RevOps Roundtable

Welcome back to the RevOps Roundtable, your go-to spot for all things Revenue Operations strategy, operations, and technology! In this quick-hit episode, we’re gearing up for Dreamforce 2026 and diving headfirst into what’s actually happening on the front lines of Revenue Operations.

John Garvens (Owner & Principal Architect at Garvens Consulting) is joined by an elite panel: Jean-Michel Tremblay (Founder & Architect at The Cloud Update), Meredith Schmidt (GM of Agentforce Revenue Management at Salesforce), and David Beebe (Head of Revenue Solutions for Agentforce Revenue Management at Salesforce).

We tear down the biggest myths surrounding Revenue Cloud and Agentforce Revenue Management, break down the shift from “Quote-to-Cash” to “Conversation-to-Cash,” and explain how AI agents like Claude are changing workflows from the front office to back-office billing. Plus, Jean-Michel shares real-world proof that his implementations are happening in weeks, not years, and John Garvens shares his key rule for long-term RevOps success: get the process right before touching the product.

Whether you’re struggling with hybrid usage-based pricing, trying to ensure end-to-end finance compliance, or planning your Dreamforce agenda, this episode has you covered.

PANELISTS

• John Garvens, Owner & Principal Architect, Garvens Consulting: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngarvens/
• Jean-Michel Tremblay, Revenue Cloud Solution Architect, The Cloud Update: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmmtremblay/
• Meredith Schmidt, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Salesforce: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-schmidt-5446a0/
• David Beebe, Head of Revenue Solutions, Salesforce: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmbeebe

PANELISTS

• John Garvens, Owner & Principal Architect, Garvens Consulting, Garvens Consulting on YouTube
• Jean-Michel Tremblay, Managing Principal, The Cloud Update, The Cloud Update on YouTube
• Meredith Schmidt, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Salesforce
• David Beebe, Head of Revenue Solutions, Salesforce

CONTENT

• 00:00 Introduction & Dreamforce 2026 Focus
• 00:59 Panel Introductions
• 01:28 What to Expect at Dreamforce for RevOps and ARM
• 01:55 AI + APIs: The “Deal Strategist” Vision
• 03:57 Omni-Channel in Practice: Conversation-to-Cash
• 06:59 Evolving Monetization: Usage Pricing, Predictability & Compliance
• 11:06 Myth-Busting: Deploying Revenue Cloud in Weeks, Not Years
• 17:35 Dreamforce Strategy: Thinking Beyond Traditional CPQ
• 20:10 Autonomous Resolution with Claude (No-Click Demo Tease)
• 23:54 Networking, RevOps Glossary & Wrap-Up

RESOURCES

• Revenue Operations at Dreamforce 2026
• Garvens Consulting
• The Cloud Update
• Learn More About Agentforce Revenue Management: Visit the Salesforce ecosystem portal or catch the 2,000-person Agentforce Revenue Management Keynote at Dreamforce 2026!

Build a predictable, scalable revenue engine for your IPO. Discover how CFOs automate RevOps and boost valuations.

Welcome to the RevOps Roundtable, hosted by John Garvens.

In this episode, we dive deep into the ultimate IPO readiness playbook for modern CFOs. As your company eyes the public markets, your role must evolve from a traditional financial guardian into a strategic growth catalyst. We break down exactly how to scale your revenue operations, eliminate compliance risks, and build a predictable forecasting engine that Wall Street can trust.

PANELISTS

• John Garvens, Owner & Principal Architect, Garvens Consulting, Garvens Consulting on YouTube
• Sam Chung, Chief Customer Officer, Salesforce
• David Beebe, Head of Revenue Solutions, Salesforce

CONTENTS

• The Mature Revenue Engine: What a healthy, public-ready revenue architecture looks like before you file your S-1.
• The CFO Evolution: How to successfully transition from a financial guardian to an active growth catalyst.
• Hidden IPO Landmines: The most common revenue and cash flow pitfalls that stall IPO momentum and crush valuations.
• Leveraging AI Agents: How autonomous AI (like Agentforce Revenue Management) optimizes revenue workflows, secures compliance, and replaces messy spreadsheets.
• Metrics That Boost Valuation: A deep dive into Net Revenue Retention (NRR) and the core KPIs investors look for during the roadshow.
• The Long-Game Strategy: Actionable steps you can implement today to prepare your finance and revenue teams for an IPO years in advance.

