Episodes
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"The GTM bar is quite low. And that's a good thing for those of us who get it." - Neil Weitzman, Fractional CRO and Founder of Weitzman Go to Market
Neil's philosophy comes down to three words: get it done.
Not more frameworks, not more slide decks, just execution.
His take on the say-do ratio is simple:
If you say you're going to do something, do it.
If you can't, communicate it before someone has to ask.
Sounds obvious. Yet most companies still miss the mark.
The follow-up that never comes, the quote promised on Tuesday that's still sitting in the drafts on Friday. The proposal that takes two weeks instead of two days.
Neil's point: the bar is so low that simply doing what you say you'll do already puts you ahead of most of the market.
When he joins a company as a Fractional CRO, he starts with the data.
Do they know what good looks like in their funnel?
What's converting? Where are deals getting stuck?
Most companies have fragments of the answer.
Very few use that information to coach, hire, and improve consistently.
Build the foundation, create repeatable systems, get the team running, and eventually hand it off to a full-time leader.
And for founders who say they want honest feedback?
He'll give it.
The best ones are willing to hear it.
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"You still have to have some form of human personalization. You still have to pick up the phone. You still have to build relationships." - Sam Hollander
That's Sam Hollander's view on AI in sales.
Not because he's anti-AI. Quite the opposite.
After 18 years building revenue in markets where the traditional playbook doesn't exist, he's seen firsthand where technology helps and where it doesn't.
He's led two companies through successful exits, and his first 90 days always look the same: talk to customers, pressure-test the messaging, and build operating structure.
Because in startups, ambiguity is the biggest challenge. The only way through it is to create your own anchor.
When it comes to outbound, Sam doesn't think the answer is more automation.
At a conference last month, he watched a friend open her inbox:
1,000 unread emails from vendors.
Just sitting there.
That's why he's building LynkUp, a marketplace that connects high-intent buyers and sellers at conferences, turning random badge scans into intentional, confirmed meetings.
The biggest deals of his career didn't start in an email sequence. They started in person.
His advice for enterprise sales is simple: map stakeholders early, identify champions and blockers, and stay in touch consistently. Momentum matters.
AI is great for saving time.
Great for research, writing, and prep work.
But relationships still close deals.
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Missing episodes?
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"Do you have the grit necessary to see it through? That's where I see a lot of people struggle." - Zack Schneider, Founder of Agency 15
Zack started his first agency at 19. Not because he had a plan, but because he had nothing to lose. By 26, he had scaled it to an exit.
He'll be the first to tell you that naivety was the advantage.
At Agency 15, every team member keeps a carabiner on their desk with 30 fundamentals on it.
Not values. Fundamentals. Specific, observable behaviors that managers can coach in real time.
One fundamental each day. Every day.
Until they stop being reminders and become habits.
Today's fundamental: Practice blameless problem solving.
Apply your creativity to solutions, not finger-pointing.
Learn from mistakes faster than everyone else.
Simple doesn't mean easy.
In fact, most of the things that actually work are surprisingly simple.
The biggest leadership lesson Zack learned came later.
Growing the company wasn't about strategy.
It was about replacing himself, over and over again, with people who were better than him at the things he used to do.
He compares it to mountain climbing.
As the altitude changes, some people adapt and keep climbing with you.
Others reach a level where they can't go any higher.
That doesn't diminish what they contributed.
It just means they aren't the right people for the next stage of the climb.
The companies that succeed aren't built by people who never struggle.
They're built by people with the grit to keep climbing anyway.
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"We tell our stories because we do not heal in isolation. We need each other." - Tom Farley, Recovery.com
Tom will tell you upfront that he doesn't walk into a room to motivate anyone.
He walks in because he needs to be there just as much as the person sitting across from him.
He grew up in a big Irish family in Madison, Wisconsin, where drinking was just how you handled anything uncomfortable.
By the time he got to Georgetown, then Wall Street, he had built an entire identity around being sharp, polished, and put together, with no idea how hollow it felt underneath.
