable when combined with human oversight and intelligent workflows.Breaking Down Silos: Why sales, marketing, RevOps, and customer success must operate as one revenue organization instead of separate departments.Rethinking the Operating Model: How leaders should evaluate what to own internally, what to outsource, and where automation creates the greatest leverage.Leading Through AI Transformation: The organizational, operational, and cultural changes required for companies to successfully adopt AI at scale.Key Topics: Human agentic go-to-market strategyAI workflows powered by Gong and ClayGo-to-market engineering and automationConverting fixed headcount into flexible operating modelsCross-functional revenue team alignmentAI adoption challenges and organizational changeJobs-to-be-done operating model designThe future of GTM leadershipGuest Spotlight: John Tecce John Tecce is the Vice President of Growth at 2X, where he helps B2B organizations modernize their go-to-market strategies through the combination of AI, automation, and human expertise. He works with enterprise leaders to build scalable revenue operating models that improve efficiency, accelerate growth, and prepare organizations for the next generation of GTM execution. Resources & Mentions: 2XGongClayClaudeChatGPTAWSMicrosoft AzureSnowflakeDatabricksTrevor Moawad’s work on neutral thinking🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with the leaders shaping the future of AI, sales, and go-to-market strategy. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mark Petruzzi (00:38) Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. If you're joining for the first time, this is part two of our conversation with John Tesey, Vice President of Growth at 2X. KK Anderson (00:49) In part one, we got into why digital outbound has hit a wall and why the BDR to AE model is collapsing and what they've done at 2X to remedy that and how they're working with their customers to overcome it. We talked a lot about how we're back to old school with sending things like in-person Vino letters and how we can build our new go-to-market engine so that we're harnessing on what is human and how we combat the trust recession. It's an excellent session. Please go back and listen to it. Mark Petruzzi (01:20) In this half we get into what human agentic go to market actually means in practice, how 2x is helping clients turn fixed headcount into flexible spend, and what every CRO can do before they buy another tool. John, let's pick it back up. KK Anderson (01:36) All right, welcome back John. John Tecce (01:37) Thanks for having me back. KK Anderson (01:38) 2X just called itself the first human-agentic go-to-market services firm. Really cool. Unpack that for us. What does human-agentic actually mean in terms of how work gets done on a client engagement? And tell us, tell us more. John Tecce (01:54) Let's start with the humanagentic and then we'll go into go to market. So humanagentic, what you're seeing across the board right now is software and services are converging. and there's been this sort of hard line between like what are we doing with tech and we're bringing in tech and it was a very linear process. We're gonna buy the tool and then we're gonna later either buy the services or figure out the operating model for how to operationalize the tool. And it was very sort that waterfall style of things and and as you were buying more tech and tools, you were sort of trying to layer on the the skill set and operating model. And really at this point, and and arguably before this point, but certainly now, what we're finding is the customer doesn't care whether it's technology or product or people that's getting the work done. They care, are you getting the work done? And is there a human accountable to that work getting done? And so as a as an organization, we have now you know we've pioneered the marketing as a service space. Starting about about a decade ago with the formation of 2X and the creation of that category. And then as we've seen this shift, and we'll get into go-to-market shortly here, but into how work gets done, and and most of our clients are trying to accomplish growth at the fastest possible and lowest possible cost way, this humanogenic way of getting the work done really is the the path forward and is the the killer app of this generation, if you will. And then from a go-to-market standpoint, what we've seen is the convergence of The last probably two decades, we've seen the bifurcation of marketing, sales, and the customer office, right? with the establishment of, as we talked about before, the BDR function is the go-to-market and the handoff, and now the client office with CSMs and account managers. And what we've found is sort of a back to the future moment where everybody realized the customer is at the center of this, whether it's a prospective or current customer, we're all using the same tech, we're all using the same data, and we're all responsible for driving growth for the company. So