Fixing the Constraint Holding Back Your Startup Growth
Jackie Leahy
Jackie Leahy, founder of Activate the Magic, joins the Bridge the Gap podcast to unpack why most early-stage revenue problems are invisible on standard dashboards. She explains that CROs, naturally gifted at closing, often mistakenly focus on conversion rates when the real bottlenecks actually lie in top-of-funnel acquisition or post-sale onboarding and expansion. The conversation highlights the dangers of using AI to patch over broken fundamental processes instead of building solid structural foundations. Jackie emphasizes that before investing heavily in complex tools, companies must master the basics: documenting workflows, trusting their data, and adopting simple systems like HubSpot or even Google Sheets until operational pain forces an upgrade. Finally, the discussion dives into the rapidly shifting GTM tech landscape. Jackie and the hosts share hot takes on legacy tools, suggesting giants like Gong and ZoomInfo are losing ground to agile, AI-native alternatives like Common Room, Sybill, and Freckle. They also stress how the shift from seat-based to usage-based pricing models will define the next era of RevOps.
Discussed in this episode
- Why CROs falsely identify conversion as the main constraint due to their own expertise in closing deals.
- How Net Revenue Retention (NRR) can dangerously mask underlying Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) and churn issues.
- The three simplified stages of early-stage GTM: acquisition, conversion, and expansion.
- Why chaos is a natural byproduct of growth and the absence of 'dumpster fires' is a red flag.
- The risk of using AI prompts to patch over broken fundamental processes instead of building proper systems.
- When to hire a RevOps professional versus adding another Account Executive to the team.
- The shift from rigid, seat-based SaaS contracts to consumption and usage-based pricing models.
- Why legacy GTM platforms like Gong and ZoomInfo are losing ground to agile tools like Common Room and Sybill.
Episode highlights
- — Intro and Jackie's RevOps philosophy
- — Why CROs hyper-focus on conversion
- — How NRR masks Gross Revenue Retention
- — Conducting a new tech stack audit
- — AI limitations and the need for human RevOps
- — When a startup actually needs RevOps
- — The three core GTM fundamentals
- — Product vs. Sales-focused CEOs
- — Tech teardown: Common Room and Sybill
- — Debate: Are Gong and ZoomInfo dying?
- — Usage-based vs. seat-based pricing
- — Rapid fire questions
Key takeaways
- Fix your bottleneck before scaling volume.
- NRR often masks dangerous churn rates.
- Master fundamentals before deploying AI.
- Chaos is the glitter of growth.
- Usage-based pricing beats seat-based constraints.
Transcript
earn stage. It's about acquisition, getting a message out to the right people at the right time, getting them excited enough to hop on a call with you.
What's the very first thing that you look at an audit when you're stepping into a new revenue engine?
It's just so so necessary to take a step back and say, "Okay, what is actually my constraint here?" Welcome back to another episode of the Bridge the Gap podcast powered by Revenue Reimagined. Today's guest is the amazing, the incredible, the fantastic man, I'm hyping this up, Jackie Ley and Little Freddy. Um, Jackie is the founder of Activate the Magic where she helps CRO's bring certainty to their revenue engine. She works with scaling SAS companies to uncover hidden bottlenecks, fix misalignment across go to market, and build systems that actually support predictable growth. This episode is going to be why most revenue problems aren't visible in dashboards. What's really breaking inside GTM systems, how to fix the engine, not just the reporting, and a few sneak peeks from Freddy. Jackie, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me. And Freddy,
special guest. Freddy is on the show. Awesome. Super Freddy in in the artwork. Freddy might be part of the part of the program. Like, let's be let's be real here.
Clicks. If you want clicks, this little guy, man,
I love that. Um, super pumped to have you on the on the show because I think RevOps is like one of the fastest growing departments, places people need, and it's starting to go lower and lower from a like a revenue perspective. But one of the things you talk about a lot is that you can't fix what you can't see. And so you say most CRO are flying blind. What are they missing?
