In this episode, co-host Mark Petruzzi welcomes Jack Zimnavoda, Head of Customer Success at Insightful. Jack shares how modern B2B SaaS organizations can turn customer success from a support function into a true driver of revenue and retention.

Together, they explore what it takes to align CS with sales, marketing, and product—without creating channel conflict. Jack reveals how predictive AI, smart segmentation, and aligned incentives can turn expansion into a scalable and proactive motion.

What You’ll Learn

• Customer Success as a Revenue Driver: Jack explains how to reframe CS from a cost center to a growth engine—through structure, ownership, and incentives.
• Avoiding Channel Conflict: Learn how clearly defined swim lanes, compensation clarity, and collaboration between CS and Sales create harmony and momentum.
• Building a Scalable CS Model: From white-glove enterprise accounts to hybrid-touch models, Jack outlines how to maintain personalized value delivery at scale.
• Metrics That Matter: Understand the importance of net retention, lifetime value, and how CS teams can build pipelines and forecast revenue just like Sales.
• AI + Customer Health: Hear how Jack uses predictive AI to monitor product usage, signal risk, and surface expansion opportunities at scale.

Key Topics

• Structuring CS to own post-sale revenue
• Aligning CS, Sales, Marketing, and Product
• Channel conflict: where it happens and how to prevent it
• Using AI in CS forecasting and health scoring
• Segmenting your customer base to drive upsell plays
• Scaling without losing the human touch
• How to hire for commercial CSMs (hint: curiosity and creativity)

Guest Spotlight: Jack Zimnavoda

Jack is Head of Customer Success at Insightful, where he leads a global team focused on retention, adoption, and expansion. With over a decade of experience in B2B SaaS, Jack has helped transform CS into a proactive, commercial function that partners across the go-to-market org to drive real business outcomes.

Resources & Mentions:

• Book: The Seven Pillars of Customer Success by Wayne McCulloch
• Podcast Mention: This is Growth by Daphne Costa Lopes
• Tool: Vitally – CS platform used by Insightful

🎧 Listen now and follow Selling the Cloud for more expert insights on scaling GTM teams. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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In this episode, co-hosts Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson welcome back their friend and former Selling the Cloud host, Cathy Minter, now CEO of Wisdom.io. Cathy brings her deep go-to-market expertise to a timely conversation on what it really takes to scale in today’s fast-changing SaaS environment.

Together, they explore why the traditional, siloed approach to sales, marketing, and customer success no longer works—and why a unified CRO model is becoming essential for growth-minded organizations.

What You’ll Learn

• Why a Unified CRO Model Works
• Discover the strategic advantages of aligning sales, marketing, and customer success under one revenue leader and when it doesn’t make sense.
• The Death of Departmental Silos
• Learn how shifting buyer behavior, faster sales cycles, and AI-driven insights demand end-to-end alignment across the customer journey.
• Data Fluency as a CRO Superpower
• Cathy shares why today’s CROs must think like data scientists and psychologists and how that’s changing the role forever.
• From Chaos to Clarity: Leading Through Change
• Practical advice for CROs navigating organizational chaos, short tenures, and constant pivots. Hint: Start with what you can change tomorrow.
• AI as Your New Intern
• Hear how Cathy leverages AI to supercharge research, prep, and forecasting—freeing up time to do what matters most: build trust and close deals.

Key Topics

• The evolution of the modern CRO
• Aligning KPIs across sales, marketing, and success
• Why boards have resisted the unified model and how to change their minds
• The impact of AI on seller productivity and buyer behavior
• Building trust in a late-stage, digitally empowered buying process
• Practical tips for early wins in your first 90 days as a CRO

Guest Spotlight: Cathy Minter

Cathy is the CEO of Wisdom.io and a proven go-to-market executive with a track record of scaling high-growth SaaS businesses. She has led world-class sales, marketing, and customer success teams and now shares her playbook for building modern, aligned revenue organizations.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, co-hosts Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson welcome back their friend and former Selling the Cloud host, Cathy Minter, now CEO of Wisdom.io. Cathy brings her deep go-to-market expertise to a timely conversation on what it really takes to scale in today’s fast-changing SaaS environment.

