Some Goodness

Richard Ellis
  • 5.0 (3)
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Some Goodness is hosted by Richard Ellis, a seasoned sales leader passionate about inviting top business minds to share their wisdom. Each episode is only 15-20 minutes, perfect for your commute or workout.

  1. 3D AGO

    Episode 51: Your Customer Is the Best Salesperson You’re Not Using

    Host Richard Ellis interviews Braydan Young, co-founder of Slash Experts and former Sendoso co-founder, about why most B2B companies rely on the same few reference customers late in deals and lack systems to operationalize social proof. Braden explains how social proof extends beyond reference calls to logos, case studies, reviews, testimonials, and especially short video testimonials, and argues prospects often complete much of the buying journey before talking to sales. Slash Experts addresses the “last-minute scramble” by letting prospects book calls with pre-vetted customers via expert pages, using AI to recommend the best match, automate follow-ups, and nudge buyers with relevant proof while capturing transcripts of customer language. Braydan shares practical CRO steps: test your own reference process, track and thank reference customers, and introduce customer conversations earlier to accelerate stalled deals. Soundbites "80% of the deal cycle is done by the time they're actually hopping on the phone with sales." "Everyone has the same 40, 50 logos on their site. How's everybody working with the exact same companies?" "Typically it's a scramble at the end. It's, 'Who's the fastest person I can get on the phone so they can check that box?'" "You've gone from trying to sell a product to being consultative. All you're trying to do is empower your champion to get the deal done." "Social proof is just making someone not feel alone for taking a risk on buying your service." — Braydan Young"The way our customer was talking to a prospect about how they used our system was totally different than the way we talked about it. That's the conversation that is gold." "If you're a CRO, try to get a reference today for your own company. Go through the process you gave to sales and see what that's like." “There's not a lot of separation between work and life anymore. When it's blended well, that's the company everyone wants to work for."

    29 min

  2. MAY 6

    Episode 50: The AI Truths Sales Leaders Are Avoiding

    This episode discusses why AI investment is outpacing real business impact, noting low AI production adoption among US firms, limited use cases reaching full production, and many initiatives being abandoned in 2025. Host Richard Rllid interviews Jack Siney, co-founder of FrontRace, about his white paper on “15 AI truths” sales leaders will face, arguing most companies are experimenting without executing with precision. Siney says sales teams have spent decades optimizing the wrong metrics (calls, emails, pipeline) and remain poor at forecasting and replicating top-performer behavior. He argues AI’s value is measuring previously unmeasurable “20 small things” behind 3X performers, delivering clearer “signals” like Moneyball analytics. Key prerequisites are consolidating, normalizing, and cleaning company data and uncovering actual workflow behaviors, enabling better forecasting and guidance while preserving human roles in higher-value, complex sales. Soundbites / Memorable Quotes: "If you're on social media, you'd swear every company is fully AI-enabled, firing their entire staff, making it all AI. The real world at a ground level is pretty significantly different.""We're no better today, four decades in, hundreds of millions if not trillions of dollars invested in all of these sales platforms. Companies hitting forecasts? We're worse at forecasting, shockingly, with all the tools we have today.""You have two reps, they have the same metrics, same calls, same outreach, same pipeline, and one is outperforming the other by 3X. When the CEO asks why, the head of sales simply makes something up.""The difference between these two people are 20 little things. It's not the big things. Everyone knows the pricing. Everyone knows the FAQs. Everyone knows how to do the demo. That is not it.""When you ask that person to train the rest of the team, it's like Michael Jordan trying to teach basketball. They just know they do it.""Everything we're doing today in the AI world is gonna look childish five years from now. We're still in the AOL dial-up stage.""If you take AI and you put it on a crappy data set, AI's already gonna have some hallucinations to it, but if the data's not right, you're gonna come out with bad conclusions and you're gonna get fired.""We've relied on the sales rep, who's very biased, to manage their own pipeline, put in the probability it's gonna close, the amount, and when. Are you kidding me?""In Moneyball, the big shift was we're no longer buying players, we're buying runs. The same thing in sales: who cares how it gets closed? Do they close it?" "The more money a client's spending, the safer your job is. When rubber hits the road, they want someone to talk to."