Okay. So it's it's not so much that they're missing, it's that they're hyperfocused, right? CRO's become CRO's because they're really good at closing deals. And so naturally they're just so passionate and so competent like overcompetent at the like mid to bottom of the funnel that any if if if you're a hammer everything looks right and so they're looking at a number and they're like let's close more deals. Very rarely though, I'm anything that I say it's like up to like 60 million, right? Above that, I have no idea what's going on, you guys. Uh, but up
I love that honesty.
Yeah, that's for somebody else. Um, but rarely is that going to be the constraint, right? So, I like to simplify the learning by design customer journey bow tie, which has seven segments. I like to just bring it down to three for early stage. Acquisition, conversion, and expansion. And so, CNOs love to hang out in the conversion, right? Like what turn whatever I get into cold hard cash. That's what that's what they do. They're really the constraint only because they're really good at it. Um, that's just not the hardest part about early stage. Early stage, it's about uh acquisition, getting a message out to the right people at the right time, getting them excited enough to hop on a call with you, right? And so it it's just so so necessary to take a step back and say, okay, what is actually my constraint here? It's like a hose. And so if I I've got a hose like both like in h like kinkedked in half, there might be little kinks over there or over there, but until you fix this, it doesn't matter. And I like so one of the things that I'm seeing a lot because we went through this growth at all cost world and they were so worried about MR AR bringing things in that GRR is suffering a lot and I don't think the a lot of founders CRO's CEOs are really understanding because they also have like this NR number so like NR is masking the churn turn ratio that's happening and I think I think the CRO's and CEOs of these companies have a better handle on the front end and as you were just saying bring as many people in as possible get them um get them in the funnel close them acquisition acquisition acquisition and then all of a sudden they go to get funding and the and now the investors are like well what's your GR look like and like they're under 85%. And then the cut the the investors are like, "Well, you're not you're not investable,
right?"
So, like where where's that shift from like the NR the ARM Mr world into like the GRR world because you do need topofunnel, but you also need to make sure you're retaining.
Yeah, exactly. Um this is why I like to on a quarterly basis um we always step back and see what the the key constraint is, right? And so if we've been fixing conversion a whole lot, I mean acquisition, conversion usually takes care of itself. Uh uh but acquis if we've been focusing on that all of a sudden that's no longer the that's no longer the constraint. What what might start becoming the glaring constraint is you're not getting people onboarded properly or uh you've got a accounts payable problem. That's that's a that's a that's a turn problem. That's a that's a retention expansion problem. um which one of one of the reasons I'm loving this new era of go to market is it's much less siloed I'm finding DTM becoming much less siloed um and our and our biggest impass is is usually with the finance so like connecting the finance so now that we're not siloed we have a better grasp around uh finishing that loop between okay is who we're onboarding are is it working are those people happy are they getting a ton of value and using that to inform acquisition again like so completing that loop um so yeah exactly so if I'm looking if it's 85% I'm I'm going to dig into what is going on are we us not doing a good job of onboarding. Um, can we just get quicker to that first impact? May maybe it's literally just like getting them to use it successfully because there's there's so everything's vying for our attention. So like one of our clients, she bought something months ago and she's like, I can't believe we haven't even gotten this implemented. It's like I I bet I bet right there's like a hundred million things going on. So, is it First impact? If it if is it onboarding? Is it just doing a better job about renewals? Um my suspicion though right now is because everyone is very like, I'll sample this, I'll try this, um I'll test it out, I'll test it out. So, they sign up with a credit card, uh, forget about it, and then all of a sudden the credit card expires or what have you. Um, and yeah, sure. And so, like,
or they just use a one-time use card and then it doesn't even matter.
Okay, Adam, with with the pro tips here. Uh, yeah, exactly. And so if you were just to look at the metrics, you'd be like, "Oh, we need to do two, three more deals."
So you just you you just said a lot of things, right? And I agree with all of them, but
you got to start somewhere. Um, and as someone who's in the, you know, fractional revop space, like you don't have the benefit of, you know, working full-time for a company, getting exposure to everything over years, like no one's calling you to say, hey, hey, it's similar to us. Hey, Jackie, everything's going great. I'd love to use Activate the magic. Like it it's usually the opposite. It's usually like, we have a problem. Someone left. We're brand new. We don't need full-time revop. Whatever it happens to be. What's the very first thing that you look at an audit when you're stepping into a new revenue engine? Like where do you start?