why are we operating in these silos when really at the end of the day, we're all trying to drive towards a revenue target? So we've found that the convergence of software and services, along with this conversion of go-to-market, you've seen a lot of GTM titles lately that have popped up as a result, have led to this moment where human and AI are able to effectively deliver upon that, while at the same time there's less of a concern at a siloed level of on the client side who owns it. They all own growth. Mark Petruzzi (04:01) So John, two of two X's top partnerships are gong and clay. Walk us through a specific use case where the combination of these tools with human judgment produces an outcome that neither can produce alone. John Tecce (04:15) Yeah, so it's interesting. with most enterprise data is unstructured. It's in emails, it's in Slack messages, it's in video transcripts, it's in these Gong transcripts, right? and so we we acquired a a top implementation partner of Gong last year, outbound funnel, with in mind this convergence that we talked about. We were in marketing as a service, as a category, we created it, we've led it for a while. we saw this convergence happening, said, hey. There's so much richness from a go-to-market standpoint that is in Gong transcripts. While at the same time, Gong themselves have also gone through a convergence in RevTech and moved into with like Gong Engage, right? And being able to become a full full platform revenue provider. And so we we kind of saw this happening. And then at the same time, we saw the emergence of go-to-market engineering with clay as the as the primary platform there in terms of data enrichment. as you both know, and I'm sure all the listeners know, the number one hindrance to scale personalized outbound is data, hygiene and cleanliness, as well as the ability to then activate it with with agentic workflows. And so we acquired Clay's largest partner earlier this year as well. And so when you think about that combination of things, you're looking at a place where, hey, we have the ability to now synthesize prospector client transcripts, right? And we have the ability to then and drive better segmentation hygiene and agentic activation of contact data. And so you're in a place now where the future vision you can look forward and say, well, wait a minute. There's a very simple way for us to take, for example, a a conversation had at 9 a.m. you know with a with a prospect and that transcript can be synthesized by a commercial intelligence platform maybe like known while for example two extras acquired but the the concept remains hey we can synthesize that even just an AE could look at it and say cool wait a minute I could go flag to a go-to market engineer in my organization who could use clay to then immediately enrich and say, okay, client mentioned these three things. Well, do we have contact data for the people at the company that would own those things? Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe it's unclean. All right, well if we could update that and then we could use clay to run an out an automated outbound play to them about a product or service that they mentioned on this call, right? Now you're looking at the same type of effect that In B2C, we always joke that our devices are listening to us, right? All of a sudden you see you get served an ad for something that was mentioned. To be clear, I'm not promising any of that any means. all of what we just talked about is sort of art of the possible and systems architecture work with with agents and and humans involved. But that's the type of thinking when we think about go to market, we think about where does a gentic play in, where do where do off-the-shelf tools like Gong and Clay kind of come in. And that's the exciting a lot of

    Ep. 136 - The Trust Recession, the Death of the BDR, and the Return of the Full Cycle AE with John Tecce - Part 2

  7. Jul 15

    Ep. 135 - The Trust Recession, the Death of the BDR, and the Return of the Full Cycle AE with John Tecce - Part 1 General Episode Description:

    In this episode of Selling Intelligence, John Tecce, Vice President of Growth at 2X, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to explore why traditional digital outbound is losing effectiveness and what today’s sales organizations must do instead. John shares why B2B selling is facing a “trust recession” fueled by AI-generated communication, rising outreach volume, and declining buyer confidence. As inboxes become saturated and automation reaches its limits, he argues that sales leaders can no longer rely on activity metrics or volume-based prospecting to generate predictable pipeline. The conversation also examines why 2X intentionally built its revenue organization without BDRs, why the full cycle AE is becoming increasingly important, and how timeless sales fundamentals like relationship building, trust, community engagement, and human connection are becoming competitive advantages once again. Mark, KK, and