Together, they explore why the traditional, siloed approach to sales, marketing, and customer success no longer works—and why a unified CRO model is becoming essential for growth-minded organizations.

What You’ll Learn

• Why a Unified CRO Model Works
• Discover the strategic advantages of aligning sales, marketing, and customer success under one revenue leader and when it doesn’t make sense.
• The Death of Departmental Silos
• Learn how shifting buyer behavior, faster sales cycles, and AI-driven insights demand end-to-end alignment across the customer journey.
• Data Fluency as a CRO Superpower
• Cathy shares why today’s CROs must think like data scientists and psychologists and how that’s changing the role forever.
• From Chaos to Clarity: Leading Through Change
• Practical advice for CROs navigating organizational chaos, short tenures, and constant pivots. Hint: Start with what you can change tomorrow.
• AI as Your New Intern
• Hear how Cathy leverages AI to supercharge research, prep, and forecasting—freeing up time to do what matters most: build trust and close deals.

Key Topics

• The evolution of the modern CRO
• Aligning KPIs across sales, marketing, and success
• Why boards have resisted the unified model and how to change their minds
• The impact of AI on seller productivity and buyer behavior
• Building trust in a late-stage, digitally empowered buying process
• Practical tips for early wins in your first 90 days as a CRO

Guest Spotlight: Cathy Minter

Cathy is the CEO of Wisdom.io and a proven go-to-market executive with a track record of scaling high-growth SaaS businesses. She has led world-class sales, marketing, and customer success teams and now shares her playbook for building modern, aligned revenue organizations.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In Part 2 of our conversation with B2B Sales Playbook co-author and Growth Forum CEO David Fastuca, we dig deeper into the realities of modern B2B selling—where sales efficiency meets brand experience, and AI is no longer optional.

From the dangers of AI-powered spam to the rise of seller personal branding, David, Mark, and KK unpack the current sales landscape and where it's headed.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why AI spam is killing your brand—even if your numbers look “okay” on paper
• How to realign your go-to-market strategy around quality, not just quantity
• The rise of seller-led branding and why BDRs must now build trust and visibility online
• How great sales leaders create calm, consistent, performance-driven cultures
• The new standard for sales-marketing alignment: shared metrics, shared messaging, and shared accountability
• How to use AI to forecast accurately and coach reps in real time using sales call transcripts

Quote to remember:

“Your brand is being shaped by every outbound touch—even the ones that get ignored. AI makes it easier to scale, but much easier to erode trust.” – David Fastuca

Don’t miss this if you’re a CEO, CRO, or RevOps leader rethinking how to scale sales in the AI age.

Listen to the full episode now and learn how to balance automation with authenticity.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Selling the Cloud, we sit down with David Fastuca, CEO and Co-Founder of Growth Forum and co-author of the bestselling new book B2B Sales Playbook. From his base in Melbourne, David shares how high-growth teams can stop relying on random acts of selling and start building systemized, scalable sales engines. If you're still managing sales with gut instinct and ad-hoc processes, this episode is your wake-up call.

What We Cover:

• Systemizing Sales Growth: Why repeatable processes always outperform superstar sellers—and how to build one.
• Calendar = Control: How elite sellers block time for prospecting, CRM updates, and continuous improvement.
• Avoiding RevOps Pitfalls: Common mistakes in go-to-market execution and how to get your ICP and messaging right.
• Give Power Back to the Buyer: Why a buyer-led process can result in better conversion and stronger relationships.
• AI & Automation in Sales: What works, what doesn’t, and how to avoid falling into the spam trap.
• The Right Way to Use AI: Using tools like Loom and ChatGPT not to automate junk—but to amplify thoughtful, insight-driven outreach.