Yeah. So, we're going to do a sort of uh tech stack audit and just general um h what's happening acquisition, conversion, expansion. What what's the level of broken? What's the level of dumpster fires? Because chaos is the glitter of growth. And so if there's not dumpster fires everywhere, I'm more suspicious,
right? And so our job is to figure out where all they are. Also listen to the reps and the and people who are squawking. Okay, what I want to gather all of those inputs and then um both like hard cold hard facts, but also like the human input. Uh, and I want to take a step back and look at all those initiatives. And I want to rank them by the impact that it'll have if we focus on it. Um, what how much revenue will this unblock or unblock? Um, how confident are we that if we do this, it's going to happen and then ease how simple is it to make it happen. Right? So link on all those and then pick what is what is telling you to pick.
But can't can't I just put that in in a in a fancy cloud prompt. Like why do I need people for that?
You you kind of don't. I actually just published a GitHub skill.
I was trying to give you a layup to be like, "No, you can't just put this in a cloud prompt."
You can. No, you probably can, but people don't.
I mean, touche.
Yeah. Um, yeah. I actually published a skill. You can grab it. um to see whether your constraint is adjusted acquisition or conversion. Um but either via MCP enter HubSpot or any old CSV, it'll kind of like take you through. Um but yeah, it it might be hard to do if you don't have like a technical experience or like has seen for me to say because I've seen like hundreds.
Yeah, I mean listen, I I think there's good and bad with AI, right? Like full disclosure. So Dale and I spent an hour before this call like literally kne we're rebuilding our web Dale is re rebuilding our website um and like kneede in coding. Um I think he did a really good like it I think he did a really good job. Um like super impressed
but I think what's happening with AI right now and listen we're huge proponents of AI. I think everyone should be using it responsibly,
but what I'm seeing is I think people think, "Oh, I could just put a prompt in Cloud and fix all of my problems because AI is going to do it." And rather than whether it be Revenue Reimagined or Activate the Magic or hiring a full-time RevOps person or demand, whatever it is,
there are places for AI to replace, there are places for AI to accelerate. How are you guiding your clients on how to use AI properly versus, oh well, you don't need RevOps. You you just need to plug into Cloud and Cloud will be your RevOps. Because I'll tell you, if you're going to do that, pardon my French, you're going to [ __ ] your business.
But I do want to say like at the if you're just starting out, if you're like in the 0ero one world, go for it, right? like um when other people's money, other people's careers, job security start being on the line, it's it's time to be less cavalier about it. I would call I would I would characterize that as cavalier.
Um yeah,
that's a nicer way that's a nicer word than mine. And I think you know the the CERO that are that I see that are winning and just building momentum and actually like joyful when I talk to them um they really respect the revenue engine as as our overlord right it's uh it's you know process over heroics um all the things that revops have been screaming about in on LinkedIn for you know a decade But
so when when does someone need revops? So we we've run across this a lot, right? And we we work with companies call it from five to 100 plus. And it amazes me the size of companies that don't have revops. Like $50 million ARR company that we're working with, zero revops. Like I I don't understand. When is the right time to stand up a RevOps function? Here's something I keep seeing with sales teams I work with. Generic sequences don't work anymore. We've all gotten so good at turning out the noise that even your own buyers are ignoring you. The problem isn't your reps. It's that your sequences are static and your signals are somewhere else entirely. That's why our clients use Nooks. And the thing that stuck with me is that their sequences actually stay fresh because the signals update them automatically. Right buyer, right moment with no manual babysitting. If your outbound feels like it's shouting into a void, go check them out at nooks.ai/bridgeidge the gap.
Um, again, this is for early stage. I encourage people to just use air uh air table or Google sheets. Have your Google Sheets empire until you you are actually experiencing the pain of systems and process not being there, right? Um then it's time. It's time. Yeah. I mean hopefully you're getting nops looking at stuff before that, but let's be real. Like it's not it's not Yeah. So
can't can't hear you, Dale.
