Think customer loyalty comes from going above and beyond? The research says otherwise.

In this episode of Revenue Rewired, Jay Feitlinger and Sarah Shepard share insights from their company book club read, The Effortless Experience, and why meeting expectations consistently beats delighting customers. They break down real examples of how small friction points cost businesses big money and introduce the "big P, little P" framework that changes how you think about customer preferences.

What you'll learn:

• What "big P, little P" means: big P is your customer's fundamental preference about your product or service, little P is how they prefer the transaction to happen
• Why delighting customers doesn't actually move the needle on loyalty, but meeting expectations consistently does
• How one extra click, one repeated phone call, or one unnecessary step can be the straw that breaks the customer's back
• Why companies build processes that work for their back end systems but create friction for customers
• How a roofer lost a major job by asking the customer to climb on the roof and take measurements himself
• Why the bare minimum expectation at a medical facility was simply "don't kill me" and what that reveals about customer priorities
• The questions every department should ask: Are we easy to find? Easy to buy from? Easy to work with? Easy to pay?

Key insight from this episode: The friction that seems small to you is often huge to your customer. Before investing in ways to delight customers, make sure you're not failing them on the basics.

About Revenue Rewired:

Revenue Rewired is a podcast for B2B marketers, sales leaders, and business owners navigating the intersection of sales and marketing. Hosted by Jay Feitlinger and Sarah Shepard, each episode delivers actionable insights for mid market companies looking to grow revenue strategically.

Effortless Experience: https://www.amazon.com/Effortless-Experience-Conquering-Battleground-Customer/dp/1591845815

Contact Us:

Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com

Website: www.stringcaninteractive.com

Reach out to the hosts on LinkedIn:

Jay Feitlinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/

Sarah Shepard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/

Buy the Revenue Rewired book: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Rewired-Identify-Leaks-Costing-ebook/dp/B0FST7JCXQ

Keywords: customer experience, customer loyalty, effortless experience, customer friction, B2B customer service, customer expectations, customer retention, sales and marketing alignment, mid market growth, revenue operations, book club, customer preferences, business growth

Let’s name a blind spot most people miss: AI doesn’t reach for brilliance. It reaches for what’s most common.

Language models don’t start with the breakthrough idea or the edge case. They start with what they’ve seen the most. They predict the next word based on frequency, not originality.

So when you ask for blog titles or campaign ideas and everything comes back flat, the tool isn’t broken. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Safe ideas are statistically efficient. That’s why prompts like “Give me five LinkedIn hooks” keep producing the same recycled openers you’ve already seen a hundred times.

The fix isn’t better prompting, it’s pressure.

Add constraints. Make it argue with itself. Feed it your recent work and tell it to avoid every repeated phrase. Ask for the second-best idea and force it to explain why.

Think of AI like a smart but distracted strategist. It needs direction and resistance to move past the obvious.

Bottom line: AI defaults to average. If you want original thinking, you have to push it beyond “good enough” because that’s all it will give you if you let it coast.

Contact Us:

Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com

Website: www.stringcaninteractive.com

Reach out to the hosts on LinkedIn:

Jay Feitlinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/

Sarah Shepard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/

Buy the Revenue Rewired book: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Rewired-Identify-Leaks-Costing-ebook/dp/B0FST7JCXQ

Everyone says they're using AI. Very few can point to what it's actually done for pipeline.

In this episode of Revenue Rewired, Jay Feitlinger and Sarah Shepard share what their agency is actually building and deploying with B2B clients right now: AI consulting, AI audits, and AI driven ABM. Not theory. Real work that's been tested internally for over three years before rolling it out to clients.

What you'll learn:

• How AI consulting works: using custom GPTs and strategic prompts to turn years of client data into a Vision Brief that guides real recommendations
• What an AI audit actually uncovers and how it helps leaders see where they're missing opportunities before competitors pull ahead
• How AI agents are transforming ABM by validating ideal prospects automatically, taking lead quality from 10% valid to 90%
• Why one marketer thought his Google Ads were broken when 90% of the issue was untracked traffic from ChatGPT and AI search
• Where AI hits its ceiling: memory limits, repeated outputs, computing power, and how to push through it
• Why ignoring AI now is like ignoring Google Ads when it first launched

Key insight from this episode: The companies winning with AI aren't using more tools. They're feeding the right data into the right systems and asking better questions.