John discuss why quantity is no longer the best predictor of sales success, how experienced sellers can combine AI with classic sales principles, and the mindset required for modern account executives to thrive in an increasingly uncertain market. What You’ll Learn: Understanding the Trust Recession: Why AI-generated communication and digital overload are making buyers increasingly skeptical of outbound sales.Why Digital Outbound Has Changed: How years of automation have created more noise than opportunity and why quality now matters more than quantity.The Return of the Full Cycle AE: Why reducing handoffs creates stronger buyer relationships, better accountability, and more consistent revenue growth.Community Over Cold Outreach: How creating value before buyers enter an active buying cycle builds long-term trust and pipeline.Modern Sales Competencies: The mindset, adaptability, and relationship-building skills today’s sales professionals need to succeed.Key Topics: The trust recession in B2B salesAI-generated communication and declining buyer trustOutreach saturation across email and LinkedInWhy digital outbound is producing lower returnsThe evolution of marketing automationActivity metrics versus quality metricsWhy quantity is no longer the primary sales KPICreativity in outbound prospectingThe VITO letter and direct outreachOld-school sales techniques in modern sellingThe decline of the traditional BDR modelWhy 2X operates without BDRsThe return of the full cycle account executiveReducing buyer handoffs throughout the sales cycleBuilding credibility before the first meetingCommunity-driven pipeline generationBecoming a trusted connectorCreating value without expecting immediate meetingsThe importance of human connection in AI-enabled sellingPresence of mind and relationship mappingAdapting to constant market changeSeparating assumptions from reality during the sales processAI as an enabler, not a replacement for sales fundamentalsGuest Spotlight: John Tecce John Tecce is Vice President of Growth at 2X, where he leads half of the company’s revenue organization with a team of full cycle account executives operating without a traditional BDR model. A third-generation sales professional, John combines classic relationship-driven selling with modern AI-enabled execution. He has become a leading voice on the future of go-to-market strategy, helping organizations rethink outbound sales, trust building, pipeline generation, and revenue operations in an increasingly AI-driven marketplace. Resources & Mentions: 2XKnownwellSixth SenseMarketoSalesforcePredictable RevenueGary VaynerchukLinkedInBob KellySelling to VITOHope Is Not a StrategyThe Go-GiverAGS Academy🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with today’s leading revenue operators, sales executives, and GTM innovators. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mark Petruzzi (00:28) Welcome to Selling Intelligence. Our guest today is John TC, Vice President of Growth at 2X, the firm that just its declared itself the first human agentic go-to-market services firm. John runs half of 2x's revenue organization, a team of 12 full-cycle AEs with no BDRs. And he is third generation sales who has spent the last year watching the tools that built his career stop working at scale. Two X recently announced its acquisition of known well, and John has a front row seat to where the market is heading. KK Anderson (01:05) Personal note before we start, when John, Mark and I spoke in preparation, we landed on the same diagnosis from two very different directions and he is living it inside his own team and we are diagnosing it with clients every week. The instinct everyone has is to add more activity. John's answer is the opposite and that's what makes this conversation well worth your time. Mark Petruzzi (01:30) Here are the topics we will cover today. In part one, three things: why Digital Outbound has hit a wall and what that means for every CRO. The death of the BDR and the return of the full cycle AE. And old school fundamentals through new mechanisms, how the best reps apply forever concepts through AI-enabled execution. Then in part two, which drops next week. We will get into two additional topics. What human agentic go-to-market actually means when you combine human agents and tech and the operating model of rethink: what to own, what to outsource, and how to decide. John, welcome to Selling Intelligence. John Tecce (02:13) Great to be here. KK Anderson (02:13) We are thrilled to have you. Okay, let's jump right into it. So much great stuff to cover today. And let's start with this idea of the trust recession and why digital outbound has hit a wall. And we bonded on this topic during the prep session, as I indicated in our introduction. as soon as I said, I said it, the trust recession, which by the way, I picked that up from Bob Kelly, who's the chairman of Sales Management Association. So all credit to him. You immediately reacted to it and we both totally agree that we are in a trust