Yeah. I I think people are um it's funny because we're we're working with another client and there's a there was a conversation like do we hire revops or do we hire another AE, right? And it's like because once again back to the initial conversation we're having, let's just put more people, more volume, more top of funnel. Like we'll fix the rest of it. But then like you open up their HubSpot, nothing's in HubSpot. there's no process where there's no renewal pipeline like and then there's a there's a conversation of like why is this happening? It's like well and I think there's a um right wrong or indifferent. I think there's a mentality of like that's just busy work and like there's other things that need to get done but like doing a visual chart doing a process flow doing like
you are missing so many parts of what is actually happening in your overall process and then you can actually decide whether you should be using AI or not because not everything is AI enabled
and so if you break it down into like it's fundamental processes like go to market
if you want a solid go market execution strategy. Do the fundamentals really, really good. I know it's super boring. It's like, oh, put it in HubSpot. Oh, create a dashboard. Oh, trust your data. Like, if you do those three things, like the rest of it, you can build on top of, but if you can't do those three things, you're just wasting money.
That's a take. Um,
that that sounded like I disagree with you, Dale.
I I agree with you, right? But we're not in academia.
Sure.
So, I think I'm just so much of a like a realist that it's not going to happen.
Why why why can we not why can we not like stop for a minute and be like, "Okay, let's document the process. Let's understand what that looks like. Let's agree on what the stages are between everything. Let's agree with what the entrance and exit criteria are
because GRR is important to us because getting the right ICP clients into our process the back end of Bow Tai is important to us.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it starts at the top like if you have that sales leader who is responsible and has been through it before then yes they're they're going to approach it
like you are. um who I'm seeing as the sales leader at earlier stage is not that person yet.
Okay.
Um and so honestly I just want them to
and maybe it's not the CRO by the way. Maybe it's like starting even further at the top and it's the CEO that's not me.
CEO. Yeah. I you know I encounter a lot of product
right
oriented uh or engineering
uh CEOs and it is just
um even if they do they're like okay we do need it and we'll do this huge thing it is amazing what we do and it's just like okay so what um
who's who's who's harder to work with Jackie an engineering CEO or a sales CEO
harder to work with
yeah from Revs person an engineering CEO harder. Yeah, unless unless it's not user usually a 22year-old who just graduated from MIT.
I mean touche,
right? So if it's
who who who founded their company and they know everything
a minute ago. They're not anything. They're just a they're just a small child.
I we we we work with like we've worked with both like very product focused CEOs and very sales focused CEOs. I personally find the sales and I'm curious Dale's thought. We've actually never talked about this. I find the sales CEOs to be harder to work with because they're more resistant in my opinion to advice because they're sales CEOs and they know how to sell and like you're you're like what are you telling me? Like I'm a sales CEO where the product ones I feel like are listen I pay you to tell me how to build go to market like tell me how to build go to market. rare exceptions, but I I remember one very very very vividly, and Dale will know who I'm talking about, where I feel like every single piece of advice it was like, "No, that's not going to work." Or, "No, I want to do this or like,
yeah,
dude, then what? Why am I here?"
Yes.
Well, that's the thing. And that I think that's on us to sort of pressure test and be like, "Listen,
100%.
You're not in enough pain to listen to me. So,
go against that brick wall a couple more times and come back when you're crying and then we'll talk.
Well, it's it's like
it's like we tell a lot of our like even the product CEOs. I I was just talking to somebody the other day today and and I was saying I never wanted to be like the first CRO in the door because I knew like you're going to run into all sorts of issues. In fact, I didn't want to be the second, maybe even not the third because like by the time you're getting to that place of like hitting your head against the wall like you're saying you're like okay now I'm going to listen to somebody that and it's not that they don't understand like go to market the challenge is go to market is changing so quickly and you just cannot have you don't have enough bandwidth or time to understand the products that are coming out the changes that are happening like am I using claude am I using GPT am I using this wrapper that's on top of cloud like it's just creating so much stir and world that I think like you would have to do it full-time all the time.
