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 $200 million in revenue. He is joined in this special edition podcast episode by Max Altschuler, Founder and General Partner of GTMfund. Discussed in this Episode:The fallacy of "what got you here won't get you there" in revenue leadership.The current state of sales technology and its impact on buyer engagement.The vision for Operator and how it aims to revolutionize the sales process.The importance of personalization and relevance in sales outreach.Strategies for breaking through the noise and attracting buyers into conversations.Highlights:(1:35) Mark's journey from Outreach to founding Operator.(4:33) Challenging the notion of constantly changing leadership in growing companies.(10:00) The problem with current sales automation and AI strategies.(20:25) The concept of "the great ignore" in sales messaging.(24:11) How Operator aims to change the day-to-day activities of salespeople.(37:47) The importance of creativity, connection, and focus in sales.(45:48) One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Mark thinks is bull$***.(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: 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/gtmAlmost 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 BarkerThe GTMnow Podcast The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.