The moment that cracked something open came before his own recovery.
He went to an AA meeting with his brother Chris Farley, in a basement in Hell's Kitchen, and watched him stand up and be more honest than Tom had ever seen him, in front of a room full of strangers.
He didn't understand it yet. But he never forgot it.
Years later, when he found his own way into recovery, he finally did.
The only place he has ever felt real belonging wasn't his family, his career, or his religion. It was a church basement with people he never would have thought to sit with otherwise.
He's been to recovery centers, prison programs, veterans' groups, and boardrooms since.
What he keeps finding is the same thing: people don't lack the desire to get better. They lack permission to be honest about where they actually are.
His take on stigma is simple.
It comes from fear, and the only way through it is real human connection, not awareness campaigns, not likes or shares, but someone looking you in the eye and saying, I've been there too.
"Recovery exists on the other side of fear. Every time you walk through it instead of drinking it away, you get stronger."
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"The brand is the most important thing. Everything you put out into the universe has to align with your three pillars. And if it doesn't serve you, cut bait and move on." - Brianne Price, CPG Executive and Chief Revenue Officer
Brianne didn't get into consumer brands from a business school case study.
She got in from a salon floor, sweeping hair, when a new line called Bumble and Bumble came in and she thought the packaging and messaging was the coolest thing she'd ever seen.
That moment launched a career scaling brands from under $10 million to over $100 million.
The hard part was never the product.
It was knowing when to stop protecting what was built and start being honest about what needed to change.
Her take on where most brands get stuck: they get really good at one channel, Amazon, DTC, or retail, and struggle to make the jump to the next.
The brands that break through aren't necessarily the ones with the best product. Everyone has good products now.
What separates them is whether consumers see the brand as part of their lifestyle, not just something on a shelf.
Her advice to founders stuck between $5 million and $20 million comes down to one question:
What is your customer's experience like right now?
The longer you're in business, the easier it is to see your brand through internal eyes instead of customer eyes.
That's when growth stalls.
The brands that reach the next level are willing to challenge their assumptions, stay aligned with what the brand stands for, and adapt before the market forces them to.
They stay honest about what's working, what's not, and what needs to change.
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"A lobster knows when it's time to shed its shell when it starts getting uncomfortable. If it never felt uncomfortable, it would never grow." - Ari Barmapov, Co-founder of Foundations
Ari didn't start in a boardroom. He started at Blockbuster, selling membership add-ons from behind a cash register, just asking everyone who walked in.
The more he asked, the better he got, and he ended up the top salesperson in the entire district.
That was the whole formula, and it hasn't changed since.
No auto-dialer, no real CRM. Just a phone, a phone book, and 150 to 200 manual dials a day.
Brutal reps, but invaluable ones.
Four President's Clubs later, he built Foundations to give founders what nobody gave him.
His take on why founders stay stuck in founder sales: they try to delegate before they've done the work themselves.
BDRs aren't there to figure out your business, and a VP of Sales isn't going to cold call for you.
The only way out of founder sales is through it.
Do it yourself, do it a hundred times, know what works, then pass it on.
On cold calling being dead: it isn't.
People say it's dead because you can't sell a $99 course on it.
You actually have to pick up the phone, and most reps today won't sit down and make focused calls for 90 minutes.
Not because they don't have the time, but because they don't want to be uncomfortable.
That discomfort is the whole point.
The one question he leaves every founder with: when was the last time you booked a meeting with someone you didn't know?
If you can't remember, you already know what to do next.
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"We don't just flip eggs. We flip lives." - Chason Forehand, Founder of Transformation Kitchen
Chason is a HR advocate with 45 years spanning culinary, human resources, and DEI.
He is someone who knows exactly what it feels like to need a sandwich and have no idea what comes next.
Chason grew up as the oldest of six boys in an abusive home. By college, the guardrails were off. Straight-A student to academic probation in under a year. Drugs. An attempt on his own life. Incarceration.