About Revenue Rewired:

Revenue Rewired is a podcast for B2B marketers, sales leaders, and business owners navigating the intersection of sales and marketing. Hosted by Jay Feitlinger and Sarah Shepard, each episode delivers actionable insights for mid market companies looking to grow revenue strategically.

AI Readiness Assessment here: https://stringcaninteractive.com/ai-marketing-services

Contact Us:

Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com

Website: www.stringcaninteractive.com

Reach out to the hosts on LinkedIn:

Jay Feitlinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/

Sarah Shepard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/

Buy the Revenue Rewired book: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Rewired-Identify-Leaks-Costing-ebook/dp/B0FST7JCXQ

Keywords: sales targets, revenue goals, sales leadership, quota setting, annual planning, sales team morale, B2B sales strategy, sales and marketing alignment, mid market growth, sales management, employee retention, revenue operations

AI is already sitting in your meetings. It’s taking notes. Summarizing conversations. Sending follow ups.

On paper, that sounds like a win. In reality, behavior shifts the moment people know they’re being recorded.

They choose words more carefully. They soften opinions. They hold back half formed ideas.

One client told me their brainstorms lost energy once AI joined the call. Not because the tech failed, but because the transcript felt permanent.

AI note takers can be powerful, but only if psychological safety stays intact.

If you run meetings, set the ground rules. Be clear about what’s captured and what’s off the record.

Because trust still beats documentation every time.

Bottom line: AI can support collaboration, but if you’re not careful, it can quietly shut it down.

Contact Us:

Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com

Website: www.stringcaninteractive.com

Reach out to the hosts on LinkedIn:

Jay Feitlinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/

Sarah Shepard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/

Buy the Revenue Rewired book: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Rewired-Identify-Leaks-Costing-ebook/dp/B0FST7JCXQ

Raising revenue targets sounds like progress. Until deals slow down, morale drops, and your strongest people quietly start disengaging.

In this episode of Revenue Rewired, Jay Feitlinger and Sarah Shepard unpack why increasing revenue goals without changing the system behind them often costs far more than it delivers. Sparked by a real story from inside a sales organization, the conversation moves past quotas and pressure and into what actually breaks when leaders ask for more without addressing capacity, enablement, and flow.

They explore how unrealistic targets create invisible friction across sales, marketing, and operations. From ghost handoffs between teams to burnout leaders do not see until it is too late, this episode pulls apart the assumption that pressure equals performance. You will hear why volume is often mistaken for progress, how quality gets lost in the middle, and what intentional planning really looks like when revenue goals are meant to be achievable.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why raising revenue targets without removing barriers slows growth instead of accelerating it
• How the ghost handoff quietly drains momentum between marketing, sales, and delivery
• What happens to culture and performance when teams are asked to do more with less
• How strong leaders work backward from targets to tools, capacity, and accountability
• Why revenue growth is a systems challenge, not a motivation issue

If you are a CRO, CEO, or revenue leader responsible for aggressive growth goals, this episode will help you see the real cost of how targets are set and what needs to change before the bar gets raised again.

Key quote from this episode: "Goals without resourcing are just pressure." – Sarah Shepard

Whether you're a sales leader setting quotas, a founder planning for growth, or a rep trying to make sense of aggressive targets, this episode offers practical strategies to align your revenue goals with reality.

Mentioned in this episode:

Revenue Rewired book by Jay Feitlinger (foreword by Verne Harnish)

The 5 revenue bottlenecks framework

Lencioni's Working Genius and the concept of "galvanizing" teams

About Revenue Rewired:

Revenue Rewired is a podcast for B2B marketers, sales leaders, and business owners navigating the intersection of sales and marketing. Hosted by Jay Feitlinger and Sarah Shepard, each episode delivers actionable insights for mid market companies looking to grow revenue strategically.