recession right now. And so let's start with you telling us like, what does that mean for you? What does it capture for you? Like, what are you seeing on your team and across your clients that makes that a phrase that really resonates for you? John Tecce (02:58) thing that really sticks out to me is the utilization of AI in all forms of communication that has led to a skepticism on the receiving end. How real the text that I'm receiving, whether it's a LinkedIn post or a message or an email or what have you, actually is from the human being versus how much of it was went through the AI car wash. And inherently, if you think about most of these models are ultimately trying to regress to the mean in terms of what they generate. And so you're ending up with this. copy paste of of phrasing and ways that things are said that strips out a lot of the human nature of it. And I think as a result, as B2B professionals, and when I say B2B professionals, that's under the whole go-to-market lens, everything from BDR to AE to CSM to executive, et cetera. there's the evergreen phrase of people buy from people who they know, like and trust, but it's kind of harder to get to know and trust them if you you have to filter everything they send you through the lens of like how much of this, you know, is really them versus how much of it is Chat GPT or or Copilot or or Claude that they're running these thoughts and communications through. I'm a huge user of AI, to be clear, I'm very AI forward and I encourage my team to be the same. but when you come to the trust recession, I think a lot of it has to do with just a a distance now that exists between two people and the communication between KK Anderson (04:10) and a lot of the noise that it has created, right? It's almost deafening. There's so much noise out there in the market today. It's insane. John Tecce (04:19) It's it's insane. the BDR outreach surge that we've seen in particular, whether it's again BDRs or otherwise, but Sixth Sense put out some research very recently that the baseline touches per contact was was about 17 in 2024. Not that long ago. We're in the middle of 2026. and this research came out a couple of weeks ago. We're now at 34 touches per contact. So it's doubled, number one. Number two, on top of that. KK Anderson (04:39) Ugh. my poor inbox. John Tecce (04:44) It ex well and inboxes, right? So what they found in that research as well was social in particular is the the biggest source of that growth. It went from about four and a half touches in twenty twenty four to now over ten in twenty twenty six. And so your email inbox is already hurting and and kind of getting hammered. And now, LinkedIn kinda used to be the okay, well if you send a a a really strong LinkedIn connect request or a really strong in mail, you had a good chance now But what we're seeing is the volume and just the increase in the noise in in part due to the ability to do it from a scale standpoint, an automation standpoint. but also, you're finding a lot of the inbox tools, both on the LinkedIn side and email, are becoming more intelligent to filtering out that noise. And so it's that's being countered with more noise and just more and more, more, more, and more, and we're at a point where the math just just doesn't math anymore. Mark Petruzzi (05:29) So John, you have been selling a long time now s so you definitely remember when digital outbound was still relatively clean. What has changed at the structural level and how does it show up in the numbers you're watching every day right now? John Tecce (05:44) Yeah, I think you know when I started my career was when marketing automation in its in its current form was really taking shape. my first role out of school was was at Rico for a couple years and helped them launch at the sales level launch Marketo as an example. And it was like super cool that you could put in this template and you could pull and have it personalized by first name and by compan

    Ep. 135 - The Trust Recession, the Death of the BDR, and the Return of the Full Cycle AE with John Tecce - Part 1 General Episode Description:

  8. Jul 8

    Ep. 134 – Frontier AI: What the Highest-Performing Sales Organizations Are Doing Differently with Bob Kelly - Part 2

    General Episode Description: In Part 2 of this conversation, Bob Kelly, Founder and Chairman of the Sales Management Association, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to examine why AI adoption often fails even when organizations invest in the right technology. Building on research across 111 sales organizations, the discussion moves beyond AI tools and into the operational systems required to create measurable impact. Bob explains why automating a broken sales process only accelerates poor execution, how leaders should distinguish between path problems and insight problems, and why CRM adoption continues to struggle when technology creates work for sellers without delivering value back to them. The conversation also explores the three