Welcome to the Revenue Builders podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and executives. Hosted by Five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management’s Co-Founder John Kaplan, the show goes in the barrel, behind the scenes with the people who have been there, done that and seen the results. Revenue Builders covers the best practices for scaling and growing your business, while sharing the pitfalls to avoid. Great conversation. Solid interviews. Tangible takeaways to help you succeed. If you enjoy our content, please subscribe, rate and review the show to help us reach more people. This show is brought to you by: Force Management where we help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Check out forcemanagement.com more information.
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October 25, 202612 min
Why Performance Comes Before Promotion with Mark Thurmond
The next leadership opportunity is rarely earned by chasing a title, compensation package, or predetermined timeline. Mark Thurmond explains how consistent execution, continuous learning, and the ability to attract trusted people create career momentum that compounds over time, giving revenue leaders a more durable way to evaluate their next move. Mark Thurmond is Co-Chief Executive Officer of Tenable, where he oversees the company’s go-to-market functions across sales, marketing, customer success, professional services, and technical support. His career includes senior operating and sales leadership roles at EMC, RSA, Qlik, and Turbonomic. Connect with Mark: LinkedIn Listen to the full episode: The Hard Moments That Build a CEO with Mark Thurmond Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management . We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedIn YouTube Force Management
October 22, 20261 hr 4 min
Why Enterprise AI Agents Struggle to Reach Production with Open Source Pioneer Ben Sabrin
Enterprises have poured money into AI, and most of it is still doing research. The return comes when agents start taking action inside real systems, and that’s where most companies get stuck. If no one can say who authorized an agent to take a specific action, across specific systems, at a specific time, that agent never leaves the pilot. Arcade, fresh off a $60 million raise, was built to answer that question. Ben Sabrin, an open source pioneer who built early sales teams at JBoss and MongoDB, leads its go-to-market. He explains what it takes to sell a category this new, why repeatability has to come before scale, and how he runs his own sales team on AI. Ben Sabrin is the GTM Lead at Arcade.dev and a former CRO at ngrok and ScaleFT who has spent more than 20 years building early sales teams at companies including JBoss, MongoDB, and Okta. Connect with Ben: LinkedIn Arcade Resources mentioned: Wall Street Journal article on Arcade’s $60M to Secure AI Agents The Sales Learning Curve, Mark Leslie and Charles Holloway, Harvard Business Review SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham Reo.Dev Sumble Lemlist Key takeaways from this episode: 00:00 - Why an AI agent has to be taught the shaky finger a human feels before pressing delete all. 03:19 - The one question every enterprise has to answer before an AI agent is trusted to act. 12:40 - What leaders often overlook about selling into a platform shift, and why asking buyers to rebuild their governance would have been dead on arrival. 23:00 - A look inside the week Arcade nearly launched a rival to MCP, and the promise OpenAI asked for first. 27:52 - What it really takes to hire sellers when your product does nothing until someone builds on top of it. 42:37 - Why scaling a sales team before repeatability quietly sets the CRO up to fail. 44:29 - Ben Sabrin’s perspective on letting AI coach his reps, and the pricing model he built with Claude in a single day. Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management . We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedIn YouTube Force Management
October 18, 202612 min
Why Better Technology Does Not Win Hyperscaler Partnerships with Alan Chhabra
Strong technology alone does not earn access to a hyperscaler. Partner leaders must understand the company’s internal products, supply dependencies, power structure, and competing priorities before they can build an agreement that gains support. In this segment, Alan Chhabra explains how Cerebras aligned its offering with AWS Trainium, why complementary architectures can overcome internal resistance, and how political judgment and organizational mapping help leaders build champions inside complex partner accounts. Alan Chhabra is the Executive Vice President of Worldwide Partnerships at Cerebras Systems, where he leads global partner expansion across hyperscalers and the broader AI ecosystem. He previously spent nearly a decade building MongoDB’s global partner network and held senior leadership roles at BMC Software. Connect with Alan: LinkedIn Other Revenue Builders episodes with Alan: The Ideal Partnership with Alan Chhabra Listen to the full episode: Why Partner Leaders Must Master the AI Landscape with Alan Chhabra Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management . We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedIn YouTube Force Management
October 15, 20261 hr 11 min
The Inner Game Most Sales Leaders Never Coach with Collin Henderson