Contact Us:

Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com

Website: www.stringcaninteractive.com

Reach out to the hosts on LinkedIn:

Jay Feitlinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/

Sarah Shepard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/

Buy the Revenue Rewired book: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Rewired-Identify-Leaks-Costing-ebook/dp/B0FST7JCXQ

Keywords: sales targets, revenue goals, sales leadership, quota setting, annual planning, sales team morale, B2B sales strategy, sales and marketing alignment, mid market growth, sales management, employee retention, revenue operations

In some organizations, the person using AI most often suddenly looks like the smartest person in the room. Their emails are crisp. Their decks are clean. Their reports read like they came from a consultancy.

Meanwhile, the person asking harder questions, flagging risks, or thinking two steps ahead can fade into the background.

Why? Because AI optimizes for presentation, not depth.

I’ve watched leaders reward the polish without realizing the real value is coming from the strategic thinking happening behind the scenes.

That’s the trap. Mistaking output quality for actual contribution.

If you lead a team, this matters. You have to separate substance from cosmetics.

Bottom line: AI is changing what “good work” looks like, but strong leadership still knows what actually moves the needle.

Contact Us:

Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com

Website: www.stringcaninteractive.com

Reach out to the hosts on LinkedIn:

Jay Feitlinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/

Sarah Shepard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/

Buy the Revenue Rewired book: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Rewired-Identify-Leaks-Costing-ebook/dp/B0FST7JCXQ

You’ve hit the wall before. The campaign isn’t working. The leads feel off. The data says one thing, your gut says another, and everyone’s telling you to try something new.

In this episode, Jay and Sarah slow the moment down and ask a harder question: what if the tactic isn’t the problem at all?

Using real examples from recruiting, demand generation, client work, and internal decision-making, they unpack why leaders so often blame the channel, the platform, or the campaign, when the real issue lives upstream. They talk about blind spots, analysis paralysis, the danger of reacting to a single data point, and why small adjustments often outperform big, dramatic pivots.

This is a conversation about perspective. About knowing when to zoom out. About resisting panic. And about learning how to spot the real signal before you throw everything out and start over.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why hitting a wall doesn’t mean your strategy is broken
• How fresh perspective exposes issues data alone can’t
• The difference between a tactic failure and an execution problem
• Why small changes often create outsized results
• How to reduce stress, noise, and decision fatigue when things stall

If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed by data, or tempted to overhaul everything because results slowed down, this episode will help you pause, recalibrate, and move forward with clarity — not chaos.

Contact Us:

Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com

Website: www.stringcaninteractive.com

Reach out to the hosts on LinkedIn:

Jay Feitlinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/

Sarah Shepard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/

Buy the Revenue Rewired book: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Rewired-Identify-Leaks-Costing-ebook/dp/B0FST7JCXQ

If you want better strategic input from AI, don’t ask it what you should do. Ask it what someone smarter, tougher, or more skeptical than you would do.

We use this constantly with our marketing team. Instead of “Write a blog about AI,” we’ll say, “Act like our most skeptical client, what’s your take on this trend?” Or, “You’re our smartest competitor. How would you position this better?”

That shift matters because it forces perspective, not preference. You’re no longer reinforcing your own bias, you’re challenging it.

This works just as well in sales. Have AI roleplay the objection that kills the deal. Ask it to think like a hard-nosed analyst, not a brand cheerleader.

AI is a pattern matcher. When you give it sharper personas, it reflects sharper thinking.

Bottom line: don’t just generate output. Generate perspective. That’s how you surface ideas you wouldn’t reach on your own.

Contact Us:

Email: podcast@stringcaninteractive.com

Website: www.stringcaninteractive.com

Reach out to the hosts on LinkedIn:

Jay Feitlinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayfeitlinger/

Sarah Shepard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahshepardcoo/

Buy the Revenue Rewired book: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Rewired-Identify-Leaks-Costing-ebook/dp/B0FST7JCXQ