Mic-Drop Insight:

“If your sales process depends on gut instinct or a single rainmaker, you’re gambling—not growing.” – David Fastuca

Why You Should Listen:

This episode is a blueprint for B2B sales leaders looking to create predictable pipeline, reduce churn in their sales team, and finally align marketing and sales under one scalable system.

Subscribe to Selling the Cloud for more insights from top go-to-market leaders and B2B growth experts.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Selling the Cloud, hosts Mark Petruzzi and Kristin Anderson sit down with Stephen Messer, co-founder of Collective[i], to unpack why traditional sales playbooks are failing in today’s volatile markets—and what elite revenue organizations are doing differently.

Stephen brings a bold, data-backed perspective on why so many sales teams are flying blind and how AI-powered feedback loops are becoming essential for navigating constant change.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why playbooks break down when market conditions shift
• How reliance on historical data leads to broken forecasts
• The growing gap between buyer behavior and seller actions
• What boards and executive teams really want from forecasting
• Why superintelligent sellers outperform rigid process followers
• How AI transforms pipeline visibility, speed, and decision-making

Key Quote:

“In volatile markets, you don’t need a better playbook—you need a better way to listen, learn, and adapt in real time.”

Guest Bio:

Stephen Messer is the co-founder of Collective[i], an AI-powered platform designed to transform the way revenue organizations operate. A pioneer in tech and data-driven strategy, Stephen has spent his career building companies that help businesses make smarter, faster decisions.

Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In Part 2 of our powerful conversation with Doug Brown—CEO of CEO Sales Strategies—we dig deep into what it really takes to scale a high-performing sales organization.

From identifying your ideal buyer to designing repeatable sales systems and aligning with customer psychology, Doug shares the process-driven, mindset-first strategies he’s used to help top-performing teams accelerate revenue with confidence.

This episode is packed with frameworks, real-world stories, and sharp insights that sales leaders, CROs, and founders can implement immediately to boost productivity, predictability, and team performance.

Topics Covered:

• Sales Process Optimization: Why most companies never define their ideal right-fit buyer and how that derails scalability
• Metrics that Matter: Doug’s 11 core metrics that reveal productivity bottlenecks—and the gold hidden in your top performers
• Customer-Centric Selling: The 3 reasons people buy—and how to align your pitch to their definition of value
• Business vs. Personal ROI: Why focusing only on business outcomes causes missed deals (and what to do instead)
• Sales Leadership that Works: How real leaders inspire performance by getting in the trenches, not behind the desk
• Compensation & Motivation: Why money only motivates up to a point—and what truly drives high rep retention
• The Future of Sales: How buyer behavior is shifting toward convenience and connection, and why AI is now a must-have in your sales workflow

Memorable Quotes:

“Sales isn’t about selling what you think is valuable. It’s about selling what they believe is valuable.”

“You don’t need to reinvent the wheel—just find what your top performers are doing and replicate it.”

“AI isn’t coming. It’s here. If you’re not using it to offload tasks, your competitors already are.”

Work with the Selling the Cloud team: Visit www.get-ags.com

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In Part 1 of this conversation with Doug Brown—CEO of CEO Sales Strategies and one of the most trusted voices in revenue acceleration—Mark and KK dive into what it really takes to build a high-performance sales team.

Whether you're scaling a startup or optimizing a mature sales org, this episode is your blueprint for hiring top producers, increasing predictability, and improving performance from day one.

What you'll learn:

• Why clarity before hiring is the foundation of world-class sales teams
• How mindset, not just skillset, separates top performers from average reps
• The power of structured interviews, role simulation, and assessments like OMG
• A modern take on “ego strength + empathy” and how to calibrate for your culture
• Real-world examples from Tony Robbins, telecom sales, and PhD-led orgs
• How to hire for potential (not just experience) in a rapidly evolving sales world
• The overlooked importance of drive, commitment—and the "why" behind performance

Doug brings decades of proven experience, and KK adds her own perspective as the global leader in OMG sales assessments. Together, they unpack what most hiring managers miss and how to get it right.

Want help building a high-performance team?

Contact AGS at www.get-ags.com/contact

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