Most sales leaders coach the outer game: pipeline, routing plans, pricing, KPIs. That’s maybe 15 percent of performance. The rest sits under the surface in self-doubt, fear of other people’s opinions, and the stories reps tell themselves about who they are. Collin Henderson was a two-sport Division I athlete who developed a stutter at 11 and once pre-recorded his answers to a pharma sales evaluation, so he knows what happens when that layer goes untrained. In this one, he breaks down why talent plus skill minus internal interference equals execution, and walks through the three-step influence system from his book The Oz Method. Collin Henderson is a mental performance coach, keynote speaker, and founder of Master Your Mindset, LLC who has trained teams at Nike, Amazon, Microsoft, and Salesforce, and shares how to connect with him and get his new book, The Oz Method, at the end of the episode. Connect with Collin: LinkedIn Instagram Website Resources mentioned: The Oz Method by Collin Henderson The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine Emotional Agility by Susan David Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller Toastmasters International Key takeaways from this episode: 00:00 - Why leaders who only coach the business side are training two of the three things that drive performance. 05:24 - The equation Collin uses to explain execution, and the one variable most sales organizations never train. 10:28 - A look inside the stutter Collin hid from teammates, managers, and customers for more than a decade. 21:22 - What it really takes to spot the fear holding you back when you can’t name it yet. 37:34 - Why worrying about your next line quietly pulls you out of the customer conversation. 49:03 - Collin’s perspective on why the first step of influence takes the pressure to perform off the seller. 1:01:00 - What leaders often overlook about storytelling, and how a buyer’s own words make a story stick. Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management . We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedIn YouTube Force Management
October 11, 202613 min
Tools to Perform Under Pressure with Mental Performance Coach Greg Poss
Pressure often takes over before a leader realizes it. In this segment, former professional hockey coach and mental performance coach Greg Poss explains how shallow breathing, frustration, and blame can reveal a shift into what he calls a lower-brain state. He shares a simple breathing practice for restoring focus, outlines the structure behind his 21-day training program, and explains why accountability begins with asking what needs to change in your own execution. Greg Poss spent decades coaching professional hockey in the United States and Europe, including leading the Mannheim Eagles to a championship and coaching the German national team. He now works with athletes, coaches, and business leaders to strengthen mental resilience and improve performance under pressure. Connect with Greg: LinkedIn Website Resources mentioned: The Peter Attia Drive Podcast, Ep. #399 ‒ The evolution of Alzheimer's disease and dementia care: how early detection, personalized treatment, new therapies, and a multimodal approach are changing the landscape | Gayatri Devi, M.D. Greg Poss's 21-Day Brain Training Program Other Revenue Builders appearances: ”The Most Important Reward Is The Process” with Greg Poss Listen to the full episode: Training for Pressure with Greg Poss Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management . We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedIn YouTube Force Management
October 8, 20261 hr 5 min
Why Risk Takers Build the Most with Doug Holladay, Author of Rethinking Success
Many leaders spend their careers chasing a scoreboard someone else set. It works until the how stops working, and nobody ever trained them on the why. This conversation picks up our Rethinking Success series dissecting the definition of success and failure for yourself while inviting real risk into your life. John McMahon connects a study of high school valedictorians to the sellers who win complex enterprise deals, and John Kaplan opens up about how fear of failure shaped his own path. Doug Holladay explains why the people who embrace setbacks build the most, and how leaders can start examining their own story before a crisis forces it. Doug Holladay is the founder & CEO of PathNorth, a Georgetown MBA professor, a former Goldman Sachs senior officer and White House Special Ambassador, and the author of Rethinking Success: Eight Essential Practices for Finding Meaning in Work and Life . Connect with Doug: LinkedIn Website Resources mentioned: Rethinking Success by Doug Holladay Lives of Promise by Karen Arnold The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson Swagger by Jimmy Johnson Cradles of Eminence by Victor and Mildred Goertzel Johannes Haushofer's CV of Failures Die Broke by Stephen Pollan and Mark Levine Episodes mentioned: Forgiveness as a Leadership Advantage with Doug Holladay, Author of Rethinking Success Key takeaways from this episode: 00:00 - Why the most accomplished parents shield their kids from the exact hardship that made them great 06:43 - What leaders often overlook about the scoreboard they never chose to play to 19:13 - Why straight-A valedictorians so rarely become the standouts in their field 27:27 - John McMahon's perspective on which seller profile wins long enterprise deals, and which one quietly falls behind 33:13 - A look inside the 1962 study of 400 eminent people and the thread most of them shared 46:59 - The mistake many leaders make when they call a meeting to find answers after losing a big client 54:08 - What it really takes to know which version of yourself shows up each morning Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management . We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedIn YouTube Force Management