Then a chef found him. Ten years clean and sober, someone who cared as much about people as he did about food. He became a mentor, a sponsor, a friend. That changed everything.
The hardest thing Chason ever did wasn't build a program. It was putting his hand up and asking for help.
Now he makes it easier for others to do the same.
Transformation Kitchen isn't job training. It's what he calls a forge.
You come in, you transform, and you never age out. The metric isn't who completed the 12 weeks. It's where you are five years later. Still housed? Still employed? Still clean?
Because if all you hand someone is a sandwich, you've handled today. Nothing else.
"The most profitable companies are driven by purpose."
Doing hard things isn't just a personal challenge. It's an organizational one.
It means paying people what they're actually worth.
It means building culture that outlasts any one quarter.
It means showing up for your community when there's no immediate ROI.
For companies that want to get involved beyond writing checks: volunteer, join a board, post about an organization you believe in.
Your social circle is different from theirs. That difference has real value.
Start there.
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"People are just waiting for permission to go after their dreams. I never ask permission. If I want it, I go after it.â - Julee Gracey
Former international model, People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful, NBC's Deal or No Deal, Top real estate agent, and now a business coach who helps entrepreneurs stop hiding and start showing up.
She's been called human Red Bull and you'll understand why in about 30 seconds.
Julee grew up on a farm, worked construction, and then flipped through magazines one day and noticed all the models were traveling the world.
So she became one. Not because she dreamed of runways, but because she wanted to see what was out there.
After a decade in LA, she came home and went into real estate. Everyone told her it was a terrible idea.
She got quiet, went under the radar, and became the top agent in her office.
Her first showing was a disaster. She couldn't unlock the door, couldn't answer a single client question, and got fired on the front porch.
She cried for a day, then walked up to the number one agent in the office and said: take 50% of everything I make. I just want to sit in your meetings and hear the words you use.
Within months she was posting the biggest numbers on the board. She's never tackled anything since without a mentor.
What she figured out that most people won't say out loud: burnout isn't from doing too much. It's from doing the wrong things. And most entrepreneurs struggle to talk about what they do because they were taught growing up to sit down, be quiet, don't brag.
Then they start a business and every one of those rules becomes the obstacle.
Her fix: face the thing you're avoiding. That's exactly where your growth is.
She wrote it all down in Highly Confident, now a number one Amazon bestseller. The core message: get clear on what you want, make better decisions, and stop waiting for permission.
Nobody's coming with that slip.
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"When you open your mouth, the world will discover who you really are." - Larry Raskin
38-year veteran in sales and marketing, former VP of Leadership Development, and the man I credit to teaching me how to communicate and build businesses.
This one is personal.
Larry didn't start in sales, he started in pro baseball.
An injury ended that, so he pivoted into the only world he knew: fitness.
Managing health clubs through the fitness boom, 10 to 10, six days a week.
At some point the math became obvious. The harder he worked, the richer other people got. He was the engine with no equity.
So he answered a newspaper ad, walked into a strip mall meeting that looked nothing like the six-figure promise in the listing, and almost left.
He stayed because he loved the concept, not the product. Business ownership with income that worked beyond his own effort.
And he never looked back.
Over the next 38 years became one of the most successful producers, sales trainers and leadership speakers in his companyâs history.
Then the pandemic hit and Larry went from the top of the mountain back to zero.
He didn't coast. He started over.
At 43, heart blockages. More stents in 2005. Bypass surgery at 66. Back in the gym after every single one.
"It isn't what happens to you. It's what happens in you that matters."
Now at Zinzino, a science-backed preventative health company built around test-based, personalized nutrition, he's more fired up than he's been in decades.
His philosophy hasn't changed in 38 years: your organization will never outgrow your personal development.
Treat it like a business or don't. Find the voices worth emulating. Repeat until it sticks.
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"We are so much stronger than we are ever told we are." - Scilla Andreen
As an Emmy nominated costume designer, co-founder of IndieFlix, award-winning filmmaker, CEO of Impactful Networks, and Mother of six, Scilla knows what doing hard things is all about.
