Some Goodness

Host Richard Ellis interviews Jack Siney, co-founder of Front Race, on why AI needs activity/interaction data instead of biased “opinion” data entered by reps, and how rigid, linear CRM workflows miss the nonlinear reality and micro-details of sales, including timing between actions. Jack warns that automating only documented steps can fail because top performers execute additional undocumented steps, and that LLMs can mis-join data and hallucinate without hard metrics. He recommends leaders: consolidate and standardize company data, map the real end-to-end process (including losses), and use a measurement layer to benchmark and evaluate changing AI tools.

Soundbites

• "All the LLMs are using the same open data set. The magic is in your data. You have the answers. If you have a couple of years of legacy data, you've had some success, you've had some failures. The magic is in that data: uncovering what works and what doesn't."
• "We've been measuring metrics for four decades that have no direct correlation to whether we hit the goal."
• "We get rid of our SDRs to automate 20 steps. But the SDRs are actually doing 32 steps. We train the agent on 20 because we don't even know the other 12 exist. Then we wonder why the pilot failed."
• "The magic's in the micro details. Everyone knows the big things: the culture, the pitch, the pricing, the demo. That's not what separates your best reps from your average ones. It's 20 little things."
• "As soon as you rely on the sales rep to put the data in, we're in trouble. Their job depends on having a good pipeline. They're biased. Garbage in, garbage out."
• "Automate the interactions and you get what really happened. It's not someone's opinion."
• "Some of the magic is the time in between the steps. Letting it breathe. I don't know a system out there that tracks the time between each call."

Jack's business, Front Race: https://www.frontrace.com/
Richard's business, Revenue Innovations: https://www.revenueinnovations.com/

The episode argues that relational capital is a strategic resource, citing a 2026 Forbes Human Resources Council article linking trust-based networks to stronger collaboration, faster decisions, and resilient teams. Host Richard Ellis interviews Eddy Arriola, founder of Apollo Bank (2009) and former chairman/CEO until its 2022 acquisition by Seacoast Bank, now a Seacoast board director and author of It’s All About Relationships. Arriola explains his realization that career successes and failures often hinged on relationships, distinguishes true relationship-building from mere charm, and emphasizes meeting people where they are by understanding their pressures and incentives. He introduces his CARPE framework (“seize the relationship”), highlighting “connect” and “prioritization,” including avoiding comfort-zone conversations.

Link to Eddy’s book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TPQ1Y?tag=scribemedia0a-20&th=1&psc=1&geniuslink=true

Soundbites
"It's all about relationships." (the book title, and the line "that's resonated with people because so many of us have used that a zillion times")
"I really got things done through people... when I started to reflect even on the things that didn't go right in my life... it was because I didn't have the right relationships. I didn't have someone to help me, someone to fall back on."
"It's usually the people that really don't understand sales and marketing that say, 'Oh, that's the relationship guy.'"
"People that are really good at relationships just so happen to be really good with people. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're good with all people."
"Carpe diem, seize the day, and I'm like, 'Seize the relationship.'"
"All your competitors have really, really, really good products... but it's really about a relationship that you build around."
"All sales is a process. One step logically follows another, and relationship building is very similar."
"You will go to your comfort zone. You will go to the easier conversations or the more fun relationships, and you'll be missing out on others."
"The best thing you can do is be a good listener and a good student and follow up."
"Dig a little deeper... just scratch, keep digging a little deeper and you're gonna get the right information."
"What relationships aren't serving you right now? What are just taking up too much of your time?"
"You are where you are because someone else helped pave the way."

Host Richard Ellis interviews Braydan Young, co-founder of Slash Experts and former Sendoso co-founder, about why most B2B companies rely on the same few reference customers late in deals and lack systems to operationalize social proof. Braden explains how social proof extends beyond reference calls to logos, case studies, reviews, testimonials, and especially short video testimonials, and argues prospects often complete much of the buying journey before talking to sales. Slash Experts addresses the “last-minute scramble” by letting prospects book calls with pre-vetted customers via expert pages, using AI to recommend the best match, automate follow-ups, and nudge buyers with relevant proof while capturing transcripts of customer language. Braydan shares practical CRO steps: test your own reference process, track and thank reference customers, and introduce customer conversations earlier to accelerate stalled deals.

