Revenue Builders
Welcome to the Revenue Builders podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and executives. Hosted by Five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management’s Co-Founder John Kaplan, the show goes in the barrel, behind the scenes with the people who have been there, done that and seen the results. Revenue Builders covers the best practices for scaling and growing your business, while sharing the pitfalls to avoid. Great conversation. Solid interviews. Tangible takeaways to help you succeed. If you enjoy our content, please subscribe, rate and review the show to help us reach more people. This show is br...
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Revenue per Employee Is the New Endgame with Alex Bilmes
<p>Revenue leaders are under increasing pressure to grow without adding headcount at the same rate, and AI is forcing a deeper conversation about productivity, consistency, governance, and organizational design. Alex Bilmes, CEO of Endgame, joins John Kaplan and John McMahon to discuss what his team learned from analyzing more than 30,000 real AI workflows across go-to-market teams. The conversation moves beyond tool adoption and into the harder leadership questions: how to create a centralized intelligence layer, how to prevent inconsistent messaging at scale, how RevOps must evolve, where AI can accelerate ramp and account coverage, and why human judgment becomes...
Why Consumption Pricing Makes Forecasting Harder with Devavrat Shah
<p>Consumption pricing puts pressure on the forecast in places traditional SaaS models rarely exposed. Total usage may be easier to model from the CFO’s seat, but the field still has to answer harder questions: which customer, which channel, which rep, and when. In this replay segment, Devavrat Shah explains how AI can help teams learn across cohorts, spot patterns in uneven data, and create more trust in a forecast that would otherwise depend on isolated judgment calls. </p> <p>Devavrat Shah is an MIT professor, director of MIT’s Statistics and Data Science Center, and co-founder and CEO of Ik...
Training the Mind for High-Stakes Sales: How FOPO Hurts Executive Presence with Dr. Michael Gervais
<p>High-stakes sales puts pressure on the mind before it tests the deal strategy. Reps and leaders have to stay present through judgment, rejection, complex stakeholders, and the weight of the number. Dr. Michael Gervais joins John Kaplan and John McMahon to unpack FOPO, the fear of other people’s opinions, and its impact on executive presence, listening, trust, and decision-making. Drawing from his work with Olympians, world champions, Fortune 100 leaders, and elite teams, Dr. Gervais explains how mental skills like awareness, breathing, self-talk, imagery, and honest team dynamics help people operate with more clarity under pressure. The conversation brings pe...
The New Standard for Sales Coaching in the AI Era with Marcy Stoudt
<p>In this segment, Marcy Stoudt, Founder of Revel Companies, breaks down how AI is changing one of the most important responsibilities in sales leadership: coaching. This conversation focuses on a simple but critical shift. For years, managers struggled to observe real customer interactions and give meaningful feedback at scale. With AI, that constraint is gone. At the same time, leaders are dealing with constant meetings and cognitive overload. Marcy explains how top operators are using AI not just to increase productivity, but to create space to think, coach, and lead more effectively. For CROs and frontline managers, this raises...
How to Build a Predictable Pipeline Engine Without Sales Heroics with Greg Casale
<p>Pipeline generation breaks down when sales organizations rely on individual performance instead of building controlled, repeatable systems. In this episode, Greg Casale shares how his background in engineering shaped a system-first approach to sales, applying principles of process control, data capture, and structured training to reduce variability and improve consistency. The conversation explores why outbound phone remains a critical channel despite its difficulty, how over-automation has saturated the market and reduced conversion rates, and where AI fits as a tool to strengthen preparation and execution without replacing human interaction. </p> <p>Greg Casale is the Founder and CEO of R...
Why Strategic Account Selling Still Comes Down to Value and Alignment with Jane Thompson
<p>Strategic accounts expose where most sales approaches break down, especially when technical capability fails to connect to enterprise-wide value. In this replay segment, Jane Thompson unpacks what it actually takes to navigate complex, multi-division organizations, from building aligned champions to translating solutions into outcomes that matter at the board level. The conversation highlights why intellectual curiosity, multi-threaded engagement, and disciplined account mapping remain non-negotiable for sellers operating at the highest level.</p> <p>Jane Thompson is a sales leader at BigPanda with deep experience selling into complex, multi-division enterprise accounts and building high-impact strategic sales motions.</p> <p>Connect...
How AI Is Rewriting the Sales Playbook and Raising the Bar on Human Performance with Alex Varel
<p>AI is shifting from model development to real-world usage, exposing a new bottleneck that most sales teams are not prepared to understand or sell against. As inference speed, memory bandwidth, and infrastructure become the true differentiators, traditional software playbooks begin to break down. Alex Varel joins John Kaplan and John McMahon to unpack what it takes to sell in this new environment, where technical depth, curiosity, and adaptability are no longer optional. The conversation explores how AI is reshaping productivity, why ICPs must evolve weekly, and how elite sellers distinguish themselves by orchestrating value across increasingly complex buying groups.<...
Why Pipeline Generation Fails Before the First Call with Christopher Vick
<p>Today, a segment from our episode on pipeline generation and building a repeatable revenue system with Christopher Vik, VP EMEA at Samsara and former CRO at Leapwork. In this clip, Chris breaks down why most pipeline generation efforts fail before they even start. He explains how preparation drives conviction, why reps avoid pipeline when they lack insight, and what leaders must do to build a culture where execution actually sticks. If you’re trying to improve pipeline performance or develop more effective sellers, this is a perspective worth revisiting.</p> <p>Chris Vik is VP EMEA at Samsara and a...
Why Sales Execution Wins in an AI-First World with Brian McCarthy, President of Global Revenue and Field Operations at Cursor
<p>PLG can create explosive growth, but it can also mask fundamental gaps in execution, capacity, and long-term durability. As AI-native companies scale at unprecedented speed, revenue leaders face a new tension: how to convert bottom-up adoption into enterprise value without breaking the system that fueled growth. Brian McCarthy joins to unpack how Cursor is navigating this shift, why sales execution becomes the moat in a world of swappable technology, and what it takes to build a go-to-market machine that keeps pace with innovation while deepening customer trust.</p> <p>Brian McCarthy is President of Global Revenue and Field Operations...
Why Preparation Separates Top Performers from Everyone Else with John Rowell
<p>Preparation does not become less important as sellers gain experience. It becomes more visible as a differentiator. In this replay segment with John Rowell, he breaks down of how disciplined pre-call preparation sharpens positioning, turns cold outreach into meaningful engagement, and allows reps to stay fully present in the moment. The conversation highlights why preparation is not just about information gathering, but about earning credibility, accelerating sales cycles, and creating the conditions for authentic customer conversations.</p> <p>John Rowell is the Co-Founder of Pinned Golf and a former enterprise sales leader with experience at EMC and Lacework. He...