She lost her son to suicide, and her daughter to cancer on her birthday.
Three days after her son passed, she got on a plane to a conference on men's and boys' mental health. Not because she was okay, but because she had questions, and she refused to stop asking them.
It's who she is.
Long before any of that, a friend named Tina, the executive director of her foundation, kept asking her to make a film about mental health. She kept saying no⊠nobody wants to watch a movie about mental health.
Then Tina passed by suicide.
Scilla had no mental health background; she had grief, guilt and questions.
She did the only thing she knew⊠started filming anyone who would talk to her, from Harvard researchers to six-year-olds, with no script and no money.
That turned into her film, Angst. It sat for six months, then screened in 90 countries within 14 months.
The insight that drove all of it: the power of a film isn't in the watching, it's in the conversation after.
When people feel safe enough to talk, they share what they've been carrying alone.
The mission isn't therapy, it's education.
Mental health literacy is a population-level problem, and the solution looks more like CPR training than a clinical appointment. Everyone needs access.
Human connection matters more than ever right now.
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"You don't need to post something groundbreaking every time. Just post your story. People are going to like that because they can see themselves in you." - Kade Hinkle
Kadeâs a young SDR in the game and he's been on LinkedIn longer than most sales reps you know.
Not because someone told him to. Because he watched a YouTube video at 16, figured out LinkedIn was where the jobs were, and started connecting with people before he ever graduated high school.
By the time he did, he had 2,000 connections and a job offer waiting in his inbox.
He started in landscaping and now he's cold calling executives every afternoon and booking meetings from LinkedIn DMs in between, with over 12,000 followers.
He's not doing anything magical. Prospecting in the morning. Emails around noon. Calls from 3 to 5.
Video messages when he remembers to push himself. Posts at the end of the day from whatever he wrote in his notes app.
The difference is he started. At 16. While most people his age were doom-scrolling Instagram.
The rejection question came up. How do you handle getting punched in the face all day as a brand new SDR?
His answer was pretty simple: "I know it's not personal. So you just keep moving to the next one."
No elaborate mental framework. No morning routine. Just the understanding that a no isn't about you, and the next call is waiting.
Here's what stuck with us though. Kade wants to be an AE by 20. After that it gets blurry. Maybe leadership. Maybe his own business. He's not sure yet.
But he knows one thing: he's not waiting until he has something impressive to say before he starts showing up.
He's posting the journey in real time, figuring it out in public, and letting people grow with him.
In the age of AI, that's exactly what cuts through.
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"You're only going to go as far as your identity takes you." - Leo Martinez
Leo is the Co-founder of Martinez and Associates Consulting. 25 years in business with his wife Clarissa. A 21-year-old company that now runs 99% without them in it.
He didn't learn that in a classroom. He learned it after spending seven years inside Patrick Bet David's inner circle, having 15 to 18 conversations a day, six days a week, with founders and CEOs running companies from $2 million to $12 billion.
After all of that, the pattern was clear.
But before we get there, here's what actually built the foundation.
Leo is the dreamer. Big vision, moves fast, commits before he has all the answers. Clarissa is the one with 27 objections and 30 questions. She pumps the brakes. She asks what nobody wants to ask.
Her words: "You need two people that are almost opposites coming together in order to balance each other out."
That's not just their marriage. That's their entire operating model.
Most entrepreneurs live in the "if it is to be, it's up to me" trap. All the pressure on their shoulders, nobody empowered to carry any of it. The business grows to a point, then stops. Not because the market ran out. Because the founder's identity did.
Clarissa added what most people miss: founders think they're doing the right thing by pouring everything into the business. But while they're winning at work, they're quietly losing at home.
You don't have to pick one. But you do have to be intentional about both.
Their ops manager Diana has been with them 14 years. Not because of the salary. Because Leo and Clarissa invested in her life, not just her output.