    28 min

  3. APR 22

    Episode 49: AI Hype, Product Complexity, and Trust in Enterprise Software

    In this episode, host Richard Ellis discusses how enterprise software companies face pressure from boards and markets to demonstrate AI progress, creating risks of overpromising, unnecessary product narratives, and eroding customer trust. Guest Rob Huffstedtler, Global Head of Pre-Sales Operations at Sitecore, describes varied customer readiness for AI and notes research suggesting AI more often automates tasks than eliminates entire jobs, enabling workflow redesign while preserving human judgment. They explore AI’s impact on RFP responses, where automation can improve customization but still requires locked-down, contextual answers and stronger storytelling than CRM data typically captures. The conversation also covers how “show up and throw up” demos and excessive feature focus create perceived complexity and pricing objections, the value of confidently saying “yes” or “no,” and challenges in migrating installed-base customers through platform shifts without forcing RFPs. They conclude with leadership guidance on proactive involvement, coaching, and avoiding late-stage “super seller” interventions. Soundbites “When companies over promise, force customers toward a future they didn’t ask for, or drag buyers through sprawling product narratives they don’t need, trust starts to erode.”“AI may speed things up, but it does not remove the need for discipline, honest positioning, and respect for the installed base.”“There are very few jobs where even in a fully agentic flow, you can eliminate the whole job. What it’s doing instead is simplifying or eliminating particular tasks of a job.”“There’s really an opportunity to rethink workflows and business processes and re engineer them to remove the slow friction parts.”“Some of the best RFPs are those that tell a story and they reiterate why do something different in the first place and why now and why with you.”“SAEs need to learn that yes is a full sentence.”“You coach rather than swooping in to save the day.”

    21 min

  4. APR 8

    Episode 48: The Technical Seller’s New Role

    The episode argues that B2B sales teams must stop treating solution engineers (SEs) as downstream demo support because buyers can self-educate and need help understanding what matters, quantifying value, and picturing success through storytelling, qualification, and commercial judgment earlier in deals. Host Richard Ellis discusses with Rob Huffstedtler, Global Head of Pre-Sales at Sitecore, why SEs should be experts on buyers and their industries, leverage their trusted status to influence pipeline generation (especially in install-base motions), and coordinate intentionally with AEs through preparation, listening, and discovery to avoid overemphasizing features. They cover hiring and onboarding gaps that leave SEs underdeveloped in sales skills, missed opportunities in customer storytelling, and how AI tools can speed research and call review but risk wordiness, fake empathy, and overreliance without human judgment and trust-building. They also address tight AE-SE coupling through deal stages, empowering internal champions, and effective handoffs to services for implementations requiring customization. Soundbites1. “The SE really needs to be as much of an expert on the buyer, that individual buyer, as well as generically the industry and the role as they are on their product.”2. “At the end of the day, what they’re doing is helping the buyer through the buyer’s buying process.”3. “Not being perceived as a seller becomes a superpower in sales.”4. “The customer tends to inherently trust the SE more than they trust the account executive.”5. “Listening is key, right? You learn a lot more when you have your mouth closed and your ears open.”6. “You’ve got to learn to ask good, engaging questions and sit and give the customer time to think rather than pushing them forward and suggesting an answer for them.”7. “There’s a little bit of a desire to appear smart rather than to make the customer the star.”8. “If the AE and the SE, if they’re not having a good conversation before every customer conversation where they’re anticipating what the customer wants to get out of it and what they want to get out of it, it very easily turns into, let’s talk about all of our favorite features.”9. “Some of the value is the process of building that summary rather than having the summary.”10. “The biggest misconception I’ve seen is that there’s a path to getting to the unknown unknowns.”

    24 min
  5. Episode 47: What the Board Really Wants to Hear

    MAR 25

    Episode 47: What the Board Really Wants to Hear

    FROM THE ARCHIVES: This is one of our favorite past episodes.  Host Richard welcomes multi-time CXO Tracy Mustachio to discuss why navigating a first board meeting matters, emphasizing first impressions, confidence, and setting a reporting roadmap. Tracy advises tailoring to the board’s perspective by researching members, reviewing past board decks, and speaking in business outcomes rather than vanity marketing metrics, noting few directors have operational marketing experience though many have strong opinions. She recommends structuring updates with a “from-to” slide (current state to north star), plus concise highlights and lowlights tied to pipeline and revenue, keeping details in back-pocket slides or a cheat sheet for deep questions. Tracy shares cautionary stories about being unprepared and stresses cross-functional alignment through collaborative drafting, practice sessions, and co-presenting with peers. She also recommends learning board best practices via training and the HBR book Boards That Lead.   Chapters 00:00 Boardroom Stakes 00:46 Why First Meetings Matter 01:50 Speak Board Language 02:40 Research the Directors 03:57 Salesforce Story Lesson 05:41 CMO Metric Balance 07:09 From To Framework 09:28 Results Over Activities 10:35 Back Pocket Prep 11:29 Presentation Horror Story 12:26 Align With Sales 13:30 Thrown Into the Fire 16:14 Board Training Resources 17:40 Final Book Recommendation 18:44 Wrap and Subscribe   Keywords   board meetings, board presentation, first board meeting, boardroom communication, executive leadership, C-level leadership, CMO, chief product officer, board reporting, first impressions, business metrics, business value, vanity metrics, marketing metrics, board expectations, audience awareness, board member perspectives, presentation structure, from-to slide, change agenda, highlights and lowlights, business goals, pipeline, revenue, customer journey, full funnel, back pocket slide, cheat sheet, executive preparation, peer collaboration, CEO, CSO, sales alignment, product marketing sales alignment, practice sessions, board questions, presentation detail, board governance, fiduciary role, executive coaching, board training, Boards That Lead, Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way   Soundbites “Your first board meeting sets the first impression and the roadmap for how you’ll report going forward.”  “The board is interested in business metrics and business value, not vanity marketing metrics.”  “Put yourself in their shoes and speak in their language.”  “Know the audience, know the perspective they’re coming from, and speak to those perspectives.”  “What the board needs to understand is how what you’re doing relates to the overall business goals.”  “Start with a clear from-to slide: here’s where we are today, here’s what we’re moving toward.”  “Use highlights and lowlights, but stay high level and succinct unless they ask for detail.”  “Focus on results, not all the activities you used to get there.”  “Keep a back pocket slide or cheat sheet beside you for the board member who wants to dig into the numbers.”  “Collaborate hard with your peers before the meeting because you do not want misalignment in front of the board.”