Soundbites

• "80% of the deal cycle is done by the time they're actually hopping on the phone with sales." 
• "Everyone has the same 40, 50 logos on their site. How's everybody working with the exact same companies?" 
• "Typically it's a scramble at the end. It's, 'Who's the fastest person I can get on the phone so they can check that box?'" 
• "You've gone from trying to sell a product to being consultative. All you're trying to do is empower your champion to get the deal done." 
• "Social proof is just making someone not feel alone for taking a risk on buying your service." — Braydan Young
• "The way our customer was talking to a prospect about how they used our system was totally different than the way we talked about it. That's the conversation that is gold." 
• "If you're a CRO, try to get a reference today for your own company. Go through the process you gave to sales and see what that's like." 
• “There's not a lot of separation between work and life anymore. When it's blended well, that's the company everyone wants to work for."

Braydan's business, Slash Experts: https://slashexperts.com/
Richard's business, Revenue Innovations: https://www.revenueinnovations.com/

This episode discusses why AI investment is outpacing real business impact, noting low AI production adoption among US firms, limited use cases reaching full production, and many initiatives being abandoned in 2025. Host Richard Ellis interviews Jack Siney, co-founder of FrontRace, about his white paper on “15 AI truths” sales leaders will face, arguing most companies are experimenting without executing with precision.

Siney says sales teams have spent decades optimizing the wrong metrics (calls, emails, pipeline) and remain poor at forecasting and replicating top-performer behavior. He argues AI’s value is measuring previously unmeasurable “20 small things” behind 3X performers, delivering clearer “signals” like Moneyball analytics. Key prerequisites are consolidating, normalizing, and cleaning company data and uncovering actual workflow behaviors, enabling better forecasting and guidance while preserving human roles in higher-value, complex sales.

Soundbites / Memorable Quotes:

• "If you're on social media, you'd swear every company is fully AI-enabled, firing their entire staff, making it all AI. The real world at a ground level is pretty significantly different."
• "We're no better today, four decades in, hundreds of millions if not trillions of dollars invested in all of these sales platforms. Companies hitting forecasts? We're worse at forecasting, shockingly, with all the tools we have today."
• "You have two reps, they have the same metrics, same calls, same outreach, same pipeline, and one is outperforming the other by 3X. When the CEO asks why, the head of sales simply makes something up."
• "The difference between these two people are 20 little things. It's not the big things. Everyone knows the pricing. Everyone knows the FAQs. Everyone knows how to do the demo. That is not it."
• "When you ask that person to train the rest of the team, it's like Michael Jordan trying to teach basketball. They just know they do it."
• "Everything we're doing today in the AI world is gonna look childish five years from now. We're still in the AOL dial-up stage."
• "If you take AI and you put it on a crappy data set, AI's already gonna have some hallucinations to it, but if the data's not right, you're gonna come out with bad conclusions and you're gonna get fired."
• "We've relied on the sales rep, who's very biased, to manage their own pipeline, put in the probability it's gonna close, the amount, and when. Are you kidding me?"
• "In Moneyball, the big shift was we're no longer buying players, we're buying runs. The same thing in sales: who cares how it gets closed? Do they close it?"
•  "The more money a client's spending, the safer your job is. When rubber hits the road, they want someone to talk to."

Jack's business, Front Race: https://www.frontrace.com/
Richard's business, Revenue Innovations: https://www.revenueinnovations.com/

In this episode, host Richard Ellis discusses how enterprise software companies face pressure from boards and markets to demonstrate AI progress, creating risks of overpromising, unnecessary product narratives, and eroding customer trust. Guest Rob Huffstedtler, Global Head of Pre-Sales Operations at Sitecore, describes varied customer readiness for AI and notes research suggesting AI more often automates tasks than eliminates entire jobs, enabling workflow redesign while preserving human judgment. They explore AI’s impact on RFP responses, where automation can improve customization but still requires locked-down, contextual answers and stronger storytelling than CRM data typically captures.

The conversation also covers how “show up and throw up” demos and excessive feature focus create perceived complexity and pricing objections, the value of confidently saying “yes” or “no,” and challenges in migrating installed-base customers through platform shifts without forcing RFPs. They conclude with leadership guidance on proactive involvement, coaching, and avoiding late-stage “super seller” interventions.

