Tagged: sales
30 results
The best creatives I know hate selling.
A manifesto for talented creatives who freeze the moment a client asks 'what do you charge?' Written to promote Natural Born Seller, a full-day sales workshop led by Emmy-winning designer and The Futur founder Chris Do, the piece reframes selling as an act of service rather than manipulation. It walks through the limiting beliefs that keep skilled creatives broke - money shame, conflict avoidance, scope creep, wavering confidence - and answers the three objections most likely to keep a creative agency owner on the fence about attending the August 6, 2026 event in Vancouver.
Inside Clay: What Is a Go-To-Market Engineer?
In this episode of 'Stories of Scale,' a host spends a full day inside Clay, the $5 billion New York startup that coined the term 'go-to-market engineer,' to figure out what this fast-growing role actually is. Shadowing Everett Berry, Clay's Head of GTM Engineering, along with teammates like Spencer, Varun (co-founder), and George, the video unpacks how GTM engineers blend engineering, marketing, and sales to build automated systems that find, understand, and reach customers. It also reveals Clay's two-team 'flywheel' — an internal pipeline team and a forward-deployed customer-facing team — that helped the company scale from five years of near-zero revenue to over $100 million and 16,000+ customers.
Anuj Jalan
Anuj Jalan is the Vice President of Sales Marketing at Microsoft, based in Chandigarh, India. He has built his career across major technology and services firms, moving from process development at Genpact and customer support at Dell to senior sales and marketing leadership at one of the world's largest technology companies. With an MBA from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies and a background spanning recruitment, operations, and client engagement, Jalan represents the archetype of a career professional who climbed the ranks through diverse industry exposure in India's booming tech sector.
Scott Sackett
Scott Sackett is Chief Advisor to the CEO at Artifex Software, the San Francisco company behind Ghostscript, MuPDF, and PyMuPDF. He has been at Artifex since January 1998, spending more than two decades running sales and licensing before shifting into an advisory seat. Before software, he was a working musician in the Bay Area and then an airline pilot for Braniff. He lives in Krum, Texas, and sits on the Denton Record-Chronicle editorial board.
Octave
Octave is a San Francisco-based AI company building a generative go-to-market platform - an 'agentic GTM brain' that codifies a company's ICP, positioning and messaging, then feeds that context to sales agents, workflows and tools like Clay, Salesforce and HubSpot. Founded in 2022 by Zach Vidibor and Julian Tempelsman, it has raised $8.4M total and reports 2,500+ GTM teams on the platform.
Monday CRM
Monday.com is a publicly traded Israeli SaaS company (NASDAQ: MNDY) that builds a Work OS platform used by 245,000+ organizations globally. Its flagship products include Monday CRM, Monday Dev, and Monday WorkOS — a suite of customizable tools for sales, project management, and team collaboration. Founded in 2012, the company has grown from an internal Wix.com tool to a $1B+ ARR business with AI-powered agents, workflow automation, and deep integrations with 200+ enterprise tools.
Nimble CRM
Nimble CRM is a relationship-focused customer relationship management platform built for small businesses and teams. Founded by CRM pioneer Jon Ferrara — the co-founder of GoldMine Software — Nimble integrates deeply with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace to automatically enrich contact records, manage sales pipelines, and enable AI-powered prospecting. With transparent single-plan pricing at $24.90/user/month, Nimble positions itself as the smart, simple alternative to complex enterprise CRM systems, serving 10,000+ customers worldwide.
Nutshell
Nutshell is an all-in-one CRM and growth platform built for B2B small and mid-sized businesses that are tired of overpaying for software they barely use. Founded in 2009 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Nutshell combines sales pipeline management, email marketing, and customer engagement tools into a single subscription — with free live support on every plan. Acquired by digital marketing agency WebFX in 2022, Nutshell now serves over 5,000 companies across 50 countries, competing against industry giants like Salesforce and HubSpot by doing less, but doing it better.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a sales-first CRM built by salespeople, for salespeople. Founded in 2010 in Tallinn, Estonia, and now headquartered in New York, Pipedrive gives small and mid-sized businesses a visual, activity-based pipeline that keeps deals moving. With over 100,000 companies across 179 countries using the platform, Pipedrive became a $1.5 billion unicorn in 2020 after a majority investment from Vista Equity Partners. Its philosophy is simple: salespeople should spend less time in software and more time selling.
Sage CRM
Sage CRM is a customer relationship management platform built by Sage Group plc, designed to help small and mid-sized businesses manage sales pipelines, marketing campaigns, and customer service from a single hub. Deeply integrated with Sage's accounting suite, it lets growing companies turn contact records into revenue without the complexity - or cost - of enterprise alternatives like Salesforce.
Salesforce
Salesforce is the world's leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform, connecting companies and their customers across sales, service, marketing, and commerce. Founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff and co-founders in a San Francisco apartment, the company pioneered cloud-based enterprise software and has since expanded into a full AI-powered platform - Agentforce 360 - serving over 150,000 organizations worldwide, including 90% of the Fortune 500. With $41.5 billion in FY2026 revenue and a market-dominant 21% share of the global CRM industry, Salesforce is reshaping how companies deploy autonomous AI agents to run their operations.