Yeah.
Um to be successful and if you don't have like a GTM engineer or a RevOps person that kind of understands this is very difficult um to comprehend because what worked 12 months ago is not working anymore.
Dude, what worked 12 days ago doesn't work anymore. Like it changes so fast.
Yeah. Well, first principles stay the same though, right? Go interrupt people's days and start a conversation, right? That's
Yeah, but it's it but it's harder and harder to do that. That's the problem is like,
yeah,
listen, we we all, you know, have titles in our LinkedIn that make us nonimmune to the outreach of having our days interrupted to have conversations started. And h
how often does something break through the noise that you're and and I will tell you I've
we've bought lots of things from cold calls over the past 3 years, but how often does something really break through the noise that it's like, "Oh, I'm willing to read this or listen to this."
And now with Gmail's new filters, like you're lucky if it even gets to you.
No. Yeah. Exactly. But what what I will counter with is we have this whole crop of AI native companies that are growing 20% month over month.
Yeah. So
yeah,
I'm seeing them the the fastest growing companies are actually um via like some sort of marketplace or partner resell um is what I'm seeing
because they can really get to Yeah. They're they're stacking the big Legos rather than the tiny little one one little piece Lego. They got the big Yeah.
And that's how you win.
That's how you win. And so it's happening. Um, and like it used to be triple triple double double double. Now it's like 10x or go away for funding. It's it's it's real. It's real. And like as as a consultant, as a like I have 10 people relying on who we bring in and right like so I kind of have to have a bias for who we partner with as well.
We have to as well. And and I'll tell you like you know the AI native thing sounds super cool and it sounds super like interesting but we've worked with AI native companies and like it's difficult to get support things don't work oh just ask the bot it's like okay like that works to a certain point but like at scale with clients like it works with the early adopters like they want to tinker they want to play they're okay with things failing but when you're getting into organizations that are call it 10 million ARR like they don't want to be tinkering and playing around with things like they want things to work and what I've noticed in 26 25 was a lot of tinkering 26 people are like AI is a thing it's going to stay here it's here to happen but if you don't have a real story around and how you're going to show me how you're going to execute like yeah I may try your product but I'm not going to be in it for the long
and they're all like overlapping like the amount of techn technology at the AI native world is like it's because this this the simpler things are becoming very easy to replicate and so they're making it I don't know I I I find similar products coming out to the market all the time and I'm like okay this is like the same thing with like a bit of a different twist to it.
Yeah. So, are you biased towards companies and orgs that aren't trying to just be the cheaper or easier replacement for X, but using that as like um what was your entry fee? Right. Of course, we're doing that, but we're actually going to go further further than you could um before. Right? So in and even in internal processes and stuff like if I'm just replacing something with an AI but doing the same thing like I'm doing a disservice like how like let's one here. Yeah.
Who's doing it who's doing it really well?
Um
what are you in love with right now?
What am I in love with? Oh text wise.
Yeah.
Oh my god. Um I love Common Room big time. um they have a really good job at um identity resolution and it had like and you put into it your ICP and your personas and everything like that. So it's got that I the biggest problem with AI right now is like like containering and in organizing the data um and aiming certain things at different things. Did that make sense? Anyway, um but having but I find myself putting the same things in again and again again and then a scale. Okay. Like I'm at a scale but like one anyway uh but they do a really good job of having all those things and they it's like uh it's already pre-trained for those specific things that you need in sales. So I love that. Um another one that I am absolutely loving it's civil. S Y B I L L. Um it's sort of like it's everything
conversational intelligence. It's everything you wanted gong to be.
Yeah, that that's I I I I won't rain on your parade. I I that's a space that's near and dear to my heart. Um I think Cibil does some things I I agree with you in
everything you wanted Gong to be. I think I used to be the biggest Gong fan. I want to be careful here. I used to be the biggest Gong fanboy on the planet. It was my dream company. I wanted to work for them more than anything else. And I think they are the OGs of what great marketing looks like and no one could ever take that away from them. Devin Reed built an incredible brand. I think the product
I'm sorry
Chris Orla. Got to get
Yeah. Chris Orla, Udy, all of them. Um, the product was the best thing ever.
