Explore every episode of the podcast The Scale Up Show

In this episode, Ryan Saley welcomes back Dan Gottlieb, VP of Sales Tech and Gen AI expert at Gartner, for a deep dive into the evolving landscape of sales technology, particularly focusing on generative AI. Building on their previous discussion, Ryan and Dan explore the differences between general-purpose large language models and niche-specific sales tools, emphasizing the importance of ease of use and integration within existing tech stacks. They discuss the challenges sales reps face in adopting new technologies and the critical role of sales leadership in leveraging data for competitive intelligence and talent development. Dan highlights the pressing need for tools that simplify administrative tasks, allowing sales teams to focus more on selling.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• There is a distinction between general-purpose technologies like large language models (e.g., ChatGPT) and niche-specific sales tools. While general-purpose tools require more effort to extract value, specific tools are designed to integrate seamlessly into sales workflows, making them more user-friendly and effective for sales reps.
• Sales professionals should familiarize themselves with the fundamentals of large language models. This knowledge will enhance their ability to leverage similar technologies that are tailored to their specific sales needs shortly.
• For sales leaders, the emphasis should be on using case-specific technologies that provide insights into deals and help communicate progress effectively.
• There is a significant opportunity for sales leadership to utilize technology for talent development. By providing managers with data-driven suggestions for coaching individual sales reps, organizations can enhance the overall performance of their teams.
• A major unmet need in sales teams is the reduction of time spent on non-selling activities. By focusing on automating administrative tasks and improving knowledge management.

BEST MOMENTS

"I think there's more limited upside in the general purpose technologies because of how much effort a sales rep has to put into learning how to use the technology today."

"The value prop of this technology right now is time savings, a little bit of conversion benefit, but mainly time savings."

"I think a lot of folks are jumping over [administrative tasks] because they want to think about AI for conversion, conversion, conversion."

"How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business, or an empire?"

"I see some cool software that's focusing on this problem, trying to give managers in natural language suggestions for ways to help individual reps get better at their jobs."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In this episode, Ryan Staley welcomes Dan Gottlieb, VP of Sales Tech and Gen AI expert at Gartner, to discuss the current chaos and future trends in the sales tech landscape. Dan shares insights from his extensive experience, including the evolution of sales technologies and the impact of generative AI on the market. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the underlying technologies and methodologies to leverage AI in sales processes effectively. The conversation delves into "technology as a teammate," exploring how sales professionals can collaborate with AI agents to enhance their workflows and decision-making.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The sales tech market is currently experiencing significant disruption, with various categories of sales technologies converging to meet investor growth expectations. This has led to a state of "mayhem" where distinguishing between different products and their capabilities has become increasingly challenging.
• The introduction of generative AI has dramatically transformed the sales tech landscape, prompting companies to rethink how they position their products and the value they offer. 
• Organizations need to shift from a vendor-first perspective to a more informed approach focusing on understanding how technologies work. This includes grasping concepts like Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to ask better questions and make informed decisions about technology investments.
• Instead of solely focusing on metrics like expanding the pipeline, companies should thoroughly audit their processes at a granular level. Identifying specific workflows and pain points will help determine where AI can add the most value.
• The future of sales technology involves viewing AI not just as a tool but as a collaborative teammate. Sales representatives will increasingly work alongside AI agents to enhance their decision-making and execution capabilities.

BEST MOMENTS

"The state of the market in one word, I would call it mayhem."

"A lot of companies right now are very much stuck in a vendor first point of view, where they're learning about what sales tech companies are providing."

"How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors?"

"AI is capable of handling tasks at a far more granular level."

"I believe that that is really where it's going to be: an individual contributor seller is going to have a team of agents that they're managing."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan welcomes back Kyle York, CEO of York IE, for a deep dive into the innovative integration of AI within business operations. Kyle shares his unique approach to productizing services in the advisory and venture capital space, emphasizing the importance of creating scalable, tech-enabled solutions for startups. The discussion explores the evolving landscape of business models, particularly the shift towards results-driven services, and how companies can achieve efficiency without sacrificing quality. As they navigate the challenges facing early-stage startups in a chaotic economic environment, Kyle offers insights into the future of entrepreneurship and the potential for impactful innovation across various industries. Tune in to discover how to grow a VC-backed company without traditional investment and the strategies that can lead to sustainable success.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Integration of AI in Business Models: Kyle emphasizes the importance of integrating AI and technology into business operations to create scalable and efficient service offerings, particularly in the advisory and venture capital sectors.

2. Productization of Services: The approach to productizing services involves listening to the needs of startups and creating a modular advisory-as-a-service platform that aligns with their financial goals, offering various subscription tiers across different business functions.

3. Demand for Results as a Service: There is a growing trend among business leaders who prefer comprehensive solutions that deliver results rather than just purchasing tools or software. This shift reflects a desire for efficiency and effectiveness in operations.

4. Market Disruption and Innovation: Ryan and Kyle highlight the potential for disruption in traditional consulting and professional services industries by leveraging technology, automation, and subscription models to create more agile and responsive business solutions.

5. Future Outlook for Startups: Despite current economic challenges, there is optimism about the entrepreneurial class's ability to innovate and drive significant impact in the coming years, suggesting a resilient spirit within the startup ecosystem.

BEST MOMENTS

"There's a real gap on the go-to-market side for companies... I wanted to take that expertise and experience, but productize it and build it into a platform for the startup landscape."

"I thought there was an opportunity for a one-stop resource hub... to integrate technology, AI, and automation to build the next great companies."

"Every industry can be disrupted and models can be evolved... companies are going to take a different spin or slant on the company they want to build in that sector."

"I think everybody's looking for a little bit of a lowering of the heat... and I have strong faith that the entrepreneurial class is going to make a huge impact in the next couple of decades."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

This episode features Ryan's interview on The Revenue Reimagined Podcast for a discussion on the transformative impact of AI in the tech and sales sectors. He explores the nuances of AI, distinguishes it from automation, and takes a look at the potential challenges and fears surrounding job displacement due to AI advancements. Ryan also touches on the future of autonomous agents and the need for regulatory measures to mitigate risks associated with rapid AI development.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• AI should be viewed as a tool for skill transformation and customization, while automation involves precise processes that need to be executed consistently. Many people mistakenly equate the two, which can lead to ineffective implementations.

• Clients come with varying levels of proficiency in AI, and even those who rate themselves highly often have untapped potential. Continuous learning and adaptation are crucial for maximizing the benefits of AI tools.

• There is a significant fear regarding job losses due to AI advancements. The potential for widespread unemployment raises concerns about macroeconomic stability and societal impacts if a large portion of the workforce becomes obsolete.

• Effective use of AI requires a deep understanding of prompt engineering and the nuances of how to interact with AI models. This foundational skill is essential for leveraging AI effectively in business processes.

• The development of autonomous agents, which can execute complex tasks with minimal human intervention, is on the horizon. However, without proper understanding and guidance, these agents could exacerbate existing issues, such as poor communication and ineffective outreach.

BEST MOMENTS

"AI is not a catch-all, but you could use it as a team of helpers for any individual department or organization."

"There's going to be a lot of people that lose their jobs if the government doesn't get their shit together."

"Even people that rate themselves as a four out of five still have a ton that they could use it for that they're not."

"I think if the government doesn't step in and regulate, you're going to see significant wide-scale unemployment that is going to change the face of the country."

"If you don't understand how to effectively even prompt, what you're going to do is have an autonomous agent that scales shit."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan sits down with Kyle York, CEO of York IE, to discuss his innovative business model that combines venture capital with advisory services. Kyle shares insights from his journey of scaling a company from zero to $200 million before its exit to Oracle, highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities of bootstrapping a service-heavy business. They look at the integration of AI and offshore outsourcing within their operations, as well as the importance of a pragmatic approach to growth, R&D, and go-to-market strategies.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• York IE combines advisory services with venture capital, offering a subscription-based model that provides tech-enabled services in research and development, go-to-market strategies, and general administrative support for startups.

• The company emphasizes a bottoms-up approach to business building, focusing on understanding market needs and gaps rather than solely on product capabilities. This includes a strong emphasis on financial engineering and capital strategy.

• York IE leverages AI and automation to enhance its advisory services, creating tools that streamline processes and improve efficiency. This includes using AI for market research, content creation, and operational analysis.

• With a significant portion of its workforce based in India, York IE utilizes offshore resources to provide cost-effective services while maintaining high-quality outputs across various operational functions.

• The company acknowledges the challenges of scaling and has learned to focus on optimizing existing services before expanding its offerings. This strategic approach allows for better resource allocation and operational efficiency as they grow.

BEST MOMENTS

"Our model is a subscription-based model where we sell tech-enabled services in R&D, go-to-market, and G&A. Each service is modularized and has different tiering structure and price points based on what your startup needs support on."

"AI to me is only as good as the data that you feed it and humans' ability to leverage it... Too often, I'm seeing AI as the be-all, end-all and not the enhancement or differentiation of things."

"We basically created a platform called Fuel... It’ll go crawl the datasets that we have and look for companies and points of views and perspectives and spit you back those topics."

"Business building is hard... Not everything I'm saying is created equal. Some of our services are growing faster, have higher revenue or higher margin, or are more tech and AI-enabled than others."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In today's episode, Ryan is interviewed by Anna Furmanov of the Modern Startup Marketing. Together, they explore the transformative power of AI in sales and marketing. Ryan shares insights on how sales professionals and revenue leaders can leverage AI tools to enhance productivity, streamline processes, and ultimately double their performance while working fewer hours. 

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• AI tools can significantly reduce the time spent on non-selling activities, allowing sales professionals to focus more on customer engagement and strategic work. For instance, leveraging AI can cut down research and preparation time, enabling salespeople to spend more time with clients.

• Specific use cases for AI in sales include analyzing company reports to tailor sales pitches and reframing customer inaction as a loss to encourage decision-making. These strategies can differentiate sales professionals from their competitors.

• Crafting effective prompts is crucial for maximizing the output from AI tools. Providing context about the organization and desired outcomes can lead to more relevant and actionable insights.

• AI can be used to analyze large datasets and visualize information, helping businesses identify key customer segments and trends. This can streamline the process of creating ideal customer profiles and inform marketing strategies.

• While AI can enhance productivity, there are concerns about data security and the potential for misuse. It's important to approach AI with a critical mindset, ensuring that outputs are validated and aligned with real-world insights and expertise.

BEST MOMENTS

"I think like kind of the way to look at it is most people just look at it as a productivity enhancer. You know, it helps me write emails. It helps me do this, which I think is a massive misappropriation."

Give me 3 or 5 examples of companies that have successfully implemented this strategy and break down tactically exactly what they did. So then you have real-world examples to pull from. And then you could also say, ask it to cite its sources as well. 

"Let's say you've got this challenge at work and maybe you don't have other folks on the team, right? Or you don't have other people to talk to about this challenge. You could literally just like tell it what the challenge is and then say, can you help me figure out how to solve this? What are three approaches you would take?"

