Beyond Revenue – Narratives of Revenue Leaders [with Michael Jäger]

Using ChatGPT and Claude for one-off tasks? That's what almost everyone is doing. Bur building an organization that actually runs on agents? Not so many have mastered this one yet.

Rayson Chia, RevOps Lead at Packmatic, joins Michael Jäger to look at what is needed to move a GTM org from scattered AI tool use to a coherent, agent-powered system built on a clean data foundation and real onboarding.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — The deterministic data foundation: why Rayson built a clean, single-source-of-truth data warehouse before touching AI, and why messy CRM fields turn into AI's guessing game.

✌️ Win #2 — Onboarding agents like new hires: the context layer Rayson built to teach AI not just what the business has, but why it works that way.

🌱 Fail — The one-person second brain: Rayson encoded his own knowledge and his team's into the agent's context layer, centralizing his own blind spots instead of the company's actual knowledge.

Whether you're building your first agent or trying to scale past scattered AI use cases, this episode gives you a concrete playbook for what actually needs to be true before AI can help your GTM team.

Connect with Rayson:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raysonchia/

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode's timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Rayson's background

02:39 — Icebreakers: the GTM task he'd hand to AI first

04:12 — The most overhyped AI use case in revenue teams

04:50 — The biggest misconception about AI agents

05:52 — Win #1: The deterministic data foundation

10:09 — Win #2: Onboarding agents like new hires

12:07 — Building the context layer, the "second brain"

13:04 — The fail: building a personal brain, not a company brain

15:17 — The fix: department leads, monthly reviews

16:01 — The stack: Claude Code and a vault of MD files

16:15 — Build it in the LLM or keep it portable?

17:31 — Advice for teams just getting started

19:52 — Key takeaways

21:30 — Where to find Rayson

The public sector looks too slow and too bureaucratic for most B2B sales teams. So how do you actually build a go-to-market motion that works there?

Ellen Lina Schmitt, CRO at Ayunis, a GovTech company, and former builder of Personio's public sector, nonprofit, and education arm, joins Michael Jäger to break down how she scaled that arm from zero into a 35 person team that helped Personio reach 1.6 million managed employees.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1: Narrowing the ICP to Germany's municipal level, where local self-government lets each city procure software on its own and cuts the sales cycle.

✌️ Win #2: Building a shared mission, "enabling better public organizations," to get top AEs excited about selling into an unglamorous industry.

🌱 Fail: Chasing government tenders like a consultant instead of picking up the phone, and winning nothing until the team switched motions.

Whether you're eyeing the public sector or scaling GTM into any hard to sell vertical, this episode gives you a concrete playbook for getting the ICP and the team right.

Connect with Ellen:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellenlinaschmitt/

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

🕦 Episode's timestamps

0:00 Intro and background

04:27 What the Silk Road taught her about public sector risk

09:44 The first shock of consulting to software sales

11:32 Win #1: Narrowing the ICP to municipal government

15:34 Win #2: Building a shared mission

18:23 The fail: chasing tenders instead of the phone

20:08 Recap and key takeaways

23:40 Where to find Ellen

Every AI company sounds the same right now. So how do you actually get noticed — and trusted — in a market where every vendor is running the same playbook?

Maren Kaspers, VP Marketing at Octonomy and all-bound GTM leader owning both marketing and the SDR team, joins Michael Jäger to break down the ALL-BOUND model: how to fuse pipeline ownership under one roof, rebrand your way out of a noisy category, and treat every failure as fast, cheap data.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — Look at what everyone else does, then do the opposite: how spotting a sea of identical competitor branding at a trade show led to a rebrand and a bold public claim that got Octonomy's booth noticed.

✌️ Win #2 — All-bound: why marketing owns the SDR team, and how that single structural call has kept sales and marketing aligned and pipeline on target every quarter.

🌱 Fail — Booking events that didn't convert: why Maren sends teams to events that flop, and treats it as the cost of moving fast.

Whether you're building a brand in a noisy AI market or rethinking how sales and marketing should split pipeline ownership, this episode gives you a concrete playbook for standing out without losing the human touch.

