Beyond Revenue – Narratives of Revenue Leaders [with Michael Jäger]

20 minutes. One GTM leader. Real wins, real fails, zero filler.Beyond Revenue is the weekly show for B2B leaders who want practical insight from the people actually in the arena, across sales, marketing, RevOps, and the C-suite. Host Michael Jäger keeps it honest and specific so you leave every episode with at least one thing worth trying.Like what you hear? Follow the show, share it with your team, and leave us a rating ✨Want to submit a guest speaker request or be invited on the show yourself? Get in touch at: beyondrevenue@cremanski.com

Beyond Revenue – Narratives of Revenue Leaders [with Michael Jäger] is a business podcast hosted by Michael, with 70 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Michael hosts Beyond Revenue – Narratives of Revenue Leaders [with Michael Jäger], a business show with 70 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #16

  From CFO to CEO: How Financial Thinking Shapes Better SaaS Leadership - with Rut Steinsen

  Aug 13, 202619 minS3

  How does a CFO think differently when they become CEO? Rut Steinsen, CEO of SimplyBook.me, joins Michael Jäger to discuss how financial discipline, operational efficiency, and long-term strategic thinking influence leadership in a growing SaaS company. Having started her journey as CFO before stepping into the CEO role, Rut shares practical lessons on scaling teams, aligning departments, measuring what matters, and making better decisions with a financial lens. In this episode: ✌️ Win #1 — Data-driven marketing allocation: how SimplyBook.me used performance measurement to identify that Google Search dramatically outperformed Display campaigns and reallocated budget accordingly. ✌️ Win #2 — AI-powered customer support: how an in-product AI assistant reduced support demand while helping customers discover and use more of the platform's 70+ features. Fail — Voice booking before its time: why SimplyBook.me launched voice-based appointment booking years before AI made the experience intuitive, and what they learned about timing innovation to market readiness. Whether you're a SaaS founder, CEO, CFO, operator, or revenue leader, this episode offers a practical framework for combining financial thinking with strategic leadership to build a more resilient business. Connect with Rut: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rutsteinsen/ SimplyBook.me: https://simplybook.me ️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday. ⏱️ Episode Timestamps 00:00 — Intro & Rut's background 01:13 — Transitioning from CFO to CEO 03:05 — Finance and strategy in SaaS leadership 04:51 — Banking lessons applied to company building 05:54 — Workshop-driven strategy and team ownership 09:23 — Win #1: Google Search vs Display advertising 12:04 — Win #2: AI assistant for customer support 14:02 — The fail: launching voice booking too early 15:46 — Key lessons for SaaS operators 18:38 — Where to connect with Rut

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  Episode #15

  The Modern Sales Leader: Scaling Revenue Through Culture, EQ and Internal Alignment — with Crevan O'Malley

  Aug 6, 202635 minS3

  You can have the best pipeline methodology in the market. If your culture is broken, it won't matter. Crevan O'Malley , VP Upmarket Sales and MD EMEA at HubSpot — leading 2,700+ people across mid-market, corporate, and channel — joins Michael Jäger to unpack what it takes to build a high-performing sales organisation when the market is harder, procurement cycles are longer, and the noise has never been louder. In this episode: ✌️ Win #1 — Pipeline hygiene as a leadership discipline: why a clean pipeline beats an optimistic one every time, and how to build a team culture where deals get called honestly, not carried on hope. ✌️ Win #2 — Signal over noise: how staying genuinely close to customer conversations (even as a senior leader) gives you better insight than any dashboard. Fail — When leadership gets in the way: the hard reflection on how good intentions — more reviews, more sessions — can sometimes become a tax on the people doing the actual selling. If you lead a sales team or run a GTM motion, this episode gives you a sharp, honest look at the leadership behaviours that drive real performance, from someone doing it at scale. Connect with Crevan: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crevanomalley/ HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com ️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday. ⏱️ Episode timestamps 0:00 — Intro & Crevan's background 3:00 — What modern B2B sales demands right now 7:30 — The human side of change management in technology adoption 12:00 — Trust as infrastructure in the agentic era 17:00 — HubSpot's open-by-design platform strategy 20:30 — Win #1: Pipeline hygiene as a leadership discipline 25:00 — Win #2: Signal over noise 29:00 — Fail: when leadership gets in the way 32:00 — Key takeaways & cross-functional alignment 36:30 — Where to find Crevan

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  Episode #14

  Marketing Brain, Revenue Seat - with Nick Geurds | Beyond Revenue S.3 Ep. 14

  Jul 30, 202620 minS3

  Most CROs came up through sales. Nick Geurds came up through marketing and built revenue engines most sales leaders can't replicate. Nick Geurds, CRO at Datamaran and former CCO at Lepaya (7→40M ARR), joins Michael Jäger to unpack what happens when a marketer carries the number. The edge it creates. The blind spots it hides. And the costly ICP mistake that took over a year to recover from. In this episode: ✌️ Win #1 — The signal-driven ABM engine: how Nick built one of the first scalable, personalised ABM programmes across 3,000+ named accounts — before AI made it easy — and watched close rates climb from 15% to 30%+. ✌️ Win #2 — Unbundling a $250K suite: how Nick cut sales cycles from 9 months to sub-3 months by going land and expand — and had the tense board conversation to prove it was worth it. Fail — The ICP expansion that looked like growth: why moving from enterprise to mid-market at Lepaya generated four months of record bookings — then triggered a retention crisis that redirected the entire team away from new business. If you're scaling a revenue motion and wondering whether your ICP is built to last or just built to close fast, this episode is for you. Connect with Nick: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickgeurds/ Datamaran: https://www.datamaran.com ️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday. ⏱️ Episode Timestamps 00:00 — Intro & Nick's background 01:07 — What's keeping Nick up at night at Datamaran 02:32 — What pulled a CMO into the CRO seat 03:45 — Selling ESG software in one sentence 05:18 — What nobody warned Nick about 08:27 — Win #1: The signal-driven ABM engine (15% → 30%+ close rates) 11:10 — The real lesson: make a plan, stick to the plan 12:45 — Win #2: Unbundling a $250K suite (9 months → sub-3 month cycles) 14:11 — Why land and expand builds lifetime value, not just revenue 15:18 — The Fail: ICP expansion that looked like growth 19:09 — Understanding business behaviour before you scale 21:30 — Key takeaways