"If I don't need it, I'm not going to use the tool. Whereas some people are like, Oh my gosh, this is a new flashy, shiny object. I must use it."

VALUABLE LINKS

Modern Startup Marketing - Apple Podcasts

Modern Startup Marketing - Spotify

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In this episode, Ryan continues his discussion with Matt Van Itallie, the founder and CEO of SEMA, on the creation of an AI advisory council. Matt shares his vision and strategic approach for the council, focusing on helping technologists share benchmarking data and best practices related to using generative AI in coding. They delve into the different use cases for non-technical knowledge workers and the importance of senior developers in maximizing the benefits of Gen AI tools. Matt also highlights his favourite use cases for leveraging AI tools and the various tools he uses, such as OpenAI's tool, Claude, and Copilot.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Building an AI advisory council can help share benchmarking data, best practices, and ideas related to using Gen AI code.

• Gen AI tools are being used by both technical and non-technical knowledge workers for various tasks such as prototyping, document analysis, and brainstorming new ideas.

• Senior developers tend to get the most out of Gen AI tools due to their experience and ability to leverage tools effectively to get to the right answer.

• Different Gen AI tools like OpenAI's tool, Claude, Copilot, and ProSearch have different specialties and can be used based on the specific purpose.

• The format of the AI advisory council includes a Slack channel, occasional emails, meetups, and sending books to participants to ensure active engagement and value delivery.

BEST MOMENTS

"The most important thing is that teams pick an enterprise-level license, so they protect their IP."

"We try to be experimentalist in everything we do, whether it's figuring out the products to build or features, including AI Advisory Council. So, we heard what they wanted to get out of it and how they wanted it structured. Today, it is a Slack channel, an occasional email and occasional meetup."

"I am certain there is huge ROI on the coding side. It's at least 40x over a two year period in terms of how much more productive coders are relative to the to the cost of enterprise licenses."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In today’s episode, Ryan interviews Matt Van Itallie, the founder and CEO of SEMA. They discuss the challenges of growing a company without taking on investors, and the impact of Gen AI on code analysis. Matt shares insights on SEMA’s revenue, team size, go-to-market strategy, and the importance of building trust with private equity firms. They also look at the challenges and opportunities the use of AI in code checking presents, and the best practices for deploying Gen AI code.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Unique Go-to-Market Strategies: Utilizing trust-based partnerships and referrals, SEMA has successfully grown its business in the private equity space.
• Importance of Gen AI Code: With Gen AI code becoming more prevalent, it is crucial for organizations to manage it effectively to mitigate risks related to IP, security, and exit strategies.
• Enterprise-Level Licenses: Ensuring that team members have enterprise-level licenses for Gen AI tools is essential to protect trade secrets and data integrity.
• Encouraging Experimentation: Celebrating experimentation and sharing lessons within the team can lead to innovative uses of Gen AI tools and foster a culture of learning.
• Addressing Identity Concerns: By equating the use of Gen AI with open source tools, developers can overcome concerns about their coding identity and embrace the benefits of new technologies.

BEST MOMENTS

"Just replace the word Gen AI with open source. Are you a real developer if you use open source? Of course, I am."

“We're absolute proponents of using AI where it makes sense to increase productivity and job satisfaction. And for us, coders using it is probably number one on the list in terms of how much more productive they can be, because it helps avoid some of the routine work. It lets them experiment faster, et cetera.”

"My mission in life is to help founders and revenue leaders avoid all the pain and suffering in revenue growth so they can flip it and create a life of their own design."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In this episode, Sahil continues to discuss Spiralyze's unique performance-based pricing model for A-B testing services. Sahil explains how they use a massive data set to predict lift for clients and only charge if results are achieved. Sharing insights on growth challenges, maximizing growth channels, and the need to resist the allure of shiny new tactics, the conversation delves into the evolution of Spiralyze's business model over the years, emphasizing the importance of continuous reinvention and rapid iterations to stay ahead in the market. 

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Spiralyze utilizes a unique performance-based pricing model where clients only pay if they achieve the predicted lift in conversions from A/B testing.

• The CEO emphasizes the importance of constantly reinventing and adapting the business model to stay ahead of the curve and avoid plateauing growth channels.

• Consistent practice and repetitions are key to mastering skills and improving outcomes, as seen in the CEO's dedication to daily sales pitches and LinkedIn posts.

• Identifying and overcoming bottlenecks in growth channels, knowing when to shift focus, and resisting the allure of shiny new strategies are crucial challenges in scaling the business.

• Sharing knowledge and insights with others in the industry can help build a supportive community and drive collective growth and success.

BEST MOMENTS

"We'll get you this much lift for this much. If we get you less than this, you pay nothing. If we hit a home run, and this is what we think a home run looks like, by the way, just to quantify, it's about 30% lift, conversion lift, in the first three months, you pay us our full fee."

"I've been finding like 30 different use cases, most of them new per client that I work with."

"I personally did about 100 sales pitches and reworked it over and over and over. I still am very involved. I do about five a day."

"Here's the reality: what worked for us six years ago wasn't going to get us to the next level. And what's working for us now? I don't know what the shelf life on it is, but I think it's safe to say, whether it's a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, it's going to plateau."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan interviews Sahil Patel, the CEO of Spiralyze. Sahil discusses how SpiralEyes helps businesses improve their website conversion rates through conversion rate optimization. He explains the importance of pattern recognition and AI in identifying successful tests and executing them at high velocity. Sahil also shares insights on their unique pay-for-performance model and the advantages of being a self-funded company.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Spiralyze has a pay-for-performance model, allowing clients to pay based on the results achieved, which is a unique approach in the industry.

• The company runs about 40-50 tests a year for clients, significantly higher than the industry average of 10 tests a year, thanks to automation and AI integration.

• Spiralyze leverages pattern recognition and AI to identify successful tests across various websites and industries, providing valuable insights for clients.

• Using tools like ChatGPT, the company streamlines content creation by reducing unnecessary words and improving efficiency in drafting A/B tests.

• Spiralyze is self-funded and has organically grown to a team of 145 people, showcasing the advantages of bootstrapping in maintaining control over the company's destiny.

BEST MOMENTS

"Most of our clients on average get about 20 to 30 percent more conversions on their website when they work with us and use our product."

"If you want to take and get big wins, you want to take big swings."

"I found most marketing campaigns, a lot of the problems can be solved just by removing 30 to 50% of the words."

"Sometimes 90% of people leave the site and don't do anything. If you had a restaurant, and 100 people walked in the restaurant, and all but three left, you'd say you have a big problem. And yet every day, generally speaking with B2B websites, that's what's happening. 100 people are coming, 97 of them leave and don't do anything. And it's really expensive to get all that traffic there."

"A test that works on someone's paid landing page, paid traffic, has very different characteristics than say organic traffic. So to make a meaningful prediction, it needs to be relevant to the website."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In this episode, Ryan continues his conversation with Robin Daniels, the CMO at Zensai, as they discuss various use cases of AI in human development. The episode delves into how Zensai leverages AI tools like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT in their products to enhance learning, performance management, and employee engagement. 

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Zensai leverages AI in their products, specifically with Microsoft Copilot and ChatGBT, to enhance learning, performance management, and employee engagement.

• Zensai strategically focuses on Microsoft technologies for rapid development, distribution, and trust in the industry, rather than building their own AI team.

• AI helps in creating courses quickly by analyzing documents or videos, reducing the time spent by learning and development teams significantly.

• AI provides recommendations for managers on how to respond to employee feedback, enhancing communication and problem-solving in the team.

• Robin uses AI daily for various tasks, such as summarizing documents, analyzing data, and improving efficiency in workflow, showcasing the practical benefits of AI integration.

BEST MOMENTS

"We are building what we call the 'human success platform', and it's really focused around three core vectors. One is around learning, one is around performance management, and the third one is really around employee engagement."

"We've now instituted what we call AI coaching, where the AI can read through that [data] and come up with a couple of recommendations for how I can respond in the best, most human way."

"Why do 70% of people want to quit their jobs? Because they don't feel like there's any future in what they're doing. They're not learning, they're not growing, they're not developing, they feel like stuck."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan interviews Robin Daniels, the Chief Business and Product Officer at Zensai. Robin shares his wealth of experience as a CMO and CPO, discussing how AI can impact human transformation and how Zensai's Human Success Platform leverages AI to empower individuals to reach their full potential. 

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Zensai's mission is to empower individuals to be the best version of themselves through their human success platform, leveraging AI to guide personal and professional development.

• By creating emotional connections and standing for something, B2B companies can create a strong brand identity that resonates with customers and drives loyalty.

• Zensai's decision to standardize on Microsoft's platform has led to faster time to value, tighter integration, and benefits from platform upgrades.

• AI can be used to analyze data points and patterns to guide individuals on their career paths, helping them set goals, learn new skills, and stay engaged.

• Leveraging Microsoft's massive distribution network has been a strategic advantage for Zensai, allowing for easy adoption and implementation for their customers.

BEST MOMENTS

"I love the mission of what we're trying to do. We basically want to change the way that companies think about getting the best out of their people. We call this 'human success'."

"The more we know about you and what you care about, the more we can guide you, meaning AI can guide you, and we use Microsoft AI in our products to do that."

"I think in my experience, the brands that have done well have courage, conviction, and a point of view. And I think it's very rare to find that honestly in the B2B world."

"It's so impressive what they've done. I mean, talking that much for water, it's not cheap. And it's just water. It's freaking water."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In today's episode, Ryan continues his conversation with renowned podcast host, Will Barron. They consider high-performer traits in sales, focusing on the importance of habits and how they can impact success. Will also shares his insights on the use of AI in sales, sharing a practical example of leveraging AI tools to streamline content creation for his YouTube shorts.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Setting habits, especially in prospecting, can lead to consistent performance and success in sales.

• Assertiveness, comfort with talking about money, optimism, not being a people pleaser, high self-esteem, personal accountability, and goal-setting are key traits of high performers.

• Controlling emotions and pushing through tasks even when not feeling like it is essential for success.

• AI tools can be beneficial for speeding up processes, such as generating content ideas and questions for content creation.

• Using AI tools for generating questions for content creation can save time and increase content output, leading to higher engagement and views.

BEST MOMENTS

"One of the things that I get the all new starters in our program to do is to prospect daily. And that is such a transformational leap in most salespeople's and small business owners and founders, if they're doing founder-led sales."

"Nobody wants to do cold outreach. Nobody wants to do content creation if you're doing inbound marketing, inbound lead sales. Nobody wants to do cold calls. But you have to do them routinely, systematically, every day to build that habit. And then it becomes like brushing your teeth, where it's an activity which is neutral."