Close CRM
Close is a bootstrapped, profitable sales CRM built for small and mid-sized teams that want to spend less time on admin and more time actually selling. Founded in 2013 out of a San Francisco sales agency, it combines pipeline management, built-in calling, email, and SMS into one platform - no integrations required. With $17M+ ARR and a fully remote team across 40+ countries, Close has grown almost entirely without venture capital, making it one of the more unusual success stories in SaaS.
Copper CRM
Copper is a CRM built for Google Workspace users - specifically teams of 5 to 100 people who live in Gmail and Google Calendar all day. Founded in 2013 as ProsperWorks and rebranded in 2018, Copper is the only CRM officially recommended by Google on the Workspace Marketplace. Rather than forcing sales reps to log every interaction manually, Copper pulls contact and activity data straight from Gmail, auto-populating records so nothing falls through the cracks. Used by over 30,000 businesses across 100+ countries - from creative agencies to consulting firms to real estate teams - Copper has raised $99.5 million and evolved from a sales tool into a full client management platform for professional services.
Alex Hormozi
Alex Hormozi is an Iranian-American entrepreneur, investor, and author who built and exited seven companies without outside capital before founding Acquisition.com, a holding company with 16+ portfolio businesses generating $200M+ in annual revenue. His $100M book series has sold over 5 million copies, including $100M Money Models which broke the Guinness World Record for fastest-selling non-fiction book in August 2025. He co-runs Acquisition.com with his wife and CEO Leila Hormozi and is a co-owner of Skool.com.
Gisella Oliveira
Gisella Oliveira is an Executive Business Administrator to the VP of Sales & Marketing for Latin America at Microsoft, based in Hollywood, Florida. With a career spanning decades in enterprise technology and multinational corporations — including roles at PepsiCo's Latin American Division and American Entrepreneur Corp. — she has built deep expertise in executive operations, project coordination, and cross-functional team support. Educated in Language Sciences at Souza Marques Foundation in Brazil, she bridges cultures and organizations at one of the world's largest technology companies.
Jason Neubert
Jason Neubert is AVP Sales - Data & Insights at Adobe, based in Lehi, Utah, where he leads sales efforts around Adobe's analytics and data intelligence portfolio — including Customer Journey Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and the B2B Edition suite. With over 15 years at Adobe, he has climbed through account executive, senior manager, and regional VP roles, building a reputation for translating complex data products into measurable business outcomes for enterprise buyers. Off the clock, he's a championship-winning volleyball coach whose teams at Lone Peak High School and Utah Reign Volleyball Club claimed multiple state and regional titles.
Jennie Strobeck
Jennie Strobeck is AVP of State & Local Sales, Digital Media at Adobe, where she leads government sales strategy across city, county, and state agencies. With a career spanning enterprise tech sales at DLT Solutions, immixGroup, and Avaya Government Solutions, she has spent over two decades at the intersection of technology and public sector transformation. At Adobe, she previously served as Chief of Staff and Channel Sales Manager before stepping into the AVP role in 2022. She is particularly focused on digital accessibility, helping governments meet DOJ WCAG compliance requirements and modernize document workflows at scale.
Joshua Christensen
Joshua Christensen is the AVP of Customer Growth at Adobe, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. With a career spanning nearly two decades in enterprise software sales and business development, he has grown from frontline sales roles at companies like Workfront to senior leadership at one of the world's largest digital media and marketing technology companies. He holds an MBA from Westminster College and a BASc from the University of Utah, combining formal business education with deep SaaS industry expertise. Colleagues describe him as a results-driven leader who genuinely invests in developing the people around him.
Michael Keister
Michael Keister is a technology sales executive and AVP of Media & Entertainment at Adobe, based in Portland, Oregon. With over 15 years of experience in digital marketing and B2B SaaS sales, he has built and led high-performing revenue teams at companies including Zapproved (as CRO), Provana, Airship, Lytics, and Jive Software. Keister brings a track record of designing and executing revenue strategies in media, entertainment, retail, financial services, and technology sectors, and holds a BS in Finance from Oregon State University.
Peter Cray
Peter Cray is VP Strategy & Operations for AWS Sales, Marketing and Global Services at Amazon Web Services, where he oversees go-to-market strategy, business and sales operations, competitive strategy, and field marketing across 122 subsidiaries worldwide. With nearly three decades in enterprise technology, he spent 15 years at Microsoft in increasingly senior roles - including COO & Chief Business Officer for Microsoft China & Greater China Region - before joining AWS in 2022. He reports to Greg Pearson as part of AWS's integrated global sales organization alongside peers Dave Levy and Robert Chu.
Dan Lee
Dan Lee is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nooks, an AI Sales Assistant Platform that automates the manual busywork of sales development reps so they can focus on the human side of selling. Born in Manhattan and raised in New Jersey, Lee studied AI at Stanford (BS '21, MS '22), did ML stints at Scale AI and Cerebras Systems, and co-founded Nooks in 2020 with Stanford classmates Rohan Suri and Nikhil Cheerla. The company has raised $70 million in total funding, including a $43M Series B led by Kleiner Perkins in October 2024, and was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 AI honoree in 2025.