CHAPTERS

• 00:00 Introduction: IPO readiness for CFOs
• 01:54 Sam Chung: Background & finance + revenue ops perspective
• 03:12 David Beebe: Revenue Cloud, product, and customer advocacy
• 07:36 What makes a healthy, mature revenue engine for IPOs
• 12:26 Systems that enable predictability, auditability, and compliance
• 15:39 CFO as growth catalyst (not just financial guardian)
• 23:26 Common revenue & cash-flow landmines (the “messy middle”)
• 32:05 IPO timelines, monthly close cadence, and audit readiness risks
• 35:25 AI agents: where they help in Quote-to-Cash and finance
• 41:12 Agent use cases: quoting, contracts, billing, collections
• 44:38 API-first architecture & headless integrations for scale
• 49:55 Metrics deep dive: Net Revenue Retention & evolving KPIs
• 50:25 How Agentforce Revenue Management drives NRR & analytics
• 54:12 Selling the solution to your board: ROI, time-to-value, scalability
• 56:05 Practical first steps today: team, architecture map, unify data
• 58:09 Closing remarks, contact info, and next steps

Learn more about Garvens Consulting: https://garvensconsulting.com/

Panelists

• John Garvens, Owner & Principal Architect, Garvens Consulting, Garvens Consulting on YouTube
• Micah Gerger, Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Blue Robot Digital
• Georgii Saveliev, Founder & Salesforce Certified Technical Architect, Stratus Carta

Content

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:34 Participant Intros: John Garvens, Micah Gerger, Georgii Saveliev
• 04:19 Origins: SteelBrick, Vlocity, & Agentforce Revenue Management History
• 12:50 Prefab House vs. Home Depot: Out-of-the-Box vs. In-the-Box
• 17:05 Agentforce Revenue Management Industry Accelerators
• 23:12 The Importance of Human Experience in the Age of AI
• 28:52 Strengths & Weaknesses: SteelBrick, Vlocity & RLM/RCA/ARM
• 38:51 Deep Dive: Context Definitions, Expression Sets & Pricing Procedures
• 47:38 What’s “In-the-Box”? — Key Revenue Cloud Modules
• 54:37 DevOps & Data Migration Challenges: Deployments, Tooling & Legacy Data
• 01:02:46 Favorite Features — OmniStudio/DRO, Advanced Approvals, Asset Model
• 01:12:02 Tips for SteelBrick & Vlocity Veterans / Transformation Readiness & Closing

Panelists

• John Garvens, Owner & Principal Architect, Garvens Consulting, Garvens Consulting on YouTube
• Micah Gerger, Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Blue Robot Digital
• Jean-Michel Tremblay, Managing Principal, Aleysian, The Cloud Update on YouTube

Content

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:02 Evolution of Commerce and Revenue Cloud
• 10:23 Common Problems with Revenue Systems Interoperability
• 13:23 Most Common Use Cases and Implementation Challenges
• 23:50 Revenue Management and Field Service
• 27:21 Product-Led Growth, Self-Service, and Headless Capabilities
• 38:48 Where Commerce Shines: Orchestrated Checkout
• 44:20 Custom User Interfaces and Optimal User Experiences
• 50:15 Shameless Plug for Consulting Services
• 51:25 Custom User Interfaces and Optimal User Experiences Continued
• 55:55 Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up

Panelists

• John Garvens, Owner & Principal Architect, Garvens Consulting, Garvens Consulting on YouTube
• Dan Miller, Chief Financial Officer, RightRev
• Zee Akbarali, Managing Director, Accordion
• Bryce Baker, Managing Director, Accordion

Contents

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:35 The CFO as a Growth Catalyst
• 06:47 Transition from Spreadsheets to Modern Tools
• 20:33 The Growing Complexity of Revenue Models
• 28:24 Importance of Data Quality and Compliance
• 41:00 Future of Revenue Recognition and AI
• 51:51 Resources and Action Items for CFOs

Panelists

• John Garvens, Owner & Principal Architect, Garvens Consulting, Garvens Consulting on YouTube
• Meredith Schmidt, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Salesforce
• Arun Abichandani, Senior Vice President, Product Management, Salesforce
• Sam Chung, Chief Customer Officer, Salesforce
• Tiffany Devlin-Drye, Director, Pierce Washington
• Micah Gerger, Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Blue Robot Digital
• Jean-Michel Tremblay, Managing Principal, Aleysian, The Cloud Update on YouTube

Contents

• 00:00 Introductions and Fun Facts
• 07:58 The Past, Present, and Future of Agentforce Revenue Management
• 19:24 New Capabilities: Customer Use Cases
• 33:57 Agentforce Revenue Management Billing
• 42:47 Opportunities for Everyone
• 48:44 Training, Documentation, and Certifications
• 53:53 Keys to Success: How Everyone Wins
• 59:03 Final Thoughts

2026 is shaping up to be the year of Agentforce Revenue Management. In this episode, John Garvens shares his reasons for believing that 2026 will be the year that Agentforce Revenue Management takes off.