"You have to love them. If you love them, they will go through walls for you."
That's not soft. That's the whole system.
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"My success is actually when a client stops working with me." - John Zurowski
John is the Founder of JZ Sales Consulting with Twenty years of corporate sales leadership before going fractional. And that line is the most honest thing you'll hear from a consultant this year.
His goal isn't to become indispensable. It's to build companies to the point where they can replace him with a full-time leader. He calls that the win.
Most founders hitting a growth ceiling make the same move: rush to hire a senior sales leader. Big salary, fancy title, high expectations. And more often than not, it doesn't work.
Not because the hire is wrong. Because the foundation isn't there yet.
John sees it constantly. You sit down with a company's employees and ask a simple question: what does your company do and what problem does it solve?
You'll get five different answers. Every time.
If your own team can't align on that, no sales leader in the world is going to fix your pipeline.
That's where John starts. Not with a CRM. Not with a headcount plan. With clarity.
Get the team aligned on what you do and who you help. Build process that's designed to flex, not break. And when you're stuck, stop looking for a new tactic. Go back to the fundamentals.
He put it simply: "When you're in a rut, it just takes one small win to get that wind in your sail again."
Make the extra calls. Review your proposal with fresh eyes. Do the basic things well. The breakthrough rarely comes from doing something new. It comes from doing the right things consistently.
John's also direct about AI: it's a productivity tool, not a replacement for genuine human conversations. People still buy from people. That hasn't changed, and the market fatigue with AI-driven outreach is only going to accelerate it.
The sales leaders winning right now are the ones combining structure with hustle, and knowing the difference between a phase and a ceiling.
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"If it's not producing pipeline, it's not a partnership. It's a coffee club." - Pierce Brehm
Pierce is the Founder and CEO of Holland Lane Global Advisers. And if you've ever announced a new logo, signed an agreement, done a webinar, and wondered why none of it turned into revenue, this ones for you.
Most companies know partnerships should be part of their growth strategy and the data backs it up.
Deals close 53% more often when a partner is involved and close 46% faster.
A recommendation from a trusted source is up to 50 times more likely to result in a purchase than a cold outreach.
So why do so many partnerships go nowhere?
Pierce has a simple answer, there is no ideal partner profile, no activation plan, no shared revenue target, and no measurement.
Companies are treating partnerships like a branding exercise instead of a revenue channel.
Pierce's framework starts at the foundation: define your ideal partner profile.
Who's selling to the same types of companies, the same personas, the same industries?
Who compliments you without competing? Get that right first. Everything else builds from it.
Then comes consistency. Not a logo swap and a LinkedIn post. Consistent communication, proactive introductions, and a clear way to track what's actually converting.
When you get it right, partnerships stop feeling slow and unpredictable. They become one of the most efficient growth channels in B2B.
The companies winning right now aren't making more noise. They're building stronger relationships, on purpose, with a plan.
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âAI is just an extension of software. It essentially makes what we have been doing much better.â - Gabe Naviasky
In this episode, Gabe shares a story about a company that chose not to work with his team simply because they were using AI.
At first glance, it sounds cautious and even reasonable. This company had experienced a security breach the year before, so their hesitation around vendors like OpenAI made sense.
But hereâs the part thatâs harder to reconcile:
Avoiding a specific vendor is one thing. Avoiding AI altogether? Thatâs a different story.
Because opting out of AI today doesnât just mean skipping a tool, it means stepping away from the infrastructure of modern software itself.
It means:
âą No Google search
âą No Siri or voice assistants
âą No smart automation quietly improving workflows in the background
AI isnât a feature anymore, itâs becoming the baseline.
As workflows become more automated, the nature of work itself is changing. The repetitive, manual, and process-heavy tasks? Those are increasingly handled by systems.
Whatâs left, and what becomes more valuable, is the work that requires judgment, creativity, and real-world experience.
The human layer doesnât disappear, it sharpens.
So the question isnât whether to use AI.
Itâs how intentionally we choose to use it and where we decide human expertise matters most.