"I used to be a massive procrastinator. Unless the deadline was three minutes from this moment in time, I wouldn't have started any project. I got over that by understanding this concept of the emotional, 'caveman' part of my brain."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan sits down with Will Barron, the renowned host of The Salesman Podcast. Will shares his expertise on how to effectively combine attention and prospecting strategies to overcome challenges in sales, particularly in acquiring new customers.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Combining attention and prospecting in sales is incredibly important in overcoming challenges in pipeline activation.

• Will Barron emphasizes the importance of creating content that answers buyers' questions and aligns with their desires to attract and engage prospects effectively.

• The key elements of a successful outbound strategy include targeting the right person, crafting buyer-centric messages, and focusing on booking meetings rather than closing deals.

• Consistent exposure through multiple platforms and interactions can help build unconscious trust with prospects, making them more likely to engage.

• Simplifying messaging to create curiosity and elicit a response from prospects can be more effective than overwhelming them with product details.

BEST MOMENTS

"If you can just call someone, or you are just able to email someone to book meetings, you absolutely shouldn't be doing content marketing."

"You've got features, benefits, great, no one gives a shit. What are the desires of the buyer? How can you tie what you do with not even solving a problem, the desire behind that problem, why they want to solve it?" 

"You're just trying to give them just enough where they go 'Wills emails me, and I would not be doing my due diligence in my role if I don't jump on a quick call of him."

"I think there's a lot of value of being like hyper direct. At least that's the way it is. I've shifted and I'm like, hey, this is where I'm at. This is what my pricing is."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

This is the second part of Ryan’s conversation with Tyler Barron, CRO of Encapture,  where they discuss AI use cases for sales and marketing. From leveraging AI for strategic research and RFP automation to creative prospecting and collaborative ideation, Tyler and Ryan share their expertise on using AI to enhance efficiency, scale ABM efforts, and improve deal scoring.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• AI tools can significantly enhance strategic research for high value deals, allowing sales teams to efficiently analyze financial documents and earnings calls to identify potential problems and align solutions with strategic initiatives.
• Automating RFP and vendor questionnaire responses using AI can save significant time and resources, especially for companies dealing with similar questions across multiple clients.
• Leveraging AI for one-to-one creative prospecting can lead to highly customized outreach using a prospect's own language and quotes from their public appearances.
• AI powered call analysis tools can be used for efficient "game film" sessions, allowing teams to quickly review and learn from customer interactions without listening to entire calls.
• Collaborative use of AI tools across departments can dramatically reduce project timelines and enable rapid implementation of time sensitive campaigns.
• AI presents opportunities to scale ABM efforts by enabling the creation of custom content for specific accounts more efficiently.
• Data driven deal scoring using AI can help identify patterns in successful deals and apply those insights to future opportunities, improving win rates and deal velocity.
• Focusing on analyzing top performing customers and deals can lead to significant increases in deal size and help identify the most promising opportunities in the market.

BEST MOMENTS

"We primarily are getting value out of AI tools right now for strategic research. We have higher ACV deals, longer sales cycles, and we're trying to prospect up to the C suite."

"I think one of the biggest things that I've learned about kind of the scale up stage is that you can't outrun your supply line as a revenue leader and so you really got to bring everybody along with you at the company"

"Every year doubled our deal size and a hundred X, our largest deal. Just from that alone. Vista equity uses it to actually to convert companies from a bill to three bill in like three years."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Tyler Barron, CRO at Encapture joins Ryan in this episode. In this part 1 of 2 episodes, Tyler shares his journey transitioning an AI company from consulting to SaaS, focusing on FinTech solutions. They explore the challenges of demonstrating ROI in AI, adapting to market changes, and the importance of customer-driven product development.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Transitioning from consulting to SaaS requires repositioning the company, developing repeatable processes, and building the right team.
• Market listening is crucial for product development; focus on what customers are willing to spend money on, especially during economic shifts.
• Demonstrating AI ROI involves quantifying problems, focusing on practical use cases, and tying solutions to tangible business outcomes.
• Simplicity in execution and low-friction processes are key to the successful implementation of new systems and technologies.
• Executive level sponsorship, particularly from operations leaders with P&L responsibility, is vital for AI adoption in organizations.
• AI solutions don't need to be perfect. Even 50% improvements can significantly move the needle financially for businesses.
• Selling AI solutions involves working on a "big math problem" with customers, making it an intellectually engaging and partnership driven process.
• AI implementation often faces resistance due to a lack of comparison points; persistence and demonstrating value over time are crucial for success.

BEST MOMENTS

"We saw a lot of companies out there in our space, like really, really getting to a lot of pain around that. A  lot of our peers in FinTech have had a tough time."

"Why does it have to be 99 percent accurate if 50 percent actually moves the needle financially."

"The biggest thing with AI is that your unit economics improve over time one, because the AI gets smarter, but to your cost basis on a lot of these tasks can ultimately stay flat and you can pick up the efficiency."

"Look, I'm not an AI expert, so I think I can probably give some very pragmatic answers to what I, what I see and hear, which... there's a lot of buzz and there's a lot of over promising around just AI in general, but there's also some very good quantifiable common sense use cases."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Join Ryan in part 2 of his conversation with podcaster Andy Paul as they explore the pros and cons of AI in sales. They discuss new use cases for AI and share transformative examples for revenue growth. Andy provides interesting ideas around the challenges of AI adoption, the importance of helping buyers make decisions, and the need for thoughtful application of technology in sales processes.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• AI is currently being used primarily to automate repetitive tasks, but there's untapped potential in helping buyers make decisions.
• Despite technological advancements, B2B selling productivity may have decreased over the past 20-25 years due to misuse of technology.
• The focus on using AI for building pipeline may be misguided; the real issue is often not knowing how to win deals and help buyers make decisions.
• AI can be used to rapidly condense annual reports and customize information for more relevant first appointments with potential clients.
• Many salespeople fail to understand company pressures and industry-specific problems beyond their own offerings, which AI can help address.
• Thoughtfulness and curiosity are superpowers in sales, but current sales processes may be training these qualities out of sellers.
• The goal of sales interactions should shift from "discovering" information to helping buyers define what they want to achieve.
• High win rates are crucial for efficiency; a team with a 50% win rate needs to do significantly less selling than one with a 20% win rate.

BEST MOMENTS

"We need to have thoughtful people who are looking at the problem from the right perspective

"Pipeline is the siren song that's going to cure all for companies. That's what most folks are attracted to."

"If we're gonna make the decision to actually sell to this person, actually bring this opportunity into our pipeline, we should win it. It's that simple."

"Thoughtfulness is definitely a superpower. I agree with you on that, man. And I think like one, one other one that I'm seeing that's... is curiosity as well, right?"

"We're training curiosity out of our sellers and saying that this is the way they should act when really we want the opposite."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan is joined by fellow podcaster Andy Paul to uncover the secrets of building massive attention and growing connections in today's digital landscape. With nine years of podcasting experience and over 200k LinkedIn followers, Andy shares his knowledge on scaling attention, creating distribution, and the power of consistency.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Consistency is crucial in podcasting. Train your audience to expect your content at regular intervals to build a loyal following.
• Focus on creating high-quality, engaging content that keeps listeners coming back for more.
• The size of your audience isn't as important as having the right audience. Target your content to your ideal listeners.
• Prepare thoroughly for interviews and don't hesitate to challenge guests' ideas to create more engaging conversations.
• Podcasting can be an excellent tool for prospecting and reaching your target audience.
• Being thoughtful and developing a perspective on your circumstances can set you apart in sales and business.
• Success in sales often comes down to being human-first, building relationships, and genuinely helping customers make decisions.
• The key traits for success in sales are connection, curiosity, understanding, and generosity.

BEST MOMENTS

"I was inspired to start this podcast... I heard John Lee Dumas speak... And I was thinking, well, yeah, that sounds like a fun way to create content that people will find valuable."

"Consistency, I think, is really the thing that I keep coming back to... you're trying to sort of train the audience that you are going to be there at a certain time or a certain point in time every week."

"For me, over all the years that I've been doing this, my focus has always been, is I'm going to be as prepared as I can be overprepared for every conversation."

"We're one person throughout our entire lives, you know, as we are in our life, we are in sales and, you know, if we show up interested in other people, if we show up and are curious about things that are important to them, we make a real effort to understand them, if we're willing to give of ourselves to help them achieve what's important to them, we'll succeed."

"The only reason somebody talks to you as a salesperson these days is because they need your help."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan speaks to Brendan Kamm, the CEO of Thnks for the second time in this episode. Ryan and Brendan talk about his AI use cases as a CEO and discuss how Brendan leverages it to enhance his daily operations within the business and improve communication within his team. Brendan also talks about how to adapt and engage with AI to improve it and make it work for you and your business.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Brendan uses AI to improve his writing, ensuring it aligns with his brand values, and engages in conversational interactions with AI models to generate ideas and gather feedback.
• AI can significantly reduce time spent on non-customer-related activities, allowing salespeople to focus more on building relationships.
• Creating custom AI models for your brand can help ensure consistency in communication and improve team members' ability to provide clear, detailed instructions.
• Leveraging AI for sales research, such as analyzing 10K reports and industry trends, can help representatives be more prepared and in tune with their prospects' concerns and goals.
• Experimenting with different AI tools and prompts can lead to more effective outputs and a deeper understanding of how to utilize these technologies for various tasks.
• Uploading multiple sources to AI models like Notebook LLM allows for a comprehensive analysis of an industry, providing valuable insights for sales and strategy.
• Brendan has found one of the biggest challenges in growing a business, is instilling the same level of passion and care in team members as the CEO has.

BEST MOMENTS

"I've created sort of custom bots that reflect our sort of brand values, and that's been really helpful, and I can just run it through and say, Hey, am I, you know, am I on target?" 

"If I can take all my non human interactions and make that less time consuming and less focused on the operational and the sort of behind the scenes things, I have more time to spend building relationships." 

"I'll also tell you I use a lot of explain to me like I'm five, explain to me like I'm 12. Like I'll go through the whole progression just to make sure I understand something." 

"I think you need to instill that level of care and confidence. And like, Hey, man, we're all on the same team headed in the same direction."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Join Ryan for part 1 of 2 as he speaks with Brendan Kamm, founder and CEO of Thnks. Kamm shares insights on leveraging gratitude in business, discussing his company's innovative platform for expressing appreciation in professional contexts. The conversation explores the human element in sales, revealing top use cases for connecting with people authentically. Kamm's approach to scaling a business without losing sight of personal relationships offers valuable tips for closing revenue and building successful companies.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Thnks is a gratitude expression platform targeting large distributed sales teams, allowing for easy sending of small appreciation gestures.
• The company has grown to $30-40 million in ARR since 2016, with a team of about 50 people and under $15 million in total funding.
• Thnks relies heavily on network effects and product-led growth, with recent expansion into paid advertising and enterprise-level deals.
• Brendan emphasizes the importance of authenticity and relationship-building in sales, moving beyond mere tactics to focus on long-term connections.
• The company has observed measurable business outcomes from gratitude gestures, such as faster rescheduling of cancelled meetings.
• Brendan suggests focusing on thoughtful, personalized gestures rather than relying solely on traditional gifting occasions like birthdays or holidays.
• Ryan and Brendan highlight the balance between leveraging technology and maintaining human connection in modern business relationships.