Connect with Maren

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maren-kaspers/🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode's timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Maren's background at Octonomy

00:47 — Octonomy overview: an all-bound company in a noisy AI market

03:00 — Rapid fire: the employer-branding lesson that still applies today

05:25 — Building a human brand in an AI-saturated market

09:02 — Win #1: differentiating Octonomy's brand at a crowded trade show

14:57 — Win #2: all-bound — why marketing owns the SDR team

19:13 — The fail: booking events that didn't convert

21:27 — Key takeaways

23:14 — Where to find Maren

Cold outbound is annoying and inbound alone is slow. So how do you become the obvious choice before a prospect even starts looking?

Tycho Luijten, CEO and co-founder of Dapper — a 70 person B2B marketing agency in Rotterdam and Lisbon behind a Wolf of Wall Street parody that reached millions of views — joins Michael Jäger to break down the NICHE FAMOUS FRAMEWORK: how a narrow ICP and personal LinkedIn content built an agency's brand before it had an ad budget.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — The Niche Famous Framework: picking an audience small enough to fit in a stadium and becoming known, trusted, and preferred inside it through personal profiles, not a company page.

✌️ Win #2 — Owning listicles, then owning GEO: how ranking in B2B agency listicles built early authority, and why Dapper now applies the same tactic to get cited by ChatGPT and Claude.

🌱 Fail — The outbound email that read as narcissistic: why leading with his own credentials instead of the prospect's problem backfired, and what public feedback taught him.

Whether you're building a personal brand or trying to make your B2B marketing findable by both search engines and AI, this episode gives you a concrete, tested playbook for becoming niche famous.

Connect with Tycho:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tycholuijten/

🔗 Dapper: https://dapper.agency

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode's timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Tycho's background

00:36 — Inside Dapper: agency size, Rotterdam, and Lisbon

02:48 — Quickfire: the marketing term Tycho would retire

03:49 — Best content: the Wolf of Wall Street sketch

05:20 — The tactic other agencies use that Dapper never copied

06:45 — Naming the Niche Famous Framework

08:09 — Win #1: The Niche Famous Framework explained

11:01 — How Tycho scaled it with a seven-person team

13:05 — Win #2: Winning listicles, then winning GEO

14:59 — The fail: the cold outbound email that backfired

19:56 — Key takeaways

22:00 — Where to find Tycho

Everyone knows brand matters. Almost nobody structures it like a system. So what does it actually take to make brand drive revenue instead of just sitting in a deck?

Jillian Als, CMO at Leadfeeder (formerly Dealfront) and a nearly two-decade veteran of B2B SaaS marketing, joins Michael Jäger to break down how she rebuilt her company's brand from the ground up, and why she killed the two-brand strategy that was costing Leadfeeder its focus.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — The internal creator program: how Jillian and her team turned employees into LinkedIn creators, using Claude and a points-to-swag system, for a 20x jump in impressions over the company page.

✌️ Win #2 — Mission, purpose, and vision first: why Jillian rebuilt the brand foundation before scaling any content, and how it aligned every customer interaction.

🌱 Fail — The newsletter that went nowhere: a six-month sponsorship with zero measurable return, and why "just get a list" is bad marketing advice in 2026.

Whether you're a CMO, a founder, or a marketer trying to make brand measurable, this episode gives you a concrete way to build it, staff it, and prove it against revenue.

Connect with Jillian on 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillianals/

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode's timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Jillian's background

04:58 — The Dealfront to Leadfeeder rebrand and identity crisis

02:56 — Why B2B buyers are harder to track than ever

04:32 — Rapid fire: myths, reputation, and the most underrated skill

06:20 — Win #1: building an internal LinkedIn creator program

09:44 — Proving revenue impact with Fibbler

10:31 — Win #2: vision, mission, and purpose as the brand foundation

13:22 — The fail: the newsletter sponsorship that went nowhere

15:55 — Key takeaways

18:35 — Where to find Jillian and upcoming events

Most reps lose deals in the last mile, after the champion is bought in and everyone assumes it's done.

