Building for efficient growth - Pavilion’s honest growth journey & the real problem behind the short CRO tenure with Sam Jacobs

Most growth stories celebrate momentum, but very few actually share the behind-the-scenes of what happens when momentum stalls. In this Making The Grade episode, we’re joined by Sam Jacobs, Founder & CEO of Pavilion - the community built to give in-seat GTM leaders the peers, frameworks, and rooms they need to operate under real pressure. Sam takes us on a journey from the early days of Revenue Collective dinners to Pavilion’s Covid-era surge. But there’s no skipping the hard bits in this episode. Sam shares the painful consequences of growing too fast, loosening ICP, and chasing scale for growth’s sake.This is a rare, unfiltered conversation about what happens when your biggest strength gets diluted, and how you rebuild when churn becomes the signal you can’t ignore.No matter whether you’re a Founder currently building or a GTM Leader facing the various challenges the market throws at you, there’s endless practical advice in this episode, ready for you to apply straight away.  📚 Episode Chapters01:15 - Pavilion’s origin story 09:23 - Scaling mistakes & lost focus 19:08 - The short CRO tenure 22:20 - Building P&L Fluency for Revenue Leaders 29:00 - Sustainable GTM Strategies 39:34 - Planning for a successful exit ⛳ Mentioned in today’s episode: Pavilion: https://www.joinpavilion.com/Intro to P&L Fluency: https://www.joinpavilion.com/pavilion-university/intro-to-pl-fluency 🎧 Continue listening… Make sure you listen to What it really takes to win in the US - Honest lessons from Natalie Johnson Enjoyed today's episode of Making The Grade? If you took something valuable from the episode, we'd love for you to... ✔️ Leave us a rating and review on your favourite podcast platform. ✔️ Share your ideas or guest suggestions with us at [email protected]✔️ Stay in the loop with the latest from Making The Grade and ScaleWise by following us on LinkedIn or YouTube. See you again next week!