Um, I think there are so many better alternatives out there right now. And I I will take a lot of [ __ ] for this from the gong haters. I don't care. I've said it publicly for a long time. Spending money on gong is a fool's game right now in my opinion and I will die on that hill.
Yeah,
sorry Dale. It might cost us a sponsor or two here or there, but
yeah, I'm uh I'm not owned, so I will say Gong is absolutely cooked. Zoom Info's days are numbered. Um
Oo, that's a hot take. That's a very hot take. Um interesting one. So Zoom Info's days are numbered. I I go back and forth on this. So I I think data is a commodity. Um I think data is a dime a dozen. I think there are so many places to get it cheaper and better and we do like I'm in love with Freckle right now. I'm in love with Orange Slice right now. Um neither of which use Zoom. I think Zoom Info is trying to do better. They brought over Molly Bowdensteiner to leave their rev red revops and she is one of my favorite human beings on the planet. Um, but the product itself, I think what they're trying to do, sadly, might be too late. I think had they done it a year ago, um, fantastic, but like what they're trying to do now is like I I don't know. And they're really [ __ ] expensive.
Exactly. And even clay is outdated at this point.
Now, that's a really hot take. Um, tell me tell me more about that. My issue with clay, why I went freckle versus clay, is I just I feel you need a master's degree to understand clay and you have to be so dedicated to it. Where freckle does arguably the same and I was able to pick it up in 27 minutes.
Oh man, I think you're going to have to show me freckle after this because
yeah, would love to
not a sponsor, not paid. I genuinely like the product.
Yeah, say like I I actually am sort of sponsored by Clay, but
Oops.
Oops. Um, uh, I haven't they haven't talked to me in a while, but sometime sometimes like $900 ends up in my PayPal. Um,
not really.
I I I I would like 900 bucks in my PayPal.
So, I'm not not really sure what that is, but um, no, it's like you said, it's it's it's really difficult. Like the loan cap is really high. the the Carl stud mistakes is like outrageous like uh and it's just it's slow like I don't have to try to update things it's like hello like I'll come back in later it's like oh like yeah we were doing that like
wake up
but but this this is the problem with technology like let's go back to what we just spoke about about how quickly AI is changing hi Freddy and what tools to use um 6 months ago and listen I still think clay is a great product but it has its it has its place but 6 months ago like clay clay clay clay like we're sitting here talking about alternatives and this is why I think number one certainly us at RR and everyone I know is hesitant to sign a one two god forbid three-year contract with anyone
um number two why seatbased pricing is getting trumped by usage based pricing while I think it's very hard to implement Dale and I were just talking about this this morning with Digital Ocean. Like, I'll pay for consumption. Like, if I'm using it, it's absolutely cheaper than going and hiring a person. But what I don't want to do is say, "Well, we have three seats. I have to pay for three seats." I just got a renewal for Lucid Chart this morning. Dale doesn't even know this yet. And they want to raise our price. And my my question to myself is, "What's our alternative?" Because I'm not willing to give them the price increase they want.
No. Luc L Lucid guys. Oh, no. Not you guys, but Lucid, if
No. No. No, I I I I hear you. There there's so many things and technology is moving so fast and this they all tie directly into RevOps and techstack. Um
and look at like you have you have cloud design, you have Google coming out with design stuff like
you know that um
ClickUp like these project management tools like you can vibe code a project management tool that can do exactly what you want because the challenge with some of these bigger products is like they try to be everything to everybody because they have investors and you have to keep going and building them out. However, like I here's a hot take. I actually even think CRM is going to go away. Like I think people are going to start building their own CRM and they're going to build it to spec for what they need it for and then they're going to move. Like when you get a real good RevOps GPM engineer, like who's going to be paying HubSpot and Salesforce and like all these people $150 a user? Like that's scary to people when you are going to start growing stuff and then you're like now I got to configure it and I got I got to hire a consultant to to build it out and blah blah blah.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think um I I can only speak for like three month increments at this point but um eventually yeah
I'm with you. Yeah, eventually, yeah, CRM are will be disrupted. Um, but not yet. Not yet. Um, I think and I'm I'm still telling people to go with either Salesforce or HubSpot.
