In this Best Bits episode, Richard Washington shares the hiring framework that separates average hires from true revenue multipliers.

Full length episode on Do Hard Things with Gabe Lullo here: https://youtu.be/N2guh2HeO6c?si=Xyp5RMWFpLISYFoL

If you’re a founder, CRO, or sales leader scaling from early traction to repeatable growth, hiring the wrong sales talent can stall momentum, drain cash, and damage culture. This episode breaks down how to build a team that actually scales impact.

🚀 In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why hiring based on CVs and past quotas leads to costly mistakes

• The difference between adders, subtractors, and multipliers

• The CORE traits every high-impact hire must have

• How to identify ownership, resourcefulness, and execution in interviews

• Why “industry experience” can be a hiring trap

• How to build a collaborative culture that drives performance

• What founders must do to avoid momentum-killing hires

Richard explains how the best teams hire builders, not passengers — people who create leverage, take ownership, and accelerate growth.

If you’re scaling a startup, building a revenue team, or tired of hires that look great on paper but fail in reality, this is essential listening.

🎧 Watch the full episode here: [link]

📩 Subscribe for weekly leadership & revenue insights: [link]

About Richard Washington

Richard is a global revenue leader and founder helping early-stage tech companies scale from $1M to $25M by hiring entrepreneurial go-to-market talent that multiplies impact.

#SalesLeadership #StartupHiring #RevenueGrowth #SalesHiring #ScalingStartups #B2BSales #GoToMarket #Founders #RevenueOperations #Leadership

Here’s a question most companies get wrong: Who really owns growth in a scaling company?

Sales says, “We close it.”

Marketing says, “We generate it.”

Customer Success says, “We expand and retain it.”

They’re all right.

And that’s exactly the problem.

In this episode of What Makes You Tick, we host a live debate between senior revenue leaders across Sales, Marketing and Customer Success to answer one big question:

👉 Who actually owns growth — and why do most companies treat it like an individual sport?

Inside this conversation, we unpack:

Why growth breaks down in the handoffs between teams

Revenue ownership vs growth ownership

The tension between pipeline creation and pipeline conversion

Why Customer Success is still underestimated as a growth engine

What true GTM alignment actually looks like

The difference between individual performance and system performance

The highest leverage move founders can make to accelerate growth

If you’re scaling from $10M–$200M ARR, this conversation will feel very familiar.

Growth doesn’t live inside departments.

It lives in the system.

🎙️ Meet the Guests

Eric Hachmer

https://www.linkedin.com/in/erichachmer/

Fractional CRO and revenue strategist. Eric works with scaling B2B companies to build predictable revenue engines, align GTM teams, and turn strategy into execution. He specialises in enterprise sales leadership, revenue architecture, and building accountable growth systems.

Neil Gray

https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilsgray/

Fractional CMO and B2B growth operator. Neil partners with founders and leadership teams to sharpen ICP clarity, drive demand generation, and build marketing engines that support sustainable revenue growth — not vanity metrics.

Andrea Bumstead

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreabumstead/

Fractional CCO and Customer Success leader. Andrea helps scaling SaaS companies turn retention, expansion, and customer experience into competitive advantage. She focuses on aligning CS to revenue outcomes and long-term customer value.

🎙️ About the Host – Richard Washington

Richard Washington is co-host of Making Revenue Tick, GTM recruiter, and trusted advisor to B2B SaaS companies scaling from $0M to $250M+ ARR.

He helps founders build revenue teams that actually perform — with strategy, talent, and execution that scales.

🔗 Follow Richard on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/

📩 Read his newsletter Growth Magnet → https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7083793079794556928

If you’re a Founder, CRO, CMO, VP Sales, Head of CS, or revenue leader trying to build a high-performing GTM system — this episode is for you.

Growth isn’t an individual sport.

It’s a relay race.

And if you’re arguing about who owns it… you might already have a gap.

Subscribe for more conversations on revenue leadership, hiring multipliers, GTM alignment, and building self-managing growth systems.

“What if your sales team only did the 1% of work that truly matters?”

Watch the full episode now https://youtu.be/pz8066MnkZo?si=9-a2m24B2LspKNYW

In this high-impact masterclass segment, James Smith (SVP EMEA at ThoughtSpot) breaks down the exact framework he’s using to redesign his sales process with AI — not for 10% efficiency gains… but for 10X productivity.

This isn’t about writing better emails with ChatGPT.

It’s about rebuilding your sales engine from first principles.

If you’re a founder, CRO, VP Sales, or scaling SaaS leader wondering:

Why reps only spend ~20% of time selling

Where AI actually fits in GTM

How to build agents without being technical

How to unlock real leverage instead of hiring more reps

This is your blueprint.

🚨 The Big Shift

Most teams use AI to make what they already do slightly faster.

James asks a different question:

“What if we mapped every task our reps do… and removed or automated the 99% that isn’t customer-facing?”

From there, he:

Lists every sales task across the process

Identifies manual, non-selling friction

Designs AI agents to remove it

Prioritises by impact vs. ease

Reimagines the rep’s role around high-value execution

This is how you move from incremental gains… to structural advantage.

🧠 What You’ll Learn

Why 10X productivity is about stacked multipliers (not one lever)

How to reverse-engineer your sales process with an AI lens

Why “efficiency gains” are the wrong goal

How non-technical leaders can build AI agents today

The difference between automation and true leverage

How AI-native teams reclaim massive selling time

Why the future rep spends dramatically more time with customers

🔥 Soundbites That Hit

“AI removes the value of 99% of what we do — and 100Xs the 1% that’s left.”

“If reps only did customer execution, productivity would step change.”

“10X isn’t one lever — it’s 3X here, 5X there, 2X somewhere else.”

🎙️ About the Guest – James Smith

James Smith is the SVP EMEA at ThoughtSpot, where he’s pioneering how AI can transform GTM productivity at scale.

With senior leadership experience at Tableau and Salesforce, James is known for challenging conventional thinking, building elite teams, and applying first-principles design to revenue growth.

At ThoughtSpot, he’s leading a 10X mindset shift — redesigning sales workflows, empowering reps with AI agents, and building human-centric, high-leverage systems.

🔗 Connect with James on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-smith-15627941/

🎙️ About the Host – Richard Washington

Richard Washington is co-host of Making Revenue Tick, GTM recruiter, and trusted advisor to B2B SaaS companies scaling from $0M to $250M+ ARR.

He helps founders build revenue teams that actually perform — with strategy, talent, and execution that scales.

🔗 Follow Richard on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/

📩 Read his newsletter Growth Magnet → https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7083793079794556928

If this sparked ideas for your own AI journey, drop a comment.

If you want the full conversation — including hiring, leadership, and 10X mindset — watch the complete episode on the channel.

Subscribe for more masterclass-level conversations with the people redefining modern revenue.