Ben Bauer, VP of Sales at WorkFlex, where he runs a 30-person sales org inside a 40-person revenue team, joins Michael Jäger to break down why deals slip late, and what actually protects them: testing engagement instead of assuming it, and trading discounts for value instead of giving them away.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — The homework test: small tasks given on every call to test real engagement, so an at-risk deal shows up before it hits the forecast.

✌️ Win #2 — A discount table that trades a fixed percentage for a specific ask, a case study, reference calls, closing 200K ARR deals at 0-4% discount.

🌱 Fail — Loading the full worldwide rollout into deal one instead of land-and-expand, which slowed deals down without moving the needle.

Whether you're leading enterprise sales or building a team's negotiation playbook, this episode gives you a concrete way to catch risk early and stop over-discounting.

Connect with Ben:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-bauer-sales-director/

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode's timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Ben's background at WorkFlex

01:32 — How enterprise sales has changed in five years

02:55 — The 150K ARR deal Ben was sure he'd won

03:34 — The phrase that signals a late-stage deal is at risk

04:22 — Process vs. intuition in closing enterprise deals

06:03 — Win #1: the homework test for deal engagement

07:49 — Win #2: a discount table that trades value, not margin

09:37 — The fail: full rollout vs. land-and-expand

12:48 — Key takeaways

Marketing leadership is changing. The marketers creating the biggest impact today aren't only experts in brand, messaging, or campaigns...they're also the leaders who understand systems, data, technology, and how to connect business needs with technical execution.

In this episode, Michael Jäger sits down with Claudio Toldi, Head of Global Marketing Platforms & Operations at Continental.

Having moved from IT, digital transformation, and e-commerce into global marketing leadership, Claudio shares why technical fluency is becoming one of the most important capabilities for modern marketing leaders.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — Becoming the bridge between business and IT: how Claudio helped accelerate the development of a customer-facing fleet management platform by translating business requirements into scalable technical solutions, helping take a concept from idea to market in just six months.

✌️ Win #2 — Finding the win-win between stakeholders: why successful marketing operations require balancing customer needs, business priorities, and technical constraints — and how defining a pragmatic MVP helped align sales, marketing, and IT around measurable customer value.

🌱 Fail — Moving too fast with marketing automation: how launching a marketing automation initiative in APAC without fully defining business goals and requirements led to confusion, rework, and a complete reset of the project approach.

Whether you're a CMO, marketing leader, RevOps professional, or someone navigating the growing intersection between marketing and technology, this episode offers practical lessons on why the future of marketing leadership is increasingly technical.

Connect with Claudio:
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudiotoldi/
🔗 Continental: https://www.continental.com/

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company.

New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode Timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Claudio's background
01:24 — The moment marketing became a technical discipline
02:22 — The technical capabilities marketing leaders underestimate
03:20 — Customer experience, digitalisation & marketing transformation
04:13 — Win #1: Bridging business and IT
05:50 — Building a customer platform in six months
07:10 — Win #2: Finding the stakeholder win-win
09:32 — Defining the right MVP
10:05 — The fail: Marketing automation in APAC
11:39 — Why speed isn't always the answer
14:04 — Where to find Claudio

How does a CFO think differently when they become CEO?

Rut Steinsen, CEO of SimplyBook.me, joins Michael Jäger to discuss how financial discipline, operational efficiency, and long-term strategic thinking influence leadership in a growing SaaS company.

Having started her journey as CFO before stepping into the CEO role, Rut shares practical lessons on scaling teams, aligning departments, measuring what matters, and making better decisions with a financial lens.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — Data-driven marketing allocation: how SimplyBook.me used performance measurement to identify that Google Search dramatically outperformed Display campaigns and reallocated budget accordingly.

✌️ Win #2 — AI-powered customer support: how an in-product AI assistant reduced support demand while helping customers discover and use more of the platform's 70+ features.

🌱 Fail — Voice booking before its time: why SimplyBook.me launched voice-based appointment booking years before AI made the experience intuitive, and what they learned about timing innovation to market readiness.

