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The Innovative Revenue Leader

The Innovative Revenue Leader

Written by: Seth Marrs
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This podcast explores the future of sales performance, giving Chief Revenue Officers and other growth leaders the insights, tools, and stories they need to lead with confidence. Through candid conversations with top executives, analysts, and tech innovators, we uncover how to harness data, optimize talent, and build tech-enabled sales teams that win. Listeners will walk away with actionable strategies to drive growth, outpace change, and future-proof their revenue engine.

© 2026 © 2025 Sandler Systems, LLC.
Economics Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Boardroom Agents, Real ROI
    Jan 21 2026

    Forget AI theater—this conversation gets into the real decisions leaders face when moving from copilots to autonomous agents. We unpack what the board actually cares about: where agents sit in the customer journey, how they reshape processes that humans or legacy software used to carry, and what that means for ROI, accountability, and experience design.

    John Arnold, Head of Product Marketing and Strategic Advisory at Creatio, brings hands-on insight from large enterprises and high-growth teams building with no code and agentic CRM. We break down the difference between assistants that draft and agents that act, and why that shift forces choices about redeploying people, rethinking service models, and defining your edge—human-led differentiation or agent-led speed. Expect concrete examples from banking and financial services, where back office volume meets customer expectations for instant outcomes, plus the math behind productivity gains that don’t automatically equal headcount cuts.

    We also confront the adoption gap in professional services. Tech leaders overwhelmingly see agents as critical, while many services firms hesitate. We explore why, and reveal the opportunity hiding in plain sight: data readiness, governance, agent design, and change management that clients will pay for when partners move beyond strategy decks to shipping safe, reliable systems. Finally, we show how enterprise-grade no code flips the delivery model—empowering technical business users, establishing fusion teams with IT, and putting guardrails in place so teams can build applications, workflows, and agents without waiting on quarterly release trains.

    If you care about turning AI into outcomes, this is your playbook for getting beyond pilots, aligning humans and agents where they’re strongest, and scaling responsibly. Subscribe, share with a colleague who owns an AI mandate, and leave a review with your biggest agent-related challenge—we may feature it next time.

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    27 mins
  • Executives See Growth While Sellers Feel The Squeeze
    Jan 14 2026

    If you’ve ever felt the boardroom’s optimism collide with the grind of the field, this conversation will sound familiar. We unpack fresh pulse data from roughly 175 people across sales, marketing, and customer success to reveal why executives say growth is up while sellers feel squeezed, and how AI is changing workflows in ways that actually stick.

    We start with the split: leaders reading future indicators versus sellers living inside over-assigned quotas. That gap shows up again when we compare small versus large organizations—lean teams use AI and streamlined processes to move faster, while big orgs wrestle with process debt. From there, we break down what each group truly values. Sellers overwhelmingly want sales effectiveness and coaching. Strategy, ops, and enablement prioritize planning. Executives talk about alignment, yet budget and focus often drift toward tech and planning instead of shared execution.

    AI’s real impact is clear and refreshingly practical. Preparation and planning top the list of wins, with sellers relying on AI for research, account intelligence, and meeting prep. Forecasting and planning tools are finally making inroads with leadership as embedded capabilities improve. What’s missing is as telling as what’s working: despite vendor hype, AI-led lead prioritization isn’t trusted or adopted at scale. We explore why that trust gap persists and outline a path to pilot prioritization with tight feedback loops, measurable outcomes, and seller input.

    We also map the tooling landscape and why “revenue orchestration” is becoming the seller’s workspace. Gong, Glean, and Clay surface repeatedly for their data-first approaches, focused agents, and top-of-funnel innovation. You’ll hear concrete use cases—contact enrichment, deep research, role play and coaching—that cut ramp time and lift conversions without adding bloat. By the end, you’ll have a playbook: align on one funnel and forecast, fund effectiveness at the frontline, measure AI by outcomes not demos, and build an operating rhythm that forces shared truth. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find it.

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    16 mins
  • Driving Growth With Usage-Based Sales
    Jan 7 2026

    Growth doesn’t happen when a contract is signed. Growth happens when customers actually use what they bought, day after day. We wrap our usage-based sales series by connecting the dots between pricing strategy, operations, and compensation—showing a concrete path from “right to buy” to realized revenue you can bank on.

    We start by reframing the sales motion for consumption models. Winning access is only the opening move; the real work is guiding adoption and hitting a clear, data-backed ramp. Rather than forcing usage into traditional opportunities, we walk through why account-level management creates clarity across products, regions, and divisions. From there, we dig into forecasting: finance or a deal desk should own usage predictions with analytics and machine learning, not sellers guessing run rate. You’ll learn how to stack committed volumes with live run rate to set honest targets and expose realization gaps before they become surprises.

    Role design gets a reset too. AEs close the first purchase and stay accountable through the ramp window, then hand off to CSMs or AMs to maintain and deepen value while they open the next wedge—new divisions, higher tiers, or complementary products. We share practical ways to instrument telemetry, trigger alerts when adoption stalls, and align incentives to ramp and sustained usage. The result is a simple, repeatable operating model: forecast with data, manage at the account, pay for realization, and hunt for expansion where customers already show proof of value.

    Ready to turn promises into proof and surface the growth hiding in your consumption revenue? Follow the show, share this episode with a teammate who owns forecasting or CS, and leave a quick review telling us your ramp window and how you define success.

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    15 mins
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