Revenue Builders

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.

Revenue Builders is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 369 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.

Unknown Host hosts Revenue Builders, a business show with 369 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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  Revenue Builders

  The SNL Lesson on Talent and Fit with Lindsay Shookus

  Aug 16, 202611 min

  High-performing teams create the conditions for talent to succeed. In this Revenue Builders segment, Lindsay Shookus shares lessons from Saturday Night Live on cultural fit, team buy-in, trust, and performance under pressure. Drawing from examples of SNL talent who found success in different environments, Lindsay explains why fit often determines whether strong people can thrive inside a specific team rhythm. She also shares how leaders can create safety for risk-taking, give teams ownership in new hires, and reduce the pressure on individuals by helping them trust the room around them. Lindsay Shookus spent 20 years at Saturday Night Live, including 10 years as a producer, where she led talent booking, worked with celebrity hosts and musical guests, and helped scout and recruit cast members. She is a four-time Emmy Award winner, a former producer on 30 Rock, and the co-founder of Women Work Hard, a community supporting female entrepreneurs and leaders. Connect with Lindsay: Website Resources mentioned: Women Work Hard on IG Women Work Hard Website Rethinking Success by J. Douglas Holladay Listen to the full episode: How Saturday Night Live Builds Teams That Perform Under Pressure with Lindsay Shookus 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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  Revenue Builders

  Reps Who Skip the Story Lose the Deal with Rob Potter

  Aug 13, 202650 min

  Most sales conversations still lean on product specs, and most leadership still gets reduced to quota math, until the market gets hard and both approaches break down. Rob Potter, CEO of Oomnitza, joins John Kaplan and John McMahon to argue that revenue and retention run on the same fuel: story, evidence, and belief rather than pressure. Shaped by three decades under RSA and EMC leaders like Art Coviello and Mark Thurman, Potter explains why technical credibility alone creates gaps in a sales motion, how staged delegation and reverse-timeline planning scale a team without inflating cost, and why transformative leaders keep people through a missed quarter while transactional leaders lose them the moment the number slips. Rob Potter is CEO of Oomnitza, an enterprise technology management platform, and a venture partner at SYN Ventures. His path to the corner office ran through engineering and sales leadership roles at IBM, WRQ, Symantec, and RSA/EMC, where he worked alongside leaders including Art Coviello and Joe Tucci before running revenue organizations of his own. Connect with Rob: LinkedIn Resources mentioned: Force Management's Command of the Message® Force Management's Conversation Guide Key takeaways from this episode: 04:06 - How a mentor redirected Potter from veterinary school to engineering, and how an IBM customer engagement pulled him out of coding and into sales. 14:15 - Why staged delegation, bringing team members in at the right sales-cycle phase rather than all at once, is what separates scalable sales leaders from expensive ones. 19:29 - The single metric Mark Thurman drilled into him: growth rate quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year matters more than revenue alone. 20:41 - What RSA and EMC's top leaders had in common: honesty, transparency, and empathy, especially when navigating layoffs. 27:48 - Why passion is contagious in an organization, and why it only exists downstream of belief built on evidence. 31:37 - The storytelling framework Potter coaches into every rep: journey, problem, outcome, not product spec. 38:22 - Why AI guardrails have to differ by function, and the hidden long-term cost of building AI in-house instead of buying it. 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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  Revenue Builders

  Why Great Sellers Hold the Line in Discovery with Stuart Gwynn

  Aug 9, 20269 min

  Enterprise sellers often lose deal quality by moving too quickly from customer pain to product answers. In this Revenue Builders minisode, Stuart Gwynn of MongoDB explains why the best sellers slow down in discovery, hold the line with the customer, and use disciplined qualification to determine whether a problem is real, urgent, and worth solving. Stuart shares how pipeline creates the courage to qualify out, why team preparation matters before strategic customer conversations, and how trust is built when sellers demonstrate that they understand the customer’s business before prescribing a solution. Stuart Gwynn is an enterprise sales leader at MongoDB who has exceeded goal every year since joining the company in 2019. Before MongoDB, he spent seven years at Pure Storage, rising from SDR to named account rep and finishing as one of the company’s top performers before moving into strategic enterprise selling. Connect with Stuart: LinkedIn Episodes mentioned: The Discipline Behind Scaling from PLG to Enterprise with Sahir Azam Why Sales Execution Wins in an AI-First World with Brian McCarthy, President of Global Revenue and Field Operations at Cursor Listen to the full episode: The Discipline Behind Nine-Figure Deals with Stuart Gwynn 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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  Revenue Builders

  The Hard Moments That Build a CEO with Mark Thurmond

  Aug 6, 20261 hour

  Senior leaders are often judged in moments they could not plan for. Mark Thurmond’s path from sales rep to co-CEO of Tenable was built through consistent execution, difficult operating assignments, and crises that demanded calm before certainty. He explains what the RSA breach taught him about transparency and customer trust, how he and Steve Vintz kept Tenable moving after the death of CEO Amit Yoran, and why the strongest leaders build followership before they need it. The conversation also covers choosing learning over title, using AI to raise seller productivity, and leading a product-to-platform shift as a company-wide operating change. 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 Key takeaways from this episode: 00:00 - What early international experience teaches leaders about operating across markets, cultures, and teams. 04:34 - Why transparency during a crisis can strengthen customer trust instead of weakening it. 10:19 - What leaders must control when uncertainty, emotion, and outside pressure start to take over. 12:22 - Why rigid career planning can distract high performers from the opportunities that actually move them forward. 15:05 - What a leader’s ability to attract former colleagues reveals about their credibility and influence. 17:04 - Why the most valuable career moves often create discomfort before they create advancement. 29:00 - A look inside what leadership demands when personal grief and business continuity collide. 34:08 - What executives often overlook about the connection between proactive health and decision-making capacity. 41:30 - Why a company’s approach to AI partnerships may determine whether it separates or falls behind. 53:00 - What many leaders underestimate about moving from a product business to a platform strategy. 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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  Revenue Builders

  Where AI Is Actually Working in Revenue Teams with Alex Bilmes

  Aug 2, 202611 min

  In this clip, Alex Bilmes, CEO of Endgame, joins Revenue Builders to share what his team learned from analyzing more than 30,000 real AI workflows across go-to-market teams. The data shows AI gaining traction in account intelligence, conversation readiness, deal acceleration, pipeline inspection, and team enablement. But the larger lesson is that the strongest teams are not just using AI to generate decks, briefs, or follow-ups faster. They are using it to create shared understanding across reps, managers, executives, RevOps, and cross-functional teams. For revenue leaders, the opportunity is not simply more automation. It is connecting the organization around the same account context, methodology, and customer truth. Alex Bilmes is the CEO and founder of Endgame, a revenue intelligence platform built for go-to-market teams. His work focuses on helping revenue organizations centralize customer, methodology, and account knowledge so both humans and AI agents can operate from a consistent foundation. Connect with Alex: LinkedIn Listen to the full episode: Revenue per Employee Is the New Endgame with Alex Bilmes 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

  ListenShow Notes

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