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  Episode #13

  Leading Through Complexity: Scaling Growth Across EMEA in the AI & Security Era - with Petra Jenner

  Jul 29, 202622 minS3

  EMEA isn't one region. It's many, each at a different stage of technology adoption, investment maturity, and cultural business logic. Leading growth across all of them at once is one of the hardest leadership challenges in enterprise sales. Petra Jenner, GM and SVP EMEA at Splunk, joins Michael Jäger to share what it actually takes to scale a complex enterprise organisation across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, in a market where AI is accelerating faster than most companies can protect themselves from it. Previously CEO of Microsoft Austria and Switzerland, and a senior leader at Salesforce, Petra brings decades of hard-won operational experience to a conversation that goes well beyond theory. In this episode: ✌️ Win #1 — One common vision of success: how Petra aligns organisations spanning dozens of markets and cultures around a single mission statement and why this one structural decision consistently outperforms every tactical initiative she's seen. ✌️ Win #2 — The courage to stop and rebuild: how Petra identified a go-to-market motion that was producing results — just not enough of them — paused it entirely, redesigned the partner engagement model from scratch, and is now leading globally with an initiative other regions are following. Fail — Going broad with partners instead of deep: why an ambitious system integrator strategy that looked right on paper spread the team too thin, produced cherry-picking instead of traction, and taught Petra that depth with fewer partners consistently beats breadth with many. If you lead a regional or multi-market organisation — or you're trying to scale an enterprise GTM motion across cultures, continents, and complexity — this episode gives you the leadership framework and operational honesty you won't find in a management textbook. Connect with Petra: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petrajenner/ Splunk: https://www.splunk.com/ ️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday. ⏱️ Episode timestamps 00:00 — Intro & Petra's background 00:47 — What makes EMEA uniquely complex to scale 03:30 — Leading at the intersection of AI, data and security 06:03 — How AI is exposing companies faster than they can protect themselves 06:49 — Balancing standardisation vs local autonomy across EMEA 10:11 — Why control through KPIs beats control through micromanagement 11:43 — Win #1: Creating one common vision of success 13:46 — Why mission statements work — and why teams are sceptical at first 14:35 — Win #2: The courage to stop, rebuild, and lead globally with a new model 16:25 — Redesigning the partner go-to-market from scratch 17:21 — The fail: going broad with system integrators instead of deep 19:01 — What Petra would do differently — fewer partners, much more depth 20:00 — Key takeaways 22:00 — Closing

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  Episode #12

  How Marketing Teams Change Their Ways of Working with AI - with Johanna Fagerstedt

  Jul 16, 202625 minS3

  Most marketing teams bolt AI onto existing workflows and call it transformation. The teams actually moving fast have changed how they operate entirely. Johanna Fagerstedt, fractional CMO, board member, former CMO at Mentimeter, joins Michael Jäger to break down what AI-native marketing actually looks like in practice. With 16+ years scaling B2B SaaS internationally and a podcast dedicated to going under the hood of AI-native companies, Johanna brings honest, specific perspective on where AI genuinely changes the game and where it quietly destroys trust. In this episode: ✌️ Win #1 — Ship fast, learn faster: how Johanna launched a full podcast in hours by treating "good enough and live" as the real standard — and why that mindset beats perfection every time ✌️ Win #2 — The AI-built website: how she rebuilt her entire online presence in Claude, starting from first-principles positioning, with no CMS and no agency — and an AI agent optimising it daily. 🌱 Fail — Trusting AI with something that needed a human: she sent a colleague an AI-generated meeting summary without reviewing it. It was full of hallucinations. The colleague was upset and trust took a hit. Whether you lead marketing, run a GTM function, or are figuring out how to actually operate in an AI-native world, this episode gives you a concrete, honest look at what works — and what happens when you hand off too much too fast. Connect with Johanna: 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johanna-fagerstedt/ 🎙️ AI Native Marketer Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/13AYYwOR5xql9h23jNXLtD?si=d50dae5f17634c63 🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday. ⏱️ Episode timestamps 00:00 — Intro & Johanna's background 01:48 — How AI is changing the way marketing operates 03:45 — When Johanna first saw AI's real potential (2020) 06:00 — Win #1: Launching a podcast the AI-native way 08:04 — The tools and process behind it 10:00 — Win #2: Building a website entirely in Claude 13:00 — Why first-principles positioning matters more than ever 15:00 — The fail: AI hallucinations in a sensitive 1-to-1 summary 17:53 — Why trust is the new capital in B2B 20:26 — The human work AI can't replace 23:25 — Key takeaways

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