Soundbites

• “When companies over promise, force customers toward a future they didn’t ask for, or drag buyers through sprawling product narratives they don’t need, trust starts to erode.”
• “AI may speed things up, but it does not remove the need for discipline, honest positioning, and respect for the installed base.”
• “There are very few jobs where even in a fully agentic flow, you can eliminate the whole job. What it’s doing instead is simplifying or eliminating particular tasks of a job.”
• “There’s really an opportunity to rethink workflows and business processes and re engineer them to remove the slow friction parts.”
• “Some of the best RFPs are those that tell a story and they reiterate why do something different in the first place and why now and why with you.”
• “SAEs need to learn that yes is a full sentence.”
• “You coach rather than swooping in to save the day.”

The episode argues that B2B sales teams must stop treating solution engineers (SEs) as downstream demo support because buyers can self-educate and need help understanding what matters, quantifying value, and picturing success through storytelling, qualification, and commercial judgment earlier in deals.

Host Richard Ellis discusses with Rob Huffstedtler, Global Head of Pre-Sales at Sitecore, why SEs should be experts on buyers and their industries, leverage their trusted status to influence pipeline generation (especially in install-base motions), and coordinate intentionally with AEs through preparation, listening, and discovery to avoid overemphasizing features.

They cover hiring and onboarding gaps that leave SEs underdeveloped in sales skills, missed opportunities in customer storytelling, and how AI tools can speed research and call review but risk wordiness, fake empathy, and overreliance without human judgment and trust-building. They also address tight AE-SE coupling through deal stages, empowering internal champions, and effective handoffs to services for implementations requiring customization.

Soundbites
1. “The SE really needs to be as much of an expert on the buyer, that individual buyer, as well as generically the industry and the role as they are on their product.”
2. “At the end of the day, what they’re doing is helping the buyer through the buyer’s buying process.”
3. “Not being perceived as a seller becomes a superpower in sales.”
4. “The customer tends to inherently trust the SE more than they trust the account executive.”
5. “Listening is key, right? You learn a lot more when you have your mouth closed and your ears open.”
6. “You’ve got to learn to ask good, engaging questions and sit and give the customer time to think rather than pushing them forward and suggesting an answer for them.”
7. “There’s a little bit of a desire to appear smart rather than to make the customer the star.”
8. “If the AE and the SE, if they’re not having a good conversation before every customer conversation where they’re anticipating what the customer wants to get out of it and what they want to get out of it, it very easily turns into, let’s talk about all of our favorite features.”
9. “Some of the value is the process of building that summary rather than having the summary.”
10. “The biggest misconception I’ve seen is that there’s a path to getting to the unknown unknowns.”

FROM THE ARCHIVES: This is one of our favorite past episodes. 

Host Richard welcomes multi-time CXO Tracy Mustachio to discuss why navigating a first board meeting matters, emphasizing first impressions, confidence, and setting a reporting roadmap. Tracy advises tailoring to the board’s perspective by researching members, reviewing past board decks, and speaking in business outcomes rather than vanity marketing metrics, noting few directors have operational marketing experience though many have strong opinions. She recommends structuring updates with a “from-to” slide (current state to north star), plus concise highlights and lowlights tied to pipeline and revenue, keeping details in back-pocket slides or a cheat sheet for deep questions.

Tracy shares cautionary stories about being unprepared and stresses cross-functional alignment through collaborative drafting, practice sessions, and co-presenting with peers. She also recommends learning board best practices via training and the HBR book Boards That Lead.

Chapters

00:00 Boardroom Stakes

00:46 Why First Meetings Matter

01:50 Speak Board Language

02:40 Research the Directors

03:57 Salesforce Story Lesson

05:41 CMO Metric Balance

07:09 From To Framework

09:28 Results Over Activities

10:35 Back Pocket Prep

11:29 Presentation Horror Story

12:26 Align With Sales

13:30 Thrown Into the Fire

16:14 Board Training Resources

17:40 Final Book Recommendation

18:44 Wrap and Subscribe

Keywords

board meetings, board presentation, first board meeting, boardroom communication, executive leadership, C-level leadership, CMO, chief product officer, board reporting, first impressions, business metrics, business value, vanity metrics, marketing metrics, board expectations, audience awareness, board member perspectives, presentation structure, from-to slide, change agenda, highlights and lowlights, business goals, pipeline, revenue, customer journey, full funnel, back pocket slide, cheat sheet, executive preparation, peer collaboration, CEO, CSO, sales alignment, product marketing sales alignment, practice sessions, board questions, presentation detail, board governance, fiduciary role, executive coaching, board training, Boards That Lead, Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way  