BEST MOMENTS

"We call it a gratitude expression platform. Basically, it's a way to send a small gesture of appreciation in a business context.”

"Our philosophy is people like to do business with people they like. I think that's always been the case and everyone likes someone who appreciates them."

"It's easy to fall a little bit into the trap of tactics, right? And it's not that you write, you need tactics and you need to get your numbers, but it's, it's too easy to kind of let go of the end result, what you're really looking for."

"We want to focus on that sort of authenticity and that idea that these things take time. It's not just, I sent a thing. Did I get what I want back? It's gotta be less transactional than that over time."

"You can have hard business outcomes and track how these things affect even not in something as simple as that."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Join Ryan for part 2 with Thomas Hansen, COO of Amplitude Analytics. Thomas talks with Ryan about the steps he took to uniquely climb the corporate ladder and how anyone can do the same. Ryan and Thomas also talk about how to leverage AI in your career and how AI is creating a new opportunity that has never before been possible!

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Even as COO, Thomas still has an SDR role.
• Thomas built out his knowledge and skillset, allowing himself to create a diverse portfolio, enabling him to climb the corporate ladder.
• You have to know your strength and your superpower, then apply that. Thomas encourages everyone to get diversity in their career early on to discover this but also to teach you how to spot new ways of creatively doing things.
• Saying yes and working towards things that may not be seen as the obvious or linear option, has created the most value for Thomas in his career.
• Look for AI roles that might not be in your comfort zone, to gain experience and exposure. Or become the internal champion in your existing role and company.
• Industry after industry will be revolutionized by AI, including VC, particularly in entry level positions.

BEST MOMENTS

“You’ve got to know yourself, you’ve got to figure out what is your one superpower”

“I just think that early in your career, doing stuff that’s not the linear boring path, that’s not so obvious, it teaches you to be scrappy, tenacity, to open up your eyes to different ways of doing things”

“One of the things that has created the most value in my career has been taking on the non-linear and the non-obvious choices”

“Think about what you can embrace in the current role you’re in, in terms of being the internal champion for use case and how you’re leveraging internally for your own business in AI”

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan is joined by Thomas Hansen, the COO of Amplitude Analytics. Thomas has an impressive track record, having worked at companies like Microsoft and taken UiPath public as the chief revenue officer. He shares some really interesting insights about leadership, how to grow, inspire, and leverage AI to elevate your team. He also discusses an unexpected topic from the company's CEO in part one of two of Ryan and Thomas' conversation.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Amplitude Analytics provides insights on customer product usage, helping companies build better products and monetize their user base more effectively.
• Different growth stages require different leadership skills; it's crucial to understand where your strengths lie and hire stage-appropriate executives.
• Situational leadership involves adapting your approach based on individual team member's needs and circumstances to maximize their potential.
• AI is a transformative force in business, with Amplitude leveraging it both for customer-facing features and internal operations.
• Consolidating tech stacks can increase efficiency and productivity, allowing sales teams to spend more time selling and less time managing tools.
• Embracing AI technologies like conversational intelligence can lead to significant improvements in metrics such as Average Selling Price (ASP).
• Leaders should lead by example. Thomas personally conducts cold outreach to 10 potential clients weekly, demonstrating the importance of staying hands-on.
• Continuous learning and experimentation with new AI tools and technologies are essential for staying competitive in today's business environment.

BEST MOMENTS

"Every stage of a company and its formation is unique. And frankly, different stages also tend to by and large require different folks." 

"My point of view on situational leadership is, it's not about others adapting to work with me. It's a bit about me recognizing where a person is at any given point in time in their journey, including having a sense for what's going on in their personal life."

"In my 32 years being an operator in the tech space, I've seen some tectonic changes. You had the arrival of the internet, you had the mobile explosion, you had the cloud. And then for me, the fourth big change, the biggest change of everything is the arrival of AI." 

"As much as I may be the president of Amplitude, my role every day is I'm selling. I also work as an SDR. Every day. It is on me personally, as it's on all of us to take personal ownership for growing our businesses." 

"I do a lot of cold calling outreach through LinkedIn and through email.  I do, if you believe it or not, I do 10 a week."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan continues his conversation with AI expert Jeff Mills from iMerit. They explore the future of work, the impact of AI on various industries, and how individuals can adapt to thrive in an AI-driven world. Mills shares invaluable insights on job automation, the importance of adaptability, and the exciting opportunities that AI presents.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• AI will automate back office tasks, but it's a tool that enhances human productivity rather than completely replacing workers.
• Adaptability is crucial in the AI era, as people will need to switch industries and professions more frequently.
• AI skills, both technical and non-technical, are becoming essential for nearly all jobs across industries.
• The job market will evolve, with new industries and opportunities emerging as AI technology advances.
• AI is not just a vertical or niche; it will be embedded in everything we do, from social media to household appliances.
• Model stacking and multimodal AI are creating exciting new applications and opportunities in various fields.
• AI tools are empowering individuals to perform tasks that were previously limited to specialized professionals or agencies.
• Understanding and embracing AI is crucial for future success, as it will be integrated into all aspects of work and daily life.

BEST MOMENTS

"Darwin taught us that it's really not the strongest that's going to win. And it's not the smartest that's going to win. It's the most adaptable that's going to win."

"AI is going to be a lot like Excel. You're going to have people who actually are the coders, they're, they're, they're actually in there building the software, building the program, right?"

"There's gonna be issues. Yeah. I mean, there's gonna be problems, but at the same time, like. Don't be super scared of it (AI) either."

"I've effectively hired, I don't know, 10 employees for 30 a month now because they all have skills that I didn't have."

"There's no job that's going to exist that doesn't, have AI in it soon."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In this episode, Ryan is joined by Jeff Mills, a veteran in the AI and machine learning space. With over 25 years of experience, Jeff shares invaluable insights on scaling businesses, particularly in the AI industry. From his early days at Yahoo to his current role as President at iMerit, Jeff offers a unique perspective on growing companies while maintaining a social impact focus.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• iMerit works with leading AI companies in mobility, tech, and medical verticals, providing data solutions and annotation services for AI model development.
• Jeff talks about the importance of high-quality data in AI development, comparing it to a chef selecting the best ingredients for a Michelin-star restaurant.
• iMerit has evolved to include automation and a platform for data labelling, while still maintaining human-in-the-loop processes for validation and verification.
• The company employs a workforce pyramid, ranging from general workers to highly specialized experts in various fields, to meet diverse AI development needs.
• Retrieval Augmentation Generation (RAG) models are expected to be a significant trend in AI development over the next year and a half.
• iMerit adapts to customer needs, focusing on problem-solving and developing expertise in specific domains as required by clients.
• Jeff stresses the importance of domain expertise in prompt engineering and evaluating AI model outputs.

BEST MOMENTS

"You are literally a prompt engineer. You have created the box."

"We like to write, but we also are good readers. We want to lead by example, but we also are good at reading, hearing what someone's challenges are, what their problems are. And ultimately we're in the problem solving business.”

"We’ve built a workforce pyramid, so there's certain work that can be done if you have kind of expertise at a wide level."

"I've been in AI for about, you know, 25 years in different ways."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In the second part of Ryan’s conversation with Jordan Wilson of Everyday AI, they dive deep into the world of AI tools and agents. From favorite tools like Chat GPT and Cast Magic to exploring the future of AI agents, this episode is packed with insights for businesses looking to leverage AI effectively. Jordan shares his expertise on strategic byproducts, micro GPTs, and the exciting developments in AI from tech giants.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Jordan Wilson uses Chat GPT extensively and recommends Cast Magic for podcasting tasks, praising its ability to run multiple custom prompts simultaneously on audio content.
• Creating micro GPTs for specific tasks is more effective than trying to build one large GPT to handle multiple functions, ensuring better quality output.
• Major tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and Meta are heavily investing in AI agents, signalling a shift in the future of work towards AI-directed tasks.
• The adoption of AI agents in businesses is expected to follow a similar pattern to large language models, with early adopters gaining significant advantages.
• Advancements in GPU technology, particularly from NVIDIA, are driving down compute costs and energy requirements, making AI agents more accessible.
• The podcast industry is leveraging AI tools for content creation, transcription, and keyword extraction, enhancing productivity and output quality.
• Strategic byproducts from AI tools, such as creating a "customer Grammarly" from sales call transcriptions, can provide valuable insights for businesses.
• The future of work may involve skilled workers becoming directors of AI agents, and managing multiple tools across platforms to perform various tasks.

BEST MOMENTS

"I'm a huge chat GPT fan. I have been a fan of the GPT technology for a very long time. So I would say that still chat GPT is the most used tool."

"Instead let's create, you know, 10 micro GPTs that do the smallest little task, but they do it very, very well. Right. So it's this balance of productivity and saving time with quality and kind of this granular control."

"Every single big company in the world is sprinting toward agents because they see that's kind of the next goldmine, right?"

"I think we're having similar conversations that we've had about large language models and all these AI tools with companies that are implementing agents and those that are not"

"If the adoption rate is, you know, 20 percent for large language models, what do you think the adoption rate is going to be for you know, agents? It's going to be much lower, right?"

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanwilson04/

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan talks with Jordan Wilson, founder of Everyday AI, about the rapidly evolving world of generative AI. The conversation explores the current state of AI technology, its impact on businesses, and the risks of falling behind. Wilson gives his take on how companies can integrate AI into their workflows and why leadership must take an active role in adoption.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The state of generative AI is both fascinating and alarming, with rapid advancements occurring across various domains including language models, sound generation, and multimodal capabilities.
• Companies still on the fence about adopting generative AI are at risk of losing market share to more nimble competitors who embrace the technology.
• Integrating generative AI into workflows doesn't necessarily mean building custom models; it can be as simple as using AI-powered tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot or advanced web browsers.
• Leaders should lead by example in AI adoption, understanding that it's not just another SaaS solution but a fundamentally different way of operating.
• Using outdated or non-internet-connected AI models for business decisions can be detrimental, as up-to-date information is crucial in today's fast-paced environment.
• Understanding the basics of how large language models work, including their limitations and best practices, is essential for effective implementation.
• Upgrading hardware, such as PCs with new AI capabilities, can significantly enhance productivity and AI integration in the workplace.
• Transitioning from traditional search engines to AI-powered tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT can save hours of research time and improve efficiency.

BEST MOMENTS

"If you're still reading through 50 page PDFs to pull out that one little bit that's relevant for you or your company, all of these things that are part of our day to day tasks, you should be using generative AI."

