GTM 124: The State of Sales with Mark Kosoglow

Mark Kosoglow is the Co-Founder and CEO of Operator.ai, a company incubated by GTMfund. Mark was employee #1 at Outreach and former SVP of Global Sales, where he helped grow the company from zero to over $200 million in revenue.

Discussed in this Episode:

  • The fallacy of “what got you here won’t get you there” in revenue leadership.
  • The current state of sales technology and its impact on buyer engagement.
  • The vision for Operator and how it aims to revolutionize the sales process.
  • The importance of personalization and relevance in sales outreach.
  • Strategies for breaking through the noise and attracting buyers into conversations.

Highlights:

(1:35) Mark’s journey from Outreach to founding Operator.
(4:33) Challenging the notion of constantly changing leadership in growing companies.
(10:00) The problem with current sales automation and AI strategies.
(20:25) The concept of “the great ignore” in sales messaging.
(24:11) How Operator aims to change the day-to-day activities of salespeople.
(37:47) The importance of creativity, connection, and focus in sales.
(45:48) One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Mark thinks is bull$***.
(47:48) One thing that is working for Mark in go-to-market right now.

Guest Speaker Links (Mark Kosoglow)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkosoglow/

Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

Product Recommendation: Apollo
The revenue tech stack is messy right now. 

If you are one of those leaders, I would recommend that you take a look at Apollo. Maybe you think you know Apollo, maybe you’ve taken a look at them in the past but I’ve looked under the hood recently and if your goal is to reduce and simplify your tech stack AND have best in breed data layered in with AI – they would be at the top of my list. There’s a reason Rippling and Stripe switched over.

We worked with their team to create an interactive demo page. You can check it out at: https://www.apollo.io/gtm

Almost all I hear these days is “we need to figure out how to best leverage AI in our sales process” and “how can we consolidate/simplify our tech stack.” With Apollo I believe you can accomplish both.” – Scott Barker

The GTM Podcast
Features conversations with the top 1% of tech executives, VCs, and founders – the experts who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories – revealing what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.

Before helping found GTMfund, Scott spent 4 years at Outreach as Director of Strategic Engagement. He was in charge of aligning key relationships with VCs, BoDs, ecosystem partners and community members to drive revenue and strategic initiatives across Outreach. Scott initially ran revenue/partnerships for Sales Hacker (which was acquired by Outreach in 2018). Prior to Sales Hacker, he led and built outbound Business Development teams at Payfirma and MediaValet. Scott also advises for a number of high growth start-ups and is the host/author of The GTM Podcast and The GTM Newsletter. At GTMfund, Scott leads all fundraising efforts and runs the media arm of the firm. He’s also responsible for assessing investments, team management, LP/community relationships and GTM support for founders.

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