organizational levers shown to drive AI adoption: leadership endorsement, training investment, and AI proficiency in hiring criteria. Bob shares why AI implementation requires clear decision rights, governance, and process ownership, while Mark and KK examine how AI may finally help revenue organizations break down traditional departmental silos. The episode closes with a candid discussion about AI anxiety, the changing role of sales managers, and why experimentation may become one of the most important leadership practices in the future of sales. What You’ll Learn: Process Before AI: Why automating a broken sales process only creates bad outcomes faster and at greater scale.Path Problems vs. Insight Problems: How leaders can distinguish between work that follows a defined decision tree and work that requires judgment.CRM Data and Seller Productivity: Why salespeople rationally avoid systems that consume selling time without helping them sell.The Three AI Adoption Levers: How leadership endorsement, training investment, and AI-focused hiring criteria influence adoption.AI Governance and Decision Rights: Why organizations must define who builds, owns, instructs, and controls AI agents.Key Topics: The 27-point performance gap between frontier AI adopters and other sales organizationsGeneral-purpose AI, agentic tools, and sales-specific applied AIWhy having ChatGPT open does not mean an organization has adopted AIAI as an amplifier of existing sales processesPath problems versus insight problemsProcess automation and AI-powered decision guidanceWhy “bad fast” can be worse than “bad slow”Using AI to capture CRM data from emails, calls, notes, and conversationsSpeech-to-text technology and sales data captureWhy most CRM implementations fail to create value for salespeopleDocumenting new customer, expansion, and cross-sell sales processesCapturing effective selling messages and value propositionsProcess flexibility and salesperson decision-makingLeadership endorsement as an AI adoption driverThe 36-point AI adoption gap linked to leadership endorsementTraining sales teams to use AI effectivelyAdding AI proficiency to sales hiring criteriaAI governance, security, and decision rightsWho owns and controls AI agents inside an organizationAI’s potential to break down departmental silosCross-functional AI workflowsThe future skills of sales managersAI anxiety and uncertainty across middle managementExperimentation as a sales leadership disciplineGuest Spotlight: Bob Kelly Bob Kelly is the Founder and Chairman of the Sales Management Association, an independent professional organization focused on advancing sales leadership and management effectiveness. Through research, education, and industry events, Bob works with sales leaders to apply evidence-based practices to sales productivity, process design, technology adoption, and organizational performance. He also serves as an adjunct faculty member at multiple business schools and brings an academic, research-driven perspective to the changing role of sales management in the AI era. Resources & Mentions: Sales Management AssociationMicrosoftChatGPTMicrosoft CopilotZapierCRM platformsAgentic AIApplied AIAI governance and securityMiller HeimanTony RobbinsRoman history and leadership researchSales Management Association AI adoption researchKey Takeaway: AI adoption is not primarily a technology problem. It is a leadership, process, and organizational design problem. The sales organizations creating meaningful AI advantage are not simply buying more tools. They are documenting how selling actually works, defining where human judgment belongs, investing in AI skills, and giving leaders clear ownership over how AI is deployed. Technology will continue to change. The organizations that build the discipline to experiment, learn, and redesign their sales systems will be the ones best positioned to adapt. 🎧 Listen now and subscribe to Selling Intelligence for more conversations on AI, sales leadership, revenue operations, and the future of go-to-market execution. #SellingIntelligence #AIforSales #SalesLeadership #RevenueOperations #AgenticAI #AppliedAI #SalesManagement #ArtificialIntelligence #SalesProcess #SalesEnablement #GoToMarket #RevenueLeadership #SalesStrategy #AIAdoption #FutureOfSales Mark Petruzzi (00:28) Welcome to Selling Intelligence. I'm Mark Petruzzi. KK Anderson (00:31) And I'm KK Anderson. Every week we bring you conversations with operators who have been in the room and come out with something worth using the very next day. Mark Petruzzi (00:40) Our guests today just completed a benchmarking study of 111 sales organizations. And what on? AI adoption. The findings are not what most leaders expect. Only 4% of firms have no one using AI at all. But only 9% qualify as what the research calls frontier adopters. And those 10 firms are outperforming the rest of the field. By on average twenty-seven percent is points on sales objective achievement, nineteen points on individual quota attainment, and nearly double the