"If you are still using traditional search engines, you are waiting hours a day"

"Think if you worked through the whole two thousands, the decade of the two thousands, the entire decade without using the internet?"

"If you don't understand it at its core you are probably going to misuse it and you could end up doing more harm than good." 

"Here we are every day waking up and scratching our heads, looking at what's happening and saying, there's no way this is happening." 

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanwilson04/

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

This is part two of Ryan’s conversation with Aytekin Tank, the founder and CEO of Jotform, a form building platform created from his desire to help automate the communication between people. Author of Automate Your Busy Work, Aytekin shares his framework for cutting time spent on menial tasks by 70% and reveals how AI is transforming Jotform's products. From the importance of prioritization to embracing system thinking, this episode shares actionable insights for entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses efficiently in the age of AI.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Clarify priorities through time audits to understand how you spend your time and identify tasks to automate or delegate.
• Embrace "laziness" and impatience as drivers for finding efficient solutions and automating repetitive tasks.
• Make time to save time by researching automation tools and learning new technologies like AI and prompt engineering.
• Adopt a system thinking approach, transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager of automations and AI.
• Use tools like Dead Man's Snitch to monitor and maintain your automated systems, ensuring they continue to function properly.
• Focus on important tasks that are often not urgent, following Eisenhower's wisdom on prioritization.
• Leverage AI for code reviews and fraud detection to significantly improve efficiency and accuracy in tech development.
• Explore AI integration in products through copilots and agents to reduce learning curves and enhance user experience.

BEST MOMENTS

"Bill Gates said, 'I would always hire a lazy person to do a hard job. Because he will find an easy way to do it.'”

"Eisenhower says that he had two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The important are never urgent and the urgent are seldom important."

"With copilots, you can actually give people an option... They don't have to learn it anymore, they can just tell us what they need."

"It's about figuring out your priorities. For example, for me, in the morning, that's my best time."

"We use AI for code reviews... It becomes easier because it's going to catch many types of code problems."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Aytekin Tank is the founder and CEO of Jotform, a form building platform created from his desire to help automate communication between people. Aytekin, a trained developer, bootstrapped Jotform from scratch. He is also the author of "Automate Your Busy Work" and is passionate about writing and sharing business advice.

He joins Ryan to discuss his experience of bootstrapping his company from the ground up and the strategies that helped accelerate the growth of the business.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Growth often takes time in the first few years of a bootstrapped company but Aytekin highlight the many positives of bootstrapping your company, including the independence you retain and less pressure externally.
• Jotform is a free product but where there are paid add ons and options.
• Aytekin wanted to create a simple to use form building platform after being unable to find what he needed himself.
• The pandemic helped accelerate the transformation into digital and Jotform was on of the businesses to feel that.
• A developer by trade, Aytekin had to train himself on everything including the management of people.
• Creating a culture of independence and innovation, supported with a clear mission statement has helped Aytekin grow his teams and scale the company effectively.
• To compete with the growing competition, including Google forms, Aytekin focuses on automation and delegation in his own work and across his teams.

BEST MOMENTS

“It’s about the [business] journey, it’s not about reaching one state, it’s about what we can do for people”

“I love seeing other people use it [Jotform] and get value from it”

“It’s a very horizontal product, everybody uses forms”

“Starting my company was all about independence, building my own product”

"We also improved out product in terms of automation"

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan Staley interviews Randy Wootton who shares his incredible journey from the U.S. Navy to working for tech giants like Microsoft and Salesforce to becoming the CEO of Maxio, a company that has integrated a platform with over 2,400 customers and $13 billion in annual invoicing. Randy reveals the seven secrets of success for SaaS CEOs, offering invaluable insights on navigating the challenges of scaling a business.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Randy Wooten transitioned from a successful career in the U.S. Navy and working for tech giants like Microsoft and Salesforce to becoming the CEO of Maxio, a company that has integrated a platform with over 2,400 customers and $13 billion in annual invoicing.
• As a CEO, Randy emphasizes the importance of delivering shareholder value, establishing a winning strategy, shaping company values and standards, building an effective executive team, managing the board and investors, allocating capital strategically, and investing in your personal growth.
• Randy discusses the challenges of selling to CFOs compared to CMOs, highlighting the need for a different go-to-market motion that involves bringing in influencers and references, as CFOs tend to be more introverted and rely heavily on relationships when making purchase decisions.
• Maxio uses the McKinsey Horizon Model to allocate funds for current and future growth, dedicating resources to core business (Horizon 1), near-term opportunities like payments (Horizon 2), and long-term game-changing initiatives (Horizon 3).
• Randy believes that AI will significantly impact go-to-market strategies, with boards expecting companies to incorporate AI efficiency assumptions into their fiscal year 2025 planning, and he advises businesses to start experimenting with AI tools now to stay ahead of the curve.
• To navigate the challenges of being a CEO, Randy recommends finding a mentor who has been in a similar position, working with a coach to improve interpersonal effectiveness, joining peer groups like EO or YPO, and cultivating a personal advisory board for support and guidance.
• Randy highlights the importance of being a system of record and having differentiated data that can be leveraged with AI to create intelligent engines that offer benchmarks and insights to help customers run their businesses more effectively.
• By sharing his experience co-founding the VetForce platform at Salesforce, which empowers military veterans, Randy demonstrates his commitment to making a positive social impact alongside his professional achievements.

BEST MOMENTS

"I am there to deliver shareholder value. That's primarily driven by delivering the results."

"One of the things when I became CEO, the first time was I wanted a mentor, someone who had been in the same context."

"I think for my own career growth, I had reached this inflection point where I thought, gosh, the patterns that I've seen in this scenarios, would it apply to a different vertical in this case, selling to the CFO?"

"Unless you're absolutely crushing it and everyone's gonna make a whole bunch of money, like there is [something] everyone starts to revert to it's like Maslow’s hierarchy of need. They're all nice until it becomes, okay, how are we going to carve up the pie?"

"I think anyone who's truly appreciative of what's happened in their life will also recognize how much luck has played and connections, and we'll be willing to give back to other folks."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan speaks with Bill Strogis, CRO of Trax Technologies with a wealth of experience in enterprise software sales. Together, they dive deep into the mind of buyers, uncovering the predictable patterns that drive purchasing decisions. Bill shares his unique perspective on the biggest mistakes companies make in sales and provides hyper-tactical advice for growing your business like a VC-backed company without losing your freedom.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Aligning your sales process with how buyers make decisions can give you a significant advantage over competitors who rely on outdated practices.
• Leveraging the neuroscience of buyer behaviour can help you create a sales motion that is aligned with the buyer's journey, increasing your chances of success.
• Creating a customer engagement model that outlines what both parties need from each other can help build trust and prevent misalignments later in the sales process.
• Effective selling is about having meaningful conversations that create intrigue and get buyers to rethink how they want to solve their problems, ultimately leading them to see the unique value your solution provides.
• Building a truly profitable, sustainable, and durable business requires doing things the hard way, focusing on excellence and effectiveness rather than volume.
• Sellers often make the mistake of assuming buyers know exactly what they need and how to buy it, when in reality, buyers rarely evaluate software for a living.
• Educating buyers with all the information upfront is ineffective. Instead, focus on creating intrigue and getting them to rethink how they want to solve their problems.
• An analytical, engineering-like approach to building a sales motion, considering variables and objectives, is essential for enterprise selling success.

BEST MOMENTS

I don't want to talk to 50 people in a week when 49 of them can't buy my software, right, or don't have the capacity to."

"Every time you get asked for something, you should ask for something in return. And you've created this dance where you're starting to get really good at negotiating without it being an overt negotiation."

"Buyer behaviour is a fairly predictable thing. Most people go through the same things and they ask themselves the same whys, why should I do this? Why should I do it now? Why you like those things are fairly predictable if you understand them."

"It's hard to get somebody who's not paying attention to pay attention. It's not an easy thing."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan speaks with Andrew Johnston the head of sales at Superhuman for a second time, to explore the landscape of AI tools. Andrew shares his unique perspective on what makes an investable AI company, the importance of seamless integration and workflow, and the future of AI.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• AI agents and chatbots are limited in their effectiveness unless they are built with seamless integration and have their own unique value as part of the chain within AI.
• Successful AI tools have integrated in a smart way, with 75% of their own built IP or workflow and 25% leveraging LLMs or fine-tuned data.
• Security is a huge concern in the AI space, and tools like Liminal AI are addressing this by enabling secure use of LLMs within highly regulated institutions.
• RevOps teams can benefit from AI tools like Cinch, which enable sales leaders to build dashboards, reports, and alerts using natural language and prompting.
• AI research tools like Agent Herbie bring resources directly to the user's email, making market analysis more accessible for sales reps and marketers.
• Microsoft is going deep on AI integration across their entire stack, including a proactive team copilot and AI capabilities built into PCs.
• When investing in AI companies, distribution and go-to-market strategy are key differentiators, along with good UI/UX design and core software fundamentals.
• The simplest AI use cases that save 10-30 minutes of time and deliver clear outcomes are often the most powerful and effective tools for CEOs and CROs.

BEST MOMENTS

"What I try to look for is for companies that have integrated in a smart way, but have built a unique IP or workflow so that it's more like 75 per cent of what they've built."

"I think what's important is two things. One is. If you're going to invest in a tool or you're going to find a tool that you use, like, does it get you to an outcome or is it just a chatbot?"

"Distribution is key. You know, who's your market, who you're going after, why is the product sticky? I think that's really, really important to think through."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Join Ryan for part 1 of his interview with Andrew Johnston, the head of sales at Superhuman, for an in-depth conversation about measuring the impact of AI products. Andrew discusses strategies for growing B2C and B2B businesses, highlighting the key factors that contribute to Superhuman's success. 

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Superhuman, designed as the fastest email experience, saves users around 4 hours per week and helps them respond 12 hours faster, offering a glimpse into how email would look if designed in 2024.
• Superhuman's B2C growth leverages PLG levers, while B2B uses a product-led sales motion, targeting power users within corporations to expand team adoption.
• Transitioning from B2C to B2B requires adapting messaging, targeting different buyers, and meeting higher ROI expectations as the company moves upmarket.
• Quantifying ROI involves comparing pre and post-adoption metrics, such as time savings, email volume, and response speed, to demonstrate productivity gains.
• AI enhancement, like writing emails in the user's voice, complements the core value proposition, with 15-25% user adoption of AI features.
• Connecting productivity metrics to business outcomes, such as increased sales rep capacity and outbound activity, is crucial for resonating with decision-makers.

BEST MOMENTS

"Point blank Superhuman is the fastest email experience, or designed to be the fastest email experience in the world."

"The way I like to think about it is if Gmail or Outlook were designed in 2024 versus 2005, how would that product look and what, what things would it have natively built in? And that is superhuman."

"Bar none, I think the first thing is getting the tool right, right? So it has to provide value, productivity gains, and efficiency gains as it stands. And then AI is the enhancement on top of that."