Soundbites

1. “Your first board meeting sets the first impression and the roadmap for how you’ll report going forward.”  
2. “The board is interested in business metrics and business value, not vanity marketing metrics.”  
3. “Put yourself in their shoes and speak in their language.”  
4. “Know the audience, know the perspective they’re coming from, and speak to those perspectives.”  
5. “What the board needs to understand is how what you’re doing relates to the overall business goals.”  
6. “Start with a clear from-to slide: here’s where we are today, here’s what we’re moving toward.”  
7. “Use highlights and lowlights, but stay high level and succinct unless they ask for detail.”  
8. “Focus on results, not all the activities you used to get there.”  
9. “Keep a back pocket slide or cheat sheet beside you for the board member who wants to dig into the numbers.”  
10. “Collaborate hard with your peers before the meeting because you do not want misalignment in front of the board.”

Host Richard Ellis discusses with David Howerton, CEO and founder of VendoIQ, how AI is rapidly flooding sales organizations under board and executive pressure, often driving hurried, uncoordinated adoption that doesn’t ladder up to strategy. They argue AI amplifies existing problems (broken processes, unclear ICPs, weak handoffs, and poor CRM data) rather than fixing them, leading to noise and pipeline issues.

The conversation focuses on real field sales work and why productivity breaks down due to context switching and delayed documentation, causing “memory decay” and unreliable forecasting. They highlight opportunities for AI to reduce non-selling tasks by capturing in-person insights quickly and triggering workflows, especially through voice interfaces that meet sellers where they are, turning AI into an assistant that not only records notes but also schedules meetings, drafts emails, and supports faster, more accurate execution.

Chapters

00:00 AI Hype Meets Reality

01:46 Boardroom Pressure to Adopt

04:20 AI Needs Strategy and Governance

06:13 Fix Processes and Data First

10:23 In-Person Selling Advantage

13:33 Context Switching Kills CRM

17:33 Voice Interface for Field Notes

23:50 From Notes to Automated Actions

26:03 Leadership Advice to Lean In

28:08 Personal Goodness and Wrap-Up

Key Words

AI strategy, revenue strategy, sales strategy, go to market strategy, go to market teams, revenue engine, AI adoption, AI governance, AI alignment, business outcomes, workflows, business processes, CRM data, stale CRM data, data quality, source of truth, field sales, field productivity, seller productivity, field marketing, in person selling, human interaction, trust, authenticity, relationship building, context switching, memory decay, meeting notes, conversational intelligence, voice interface, voice input, sales workflows, administrative burden, non selling activities, sales efficiency, sales effectiveness, forecasting, resource allocation, action loops, proactive workflows, AI assistant, digital interactions, customer insights, trade shows, account development, upselling, cross selling, ICP, pipeline, sales leadership, revenue leadership, go to market execution, seller workflows, CRM adoption, real time capture, human and AI interaction

Sound Bites

• “Your organization is already doing stuff with AI in different departments, and that’s all well and good, but it’s not concentrated and it’s very likely not rolling up to a strategy.” 
• “We all know that CRM data is stale. It’s outdated. We’re now in an era where both in the virtual meeting world and in real life, we can fix that.” 
• “Human interaction becomes scarcity. So when you do have an in person interaction, the value is disproportionate.” 

David's business, VendoIQ: https://www.vendoiq.com/
Richard's business, Revenue Innovations: https://www.revenueinnovations.com/

Most B2B marketing teams are sitting on a bloated tech stack they can't justify. Tools bought to fix strategy problems. Duplicate capabilities nobody audited. AI features bolted onto legacy products that were already underperforming.

Jessica Fewless has seen it from the inside. As an early architect of account-based marketing and now as a partner at Inverter, she's helped operators untangle exactly this mess.

In this conversation with host Richard Ellis, she gets specific about what separates teams that get ROI from their MarTech from teams that just keep buying. How to evaluate tools when AI is making everything obsolete in 18 months. Why intent signals fail when you treat them like a list. What "AI-readable content" actually means before your competitors figure it out. And why the smartest move right now might be short contracts and point solutions you can swap out.