Wing Assistant
Wing Assistant is a managed virtual assistant marketplace that pairs businesses with dedicated, vetted remote professionals to handle recurring administrative, sales, marketing, and operational tasks. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Berkeley, California, Wing combines a proprietary AI-enhanced supervision platform with human assistants - covering everything from executive support and social media management to lead generation and customer success. With over 50,000 customers globally and assistants operating across 8 countries, Wing positions itself as a cost-effective alternative to in-house hires, offering dedicated (not shared) assistants starting at $699/month.
Chase Roberts
Chase Roberts is an AI Ops Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where he supports the firm's infrastructure team across AI operations, go-to-market strategy, and portfolio company scaling. A self-described 'VC coach for entrepreneurs,' he built his career across five years at Box in sales and partnerships, a stint launching Segment's BD function, and a tenure as a principal at Vertex Ventures US before serving as COO at Northflank - a developer platform startup he had personally backed. Now at a16z, Roberts brings a rare operator-investor hybrid lens to the AI infrastructure moment, writing and thinking publicly about why AI will expand enterprise software markets rather than shrink them.
Zach Vidibor
Zach Vidibor is the co-founder and CEO of Octave, a San Francisco-based AI go-to-market platform that serves as the context engine for B2B revenue teams. After 15 years selling for LinkedIn, DocuSign, Dropbox, and others, he grew frustrated watching company strategy dilute before it ever reached the frontline - so he built the fix. Octave, which raised $8.4M across pre-seed and seed rounds, lets GTM teams codify their ICPs, value propositions, and competitive positioning so AI agents can generate genuinely differentiated outreach instead of generic noise.
Collin Stewart
Collin Stewart is the Co-Founder and CEO of Predictable Revenue, the B2B sales outsourcing company that has booked 10,000+ meetings for 55+ companies including Toptal and Vox Media. A self-described 'failed musician' turned one of North America's most trusted voices in sales development, Collin built his company from 1,100 LinkedIn messages and near-bankruptcy to $1M ARR in under a year. He hosts the Predictable Revenue Podcast (400+ episodes) and published his debut book, The Terrifying Art of Finding Customers, in October 2025.
Jason Lemkin
Jason Lemkin is the founder of SaaStr - the world's largest B2B/SaaS community, conference, and fund - and the co-founder of EchoSign, which he sold to Adobe in 2011 and scaled to $100M+ ARR. Known as the 'Godfather of SaaS,' he built a media and investment empire from a Quora side project, deployed $200M+ into unicorns including Algolia, Talkdesk, and Pipedrive, and now runs an eight-figure business with 3 humans and 20+ AI agents. His daily 5 AM LinkedIn posts and @jasonlk Twitter presence have made him one of the most influential SaaS voices globally, with 279,000+ LinkedIn followers and 185,000+ on Twitter/X.
Max Altschuler
Max Altschuler is a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author who built Sales Hacker from a 4-person meetup into a 170,000-subscriber media company, sold it to Outreach, re-bought it back, and then accidentally founded GTMfund - a $76M operator-led VC firm. He wrote three books (including the Wiley bestseller 'Hacking Sales'), invested early in Outreach and Gong, and is now one of the most influential voices in go-to-market strategy and B2B sales.
Scott Leese
Scott Leese is a 6x sales leader, 5x founder, 3x author, and one of the most authentic voices in B2B sales. He scaled six consecutive early-stage startups from near-zero to $25M+ ARR, survived nine surgeries and beat opioid addiction, and turned those experiences into a consulting empire, a Costa Rica surf-and-sales retreat, and three bestselling books. Based in Austin, Texas, he now runs Scott Leese Consulting, Surf and Sales, GTM United, Thursday Night Sales, and Milos Ventures - a new venture fund investing in AI, robotics, and cleantech.
Steli Efti
Steli Efti is the co-founder and CEO of Close.com, a bootstrapped CRM platform generating $40M+ ARR that he built by accident - he was running an outsourced sales agency for 200+ startups when he realized the internal software he built to manage it all was the actual product. A high-school dropout from Germany with Greek immigrant parents, he moved to Silicon Valley on a one-way ticket, got rejected by Y Combinator 6 times before being accepted, and has since become one of the most respected voices in startup sales - known for the 48-email follow-up that landed an investor, a no-BS philosophy, and a side podcast about philosophy, literature, and inner life that has nothing to do with business.
Sophie Buonassisi
Sophie Buonassisi is SVP of Marketing at GTMfund and GTMnow, where she leads a 58,000+ subscriber newsletter and media brand at the intersection of go-to-market strategy, venture capital, and B2B SaaS. A criminology graduate turned growth marketer, she spent 4.5 years as the first GTM hire at Spiralyze before standing out from 400+ applicants to join GTMfund. She transformed the GTM Newsletter into GTMnow - a full media brand that includes the reacquired Sales Hacker podcast (622+ episodes), a private Inner Circle community, and editorial content reaching 50,000+ founders, GTM leaders, and investors globally.