Revenue on the Rocks

Ben and I are back together after finally meeting in person in Holland, Michigan (Ben’s hometown) for the We’re Not Marketers conference. As sponsors, we didn’t get a booth or a presentation. They only ran hands-on workshops, so we spent our time building demos with prospects and customers. We cover: Whether booths will start to disappear next year Why teaching people something builds more brand than swag Customer events vs. booths: where Ben would spend $30K Attendees asking ChatGPT which booths to visit Why event attendance is dropping and dinners are getting crowded How BDRs and newer reps can use conferences to build their personal brand A Q4 pep talk from Coach Ben for every seller listening For this episode: I drink tea 🍵 (still recovering from our night out) Ben drinks white wine 🥂 (no more red for a while)

Ben and I are back for season 6! We start by celebrating Ben's return from paternity leave, both of our five-year Navattic anniversaries, and making it through the AI wave. Then we revisit a take from season 3: should BDRs live under sales or marketing? A year ago we both said sales. Now Navattic's new BDR team reports to marketing. We cover: Why moving upmarket made BDRs the missing final touch for demand gen Why we hired two BDRs instead of one The AE buddy system that keeps BDRs close to sales For our first episode back: I drink orange wine 🍊 Ben drinks a local beer from Odd Side Ales 🍺

After six months and a run of conversations spanning Reddit, YouTube, website conversion, and onboarding, Mark Kilens and Natalie Marcotullio are hitting pause on GTM News Desk, at least in this format. In our final episode together, we look back at what actually stuck from a season of go-to-market experiments, why "there's no playbook" is the most honest advice they can give anyone joining a startup, and why over-polishing a campaign or a doc is a losing bet in 2026. We also make their predictions for the next six to twelve months: Natalie argues AI agents becoming the primary buyer is overhyped for now, and Mark thinks the industry is closer to a bubble-bursting moment than most people are willing to admit. Plus, a look at what's to come: Natalie is bringing back her Revenue on the Rocks podcast and Mark is launching a new newsletter on people-first go-to-market. Jump into the action: (00:00) Reflecting on where the AI slop cycle stands now (00:25) Catching up before the show (02:16) Six months, and a look back at every episode (03:57) The go-to-market map they've covered, guest by guest (07:01) Why there's no playbook when you join a startup (08:55) Prioritizing through experimentation instead of debate (11:18) Natalie teases the return of Revenue on the Rocks (12:42) Mark teases a new people-first go-to-market newsletter (14:47) Prediction: why AI agents won't be buying software yet (15:39) Prediction: the AI bubble-bursting moment (18:23) Critical thinking atrophy and AI fatigue (20:07) Mark's teaser for a Navattic product launch post Subscribe to Mark’s Newsletter, People-First GTM: https://people-first-gtm.beehiiv.com/ Listen to Natalie’s Podcast, Revenue on the Rocks: https://www.navattic.com/revenue-on-the-rocks

As we discussed in our last episode, we are taking a pause from Revenue on the Rocks while Ben is on paternity leave. During this time, we'll be sharing episodes from another podcast I am co-hosting: GTM News Desk with Mark Kilens. GTM News Desk also talks about buyer-first best practices and interviews marketers who are experts in them in their day-to-day. Pragmatico Head of Marketing Lindsay O'Brien shares her experiences on what changed for her two months into a fully AI-native company after spending the last year as one of the earliest marketers building Claude skills for brand guidelines. The conversation gets into what actually gets evaluated in an AI-native interview process, why mandating AI adoption through shame backfires, and the Claude skill Lindsay built that plans an entire marketing event end to end. Lindsay also makes the case for why a unique point of view has to come before any AI workflow, and why skipping that step is the real reason so much AI-assisted content reads as forgettable. Jump into the action: (00:00) Why project management eats as much time as the work itself (00:32) Catching up before the show (11:45) A full circle moment for Mark, Natalie, and Lindsay (14:03) How to approach AI change management step by step (16:46) The Claude Cowork token trap (20:12) The critical thinking piece: don't outsource your point of view (23:02) The four-step cycle for company-wide AI transformation (27:24) The Claude skill that plans an entire marketing event (33:33) How to pull context straight from the codebase (36:06) Who owns the deck when anyone can make one (43:20) Turning marketing into an assembly line (45:26) Why a unique point of view matters more than more context (48:07) Will AI ever feel as boring and as useful as Excel Connect with Lindsay O'Brien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaykenders/

As we discussed in our last episode, we are taking a pause from Revenue on the Rocks while Ben is on paternity leave. During this time, we'll be sharing episodes from another podcast I am co-hosting: GTM News Desk with Mark Kilens. GTM News Desk also talks about buyer-first best practices and interviews marketers who are experts in them in their day-to-day. Ross Simmonds, founder of Foundation and the person who was telling B2B brands to get on Reddit back in 2016, joins Mark and Natalie to discuss what that admission actually means for marketers. Ross walks through why he bet on Reddit and Quora years before anyone else cared, how a fantasy football blog in college turned into a content marketing company, and why he thinks YouTube is the next channel everyone is sleeping on. The conversation also covers the difference between commodity and non-commodity content, why volume plays on programmatic SEO are a fast track to getting deindexed, and how to reverse-engineer what a community actually wants before you post to it. Jump into action: (00:00) Why AI is a blessing and a curse for marketers (00:41) Catching up while moving (03:43) Seth Godin asked Google's AI what happened to blogs (11:47) Ross on calling the Reddit wave back in 2016 (17:52) The three times Google admitted to killing the open web (19:55) Why 10 blue links are never coming back (24:53) Commodity content versus non-commodity content (28:48) Turning one report into dozens of micro assets (29:47) The brand, product, and content marketing trifecta (39:46) Why leadership teams are pressuring the wrong metrics (44:24) Why AI visibility tools are still just directional (49:29) The next underinvested channel is YouTube (52:13) Ross's take on webinars Connect with Ross Simmonds: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosssimmonds/ Check out Foundation: https://foundationinc.co/ Read Blogs, Traffic, and Google by Seth’s Blog: https://seths.blog/2026/06/blogs-traffic-and-google/ Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius: https://shareyourgenius.com/