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âWe all have agency to speak up, and itâs incredibly liberating.â - Karen Laos
Karen came to this realization after a moment that could have easily been dismissed as just another bad day at work.
She was in a boardroom giving a presentation when she suddenly froze. Instead of pushing through, her boss stopped the meeting.
Later, she pulled her aside and asked a simple but powerful question: why didnât you just table the discussion, and why do you keep asking for permission?
That question stayed with her.
As she reflected, Karen recognized something deeper, she didnât actually agree with what she had been presenting.
But she had been raised to respect authority, not challenge it, and certainly not push back in a room like that.
In that moment, she saw how much she had been holding herself back.
What started as an uncomfortable experience became a turning point.
It led her to rethink how often people stay quiet, even when they have something important to say, and ultimately inspired her to help others find the confidence to use their voice.
Itâs easy to stay silent, especially when speaking up feels risky. But over time, that silence can become a kind of prison we create for ourselves.
Speaking up isnât about being difficult or confrontational, itâs about being honest and bringing your full perspective to the table.
If something doesnât sit right with you, itâs worth saying so.
Youâre in the room for a reason, and your voice carries more value than you might think.
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âYou need to get comfortable with you. You are the reason you are going to fail. You are the reason you are going to succeed.â - Matthew Beaudin
Itâs easy to point fingers to market conditions, pricing, competition, or timing when things donât go our way.
But the truth is, the biggest variable in any outcome is us.
Our mindset.
Our consistency.
Our willingness to have uncomfortable conversations.
Our discipline to follow up when others donât.
The same is true on the flip side.
The wins? They come from preparation no one sees.
From resilience after rejection.
From choosing to improve instead of making excuses.
If youâre in sales right now, hereâs the real question:
Are your daily habits aligned with the results you say you want?
Because growth in this field doesnât start with a new script or tool, it starts with ownership.
And when you fully own your outcomes, everything changes.
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âGet out there and make it happen. Donât sit back and wait for it to come to you, it probably never will, not in the time you want it to.â - James Bissell
Success in sales isnât something that just shows up at your door.
Nothing is handed to you in this game.
No shortcuts, no easy wins.
It takes grit.
It takes consistency.
It takes showing up even when you donât feel like it.
And above all, it takes action.
You canât afford to be lazy and expect results.
The people who win are the ones who go after it, every single day.
Go make it happen.
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âWhen youâre competing at the executive level, everyone is qualified. What separates you is who you genuinely are.â - Teegan Bartos
Your network is your net worth, but only if people truly understand who you are and what you stand for.
Itâs no longer enough to look good on paper.
Titles, resumes, and credentials may open doors, but they donât build trust or lasting influence.
Legacy is built through visibility and authenticity.
Share your journey.
Show your impact.
Let people see the results youâre driving.
Not just within your organization, but in the broader community around you.
Because if people canât see what youâre building, they canât be part of it.
And if they canât understand your value, they canât advocate for it.
Your brand isnât what you say it is, itâs what others consistently experience and recognize.
Make it visible. Make it real.
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âThere is so much opportunity in B2B for content.â - Justin Zelik
LinkedIn has changed the game.
Years ago, LinkedIn was just a place to find a job.
If you werenât hiring or job hunting, you barely logged in.
Now? Weâre on it every day.
Not just to prospect.
Not just to network.
But to build.
To build personal brands.
To build trust at scale.
To build relationships before a single call ever happens.
The biggest shift isnât the platform, itâs the behavior.
Buyers donât want cold pitches.
They want context.
They want credibility.
They want to feel like they already know you before you reach out.
And content is how you get there.
In B2B, attention used to be rented (ads, outbound, events).
Now it can be owned.
The people consistently showing up, sharing insights, documenting their thinking, theyâre the ones winning long before deals are on the table.
If youâre in B2B and not creating, youâre invisible.
If you are creating, youâre compounding.
The opportunity isnât coming.
Itâs already here.
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