Hiring the right talent is one of the biggest challenges for any startup, but what if teachability matters more than a resume?

In this episode, Melissa Rosenthal, Co-Founder of Outlever, shares her insights on building a team that thrives on adaptability, creativity, and fast-paced problem-solving. She explains how her unique career path—spanning BuzzFeed, Cheddar, and ClickUp—helped her identify gaps in how B2B companies own their narratives and build credibility.

Melissa also discusses the art of creating trade publications for customers, scaling editorial teams, and why outbound motions can become inbound growth machines.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why teachability often outweighs experience
• How to create a unique hiring strategy for hybrid roles
• The value of owning your narrative in competitive industries

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00) Why teachability matters more than resumes with Melissa Rosenthal

(01:14) The decline of media companies and challenges in B2B SaaS

(03:49) Founding Outlever: Bridging media and B2B content gaps

(06:06) Lessons from building and scaling a startup team

(09:30) Hiring for unique roles: The journalist-sales hybrid

(13:07) Creating trade publications to own customer narratives

(18:01) Leveraging exclusivity in competitive and niche industries

(21:02) Balancing top-of-funnel awareness with bottom-of-funnel impact

(27:47) Strategic growth: Bootstrapping, funding, and scaling thoughtfully

Marketing teams are under pressure to prove ROI—but are they measuring the right things?

In this episode, Rebecca Shaddix, Head of Product, Customer, and Lifecycle Marketing at Garner Health, breaks down how her team aligns messaging with sales, refines content based on real-world feedback, and balances brand and performance marketing.

Rebecca shares how AI is changing sales outreach, why B2B direct mail is still underutilized, and the strategic role of analysts in marketing decisions. She also discusses the ongoing debate between over-measuring everything and trusting brand impact—even when it’s harder to quantify.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why teams are over-indexing on dashboards instead of strategy
• How AI-powered sales tools are changing BDR workflows
• The role of brand marketing in driving long-term sales success

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00)Why some teams are over-measuring marketing with Rebecca Shaddix

(04:01) How Garner Health structures marketing and business development

(08:33) Building effective messaging packets instead of playbooks

(12:57) How sales reps are trained and certified in messaging

(17:35) The impact of a high-touch, in-person sales strategy

(21:13) Are AI-powered SDRs the future of sales development?

(25:22) The case for direct mail in B2B marketing

(30:18) How brand marketing is gaining traction despite being harder to measure

(34:44) Why over-reliance on performance marketing can backfire

(38:41) The role of influencers in B2B marketing

(42:39) How to evaluate if a company truly values marketing

(46:56) The challenge of scaling marketing in a high-growth startup

(48:40) What’s changing in Garner Health’s marketing strategy for 2025

Sales development is changing fast—bigger deals, fewer promotions, and shifting compensation models. So what does the data really say?

In this episode, Matt Bertuzzi, Head of Research at The Bridge Group, breaks down the 2025 Sales Development Metrics and Compensation Report. He shares what’s driving record-high pipeline per SDR, why fewer reps are moving up to AE roles, and how compensation plans are creating frustration in the field.

Matt also discusses the return-to-office trend, the resurgence of cold calling, and why sales teams are loosening qualification criteria just to get meetings on the books.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why SDRs are generating more pipeline but seeing fewer promotions
• How changing comp plans are impacting rep behavior
• What’s behind the shift to outbound-only sales development teams

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00) What counts as a compensation trigger for SDRs with Matt Bertuzzi

(00:27) Breaking down the 2025 Sales Development Report

(03:12) Why more SDRs are working on enterprise deals

(06:18) The shift to outbound-only SDR teams

(09:12) Why more companies are bringing SDRs back to the office

(12:26) Fewer SDRs are getting promoted—here’s why

(18:13) How AI and email noise are making cold calls more valuable

(21:42) The gap between SDR comp plans and actual work

(27:16) What’s driving the record-high pipeline per SDR

(30:47) Final takeaways on sales development trends in 2025