    19 min
  6. Episode 46: When AI Meets Real Life Sales:

    MAR 11

    Episode 46: When AI Meets Real Life Sales:

    Host Richard Ellis discusses with David Howerton, CEO and founder of VendoIQ, how AI is rapidly flooding sales organizations under board and executive pressure, often driving hurried, uncoordinated adoption that doesn’t ladder up to strategy. They argue AI amplifies existing problems (broken processes, unclear ICPs, weak handoffs, and poor CRM data) rather than fixing them, leading to noise and pipeline issues. The conversation focuses on real field sales work and why productivity breaks down due to context switching and delayed documentation, causing “memory decay” and unreliable forecasting. They highlight opportunities for AI to reduce non-selling tasks by capturing in-person insights quickly and triggering workflows, especially through voice interfaces that meet sellers where they are, turning AI into an assistant that not only records notes but also schedules meetings, drafts emails, and supports faster, more accurate execution.   Chapters 00:00 AI Hype Meets Reality 01:46 Boardroom Pressure to Adopt 04:20 AI Needs Strategy and Governance 06:13 Fix Processes and Data First 10:23 In-Person Selling Advantage 13:33 Context Switching Kills CRM 17:33 Voice Interface for Field Notes 23:50 From Notes to Automated Actions 26:03 Leadership Advice to Lean In 28:08 Personal Goodness and Wrap-Up   Key Words AI strategy, revenue strategy, sales strategy, go to market strategy, go to market teams, revenue engine, AI adoption, AI governance, AI alignment, business outcomes, workflows, business processes, CRM data, stale CRM data, data quality, source of truth, field sales, field productivity, seller productivity, field marketing, in person selling, human interaction, trust, authenticity, relationship building, context switching, memory decay, meeting notes, conversational intelligence, voice interface, voice input, sales workflows, administrative burden, non selling activities, sales efficiency, sales effectiveness, forecasting, resource allocation, action loops, proactive workflows, AI assistant, digital interactions, customer insights, trade shows, account development, upselling, cross selling, ICP, pipeline, sales leadership, revenue leadership, go to market execution, seller workflows, CRM adoption, real time capture, human and AI interaction   Sound Bites “Your organization is already doing stuff with AI in different departments, and that’s all well and good, but it’s not concentrated and it’s very likely not rolling up to a strategy.” “We all know that CRM data is stale. It’s outdated. We’re now in an era where both in the virtual meeting world and in real life, we can fix that.” “Human interaction becomes scarcity. So when you do have an in person interaction, the value is disproportionate.”