October 4, 202611 min
Territory Planning with Meghan Gill: Data-Driven Operational Cadence for Q4 & 2027
Most organizations structure territory planning around guesswork and political compromise. But Meghan Gill learned at MongoDB that territory strategy starts with operational discipline. In this clip, she walks through how to build field operations that run the operational cadence on the ground, structure territories so leaders have real data to work with, and use centralized dashboards to enable smart decisions at scale. If you're heading into Q4 or finalizing 2027 territory and resource allocation, this is the actionable framework your sales leadership needs. Meghan Gill was employee #8 and the first GTM hire at MongoDB, where she scaled sales operations alongside the company's journey from pre-revenue to a $2 billion public company. Today she advises growth and early-stage companies on sales, marketing, and revenue operations strategy through Ansa Capital and independent consulting. Connect with Meghan: LinkedIn Resources mentioned: Download the CRO Strategy Checklist Watch Force Management’s Panel Discussion on AI in Sales Leadership Listen to the full episode: Scaling Sales Operations with Meghan Gill Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management . We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedIn YouTube Force Management
October 1, 20261 hr 13 min
Why Deals Don't Close: Anne Gary's Framework for Discovery, Champions & Economic Buyers
Most deals die quietly in discovery, champion development, or economic buyer misalignment. But what actually separates consistent closers from perpetual stallers? In this replay, Anne Gary sits down with John McMahon and John Kaplan to reveal the blind spots in your sales process – and the coaching framework your leadership team needs before you finalize your 2027 plan. From preparation rituals to multi-threading strategy to navigating proof of value, Anne walks through the entire deal architecture that most teams get wrong. Anne Gary is Managing Director at Force Management and a member of the founding team of the MEDDPICC qualification methodology. She's spent 25+ years coaching thousands of sales professionals and leaders on building repeatable, predictable deal strategies across Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startups. Connect with Anne: LinkedIn Key takeaways from this episode: 00:00 - Why Anne returns for a third time with one question every revenue leader should answer 03:41 - What really takes to connect feature conversations to business impact 11:42 - Why metrics during discovery reveal everything about your team's coaching gaps 19:02 - What leaders overlook about earning trust before champions emerge 32:57 - Why multi-threading quietly becomes your deal insurance policy 39:54 - A look inside how deal patterns expose your sales methodology 46:33 - What economic buyers need that most sellers never provide 54:46 - The POV mistake that looks strategic until your deal stalls 01:02:39 - Why momentum shifts when your coaching approach changes Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management . We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedIn YouTube Force Management
September 27, 20269 min
Why The Best Salespeople Stop Jumping (And It's Not the Money) with Sam Costello
The war on talent isn't won by matching OTE. Sam Costello knows this and in this segment, breaks down his evolved interviewing approach -- separating stories from facts, owning the dialogue -- and explains why candidates actually stay long-term. It comes down to rare ingredients most companies never get right. Sam Costello is CRO at Harness, where he's spent 7.5 years scaling the platform from sub-$1M to $100M ARR. He interviews ~400 candidates annually and partners closely with co-leader Carlos to build what he calls an 'execution machine', recruiting elite talent, running disciplined sales processes, and developing a culture of radical candor and coachability. Connect with Sam: LinkedIn Listen to the full episode: Why Great CROs Stop Managing Numbers and Start Building Systems Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management . We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedIn YouTube Force Management
September 24, 202635 min
Why Your Reps Leave SKOs No Better Equipped to Sell with John McMahon and John Kaplan
Most SKOs are packed with inspiration and breadth – 30 topics, motivational speakers, CEO talks – but when reps walk out on Monday, they don't know what's different. In this episode, John McMahon and John Kaplan break down how to build an SKO that actually answers the question reps need answered: what do I need to do differently tomorrow? Key takeaways from this episode: 00:00 – Why inspiration without execution quietly kills your SKO momentum 02:50 – What it really takes to focus your training on what actually moves the needle 03:09 – Why reps tune out when you forget to tie it back to deal-winning 04:52 – The mistake many CROs make when they cram 30 days of content into 3 days 05:51 – How to build an SKO that sticks beyond the first week back 28:22 – Why manager training isn't optional, it's the entire ballgame 30:23 – What leaders often overlook about reinforcing new behaviors after SKO 30:43 – A look inside why your best sellers challenge weak product messaging 34:55 – How showing what elite looks like changes everything for your team Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management . We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedIn YouTube Force Management
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