"We're trying to correlate the metrics that matter to that sales leader with the things that we know are true and what we can provide based on the outputs that the tool has seen."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan Staley interviews Ozan Unlu, the CEO and founder of EdgeDelta, an edge observability platform. Ozan shares his unique journey from engineer to salesperson to CEO, offering valuable insights on integrating AI into your organization profitably. Discover how to leverage AI without compromising margins and unlock the potential for growth.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• AI has tremendous potential in various businesses, but it must be implemented in a way that ensures sustainable margins and a path to profitability.
• AI augments human capabilities, providing context and awareness to professionals, especially benefiting those with less experience.
• Preprocessing and curating data sets before feeding them into AI models is crucial for cost-effective AI integration at scale.
• Integrating AI has significantly boosted productivity and efficiency in software development, potentially doubling the speed of feature development.
• AI can accelerate research and analysis tasks, such as reviewing financial reports or customer interactions, saving time while providing comprehensive insights.
• Regularly using AI to analyze website copy, marketing messages, and meeting discussions helps ensure clarity and effectiveness in communication.
• AI assists in observability by identifying anomalies and potential production issues in large-scale data sets.
• Continuous inference is a key concept for making AI work at scale with massive data volumes in observability.

BEST MOMENTS

"AI has a tremendous amount of potential in a lot of various different businesses. I think there is going to be very few businesses that are unaffected or untouched by AI."

"It's not so much replacing a person or replacing a role. It's very much augmenting what someone can do."

"We have probably doubled the amount of features and the efficiency and the speed at which we can develop within our organization internally.”

"If you have a large scale, if you have a lot of data and you are in observability trying to understand how do I actually make AI work at this scale, come talk to us."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In this episode, Ryan shares some of the most exciting insights he has taken away from spending 30 hours using ChatGPT4o and Microsoft Copilot. Ryan pushes past the release hype and gives you the real use cases and best solutions for using AI in your existing applications.  

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Microsoft and Google are talking about the future capabilities of their AI software, these are things that aren’t available for use yet such as agents and text to video generators.
• ChatGPT4o is as fast as promised, the speed at which charts and graphs can be built at a high quality is impressive. There is even a tab to be able to create a PowerPoint and export.
• ChatGPT4o can integrate with Onedrive and google drive, the implications of this are far reaching in almost any business case.
• Microsoft Copilot always appears to lag behind ChatGPT releases. However the Copilot functionality has a lot of use cases. Such as summarising web pages and creating content.
• The Excel and Teams capabilities within Microsoft Copilot.

BEST MOMENTS

"There are some things blowing me away that are out right now”

“I love that use case because it makes creating visuals a snap”

“I think Microsoft is a sleeping giant here”

“This is gonna change a lot if you starts to understand this”

“Google Gemini is Still behind, still has issues”

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Join Ryan for part 2 with Advait Shinde, the chairman of GoGuardian. Advait shares his journey of growing his company from zero to over $100 million in just 10 years. He offers invaluable insights on bootstrapping, the power of a strong founding team, and the unlimited potential for businesses to create value in the ever-evolving landscape of technology and AI.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Having a co-founding team with hands-on product and engineering experience is crucial for accurately assessing the complexity of building and marketing a software product from scratch.
• Entrepreneurs should prioritize building bootstrapped software businesses that require minimal upfront capital, allowing for greater control and flexibility in directing the company's growth and vision.
• Self-awareness and reflection are essential for breaking through self-imposed limitations and achieving ambitious goals.
• The most valuable companies of the future may not exist today, as new markets, services, products, and technologies continue to emerge, presenting near-unlimited opportunities for businesses to provide value to people.
• Focusing on providing the most value to the most people, especially in the context of rapidly evolving technologies like AI, can lead to immense success and growth.
• The economic and business landscape should be viewed as an ever-expanding pie with unlimited potential, rather than a fixed, finite pie with intense competition.
• Embracing the differences between preventing malware on corporate networks and ensuring a safe learning experience for students led to the creation of a purpose-built solution for K-12 education.
• Rapid iteration and incorporating user feedback on a daily basis were key to building a strong product-market fit and driving the company's explosive growth.

BEST MOMENTS

"We figured if we were able to enable this digital transition to be seamless, that we could do a few things. Firstly, we could take all of the amazing content and learning experiences that exist online and deliver them into the classroom in a way that would increase engagement."

"If you have that right team, you should be able to first hand build and market and sell a software product from scratch just with a co-founding team. And I think that that's critical as opposed to, let's say not having technical or product experience and therefore being sort of obligated to outsource that out to a consulting firm or something like that."

"Rather than view the world as this sort of fixed pie that everybody's sort of out competing each other with, I think it's much more interesting to imagine. The world of possibility that has yet to manifest entirely and in that, I think that there seems to be a near unlimited amount of opportunity."

"I think the process of really developing more self awareness of your own fear or insecurity or your own tendencies, especially to the extent they're shaped by your society or family or community or childhood experiences, all of these things sort of come together. Impinge a set of constraints on you. And so developing an understanding of that self awareness of that, I think allows you to pretty reliably break through those limitations."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan is joined by Advait Shinde, chairman of Go Guardian, to talk about the future of AI for work and learning. They discuss how AI and machine learning in depth, Advait gives some tested AI frameworks for those trying to learn and master AI and also gives his thoughts on the future of AI in the workplace.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Go Guardian enables students to learn and have access to better techniques to improve learning experiences.
• Relating concepts in the context of things people already understand can help people learn and retain information
• Whilst AI tools can aid learning in adults you can’t expect young children to be able to guide and give the necessary prompts needed.
• A system needs an understanding of what stage of learning a student is at before beginning. One of the key ways to do that is to ask the students questions and identify the level of mastery from their answers.
• A learning plan is just a sequence of skills that are required to meet an endpoint.
• Large language models allow certain tasks to be completed much more efficiently, but they only can do this because of decades of thorough research by individuals and still require a lot of human input.
• Advait believes AI skills will be essential for the future of work. He compares AI skills to internet skills 20 years ago, they were once brand new but now they are essential in any job.

BEST MOMENTS

"The way that we learn is by understanding the relationships of concepts between each other and I think chatgpt does a great job”

“You can’t expect a young child to take the self-directed control over their learning”

“Being successful with LLMs requires you to drive that learning yourself”

“The system needs to understand what is the current state of the student, what is the starting point of this journey”

“As AI changes workflows, more or less every workflow will be AI-enabled or AI-assisted…everything we know and do will be affected by AI”

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Join Ryan in part 2 of his conversation with Alex Atzberger for a deep dive into leveraging AI at scale across his 1500 employees and infusing it into their product. Discover the mind-blowing outcomes and results they've achieved by harnessing the power of AI on both the people and product side.

📈 From $100,000,000 to $400,000,000 in just 4 years, the journey of Optimizely is indeed inspiring. ✨ In this episode, Alex shares insights into AI use cases and the transformative potential for both people and products.

Tune in to learn how AI is powerfully shaping the future of work and product development. 

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• AI is a driving force of change, comparable to the impact of mobile and the internet, but human adaptation is key to realizing its potential
• Enterprises are exploring AI's value and accumulation points, with a focus on understanding its capabilities and limitations in the short term
• AI can significantly enhance employee productivity and effectiveness by automating tasks and providing content-generation support
• Investing in AI skill acquisition for employees is crucial, as it empowers them to become "superheroes" in their roles
• Embedding AI into existing marketing platforms and processes can yield high value for companies
• AI-powered testing and experimentation enable marketers to test multiple variables, leading to better results
• Context-aware AI assists marketers throughout the campaign creation process, from brief writing to blog post suggestions
• Enterprises must address regulatory concerns and find valuable use cases that align with their specific needs

BEST MOMENTS

"AI is going to be, in our lifetime, one of the driving forces, just as mobile was or the internet was relative to change in terms of how we work, how work gets done, what we can do as society and humanity

"I don't see AI as a zero-sum game. I really see it as actually expanding everyone's capability. It is a superpower that you give people."

"Embedding AI into existing processes can gain a lot of value. In our platform, Optimize D1, which is really that entire marketer life cycle and marketing life cycle where people ideate and create content and test content."

"You know, the generation and the people that can start taking advantage of this, they're just going to be more productive relative to what they do."

"Being context aware when the AI knows where you are in the process. So imagine, for instance, you are starting a campaign, you are writing a brief about the campaign, why you are running this campaign, you know, writing a brief for a campaign can be a tedious task for a marketer."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In this episode, Ryan gives more of his unique insights on the latest in the AI world. Ryan updates on a few of the new ChatGTP4 and ChatGRP4o features, the Omnimodel release and the Google Gemini AI integration.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• If you like seeing visuals, where use cases are broken down into steps then head over to Ryan’s YouTubechannel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFGndSHN4KkE89kUP74U7Qg
• Some of the new voice updates for ChatGPT have changed the landscape for AI, paving the way for uniqueness and making things feel more personal.
• ChatGPT can now do real-time translation in 40 languages, impacting Duolingo’s stock almost instantly.
• They have made GPT4 available for free, but you will need to pay for chatGPT4o to access speed and more advanced capabilities.
• Notebook LM is one of the new features where you can have customised data, based on your interests.
• Googlelabs the testing centre, has fewer ‘guard rails’, allowing you to flexibly test various use cases.

BEST MOMENTS

"There’s some things that they did not talk about at all that are absolutely amazing”

“All those capabilities are available for free now”

“You can pile a lot of data in there and have it customized based on your interests”

“VEO is text to video, the demos they showed are absolutely amazing”

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan interviews Alex Atzberger, the CEO who took Optimizely from $100 million to $400 million in just four years. Alex shares his incredible journey, revealing the challenges, tough decisions, and the single best decision that led to this remarkable growth.

In the upcoming episode, Alex will dive into AI integration and the fascinating innovations at Optimizely. Don't miss out on the insights and knowledge shared by Alex.

Follow Alex on LinkedIn or visit optimizely.com for more on his journey and the incredible work at Optimizely. Stay tuned for the next episode. You won't want to miss it!🔥👏

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Creating a strong sense of mission and purpose is crucial when walking into any company, along with identifying the company's special assets and creating a north star for the organisation.
• Optimizely's success story began with combining content management (EpiServer) and optimization (Optimizely) to create a powerful platform for marketers.
• Building the right culture and leadership team is essential for scaling a company, as every single person matters in execution.
• Acquiring Welcome, a workflow AI-accelerated engine, was the best decision made during the four-year period, bringing in valuable solutions and people.
• Execution is everything in a company of Optimizely's size, and focusing on the main thing leads to wonderful results.
• Making changes in the leadership team, especially when it involves people who put their trust in you, can be emotionally challenging but necessary for the company's growth.
• The muscle built during the journey from $100 million to $400 million makes the next $400 million growth more feasible, enabling the company to do things they couldn't do before.