rate of sufficient selling capacity. The question this research forces is not whether your team is using AI, it is whether they are using it in a way that actually moves the numbers. KK Anderson (01:26) Bob Kelly is founder and chairman of the Sales Management Association, a global, independent, professional organization serving more than ten thousand sales leaders. He has no product to sell and no platform to push, which is exactly why this data matters. Welcome to the show, Bob. We're happy to have you. Bob Kelly (01:43) Thank you so much for having me. It's so nice to be with you. Mark Petruzzi (01:46) So Bob, your research covers over one hundred companies. But before we get into what leaders are doing, give us the honest snapshot. What is the typical sales organization actually doing with AI right now? And how does it compare to what people say they're doing and what the media outlets are saying people are doing as well? Bob Kelly (02:07) the word I would use is dabbling. the typical sales organization is dabbling with AI as opposed to integrating it in a pervasive and sort of formal way in the work streams in the firm. this is a reflection of the uneven nature of how AI affects work in general and including sales work. But the interesting thing is to understand just how few firms are ignoring AI or are untouched by AI. When we look at the adoption curve and history of other technologies, CRM, for example, or other platform technologies, they've taken much, much longer to gain a foothold in most organizations. We're seeing very fast pickup in The use of AI, even if that use is uneven. KK Anderson (02:55) So Bob, when we had our our preparation conversation for this podcast, you used a phrase that I hadn't heard anywhere else and I thought it was fabulous. You said you said there's a lot of machine stench. Right. So walk us through like what is that and why is it showing up so broadly in this research? Bob Kelly (03:07) Machine Yes. Well how is Great term, isn't it? I was just about to think of that term when I heard someone else use it. So I've naturally adopted it as if it were my own, but it is plenty descriptive, right? And I think we all have encountered AI generated content. I mean, the more common term is slop. We see it in social media, but we also see it in our inboxes, we see it in work product within KK Anderson (03:15) It is. Bob Kelly (03:39) the companies that we work for. and its problem is that it represents an inauthentic product. And so this when used inappropriately or i in the wrong context actually I believe does more harm than good. it communicates sort of in auth authenticity rather than clarity and equality. KK Anderson (04:00) Everyone AI it's like AI gave everyone a on the road and no one can move. And everyone sounds the same. So it's figuring out how do you take that superpower and that super intelligence and leverage it in a way to create differentiation rather than Bob Kelly (04:01) We want Yeah, just You know, I KK Anderson (04:15) than the stench of sounding the same, Bob Kelly (04:18) I think the mistake so many make is that they're using AI to substitute for their own voice or work product. And when that happens, ⁓ they're pointing out their own superfluity. do we need a human if we're just gonna have machines generate communication? so I think when used appropriately, we use it to augment our abilities, our voice, our productivity and when we use it poorly we've we make the mistake of y substituting a machine generated product for something that we should have more say in. Mark Petruzzi (04:51) So, Bob, you mentioned in the study that only four to six percent of companies are avoiding AI entirely. That actually concerns me that, there is everybody's diving in. And, only a very small percentage are not. but when it really comes down to it, there's still a huge disparity between those frontier adopters, as you described, and the laggers, the rest of the the Bob Kelly (04:52) Yeah. Mark Petruzzi (05:17) hack is that the gap between the two of them growing and and how fast? How fast is that growing and changing? Bob Kelly (05:27) Well, it the an

    Ep. 134 – Frontier AI: What the Highest-Performing Sales Organizations Are Doing Differently with Bob Kelly - Part 2
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Selling Intelligence is the evolution of Selling the Cloud and designed for revenue leaders who are navigating the AI era. Hosted by Mark Petruzzi and Kristin "KK" Anderson, the show brings candid conversations with C-suite leaders across sales, marketing, and customer success on how AI is reshaping the way companies grow, sell, and compete. From agentic GTM strategies to AI-powered pipeline and revenue execution, each episode focuses on what’s actually working and how leaders are turning intelligence into performance. If you’re responsible for growth and trying to lead through the fastest shift in go-to-market we’ve ever seen, this podcast is for you.

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