Fantastic to play with, but like if you're actually building an organization, it's not ready for prime time. Um, and yeah. Yeah. And like but you can but should you is the question. Like there's
I don't know. I I I am wondering why is Salesforce cost so much and why I can configure every single little button that I and then I got to buy other technology to do what Salesforce is supposed to do.
Like listen listen I Mark Ben off is making Salesforce very hard to defend or even like at this point. My name is Jackie. Techstack is my love language. I get emotionally attached to technology. Like some of some of the heat I have for Zoom Info is because of who they are as a company.
So I'm I'm I'm going to pause here. Here here's here's what I'd love to do because sadly we're running up on time. I would love to do a whole 45 to 60 minute tech stack tearown with with you. Honestly, hands to God because this is my love language too. Um Dale could join. I I'm very curious Dale's opinion, but he's going to be like, "Adam does that. Adam does that. Adam does that." Although there are certain things he has very strong opinions on. I think that would be a fantastic episode. No direct, but like very real cuz I agree with you. A lot of it isn't just what you build. It's who the f you are as a company. Yeah.
Um so I I'm totally game for this.
Look at us over the last 20 years. I mean like if you if if you think renewal or compliance is loyal. No. No. We're I'm I'm actually counting down the days. Like
what? What you mean? If you don't renew, you have to delete all of our data from your system unless you were smart enough to know that you had to exclude that clause.
No. One of my clients at the
And we'll sue you for it.
Yeah. She was sued. She was the company was sued. They do that. Like people say, "Oh, it's just a No.
Oh, no.
I I know. I know fractional people who have worked for them who have been sued. Okay, we've got to go to rapid fire otherwise we are going to go on a total tangent. We will schedule a 45 to 60 minute techstack podcast only. Um I love it. All right, let's move to rapid fire. What is the most misleading gotomarket metric that people obsess about?
MQLs.
[ __ ] yeah.
What do you mean is an MQL?
I hate that term. Harder problem, visibility or execution?
Wait, say that again.
Harder of problem, visibility or execution?
Visibility.
What's one tool companies rely on too much
or type of tool if we don't want to name like a
Oh, like a like a sales engagement platform.
Cool. Agree.
Um, one thing you'd fix in most staff companies the SDR to AE handoff
and and AE to and CS like same same.
No, they don't they don't let us do that. Like CS is just ignored. Like
Jackie, what what's one habit that builds go to market clarity?
Shamelessness. M
like own the f up. Like own it. Be like, "Oh, that was me. That did not work. What are we trying to do now?" I see people like 10 toes down digging graves because they made some weird decision a year ago and it's like, "Buddy,
I just I broke I broke something at a client the other day and like it really broke something and I was like, "Listen, I did it. I'll fix it, but stop searching. It was me."
Yeah. Yeah. I will I will fully own my fups because it it makes us better.
Yeah.
Well, it makes you human as well. Um, last one as we wrap this up. Dream vacation destination.
I don't go to Fiji.
Fiji. My daughter keeps telling me to go to the Maldes because they're going to be underwater soon. Should they?
Oh, it's the other place. The Sey Shells.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah. Maybe we should do a RR ATM um retreat
and talk about tech stack.
Yeah. Yeah.
Do a do a pterodon in the maldi.
I'm game. I love it. Jackie Ley activate the magic. Where can people learn to go more about ATM?
I am very fun on LinkedIn. Uh Jackie uh LinkedIn.com in uh it's just Jackie Linhy. J a c i l e a h y. Uh, and if you're in Pavilion or Women in Revenue or Operators Guild, I am in those Slacks. I live and breathe in those Slack orgs. So, you can find me there, too.
Awesome. Thanks for joining the show.
Thank you.