BEST MOMENTS

"Content is the heart of everything. What we are doing right now here together is content. You know, everything in a brand, everything in a, in a, in a digital team, everything on a, on a advertising team, PR, everything starts with content."

"I think I have the strongest leadership team in MarTech at this point, you know, um, you know, the founder of one of our acquisitions stuck around and is now the CMO of the company."

"The best decision, uh, was, uh, probably to acquire a company called Welcome."

"I always think it's quite personal when you bring people onto a journey, um, people that trust you. I think trust is the ultimate currency in life."

"Every single person matters, but it's all about actually executing what you say to do."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Join Ryan for the second part of his conversation with Matt Wolach, the CEO of XSellus, on the topic of lead generation in today's business landscape. Wolach shared his expertise on some common mistakes that companies make and discusses the importance of understanding your ideal customer profile and the most effective strategies for generating leads across various platforms.

🔍 Understanding your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is key to successful lead generation. Knowing exactly who you are targeting and what resonates with them is vital. 🛑 Don't give up too soon. Successful lead gen strategies take time and persistence. Building an online presence and attracting the right audience is a long-term commitment. 🚀 Tailor your lead gen strategies to fit your deal size and market. Automated approaches work for lower deal sizes, while personalized, targeted efforts are crucial for larger deals.

Tune in to the full episode to gain more insights on lead gen and its impact on your business growth. 

Find out more about Matt Wolach on LinkedIn or visit his website, https://mattwolach.com/, for free giveaways and valuable resources.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Understanding your ideal customer profile (ICP) is crucial for effective lead generation, marketing, and sales conversations.
• Persistence and consistency are key when implementing lead generation strategies; many companies give up too soon without seeing results.
• LinkedIn remains a powerful tool for B2B lead generation, but success requires time and effort to build a strong presence.
• Identifying the right marketing channels for your business depends on factors such as your target market, industry, budget, and time constraints.
• Deal size influences the approach to lead generation; smaller deals require automation and volume, while larger deals demand personalization.
• SEO will continue to play a role in lead generation, but businesses must adapt to changes in technology and algorithms to stay ahead of the curve.
• Utilizing AI and technology for content creation and lead generation requires a strategic approach to ensure quality and effectiveness.
• The biggest mistake founders make in lead generation is implementing strategies that don't align with their business's stage, market, or resources.

BEST MOMENTS

"If we don't know exactly the person that we're trying to sell to in terms of lead gen market to, if we don't understand what keeps them up at night, what they're worried about, what they hate, what they love, what they're trying to do, it's going to be really hard to convince that person to take steps, to take action, to book a call."

"Some of the things that we do in lead gen are going to be a much longer commitment than a few weeks or a month. And we need to stay with it."

"We need to make sure that we're identifying the three to five [marketing channels] for us that work really well for our industry, for our market, for our time allotment, for our budget and do that, because you're not going to do all 18, but let's do the ones that actually fit for us."

"I think every SEO is always going to have a place. I mean, it's people are always looking for. We've been trained for the last 20 years that if you have a problem, just look it up, figure it out."

"Sometimes we hear, 'Oh, I heard about this company that did this amazing thing. I'm going to start doing that.' Well, that company is 10X your size or less than 10X lower than you, you know? So if you do the wrong thing at the wrong time, it's not going to work."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan talks with Matt Wolach, CEO of Xsellus, to dive deep into the world of closing deals and skyrocketing demo conversion rates. Matt shares his game-changing framework that helped him achieve exponential growth and gives many opportunities to learn from a true sales mastermind!

Tune in for actionable insights that can transform your sales approach!

Find out more about Matt Wolach on LinkedIn or visit his website, https://mattwolach.com/, for free giveaways and valuable resources. Stay tuned for the next episode where we delve deeper into lead generation and common sales challenges.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Discovery is vital in the sales process;ask industry-specific questions to demonstrate expertise and uncover the buyer's pain points.
• Educate buyers on industry shifts, company founding story, and how your solution solves their problems to build a strong connection.
• Associate your product with the buyer's pain points to make them realize the value of your solution.
• Take the lead in the sales process; guide the buyer and be their trusted advisor to help them understand how your product can solve their problems.
• Calculate the financial impact of the buyer's problems to demonstrate the ROI of your solution and make pricing discussions easier.
• Understand your ideal customer profile (ICP) and ask process-based questions to uncover their challenges and pain points.
• Avoid the curse of knowledge; ask about the buyer's problems even if you already know the answer to help them realize the severity of their situation.
• Focus on the tangible ROI components, such as time, money, and people involved, to create a compelling case for your solution.

BEST MOMENTS

 "People don't take action from, 'I want to check this out.' They take action from pain."

"If you can tell that founding story and talk about, let me tell you about this guy, Steve, and he was really frustrated that he couldn't do this or that... If you tell that story, obviously a little bit with a little more beef than what I said, but that now connects the buyer to a person, as opposed to connecting them to a brand."

"Once I get discovery really good, and I kind of connect the dots on each of those pains to the way it gets solved with my tool, then I don't really have to do a lot else extra, and it's amazing how kind of easy, simple that associate that demo process comes to be."

"Discovery is as much for your buyer as it is for you. And so if we skip that piece, then they're never going to realize how bad things are."

"The devil's in the details and that's what really moves the needle is when you know those fine aspects."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan shares his insightful experience working with over 220 executives and uncovers his top three problems with AI adoption in business today. Discover how you can excel past everyone else as Ryan provides valuable insights to help you embrace and develop AI use in your business.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Most executives want their teams to use AI tools but aren't taking the time to understand them personally, hindering effective adoption and innovation.
• Create a daily routine using AI to stay ahead, brainstorm ideas, and unlock new possibilities.
• Lack of internal collaboration and knowledge sharing about AI use cases is a missed opportunity for growth and efficiency.
• Many AI users operate in stealth mode, fearing employers will demand more if productivity gains are revealed.
• Incentivize and reward employees for sharing top AI use cases and innovations to spark widespread adoption.
• Executives must personally use AI to grasp its capabilities and limitations, as it's an "alien life form" with vast potential.
• AI enables doing higher quality work in far less time but requires incentives for employees to surface these gains.

BEST MOMENTS

 "The AI's that you are leveraging today are going to be the worst version of AI's that you'll ever use."

"Create a routine where you use it every single day. You could start off simply by just replacing Google with it for 15 minutes."

"If they share and proliferate it throughout their organization, there should be really big opportunities, but why they're not sharing it is because they're afraid that their employer is going to ask for more from them."

"If you leverage those three stacks, you are going to be ahead of the majority of organizations out there. And I know this because I've spoken to a ton of them about this."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Ryan Staley sits down with Sankar Sundaresan, CEO and founder of SkyGeni, an AI-native company revolutionizing pipeline management for tech companies. Sankar shares invaluable insights on common mistakes CROs make, the importance of explainable AI in predicting pipeline yield, and how to align demand generation efforts with recent market traction. Don't miss this information-packed episode that could transform your approach to revenue growth!

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• SkyGeni is a growth acceleration platform helping revenue teams drive efficient and predictable growth by reverse-engineering pipeline needs and providing a GPS-like system for planning and course correction.
• The biggest mistake CROs make is relying on rules of thumb for pipeline requirements without considering past execution data and the importance of having enough capacity to create and convert pipelines within the quarter.
• Explainable AI mimics the judgement process of experienced CROs, capturing their expertise in ML models trained against past performance data to provide accurate pipeline yield predictions.
• Aligning demand generation efforts with recent positive market traction in specific vertical segments, products, and geographies can significantly improve win rates and revenue growth.
• Continuously tweaking the pipeline generation machine based on recent win-loss data is crucial for capitalizing on tailwinds and addressing competitive challenges.
• A two-step approach to pipeline generation by identifying the most promising segment/vertical/geo/product combinations and then determining the best channels for those combinations leads to more efficient and targeted efforts.
• AI is best applied to high-level, critical questions like predicting pipeline yield and identifying opportunities at risk of slipping based on conversational intelligence data.
• SkyGeni focuses on giving CROs the tools to develop high-confidence, long-term pipeline plans that set them up for success, rather than just chasing current quarter deals.

BEST MOMENTS

"The single biggest mistake is just relying on rules of thumb. Like I need three X pipeline. I need four X pipeline because you'll be amazed at, you know, how many jobs we've seen dropping to the ground when we actually show them."

"I think there's a huge opportunity to align where we're building pipeline with where sales teams are actually able to win as evidenced, not by people doing research on 6sense and things like that."

"Instead of making it a one-step answer, it's really a two-step answer. You solve for it one step at a time, and therefore you get to a better, more efficient way of generating the right kind of pipe, using the right channels for exactly the type of pipe you need to generate."

"If all you're doing is just chasing current quarter deals, I think you're just setting yourself up for failure, right?"

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Join Ryan for part two with Mark Roberge, the original CRO at HubSpot who took the company from zero to $100 million. Roberge shares his unique insights on native AI companies versus adapted companies, offering a fresh perspective on how to effectively use AI in go-to-market strategies. 

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The science of scaling framework helps boards and founders determine when to scale revenue and at what pace, focusing on product-market fit and go-to-market fit.
• AI may significantly reduce development cycles and sales cycles, potentially leading to billion-dollar companies run by fewer than 10 people.
• AI could enable the creation of highly customized micro-products for niche markets, allowing for a multitude of smaller, specialized companies.
• Integrating AI into employees' workflows is crucial for staying ahead of the curve and capitalizing on the AI revolution.
• Embracing AI tools can save employees significant time, enabling them to explore new opportunities and innovations.
• The top 5% of individuals who actively learn and implement AI technologies will have a substantial advantage in the current business landscape.
• Identifying real AI challengers involves assessing incumbents' access to data and considering how workflows may change in a mature AI world.
• AI native companies with access to unique data sets, like AI sales coaches, have an advantage over incumbents in certain categories.

BEST MOMENTS

"When you think ahead to like a mature AI world when does, when you think about that, does the workflow change so much? That the underlying architecture of the incumbent is no longer relevant."

"We're in a hype cycle. We're about to get the first taste of companies that had no product and revenue that raised over 100 million that are going to go out of business because there's no traction."

"It's such an opportunity right now because the average person just gets like status quo. And the more you can push, push, push, push. That's what we're doing a lot with our portfolio.”

"Everyone's so excited. Cause we haven't felt this in like 20 years."