Panelists

• John Garvens, Owner & Principal Architect, Garvens Consulting, Garvens Consulting on YouTube

Contents

• 00:00 Introduction
• 05:01 Readiness: Product, Customers, and Partners
• 08:52 Talent Pool: Large and Growing, More Needed
• 14:58 Training, Enablement, and Certification
• 19:18 CPQ End-of-Sale: Decision and Action Required
• 24:24 Battle for Product-to-Cash
• 28:13 Established RevOps Best Practices: Grow Up Together
• 31:11 Customer Interest: All-Time High
• 33:23 More Customers Than Expected: SMB, Commercial, and Enterprise
• 37:30 Majority Net New Logos
• 39:53 More Sellers: More Teams, More Verticals
• 42:00 Conclusion

Holiday Gift

• Learn Agentforce Revenue Management, formerly called Salesforce Revenue Cloud, formerly called Revenue Lifecycle Management

Panelists

• John Garvens, Owner & Principal Architect, Garvens Consulting, Garvens Consulting on YouTube
• Jean-Michel Tremblay, Managing Principal, Aleysian, The Cloud Update on YouTube
• Chris Hickman, Product-to-Cash Architect, PointClickCare, cmhtechconsulting on Substack
• Khaled Halabieh, Principal Technical Architect, Stratus Carta

Contents

• 00:00 Introduction
• 08:58 The Agentforce Revenue Management Product Suite
• 11:34 Product Catalog Management, Order Management & Asset Management
• 18:21 Parity vs. Progress: Comparing two different products
• 22:05 Flow Approvals vs. Advanced Approvals
• 24:38 The Future of Flow: A friendly debate
• 27:47 Product Catalog Management
• 29:22 Apex Hooks: Jean-Michel’s favorite thing
• 34:31 Salesforce Contracts Sold Separately: When you just need Contract Lifecycle Managment
• 35:23 Revenue Cloud Billing: “Already a lot better than managed package [Salesforce] Billing”
• 36:39 15,000 Quote Lines & Large Data Volume Considerations
• 43:51 Words of Wisdom for the Revenue World
• 44:33 Learn like a six-year-old
• 46:26 Have a beginner’s mind, try things, don’t be afraid
• 49:00 Keep learning, understand how and why
• 49:33 Get used to discomfort and uncertainty, build your crew, give yourself grace

Panelists
John Garvens, Owner & Principal Architect, Garvens Consulting, Garvens Consulting on YouTube
Greg Fiorindo, Vice President of Sales, Revenue & Commerce Cloud, Salesforce
Josh Pearson, Senior Director, Salesforce, Pierce Washington
John Lehrkind, Director, Solutions & Innovation, Pierce Washington
Ravi Maturi, Managing Partner, MN Squared
Cameron Gilbertson, Lead-to-Revenue Consultant, Blue Robot Digital
Tiffany Devlin-Drye, Principal Consultant, Pierce Washington
Jessica Roundy, Solution Architect, Roundy Cloud Consulting
Micah Gerger, Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Blue Robot Digital
John Bishop, Principal Consultant, Pierce Washington

Contents

• 00:00 Introductions and Fun Facts
• 06:20 Dreamforce 2025 Revenue Cloud Highlights
• 16:46 The Future of Revenue Cloud Careers
• 30:22 Revenue Cloud Roadmap and Opportunities
• 37:24 Transitioning from CPQ to Revenue Cloud
• 43:46 Feedback for Revenue Cloud Product Management
• 49:39 Advice to Net New Agentforce Revenue Management Customers
• 57:57 Advice to Salesforce CPQ & Billing Customers
• 1:20:29 Conclusion

Resources

• Agentforce Revenue Management (formerly Revenue Lifecycle Management, Revenue Cloud Growth, Revenue Cloud Advanced, and Revenue Cloud Billing)

Panelists
John Garvens, Owner & Principal Architect, Garvens Consulting, Garvens Consulting on YouTube
Micah Gerger, Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Blue Robot Digital
Jean-Michel Tremblay, Managing Principal, Aleysian, The Cloud Update on YouTube
CC Chiderski, Solution Architect, CLD Partners
Janna Cenko, Salesforce Solution Architect, CPQ, Toast
Travis Lee, Salesforce Consultant, TJL Consulting

Contents

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:30 Overview of Revenue Cloud and its readiness
• 04:35 What skills do you need to implement and administer Revenue Cloud?
• 14:35 Revenue Cloud and its interoperability with Commerce Cloud
• 30:40 How do I know when Revenue Cloud is ready for prime time?
• 33:33 Customer and partner perspectives on Revenue Cloud readiness
• 37:18 Revenue Cloud Demo vs. Revenue Cloud Proof-of-Concept
• 49:12 What does a real-life Salesforce CPQ customer think about Revenue Cloud?
• 51:08 The value of advisory, proof-of-concept, and purchasing projects

Resources

• Revenue Cloud: Proof of Concept or Period of Clarity
• Multi-Cloud Data Migrator