Cold Outbound Isn't Dead, It's Just Brutal

Cold Outbound Isn't Dead, It's Just Brutal

Every rep on the team is running the same sequences, hitting the same ICPs, sending the same messages as every other company in the category. Response rates are down 40% year over year, and nobody agrees on why. Jared Robin, founder of RevGenius — a free community of 65,000+ revenue professionals — joins hosts Adam Jay and Dale Zwizinski to make the case that the real problem isn't the market. It's calling it a "market" at all. Jared breaks down why he's retired the phrase "go-to-market" from his own vocabulary, what building a community actually costs before it returns anything, and why he's betting on owned audiences over cold outbound even as it gets harder every year. They discuss: * Why "go-to-market" might be the wrong phrase for your company's entire strategy * The real, dollar-figure cost of building a community (the grind behind RevGenius's first 5,000 members) * Why cold outbound isn't dead, but 80–90% of the cold calls Jared gets are already flagged as spam * The difference between an audience (demand gen) and a community (retention) — and why HubSpot spent $20M building one * The one personal-branding mistake hundreds of sales reps keep making Timestamps (00:00) Introduction: why "go-to-market" is the wrong word (00:31) On the clock: the $25 million SaaS company scenario (04:15) Why last year's winners are this year's mediocre teams (08:12) Context engines and the human layer AI can't replace yet (11:54) What separates a community that drives pipeline from one that just drives engagement (17:02) Owned vs rented audience and building real demand gen channels (22:13) What building a real community actually costs (27:53) Keeping community conversations human as AI takes over content (33:33) Is outbound dead? Rethinking cold outreach and audience-first selling (38:33) Monday Morning Move: turn your feed into a real network (43:03) Dream vacation and closing remarks

Sequencers Are Obsolete in 2026

Most GTM teams are still optimizing a sales stack that's already obsolete. Anis Bennaceur [https://www.linkedin.com/in/anis-bennaceur], co-founder of Attention [https://www.attention.com/], joins Adam Jay [https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambjay] and Dale Zwizinski [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dalezwizinski] to make the case that sequencers - and maybe even the CRM itself - won't survive the next few years of AI-native selling. In this episode of GTM Uncensored, Anis explains why he told Outreach's own CEO that sequencers are obsolete in 2026 (and got agreement, not pushback), why most "pipeline problems" are actually visibility problems, and how bad lead routing is quietly costing revenue teams 20%+ in missed ARR. Adam, Dale, and Anis discuss: * Why no one responds to a 14-email sequence anymore * The real difference between a pipeline problem and a visibility problem * Whether the CRM survives the next decade of AI-native GTM * How to turn a manual workflow into an agent instead of a top-down mandate * Why copying your top sales performer's playbook can backfire Chapters: (00:00) Introduction: CRMs are gonna go away (00:31) The Ventura Ops scenario: fixing a 14-tool sales stack (02:26) Why sequencers are obsolete: the Outreach CEO story (05:29) Attention as a "revenue operating system": redefining the category (09:01) Turning manual workflows into agents, not top-down mandates (22:48) Does the CRM survive the next decade of AI-native GTM? (28:43) From investment banking to sales tech: Anis's unusual path into GTM (31:47) The hidden cost of bad lead routing: 20%+ missed ARR (36:56) Monday Morning Move: pipeline problem vs. visibility problem (44:08 ) Why copying your top performer's playbook backfires (45:36) Wrap up: dream vacations and thank yous

Stop Selling What Isn't Real

Before Revenue Reimagined existed, there was chaos: fake ARR, a startup selling Figma mockups as a finished product, and two revenue leaders who each hit their own breaking point.  In this founder episode of GTM Uncensored, Dale and Adam get uncensored about the moments that pushed them to stop fixing other people's broken go-to-market engines and build their own company instead;  including when Dale first realized sales was broken, and the 54 text messages in one night that finally pushed Adam to walk away for good.  Adam and Dale discuss: * The fake-ARR scheme that finally broke Adam as a CRO * The customer success blind spot quietly costing founders the most * Why sales engineers get trusted more than the salespeople in the room * Whether SDRs still make sense in an AI-driven pipeline * What it actually takes to fire a client (00:00) Introduction (01:23) The moment go-to-market broke: Dale's 1999 story (03:16) Adam's shelfware realization (05:10) Why they built for multiple clients at once (06:59) Before RR: Adam's CRO nightmare. Fake ARR, ghost customers (10:30) From coding to sales engineering to sales (15:21) How Dale and Adam actually found each other (19:41) Adam's breaking point: Figma mockups and 54 texts in one night (21:50) Scaling chaos vs. scaling systems, revisited (23:46) The customer success blind spot founders miss (25:55) Monday Morning Move: find the customer you lost (26:56) Uncensored round: SDRs, founder blind spots, firing a client (30:36) Dream vacations and a wrap Note Relevant Keywords: GTM Uncensored, Revenue Reimagined, go-to-market strategy, revenue leadership, CRO (Chief Revenue Officer), founder story, customer success strategy, sales leadership, B2B SaaS, RevOps, sales process, AI in sales

How Great Revenue Leaders Fix Broken Systems

Most revenue problems aren't growth problems. They're foundation problems. In this episode of GTM Uncensored, Adam Jay sits down with Revenue Reimagined co-founder Dale Zwizinski to unpack what broken revenue organizations actually feel like from the inside. From messy CRM data and unrealistic board expectations to broken customer handoffs and misaligned teams, Dale explains why growth can't fix weak foundations. They also discuss why customer success should be treated as a revenue function, how leaders can identify root causes, and why slowing down often leads to better decisions. Adam and Dale discuss: * Why more SDRs won't fix a broken pipeline * Resetting a bad forecast in week one as CRO * Turning the sales-to-CS "handoff" into a "handshake" * What the NRR vs. GRR gap really tells you * How shaky foundations and yes-people sink companies Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (00:27) Handling bad CRM data and unrealistic forecasts (05:29) What coding taught Dale about go-to-market (08:56) Why data needs to be digestible (10:12) Why RevOps matters after $5M ARR (11:46) What broken revenue organizations feel like (14:00) The real cost of a broken CS motion (16:44) Why handoffs should become handshakes (19:23) Customer success metrics that matter (21:41) Are your CS reps really just schedulers? (23:05) Telling founders what they don't want to hear (25:18) Why most companies are building on shaky foundations (26:51) Dale's most expensive mistake (28:16) Why great leaders pause before reacting (31:41) Closing

The Revenue Mistake Founders Keep Repeating

After 18 months of stalled growth, most companies do the same thing: hire more salespeople. Adam Jay says that's exactly the wrong move. In this episode of GTM Uncensored, Adam breaks down why pipeline volume means nothing without quality, why most leaders confuse activity with progress, and why the answer to slowing growth usually isn't more headcount. Adam and Dale discuss: * Why "healthy pipeline" matters more than pipeline size * The dangerous instinct to throw people at the problem * Why strategy-only leaders are failing * How AI should reshape hiring decisions * The biggest mistake companies make with revenue leadership Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (04:20) Why honesty with the board matters (06:45) What got you here won't get you there (10:10) Why smart leaders keep hiring more people (13:12) Healthy pipeline vs big pipeline (16:04) AI slop and bad GTM advice (22:37) Why embedded leadership works (25:26) When founders aren't ready for change (28:21) What great organizations feel like (30:56) Monday Morning Move (31:55) AI before headcount (32:24) Uncensored questions