    30 min
  7. Episode 45: MarTech in the Age of AI

    FEB 25

    Episode 45: MarTech in the Age of AI

    Most B2B marketing teams are sitting on a bloated tech stack they can't justify. Tools bought to fix strategy problems. Duplicate capabilities nobody audited. AI features bolted onto legacy products that were already underperforming. Jessica Fewless has seen it from the inside. As an early architect of account-based marketing and now as a partner at Inverter, she's helped operators untangle exactly this mess. In this conversation with host Richard Ellis, she gets specific about what separates teams that get ROI from their MarTech from teams that just keep buying. How to evaluate tools when AI is making everything obsolete in 18 months. Why intent signals fail when you treat them like a list. What "AI-readable content" actually means before your competitors figure it out. And why the smartest move right now might be short contracts and point solutions you can swap out. Chapters 00:00 MarTech Meets AI 02:13 Auditing Bloated Stacks 04:51 Use Cases And Workflows 06:53 Platforms Versus Point Tools 10:00 Core Stack Must Haves 12:25 AI Budget Pressure Reality 16:17 Avoid Long Term Bets 18:16 Measure ROI And Governance 19:42 Intent Signals In Context 22:12 SEO In The AI Era 25:09 Cut Waste Do More 25:53 Some Goodness And Wrap   Keywords MarTech, marketing technology, marketing tech stack, tech stack audit, vendor sprawl, tool duplication, shiny new tools, strategy gaps, plugging holes with tech, lead quality, demand generation, use case, workflows, process design, governance, rules of the road, integrations, architecture, ROI, CFO scrutiny, budget pressure, boards, headcount reduction, scaling the wrong thinking, AI in MarTech, AI layering, AI native tools, legacy platforms, point solutions, best in class, comprehensive platforms, control, customization, Zapier, stitching tools together, CRM, Salesforce, data management, data quality, email marketing, database, webinar tools, website personalization, account based marketing, ABM, retention risk, positioning, messaging, stickiness, contracts, short term agreements, renewal evaluation, customer success manager, discrete metrics, intent signals, funnel stage, AI research tools, intent in context, website activity, buyer signals, static nurture, signal based nurture, always on strategy, personalization, orchestration, findability, SEO, GEO, AEO, AI indexing, Reddit influence, PR, authority building, top 10 lists, scannable landing pages, tech stack waste, consolidation, creativity, work life boundary Soundbites   "...beyond having a way to email your database and having your database, those are the two fundamentals. I kind of feel like everything's up for grabs after that.”"...go into it knowing that that technology might not be relevant three years from now and be okay with that. So don't sign a five-year contract, not that anybody, anybody signs five-year contracts. I wouldn't sign more than a one or two-year contract.”“There should never be a static nurture. There should only be a reaction to signals moving forward.” “The average tech stack inside of a company is mind boggling.”“People were plugging holes in their strategy with technology.”“CFOs and boards and CEOs are saying, AI allows you to do more, so go do more with AI, and I’m going to shrink your tech budget as a result.”“Intent signals need to be combined with the rest of the data so you understand it in context.”

    28 min
  8. Episode 44: Trade Shows as a Sales Channel, Not an Event

    FEB 12

    Episode 44: Trade Shows as a Sales Channel, Not an Event

    In this episode, Richard Ellis hosts David Howerton, CEO and founder of VendoIQ, to discuss the effectiveness of trade shows in the B2B sector. Despite high ROI, many companies lose substantial value due to poor planning, weak data capture, and ineffective follow-up. David emphasizes viewing trade shows as part of a holistic program rather than isolated events, focusing on pre-show planning, in-event processes, and post-show follow-up to maximize ROI. Key insights include the importance of in-person interactions, the necessity of capturing meaningful data, and coordination among marketing, sales, and field teams. The episode underscores the need for strategic preparation and execution to leverage trade shows for business growth.   Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Trade Shows and Their ROI 00:52 Guest Introduction: David Howerton 01:32 The Importance of Trade Shows in Lead Generation 05:24 Maximizing Trade Show Success: Pre-Show Planning 13:19 Effective Strategies During the Trade Show 21:13 Post-Show Follow-Up: Ensuring ROI 25:25 Conclusion and Final Thoughts    Keywords trade shows, field selling, sales execution, lead capture, follow up, pipeline velocity, buying authority, in person selling, human connection, competitive intelligence, account planning, pre show planning, post show process, CRM breakdowns, memory decay, voice to text capture, natural language interface, sales handoff, rev ops, field marketing, ICP targeting, meeting booking, sales channel strategy, program management, sales workflow, deal acceleration   Soundbites “Trade shows are not the problem. The gap between the conversation and what happens next is.” “People show up to events without knowing why they’re there.” “If you can’t articulate who you’re talking to and why, the show is already a loss.” “Human connections are becoming more scarce, which makes in-person moments more valuable.” “You’re not just talking to prospects. You’re sitting inside an ecosystem.” “Memory decay is real. Conversations blur together faster than people expect.” “Capturing names without context is where value disappears.” “Most breakdowns happen at the handoff.” “If follow-up is slow or generic, a competitor will beat you to it.” “Treat trade shows like a sales channel, not a calendar event.”

    28 min
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About

Some Goodness is hosted by Richard Ellis, a seasoned sales leader passionate about inviting top business minds to share their wisdom. Each episode is only 15-20 minutes, perfect for your commute or workout.

Information

  • Creator
    Richard Ellis
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    52
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Revenue Innovations
  • Show Website
    Some Goodness