Whether you're a SaaS founder, CEO, CFO, operator, or revenue leader, this episode offers a practical framework for combining financial thinking with strategic leadership to build a more resilient business.

Connect with Rut:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rutsteinsen/

🔗 SimplyBook.me: https://simplybook.me

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company.

New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode Timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Rut's background
01:13 — Transitioning from CFO to CEO
03:05 — Finance and strategy in SaaS leadership
04:51 — Banking lessons applied to company building
05:54 — Workshop-driven strategy and team ownership
09:23 — Win #1: Google Search vs Display advertising
12:04 — Win #2: AI assistant for customer support
14:02 — The fail: launching voice booking too early
15:46 — Key lessons for SaaS operators
18:38 — Where to connect with Rut

You can have the best pipeline methodology in the market. If your culture is broken, it won't matter.

Crevan O'Malley, VP Upmarket Sales and MD EMEA at HubSpot — leading 2,700+ people across mid-market, corporate, and channel — joins Michael Jäger to unpack what it takes to build a high-performing sales organisation when the market is harder, procurement cycles are longer, and the noise has never been louder.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — Pipeline hygiene as a leadership discipline: why a clean pipeline beats an optimistic one every time, and how to build a team culture where deals get called honestly, not carried on hope.

✌️ Win #2 — Signal over noise: how staying genuinely close to customer conversations (even as a senior leader) gives you better insight than any dashboard.

🌱 Fail — When leadership gets in the way: the hard reflection on how good intentions — more reviews, more sessions — can sometimes become a tax on the people doing the actual selling.

If you lead a sales team or run a GTM motion, this episode gives you a sharp, honest look at the leadership behaviours that drive real performance, from someone doing it at scale.

Connect with Crevan:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crevanomalley/

🔗 HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode timestamps

0:00 — Intro & Crevan's background

3:00 — What modern B2B sales demands right now

7:30 — The human side of change management in technology adoption

12:00 — Trust as infrastructure in the agentic era

17:00 — HubSpot's open-by-design platform strategy

20:30 — Win #1: Pipeline hygiene as a leadership discipline

25:00 — Win #2: Signal over noise

29:00 — Fail: when leadership gets in the way

32:00 — Key takeaways & cross-functional alignment

36:30 — Where to find Crevan

Most CROs came up through sales. Nick Geurds came up through marketing and built revenue engines most sales leaders can't replicate.

Nick Geurds, CRO at Datamaran and former CCO at Lepaya (7→40M ARR), joins Michael Jäger to unpack what happens when a marketer carries the number. The edge it creates. The blind spots it hides. And the costly ICP mistake that took over a year to recover from.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — The signal-driven ABM engine: how Nick built one of the first scalable, personalised ABM programmes across 3,000+ named accounts — before AI made it easy — and watched close rates climb from 15% to 30%+.

✌️ Win #2 — Unbundling a $250K suite: how Nick cut sales cycles from 9 months to sub-3 months by going land and expand — and had the tense board conversation to prove it was worth it.

🌱 Fail — The ICP expansion that looked like growth: why moving from enterprise to mid-market at Lepaya generated four months of record bookings — then triggered a retention crisis that redirected the entire team away from new business.

If you're scaling a revenue motion and wondering whether your ICP is built to last or just built to close fast, this episode is for you.

Connect with Nick:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickgeurds/

🔗 Datamaran: https://www.datamaran.com

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode Timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Nick's background

01:07 — What's keeping Nick up at night at Datamaran

02:32 — What pulled a CMO into the CRO seat

03:45 — Selling ESG software in one sentence

05:18 — What nobody warned Nick about

08:27 — Win #1: The signal-driven ABM engine (15% → 30%+ close rates)

11:10 — The real lesson: make a plan, stick to the plan

12:45 — Win #2: Unbundling a $250K suite (9 months → sub-3 month cycles)

14:11 — Why land and expand builds lifetime value, not just revenue

15:18 — The Fail: ICP expansion that looked like growth

19:09 — Understanding business behaviour before you scale

21:30 — Key takeaways