Chapters

00:00 MarTech Meets AI

02:13 Auditing Bloated Stacks

04:51 Use Cases And Workflows

06:53 Platforms Versus Point Tools

10:00 Core Stack Must Haves

12:25 AI Budget Pressure Reality

16:17 Avoid Long Term Bets

18:16 Measure ROI And Governance

19:42 Intent Signals In Context

22:12 SEO In The AI Era

25:09 Cut Waste Do More

25:53 Some Goodness And Wrap

Keywords

MarTech, marketing technology, marketing tech stack, tech stack audit, vendor sprawl, tool duplication, shiny new tools, strategy gaps, plugging holes with tech, lead quality, demand generation, use case, workflows, process design, governance, rules of the road, integrations, architecture, ROI, CFO scrutiny, budget pressure, boards, headcount reduction, scaling the wrong thinking, AI in MarTech, AI layering, AI native tools, legacy platforms, point solutions, best in class, comprehensive platforms, control, customization, Zapier, stitching tools together, CRM, Salesforce, data management, data quality, email marketing, database, webinar tools, website personalization, account based marketing, ABM, retention risk, positioning, messaging, stickiness, contracts, short term agreements, renewal evaluation, customer success manager, discrete metrics, intent signals, funnel stage, AI research tools, intent in context, website activity, buyer signals, static nurture, signal based nurture, always on strategy, personalization, orchestration, findability, SEO, GEO, AEO, AI indexing, Reddit influence, PR, authority building, top 10 lists, scannable landing pages, tech stack waste, consolidation, creativity, work life boundary

Soundbites

1. "...beyond having a way to email your database and having your database, those are the two fundamentals. I kind of feel like everything's up for grabs after that.”
2. "...go into it knowing that that technology might not be relevant three years from now and be okay with that. So don't sign a five-year contract, not that anybody, anybody signs five-year contracts. I wouldn't sign more than a one or two-year contract.”
3. “There should never be a static nurture. There should only be a reaction to signals moving forward.”
4.  “The average tech stack inside of a company is mind boggling.”
5. “People were plugging holes in their strategy with technology.”
6. “CFOs and boards and CEOs are saying, AI allows you to do more, so go do more with AI, and I’m going to shrink your tech budget as a result.”
7. “Intent signals need to be combined with the rest of the data so you understand it in context.”

In this episode, Richard Ellis hosts David Howerton, CEO and founder of VendoIQ, to discuss the effectiveness of trade shows in the B2B sector. Despite high ROI, many companies lose substantial value due to poor planning, weak data capture, and ineffective follow-up. David emphasizes viewing trade shows as part of a holistic program rather than isolated events, focusing on pre-show planning, in-event processes, and post-show follow-up to maximize ROI. Key insights include the importance of in-person interactions, the necessity of capturing meaningful data, and coordination among marketing, sales, and field teams. The episode underscores the need for strategic preparation and execution to leverage trade shows for business growth.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Trade Shows and Their ROI

00:52 Guest Introduction: David Howerton

01:32 The Importance of Trade Shows in Lead Generation

05:24 Maximizing Trade Show Success: Pre-Show Planning

13:19 Effective Strategies During the Trade Show

21:13 Post-Show Follow-Up: Ensuring ROI

25:25 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Keywords

trade shows, field selling, sales execution, lead capture, follow up, pipeline velocity, buying authority, in person selling, human connection, competitive intelligence, account planning, pre show planning, post show process, CRM breakdowns, memory decay, voice to text capture, natural language interface, sales handoff, rev ops, field marketing, ICP targeting, meeting booking, sales channel strategy, program management, sales workflow, deal acceleration

Soundbites

“Trade shows are not the problem. The gap between the conversation and what happens next is.”

“People show up to events without knowing why they’re there.”

“If you can’t articulate who you’re talking to and why, the show is already a loss.”

“Human connections are becoming more scarce, which makes in-person moments more valuable.”

“You’re not just talking to prospects. You’re sitting inside an ecosystem.”

“Memory decay is real. Conversations blur together faster than people expect.”

“Capturing names without context is where value disappears.”

“Most breakdowns happen at the handoff.”

“If follow-up is slow or generic, a competitor will beat you to it.”

“Treat trade shows like a sales channel, not a calendar event.”