"The more we get the message out, the more people we could help, the bigger, the impact we make and the bigger the community gets, which helps everybody."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Join Ryan for part one with the legendary Mark Roberge, former CRO of HubSpot and current venture capitalist. They dive deep into the world of AI companies, discussing the immense opportunities and potential pitfalls. Mark shares his unique perspective on identifying promising AI start-ups and provides invaluable insights for entrepreneurs and investors alike.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• AI is a generational technology, potentially bigger than the internet, but currently in a massive hype cycle similar to the dot-com era.
• Most current AI ideas are basic integrations into existing workflows, not reimagining the workflow, and are likely to be disrupted.
• Joining an AI company now provides valuable experience, even if 90% fail, as the winners will scoop up experienced talent.
• The AI technology creating operational efficiency in the short term may not be the same as the disruptors redefining industries over the next decade.
• Understanding prompting, the foundation of AI language is crucial for developing micro-workflows, agents, and eventually autonomous swarms.
• The innovator's dilemma and appropriate beachhead selection are key concepts for AI startups to consider when building for the long-term vision.
• RevOps, once seen as supporting humans, may flip to AI doing the job with humans tweaking and refining.
• Technical issues like hallucinations and latency will likely be ironed out as the technology matures, revealing AI's true potential.

BEST MOMENTS

"I've never had more conviction for my students that come up to me. Like, 'Hey, what's up? Professor, like what, what should I do? Like, I want to be, I want to go into startups. Like, what should I do?' And I, I've always had like different opinions. I was like, do you have to go to AI? Like every tech company is going to, in like six years is going to be native AI. You have to get that experience now."

"I think all the tea leaves are similar to like 1997. Let's not forget that in that time, we dialled up to the internet using AOL, launched a Netscape browser and did searches through AltaVista, right? Where are those companies? Lycos, right? Is, is, is, yeah, is OpenAI Netscape or is it Google? Like we got to figure that out, right?"

"The AI technology that's going to create significant operational efficiency and growth this year and next for companies, especially these bigger companies that my CROs are from is not going to be the trillion dollar new company that disrupts the space."

"I've kind of come to the conclusion that the AI companies, vendors, technology that is going to create the most operational efficiency, even for our start-ups in the next year is not going to be the same AI technology company, et cetera, that becomes the disruptor over the next decade and redefines the sales and martech sector."

"RevOps has become huge, didn't even exist 15 years ago. And for the most part, RevOps is seen as an organization that supports the humans to do their job. And that flips with what you're saying. Is, at some point, it flips where RevOps does the job and humans there to tweak it."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

🎙 Exciting news! I recently had the pleasure of having Stephanie Valenti on the Scale Up Show for part 2 of our conversation. We dove deep into the topic of retaining perceived value in a fast-moving market, especially with the rapid advancement of AI and technology. If you're looking for insights on how to navigate this challenge, this episode is a must-listen.

🔍 In the episode, we discussed strategies for retaining perceived value in a fast-moving market, drawing from my experience in various leadership positions across B2C, B2B, and enterprise environments. We also explored the impact of AI on client relationships and continuous value creation. 

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Embrace constant creativity and think outside the box to bring value based on your organization's strengths
• Understand the initial impact that made clients choose your business and continue to focus on that throughout the relationship
• Leverage AI to supplement human experiences and provide consistent value to clients
• Stay informed about competitors, AI advancements, and work closely with product teams to deliver value rapidly
• Prioritize human elements like co-selling, sponsorships, and events that AI cannot replicate
• Be proactive in client communication at the executive level to gather feedback and address any lack of value
• Segment business and assign executive ownership for constant communication and proactive feedback gathering
• Consolidate client feedback, identify trends, and take action to maintain and enhance value

BEST MOMENTS

"It's constant creativity on a leader's part, how are you thinking outside the box to make sure that you're bringing value based on what your organization can provide."

"You've got to think about what is the human element that can supplement an AI experience."

"It's the human element. It's the co-selling. It's the sponsorships. It's the events. And it's no surprise why those are at the top. It's because it's human and that can't be replaced, at least yet." -

"You generally don't know if you've lost perceived value until it's gone if you're not proactive

"Proactivity is key. After that, if you start to lose, then you're just playing catch up and that can be a really dangerous game."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Stephanie Valenti, a four-time executive operator, shares her insights on turning chaos into scalability in organizations. She emphasizes the importance of creating structure, processes, and a strong team to achieve long-term growth. Valenti also highlights the need for pre-work, such as defining mission, vision, and values, and setting clear goals. She advises founders to slow down and celebrate successes, analyze what worked, and prioritize and prune initiatives to avoid shiny object syndrome. The conversation will continue in part two, where Valenti will discuss retaining perceived value in a fast-paced environment.

Don't miss Part 2 of our conversation for more insights on retaining perceived value in a fast-moving market. Stay tuned!

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• During COVID-19, Stephanie recognised she had a gap in knowledge where ‘wider’ business was concerned as she had always worked in fortune 500 companies. She then became a COO for a manufacturing company where she learnt an incredible amount.
• Start-ups operate differently to large businesses, in the early stages it’s more about trial and error than planning.
• Understanding structure allows start-ups to move into the next phase of their business and to scale effectively.
• Sometimes you need to slow everything down to be able to then scale and grow. This is especially true when trying to figure out product market fit.
• Tracking things early on with help you choose the strategies and tactics that work further down the line. It helps you avoid ‘shiny penny syndrome’ as a founder and aids you in making effective decisions.

BEST MOMENTS

“I could do four whole podcast shows talking about my experience and the mistakes and successes that I had”

“In a start-up, it’s in the moment, it’s let’s throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks”

“What would a structure look like at $100 million? What roles would we need? What types of people would we need?”

“Slow down to speed up”

“When money is involved it’s super emotional so of course then want to keep moving it forward”

“Just because something worked once, doesn’t mean it will again”

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Get ready to supercharge your AI game with Ryan as he shares three mind-blowing mistakes 99% of people are making with AI implementation. Discover how to overcome these pitfalls and join the 1% who are revolutionizing the way they integrate AI into their business.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Treat AI like a person, not software, to maximize its strengths and adjust for its weaknesses
• Provide context to AI about its role and experience to improve output quality
• Understand that AI excels at complex tasks but may struggle with simple ones like math
• Document what AI does well and poorly for your specific use case
• Leveraging AI effectively can free up time and allow you to focus on things you love
• AI is advancing rapidly, and staying ahead of the curve is crucial for success
• Psychological patterns can hinder AI adoption, leading to missed opportunities
• Integrating AI into your business can have positive downstream effects on personal life and relationships

BEST MOMENTS

"The expectations that people have are that it does everything amazing. Now, what I'm going to get into are the three mistakes that people are making, but I wanted to kick it off and show you that because that's that key understanding of how to use it, it's not going to be a straight line going across, there's going to be tasks that it's amazing at, and then tests that it's not so good at is going to be some of the keys to the castle."

"You need to expect it to act like a person, right? And as weird as that sounds, it's not a person. It's not sentient.”

"If you could free up like 10 hours a week how amazing would that be? Or if you could just offload. To an AI intern, like the things that you hate about your job and do the things that you love doing, like how cool would that be?"

"This is a psychological pattern that I see people falling into that's stopping them from literally using one of the most powerful things that we've ever had in terms of mankind, and it just kills me inside."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

In this episode, Ryan dives into the world of AI, sales strategies, and customer success together with Saas Fuel Podcast host, Jeff Mains. From leveraging AI in sales and Go-To-Market strategies to maximizing customer success stories, this insightful discussion is a must-watch for SaaS founders, leaders, and entrepreneurs. Join us as we explore the intersection of technology, sales, and human touch in today's business landscape.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Maximize customer success stories by capturing before and after states to create compelling case studies that showcase your solution's value and build trust with potential customers.
• Foster strategic partnerships with industry influencers and associations to expand your reach, tap into their audience, and gain credibility.
• Invest in targeted content marketing that addresses specific pain points and positions your product as a solution to your target audience's challenges.
• Leverage AI to automate repetitive tasks, accelerate skill acquisition, and enable your team to focus on high-value activities.
• Implement an acceptable use policy for AI tools within your organization and provide foundational training to empower your team to innovate.
• Encourage curiosity and experimentation with AI tools to unlock new possibilities and drive innovation across your organization.
• Integrate AI into your go-to-market strategy by understanding the KPIs, challenges, and emotions that drive your target audience's decision-making process.
• Cultivate technical literacy and AI skills in the next generation to prepare them for the rapidly evolving business landscape.

BEST MOMENTS

"Nothing speaks louder than success, but not your success, their success. The solution is about them. It's not about you."

"You could basically go in there and tell it to act like the chief HR officer at a hundred million dollar SAS company that's publicly traded."

"I think 2023 was a year where everyone was focused on integrating AI in their product, specifically tech companies. And I think 2024 is the year where you want to integrate AI in your people."

"Curiosity is what I would say. Yeah, that's kind of where I was headed."

"I would say like acceptable use policy, step one, step two is like, you know, what's the model that is sanctioned by the company that you're going to use temporarily. And then step three is basically embrace it."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets

Join Ryan as he interviews fellow podcaster and tech analyst Michael Fawcett. They explore how AI can revolutionize sales strategies and supercharge business growth and outline the incredible potential of AI to streamline processes, enhance skills, and boost productivity.

Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.  

Explore becoming Superhuman here: https://superhumanrevenue.beehiiv.com/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• AI can dramatically reduce time spent on tasks, automate execution, and provide custom training to rapidly upskill sales teams.
• Leveraging AI for deep work tasks like deal strategy and revenue leader tasks can lead to significant time savings and improved outcomes.
• AI enables salespeople to acquire new skills such as graphic design, music, and video creation within seconds, enhancing their capabilities.
• Onboarding time for new sales reps can be reduced from months to weeks by using AI to create custom learning plans and role-playing scenarios.
• Retention can be improved by using AI to automate tasks that salespeople don't enjoy or excel at, increasing job satisfaction.
• Small and medium businesses can use AI to focus on their top 20% of customers and multiply outcomes without adding headcount.
• The sales professional of the future should focus on gaining attention through depth over quantity and consistently look for ways to leverage AI in their daily tasks.
• Tracking progress and iterating on AI usage can lead to becoming a leader in the organization and future-proofing one's career.

BEST MOMENTS

"You have the capability to become superhuman and offload a lot of the things that you don't like about your job, acquire new skills at an insane rate and do things that you've never been able to do just by using words."

"I tested it on basically the KPIs of the executives that we were selling to... It got like 95 per cent of the way there with one question. I was like, okay, this is scary, but exciting at the same time."

"If you enable your team, specifically with prompts and a prompt library, and a whole innovation environment around AI, what will start to happen is they will naturally start to want to find ways where they could automate the things that either they're not good at, or they don't like."

"Customized learning is huge. You could take the data set from what the company does, who they sell to, their ICP, and then you could probably even download the new employee's job experience from LinkedIn and factor that in and have a whole learning plan customized based on that."

"I would just make it a priority for my team and my org to use and innovate with these tools. Make it a priority, do a weekly meeting with your team, give them a running start by you learning as a leader, and then having them come back and identify the best practices after the first week and then innovate on top of that every week thereafter."

Ryan Staley

Founder and CEO

Whale Boss

ryan@whalesellingsystem.com

www.ryanstaley.io 

Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets