---
title: "What Needs to Be True? The Question That Changed How a CRO Leads"
episode: 148
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Nick Reyes"
guest_title: "Chief Revenue Officer"
date_published: 2026-10-29
date_modified: 2026-11-09
duration: 00:55:12
word_count: 9348
topics: ["sales-leadership", "revenue-operations", "gtm-strategy", "outbound-sales", "ai-in-gtm"]
canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/nick-reyes-pushpress-what-needs-to-be-true/
source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# What Needs to Be True? The Question That Changed How a CRO Leads — Full Transcript

> Episode 148 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Nick Reyes.
> Published October 29, 2026 · 00:55:12 · 9348 words.
> Machine-transcribed and **not diarized** — speaker attribution is inferred, so verify
> attribution against the audio before quoting a specific person.
> Structured breakdown: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/nick-reyes-pushpress-what-needs-to-be-true/

## 00:00 — Cold open + intro

**[0:00]** - Any time you feel yourself wanting to quit,

**[0:02]** you might be on the, it might be tough,

**[0:04]** or you might have the wrong mission.

**[0:06]** And I don't think in all these years,

**[0:09]** I don't think I've ever questioned the mission.

**[0:11]** - My guest today is Nick Reyes,

**[0:13]** Chief Revenue Officer at Push Press,

**[0:15]** the gym operating system that powers

**[0:17]** thousands of fitness businesses.

**[0:20]** - So I think even just looking back then,

**[0:22]** there was a little bit of like, go against the grain,

**[0:25]** don't just conform to what everyone's doing,

**[0:27]** because that's what you're supposed to do.

**[0:30]** - One thing you mentioned in our prep call

**[0:31]** that I thought was really interesting,

**[0:33]** speaks to my heart as a RevOps professional.

**[0:36]** You regret not hiring RevOps earlier.

**[0:41]** - I feel like I waded through the mud for several years,

**[0:45]** rather than they could support me

**[0:48]** and the entire go-to-market team.

**[0:50]** - So if you wanna get to 40 million,

**[0:51]** you're gonna need this many reps,

**[0:53]** we're gonna have to convert at this rate,

**[0:54]** you're gonna have to build this pipeline,

**[0:55]** the pipeline needs to come in right now,

**[0:56]** we're gonna need to activate these channels,

**[0:58]** churn's gonna have to be here.

**[1:00]** It's like, "C-Ray, it's impossible."

**[1:03]** And he goes, "This is everything I've been hoping for."

**[1:07]** (laughing)

**[1:10]** I was like, "What did I just do?"

**[1:12]** (upbeat music)

## 01:18 — Skipping college for the Marine Corps

**[1:18]** - Nick, you were the one kid out of one of the best

**[1:22]** prep schools in the country who said no to college

**[1:25]** and went to the Marine Corps instead.

**[1:27]** What was going on in your head at 18

**[1:29]** and what did that choice set up for everything after?

**[1:35]** - Well, this is a little bit of a blast from the past

**[1:38]** to start the episode with and Anthony,

**[1:40]** I really appreciate you having me here.

**[1:43]** You know, I think back then,

**[1:44]** there was so much pressure to make amazing grades,

**[1:50]** be in the top of the class, choose the right college.

**[1:54]** And I think over time of just studying

**[1:56]** throughout the summer, doing summer assignments,

**[1:58]** seemingly going to school year round,

**[2:00]** there was a combination of both burnout

**[2:02]** and then also like everyone else

**[2:04]** was doing the exact same thing.

**[2:07]** I grew up wrestling, I was a little kid,

**[2:09]** I wrestled 125 pounds, yep, yep, in high school.

**[2:14]** And there was a little bit of like,

**[2:16]** you know, you can't go and do hard things,

**[2:19]** you're a little guy.

**[2:21]** So naturally ended up choosing

**[2:23]** one of the more difficult military services to enlist in.

**[2:27]** So I think even just looking back then,

**[2:29]** there was a little bit of like, go against the grain,

**[2:31]** don't just conform to what everyone's doing

**[2:34]** because that's what you're supposed to do,

**[2:36]** kind of maybe in my DNA

**[2:38]** or maybe I picked it up somewhere at a younger age,

**[2:40]** but you know, largely that was what was going through my head

**[2:43]** was maybe compensate a little bit

**[2:45]** for a shortcoming of being small

**[2:46]** and don't follow the norm, you know.

**[2:50]** - I love it.

**[2:51]** Well, I have a wrestling background too,

**[2:52]** I don't think there's a better sport to teach,

**[2:54]** discipline, perseverance, endurance.

**[2:56]** And then I didn't take the Marine Corps out,

**[2:59]** but I feel like that just takes it

**[3:00]** to an absolute next level.

**[3:03]** - Yeah, yeah.

**[3:04]** Oh, the discipline that you get from wrestling

**[3:06]** certainly served me in my military years

**[3:09]** and then the, you know,

**[3:11]** building on that discipline in the Marine Corps.

**[3:13]** The Marine Corps really shaped me as an adult

**[3:15]** at a, you know, at a really young age.

**[3:18]** You know, you're a teenager,

**[3:19]** but you're given a ton of responsibility.

**[3:22]** Coming out of the Marine Corps,

**[3:23]** it was like, well, what do I do now?

**[3:26]** I think that's a lot of things

**[3:27]** that anyone who's leaving the military service

**[3:29]** kind of falls into is, you know, what's next?

**[3:31]** And I found myself kind of gravitating towards sales.

**[3:36]** I had done some, you know,

**[3:37]** part-time sales jobs in high school and stuff like that,

**[3:40]** but like I really enjoyed interacting with people.

**[3:43]** I really enjoyed hitting a target.

**[3:46]** And, you know, the Marine Corps is like all around mission

**[3:49]** accomplishment.

**[3:50]** And so when given a target to hit,

**[3:52]** it was like, that's my objective in life

**[3:55]** is to hit that target.

**[3:56]** And so sales was just a natural fit.

**[3:58]** And I'm sure there's plenty of people

**[3:59]** with military backgrounds that are in sales

**[4:01]** and they're just like, absolutely, this fits me.

**[4:04]** So from there, got into tech sales,

**[4:08]** but not the tech sales you might think

**[4:10]** as an entry-level rep.

**[4:11]** I started doing sales for Sprint,

**[4:13]** which was the company that T-Mobile acquired.

**[4:17]** They're a mobile phone provider, you know,

**[4:19]** back in the day, I'm probably showing my age.

**[4:22]** So working in a retail store from there,

**[4:25]** went over to one of their partners

**[4:28]** and started doing public sector sales,

**[4:30]** which was one of the first digital video systems.

**[4:33]** You know, like you would see on COPS, the TV show,

**[4:36]** they went from having the VHS tapes in their cars

**[4:38]** to actually doing digital video systems.

**[4:42]** And that was a pretty massive step up

**[4:45]** in terms of like who you're selling to.

**[4:48]** You're talking to police chiefs,

**[4:50]** you're talking to sheriffs.

**[4:52]** And I learned so much around selling.

**[4:55]** There's RFP process, I didn't even know existed.

**[4:58]** It was just like a complete headfirst dive

**[5:02]** into the unknown of what does grownup sales really look like.

**[5:08]** And super small company based here in Kansas City.

**[5:13]** And one of the technical, the CTO left,

**[5:17]** and he went to a company called GE.

**[5:22]** And they were- - I think I've heard of them.

**[5:24]** They do a few things, right? - They only do a few things.

**[5:28]** And so GE had a rail arm to it.

**[5:32]** And Caterpillar had started trying to get

**[5:34]** into the rail business and they acquired,

**[5:37]** they were acquiring basically supplemental businesses

**[5:40]** in the rail industry so that they could begin

**[5:43]** selling locomotives to the big class one railroads

**[5:47]** in the United States.

**[5:48]** This CTO that I had worked with was challenged

**[5:51]** after this acquisition from GE to spin up a sales team,

**[5:56]** a technical leader challenged to spin up a sales team.

**[5:59]** And so he called me and he said,

**[6:01]** do you know anyone that might be interested?

**[6:03]** And I thought, damn, yes, I am.

**[6:06]** I'm absolutely interested.

**[6:07]** Let's go try something new.

**[6:09]** Let's continue to kind of see what this enterprise game

**[6:12]** can really look like.

**[6:13]** And so inherited a territory at Caterpillar's rail division

**[6:19]** that was doing around 500K a year.

**[6:22]** Super, super small in the grand scheme of things.

**[6:25]** They were actually selling declassified

**[6:29]** heat seeking missile technology

**[6:31]** to put bearing detect systems all throughout rail lines

**[6:35]** in North America in order to predict

**[6:38]** when a derailment might happen.

**[6:40]** So there was a hardware piece to that business.

**[6:44]** There was a software piece to that business.

**[6:46]** There was a lot of meeting individuals

**[6:49]** that had been in the rail industry for their entire careers.

**[6:55]** It was just, again, another headfirst.

**[6:57]** I don't know how this is gonna work type of moment

**[7:00]** in my career that then I had the fortunate

**[7:06]** ability to learn from just a lot of people

**[7:08]** who were willing to kind of take me under their wing,

**[7:10]** teach me, they saw something in me.

**[7:13]** Maybe it was that mission accomplishment attitude,

**[7:15]** but that is what the catalyst was

**[7:17]** that got me into enterprise sales

**[7:19]** and really learning how to drive toward a goal,

**[7:22]** carry a number, don't take no for an answer,

**[7:26]** whatever is needed in order to hit the target,

**[7:28]** which is kind of still with me today.

**[7:31]** - And I think sometimes people,

**[7:33]** I think make an assumption that,

**[7:35]** oh, that's totally different than maybe SaaS

**[7:38]** or software sales, but I would argue not at all.

**[7:42]** I think it's still, it's a B2B process.

**[7:44]** You gotta build a business case.

**[7:45]** It's multi-threading, it's networking.

**[7:47]** It's not a transactional sale.

**[7:49]** There's a relationship and partnership involved

**[7:51]** in the whole thing.

**[7:53]** So I think that probably teed you up really well

**[7:57]** for the next step, if I'm not mistaken.

**[8:01]** - It did, it did.

**[8:02]** I think there's a, in the enterprise space,

**[8:05]** there's probably even more so of an expectation

**[8:08]** of owning the result with the customer,

**[8:12]** because especially in something like there's not,

**[8:15]** railroads don't just grow on trees.

**[8:17]** So you don't burn relationships.

**[8:19]** If you sell something, it better damn well deliver.

**[8:21]** And I know that's not always the case

**[8:23]** in a lot of B2B sales, but that's very much the case

**[8:26]** in like the higher end enterprise sales,

**[8:29]** the relationships and your ability

**[8:30]** to follow through are paramount.

**[8:32]** And so that's probably one of those underlying traits

**[8:35]** of like, here at PushPress, our customers are so critical

**[8:39]** to like, we view them as being the lifeblood

**[8:42]** of the organization.

**[8:42]** If they're not the center of every decision,

**[8:44]** if we don't drive results for them,

**[8:46]** you can't grow the company.

**[8:48]** And so same thing, but now it's just expanded.

**[8:52]** And I think the way that I ended up getting even

**[8:54]** to PushPress from there, if I wanna maybe take a step back

**[8:57]** and expand on the story for a minute,

**[8:59]** when I was at CAP, I was having back pain from the military.

**[9:04]** I stumbled into a CrossFit gym that was brand new.

**[9:07]** This was like right as CrossFit was hitting the market

**[9:09]** and people had no idea what it was.

**[9:11]** They had a mascot that was everywhere

**[9:13]** that people criticized.

**[9:14]** It was Puke the clown.

**[9:16]** This was like the OG CrossFit days.

**[9:21]** And people were in baggy shorts.

**[9:23]** It was a whole thing.

**[9:25]** So I was having back pain.

**[9:27]** My wife said, you know, you should go and try

**[9:30]** this new CrossFit affiliate that is opening up

**[9:32]** down the street.

**[9:33]** If you're going to be miserable,

**[9:36]** you may as well be miserable and fit.

**[9:38]** And I thought, okay, you know what?

**[9:41]** I've missed out on fitness for a while.

**[9:43]** You're absolutely right.

**[9:44]** I'm in pain nonstop.

**[9:47]** I'm in.

**[9:48]** It was about three or four months in.

**[9:52]** The two founders of that gym, T.J. Kiblin and Brady Mora,

**[9:56]** they got me deadlifting, squatting, moving well.

**[10:00]** And within a few months, I was free of painkillers.

**[10:05]** Slept through the night for the first time.

**[10:07]** Everything immediately started to click.

**[10:10]** I could start actually improving my physical appearance.

**[10:13]** Next thing you know, I'm off to the races feeling good

**[10:16]** and have never had back pain ever since then.

**[10:19]** And about a year after I started there,

**[10:23]** they came to me and they said,

**[10:24]** hey, I think we're going to have to close the gym.

**[10:26]** And it was like just a punch to the gut.

**[10:30]** I was like, you guys can't, you guys saved me.

**[10:33]** You cannot close this gym.

**[10:35]** And so we worked through like, well, how can I help?

**[10:39]** What can I do to give you a hand?

**[10:41]** And we worked out a deal where I came on just to run

**[10:45]** the business side of things for them.

**[10:47]** And that's how I ended up meeting Dan, Chris and Brian,

**[10:51]** the three founders of Push Press.

**[10:53]** They were in Los Angeles and we ended up working out a deal.

**[10:58]** We can go into that detail if you're curious.

**[10:59]** But yeah, I ended up working out a deal

**[11:00]** for me to leave Caterpillar, believe it or not.

**[11:03]** Somehow, probably the best sale ever,

**[11:05]** besides getting my wife to marry me,

**[11:07]** was talking her into letting me leave

**[11:09]** an enterprise sales job to go take a bet

**[11:11]** on this little startup out of three guys in LA

**[11:13]** that I had only met once.

**[11:16]** - I'm always curious in that moment.

**[11:19]** And by the way, when I started Lean Scale,

**[11:21]** I started in 2021.

**[11:23]** You better believe I had a full PowerPoint presentation

**[11:26]** for my wife as to why I needed to do this.

**[11:28]** She's like, wait, 'cause at that point,

**[11:31]** I had jumped from a few SaaS companies.

**[11:33]** I've been doing really, really well.

**[11:34]** I had an amazing exit at one of them.

**[11:36]** It was really good for everyone on the team there.

**[11:39]** Great relationships with VCs.

**[11:41]** I was being like flown in as the RevOps operator

**[11:45]** for all of these really, really exciting companies.

**[11:48]** And she's like, so you're gonna leave all of that.

**[11:51]** And I haven't shared this with too many people.

**[11:55]** And I don't talk about this moment a lot,

**[11:58]** but I actually had an offer to be the COO

**[12:01]** of one of the companies.

**[12:03]** It was a big job and something

**[12:04]** that I always kind of aspired to.

**[12:06]** And I had to do the same thing.

**[12:08]** I was like, hey, yeah, we're gonna leave all that.

**[12:10]** Lean Scale, how much revenue are we making?

**[12:11]** Yeah, nothing yet.

**[12:12]** How many kids do we have?

**[12:13]** One, one more on the way soon.

**[12:16]** Okay, and wife's not working either.

**[12:18]** It's like, okay, so you're gonna bet everything on this?

**[12:21]** I said, absolutely.

**[12:22]** But yes, biggest sales rep I had as well.

**[12:25]** What conviction did you have though?

**[12:27]** Because there's gotta be something that was like

**[12:29]** so compelling that made you make that move.

**[12:34]** - It was twofold.

**[12:38]** The territory at Cat, I ended up growing

**[12:40]** to over $20 million a year

**[12:43]** between both hardware and software sales.

**[12:46]** So I had developed, I think, a strong enough reputation

**[12:48]** that it didn't feel like a one-way door.

**[12:51]** It felt like if I went and I was gone for a year

**[12:53]** and this thing plummeted and went to nothing,

**[12:56]** then I could go crawling back

**[12:58]** and everyone would be like, hey, welcome back.

**[13:00]** We're glad to have you, we missed you.

**[13:01]** That's honestly how it felt.

**[13:03]** So it was like exit, but do it, maintain the relationship.

**[13:07]** So again, it didn't feel as risky at the time.

**[13:12]** The other piece is I, as a user of the product,

**[13:18]** I thought that one of its key value props

**[13:21]** was actually that it was only really good at one thing,

**[13:24]** which was being a single application for a gym owner.

**[13:28]** They didn't try to be everything that a gym owner need.

**[13:31]** At the time in those very early days,

**[13:33]** we did not market ourselves as an all-in-one.

**[13:37]** We in fact believed strongly in the integration framework.

**[13:41]** And the thing that it did well,

**[13:42]** the billing and the scheduling,

**[13:43]** it absolutely nailed with more simplicity

**[13:46]** than any other tool in the market.

**[13:48]** And I remember looking in the mirror,

**[13:53]** trying to determine whether or not this was the right move.

**[13:56]** And I was, I had a moment where I'm like,

**[13:59]** if you're as good as you think you are at selling,

**[14:03]** there is no risk here.

**[14:06]** You've evaluated all the tools on the market.

**[14:07]** So if you're really that damn good,

**[14:10]** then it's an automatic yes,

**[14:12]** because the only thing this company is missing is you.

**[14:14]** So it was like a little bit of like,

**[14:16]** are you full of it or not moment?

**[14:18]** And that was the push off the bridge.

**[14:23]** - Yeah, not to bring it back to our wrestling background,

**[14:26]** but it feels like the moment the whistle blows.

**[14:29]** It's like, okay, now it's game time.

**[14:31]** - It's time.

**[14:32]** - So, and all the thought, the stress,

**[14:35]** everything, the anxiety coming up now,

**[14:37]** but when you're there, you get in the zone.

**[14:39]** So what happened after you jumped in?

**[14:42]** How did you approach it?

**[14:44]** What did those early days look like?

## 14:47 — Early days: selling software to a "we don't use software" market

**[14:47]** - Yeah, the early days were a lot of whatever you have to do

**[14:50]** in order to get product market fit.

**[14:51]** It was cold calling, dropping into gyms

**[14:54]** that I had never visited before,

**[14:58]** driving to gyms in St. Louis or Tulsa.

**[15:03]** It was basically just like,

**[15:05]** what are all the different ways

**[15:06]** that you can get in touch with gym owners,

**[15:09]** build your contact list,

**[15:11]** try to understand what the market needs

**[15:14]** as much as possible.

**[15:15]** And at the same time, it was set up to CRM,

**[15:18]** understand the funnel,

**[15:21]** and it's the three founders and me,

**[15:23]** and they're in LA together.

**[15:24]** And so they were working out of Torrance Training Lab,

**[15:27]** which was the gym that Dan owned at the time.

**[15:29]** And they would set up a, we had a Google Hangout,

**[15:33]** and I'm the only guy in Kansas City on an island,

**[15:36]** and there's a TV, and I can see them,

**[15:38]** and they're coding away in the gym,

**[15:40]** and there's weights banging,

**[15:42]** and they're literally in a gym office,

**[15:45]** a CrossFit gym office,

**[15:46]** and there's people yelling,

**[15:48]** and they would go to lunch on Pacific time.

**[15:51]** I'm still working on Kansas City time.

**[15:53]** And it was a lot of just like,

**[15:55]** what are you guys building?

**[15:56]** Oh, you're building this?

**[15:57]** Cool, I think I can sell that.

**[16:00]** Why did you build it that way?

**[16:01]** There were some of those advantages,

**[16:02]** I think, in the early days of understanding

**[16:06]** how we, as a team, were thinking about

**[16:09]** attacking the market, that I look back,

**[16:12]** and it's like, those were things that I didn't understand

**[16:15]** how important they were at the time.

**[16:18]** And if we wouldn't have had that,

**[16:20]** just that little Google Hangout,

**[16:22]** I don't think we would have been as successful.

**[16:24]** Obviously, if you're in a physical environment office space,

**[16:28]** then you have that advantage.

**[16:29]** But just being remote, we never,

**[16:31]** if it wasn't for that one little thing,

**[16:33]** I don't think we would have,

**[16:34]** which is funny to look back on.

**[16:37]** I love the humble beginnings during that time.

**[16:42]** And I think I can just picture that,

**[16:44]** them coding next to Wade slamming all over the place.

**[16:49]** So from there, there had to be a point where it felt like,

**[16:52]** okay, we're actually getting some traction here.

**[16:55]** Maybe your wife is starting to gain

**[16:56]** a little bit of confidence in this decision that you made.

**[16:59]** Where did you start really getting aggressive

**[17:02]** and really pushing and trying to accelerate the growth?

**[17:08]** - Yeah, it was probably, oh gosh.

**[17:13]** The first probably year and a half, two years maybe,

**[17:20]** I'm trying to rewind my brain there as best I can.

**[17:22]** Year and a half, two years was largely about

**[17:25]** understand the market, what are we building?

**[17:28]** And there are some big behemoths in this space,

**[17:30]** like MindBody, which everyone knows,

**[17:32]** which were light years ahead of us.

**[17:35]** And there were companies that had started building

**[17:37]** these all-in-one tools.

**[17:39]** And so it was a little bit of like,

**[17:40]** what's the market really gonna need?

**[17:42]** If you're not familiar with the group fitness market,

**[17:45]** CrossFit really helped lay the foundation

**[17:49]** for what exists today in like the Orange Theories

**[17:53]** and the Barry's Bootcamps and the F45s.

**[17:56]** There wasn't a big flock to group fitness.

**[17:59]** Yoga existed and Pilates certainly existed

**[18:03]** and that's why MindBody thrived in those early days.

**[18:06]** But otherwise, the CrossFit space

**[18:09]** was really the pioneer there

**[18:10]** and they were the grungy, we don't use software crowd.

**[18:15]** And so it was a very immature B2B market

**[18:20]** where the customer had low margins,

**[18:25]** not a high tech aptitude.

**[18:27]** And so trying to boil down like, what is your value prop?

**[18:31]** How do you demo this software?

**[18:34]** It took a good amount of time for the industry to go,

**[18:38]** oh yeah, maybe we could use some tools

**[18:41]** to actually help us understand billing

**[18:43]** rather than trying to chase people down for cash,

**[18:45]** which in 2026, this even sounds crazy to say,

**[18:49]** but that's how long we've been at the game.

**[18:51]** And I guess maybe in how late the market was

**[18:53]** to actually exist and then mature over time.

**[18:57]** - When you say cash, you're talking physical cash.

**[18:59]** - Literally physical cash, yes, yes.

**[19:01]** - I didn't know they still made that, but yeah.

**[19:06]** - So, but that was the kind of the genesis

**[19:10]** of the first several years and then it was like,

**[19:11]** well, we only have one or two people in support

**[19:15]** and it's figuring out the hiring

**[19:18]** and it's figuring out the staffing

**[19:19]** and in your capacity models across what do you need where

**[19:22]** and you've only got a few people and they're all remote.

**[19:25]** And so how do you get these people together?

**[19:27]** And it was just, it took us a long time to figure out

**[19:31]** how to build a SaaS company, longer than most.

**[19:37]** And I think a big part of that is we grew,

**[19:39]** we all came from within the fitness industry.

**[19:42]** We didn't come from SaaS looking for a problem to solve.

**[19:45]** We came from the industry with a problem and said,

**[19:48]** I think we can probably solve this

**[19:50]** if we put our heads together.

**[19:52]** Dan will tell you this, if you were to ask him,

**[19:55]** it was a much bigger thing

**[19:57]** than he ever thought it would be.

**[20:00]** He thought it was like a simple coding project.

**[20:01]** He'd be good to go.

**[20:02]** And it's just grown into like this massive piece of software

**[20:06]** in order to support small businesses all around the world.

**[20:09]** - I actually think that's where the best ideas come from.

**[20:12]** People who have deep, deep empathy for the problem

**[20:16]** that their customers are going through.

**[20:19]** I'm curious 'cause maybe you were a little bit forward thinking

**[20:22]** and how you would operate maybe one of those gyms.

**[20:24]** Was there an inflection point or point in time

**[20:27]** or a way that you changed the messaging

**[20:30]** and the value proposition for a gym owner

**[20:32]** where it felt like, oh, this is when it clicked

**[20:35]** and people started really resonating

**[20:36]** with what we're trying to do here.

**[20:40]** - I think ease of use has always been that.

**[20:43]** And I don't know that we recognized it in the early days

**[20:47]** or we didn't say it that way.

**[20:49]** And it feels like, in some ways,

**[20:51]** it feels like a little hollow of a value prop.

**[20:54]** But if you just think that like at the end of the day,

**[20:56]** a gym owner wants to be on the coaching floor

**[20:59]** with their members, delivering a fitness result,

**[21:02]** and they don't wanna have to clickety-clack in a software.

**[21:06]** They almost want the software to disappear.

**[21:08]** I just want to do this thing,

**[21:11]** which is to make people in my local community healthier.

**[21:14]** Then ease of use becomes the most critical piece

**[21:18]** of the entire stack for them,

**[21:20]** especially in a world where the legacy systems

**[21:23]** have been around for decades.

**[21:24]** And they, at least back then, they look like Windows 98.

**[21:28]** Again, I'm showing my age, but they look archaic.

**[21:31]** And so they were bloated, tons of toggles everywhere,

**[21:35]** couldn't figure them out.

**[21:37]** It's just not friendly to the coach

**[21:39]** who needs to have their attention on the member

**[21:40]** that's in front of them, not on the piece of software.

**[21:43]** - Yeah, I think sometimes that's what happens though.

**[21:45]** When you're a little early, you just have to kind of endure

**[21:48]** and make it to that point

**[21:49]** where it starts to become obvious for everybody else.

**[21:51]** And then once you start getting that adoption,

**[21:54]** you could start fine-tuning that messaging

**[21:55]** and getting in front of people that you need.

**[21:57]** - Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

**[22:00]** - One thing you mentioned in our prep call

**[22:02]** that I thought was really interesting,

**[22:04]** speaks to my heart as a RevOps professional,

**[22:07]** is you regret not hiring RevOps earlier in the cycle.

**[22:15]** Can you walk me through the pains that you felt,

**[22:18]** when you wish you would have hired RevOps,

**[22:21]** and what you think you could have done

**[22:22]** if you made that investment earlier?

**[22:24]** - You know, one of the things that I really,

**[22:29]** really appreciate about our CEO, Dan Wymera,

**[22:33]** and what he built is he's always been a champion for,

**[22:37]** we don't know what we don't know.

**[22:39]** That includes me at the top as a CEO,

**[22:42]** and therefore we all need to be willing to learn,

**[22:45]** and we should all have coaches and mentors.

**[22:47]** We serve an industry of coaches,

**[22:50]** coaching people to get healthier,

**[22:52]** and we need to do the same

**[22:54]** when it comes to growing a company.

**[22:56]** That regret actually comes from some of the early discussions

**[22:59]** I had with other leadership, sales leadership,

**[23:03]** VPs of sales, CROs, trying to figure out who I wanted

**[23:07]** to lead me in coaching and learn from.

**[23:11]** And one of the individuals that I spoke with said,

**[23:14]** you need to invest in RevOps immediately,

**[23:17]** way sooner than you think.

**[23:19]** And I didn't listen.

**[23:22]** And in hindsight, I'm like, oh, you're such an idiot.

**[23:24]** Why didn't you do it?

**[23:25]** And there's been so many things.

**[23:27]** It's like data fluency,

**[23:29]** having someone to be an early warning signal,

**[23:32]** someone to partner with in sales comp.

**[23:36]** Like since we've invested heavily into RevOps,

**[23:39]** so obviously for a while now,

**[23:44]** the amount of mental bandwidth that I've received back

**[23:49]** that they take so much off of my plate,

**[23:52]** I think as the business grows,

**[23:54]** it's just impossible to mentally be everywhere.

**[23:57]** I almost look at it as like,

**[23:59]** look at your financial model

**[24:01]** and it's 2,000 rows and a million columns

**[24:05]** and they have the ability to stand up

**[24:08]** all of the tooling and data

**[24:10]** to where you don't have to study every cell

**[24:12]** as if your life depends on it.

**[24:13]** Because at the end of the day,

**[24:16]** there's a million ways to grow a company

**[24:19]** and there are some underlying metrics that you'll miss

**[24:22]** unless you have a partner that understands

**[24:24]** how you think, where the leverage is at

**[24:27]** and RevOps has done that for me in spades

**[24:30]** and I feel like I waded through the mud for several years,

**[24:35]** choosing maybe investing in other areas

**[24:39]** because they could close a deal

**[24:41]** or they could support a customer

**[24:43]** rather than they could support me

**[24:46]** and the entire go-to-market team.

**[24:48]** - I'm curious 'cause I always feel like

**[24:50]** it's such a struggle at the early phase

**[24:52]** and even though I know the value of RevOps

**[24:55]** to its core down to every detail,

**[24:58]** I understand where it can be difficult to trade

**[25:01]** maybe another quota carrier or somebody doing marketing.

**[25:05]** From your perspective, if you were to go back,

## 25:06 — When to invest in RevOps — and the signal you're past due

**[25:08]** and I know everyone will have a little bit

**[25:10]** of a different story, but if you were to go back,

**[25:12]** when would you have invested in RevOps?

**[25:15]** - Before we raised our seed round,

**[25:17]** I'd probably have someone who was way more data fluent

**[25:25]** and I think RevOps is changing,

**[25:27]** which it could be a whole 'nother podcast,

**[25:29]** but definitely someone who could help build

**[25:32]** the infrastructure to make a sales team really click,

**[25:36]** understand attribution.

**[25:38]** I would say I'd probably start more

**[25:40]** on the sales and marketing upside of things

**[25:43]** in the early days because distribution is everything.

**[25:47]** Once you have product market fit

**[25:49]** and so having a strong partner that's really cut their teeth

**[25:52]** in those areas and can help you,

**[25:54]** will only amplify the output of both your sales team

**[25:59]** and your marketing team.

**[26:00]** - No, it makes a ton of sense.

**[26:02]** Do you have a sense of how many reps

**[26:05]** maybe you had on the team?

**[26:06]** Is it like, get two reps,

**[26:09]** then get some sales ops, marketing ops in the door?

**[26:11]** Is it, hey, bring that on before you even bring on reps

**[26:14]** and you just run those front facing functions

**[26:16]** for a little bit?

**[26:17]** - I think if you're gonna operate lean,

**[26:20]** and especially in today's world of AI,

**[26:22]** I think you can probably wait till you have a couple of reps.

**[26:28]** Certainly the benefits of figuring it out yourself,

**[26:31]** like I had never set up a vertical SaaS sales comp plan,

**[26:34]** so there was a fair amount of studying there

**[26:36]** and if you would have been on my team,

**[26:38]** it would have been a completely different story.

**[26:40]** I would have been like, hey, whatever you think is best,

**[26:41]** Anthony, like let's make some adjustments and you know,

**[26:45]** or whatever, but I think there's some benefits

**[26:48]** to figuring it out yourself to some degree,

**[26:50]** but if you let that go on too long,

**[26:52]** then you're just doing the organization a disservice

**[26:56]** because you're not doing the job

**[26:58]** of leading the revenue function,

**[27:00]** you're doing the job of rev ops.

**[27:01]** And so there's probably a signal

**[27:05]** if I sat down and thought about it,

**[27:06]** but certainly if you're spending too much time,

**[27:09]** and maybe this is the signal,

**[27:10]** if you're spending too much time learning

**[27:12]** about infrastructure or how to do the job,

**[27:16]** then you need to bring in someone

**[27:18]** and you're probably past due bringing in someone

**[27:21]** at that point.

**[27:23]** - I think it makes a ton of sense.

**[27:25]** I'm curious, we don't have to spend a whole hour on it,

**[27:28]** but I would like your perspective.

## 27:30 — How RevOps is changing: guardrails, not castles

**[27:30]** You mentioned rev ops is changing.

**[27:33]** How do you think it's changing and why?

**[27:37]** - I think rev ops today is probably shifting more

**[27:42]** towards the infrastructure that allows the entire GTM org

**[27:47]** to function with more leverage than they have in the past.

**[27:51]** That's actually no different of a mission

**[27:52]** than they had before,

**[27:54]** but the way that they execute that mission is different.

**[27:57]** I think about moving forward

**[28:00]** where everyone is either operating their own agent

**[28:05]** or they are building tools themselves.

**[28:08]** Maybe it's dashboarding themselves.

**[28:10]** So rather than rev ops actually leading

**[28:13]** the creation of those tools,

**[28:15]** I think they're gonna be building the guardrails

**[28:17]** that allows everyone else to play in the sandbox

**[28:19]** as the experts in their craft.

**[28:22]** And so I just think it looks different.

**[28:23]** The mission doesn't change,

**[28:24]** but then how they go about the mission

**[28:26]** is probably different.

**[28:27]** They're probably, I know the term like go to market engineer

**[28:31]** has been thrown around for years,

**[28:32]** but I actually think it's more about understanding

**[28:35]** the technical infrastructure

**[28:36]** that allows people to play in the sandbox

**[28:38]** than it is actually building the castle in the sandbox

**[28:41]** and then having everyone look at the castle.

**[28:44]** - Yeah, I think we're seeing that too.

**[28:46]** And I agree, mission's the same.

**[28:48]** Get the highest yield out of the go to market team

**[28:50]** as possible, give visibility to the team

**[28:53]** so you can make excellent decisions

**[28:54]** and increase the likelihood that your bets will pay off

**[28:59]** and you'll put capital

**[28:59]** where you're gonna get the most return.

**[29:01]** But it is getting more technical

**[29:03]** and the tools that are available

**[29:05]** are getting more dynamic and interesting.

**[29:08]** When I started LeanScale in 2021,

**[29:11]** I'd say 60 to 70% of the work was in Salesforce.

**[29:17]** And then a little bit of HubSpot,

**[29:19]** maybe you're plugging in Zoom info for some things

**[29:21]** and an outreach for sequencing.

**[29:23]** So either your tech stack is a handful of tools.

**[29:26]** We work with some companies

**[29:27]** that have 30 plus go to market tools,

**[29:29]** point solutions for every single little thing.

**[29:31]** They're running AI workflows across the entire stack.

**[29:33]** We're not talking about just managing the data in the CRM,

**[29:36]** but we're talking about managing a data warehouse

**[29:38]** so you can run agents on top of it.

**[29:40]** I mean, the depth and breadth of RevOps

**[29:43]** has just expanded tremendously in the last five years.

**[29:47]** And I don't see that slowing down.

**[29:50]** - I don't either.

**[29:50]** I actually think it's a really interesting place

**[29:54]** for your more technical sellers to look at.

**[30:00]** If you have a nap for, you wanna experiment,

**[30:03]** you wanna tinker and you also know selling.

**[30:08]** RevOps has always been like an adjacent path

**[30:11]** for individuals in sales or in marketing,

**[30:14]** but if you find yourself really liking

**[30:17]** to be on the forefront of technology

**[30:19]** and you know your craft

**[30:20]** and you can be a dangerous individual

**[30:22]** in this new generation, it's kinda cool to see.

**[30:26]** - I think so too.

**[30:27]** And I think if you have that combo of,

**[30:29]** hey, go carry a bag.

**[30:31]** Go see exactly what it takes to go hit a number

**[30:33]** and own it and be accountable for it.

**[30:36]** Then spend some time learning the systems,

**[30:39]** building its scale.

**[30:40]** I think it's a really strong combo

**[30:42]** if you aspire to be a CRO one day.

**[30:44]** And I really think it requires both.

**[30:47]** I think it's very tough.

**[30:49]** A pure RevOps person coming up from like an analyst,

**[30:53]** a systems admin to running RevOps and doing that,

**[30:56]** I think you'll really struggle in a position

**[30:58]** where you have to be accountable for a number

**[31:01]** and bring it to a board every quarter.

**[31:04]** And then likewise, I think if you've only carried a bag

**[31:06]** and you're not familiar with like

**[31:09]** how you can get more leverage out of the system,

**[31:11]** I think a CRO role is gonna be very challenging

**[31:12]** for that person too.

**[31:14]** So I almost think you kinda need to take some side quests

**[31:17]** and side missions to get the full breadth of the role.

**[31:21]** - Completely agree.

**[31:23]** Dan and I were talking the other day

**[31:26]** and he was saying people either need to be builders

**[31:30]** or sellers.

**[31:31]** And it's like, I'm thinking as a CRO,

**[31:35]** you have to be both a builder and a seller at this point.

**[31:38]** It's in one move in my opinion.

**[31:41]** - It's absolutely where we're going.

**[31:42]** You have to do both.

**[31:43]** And that's why I think the CRO position

**[31:46]** is the most difficult position in a company.

**[31:50]** You have been in the role for almost a decade,

**[31:54]** which I think is incredible.

**[31:56]** The average tenure and lifespan of a CRO in SAS is 18 months.

**[32:01]** And it's either because the company's not doing well,

**[32:03]** but usually it's also, they're the first sacrificial lamb

**[32:06]** if you don't hit a number.

**[32:08]** And I think it's a very, very challenging role,

**[32:11]** especially if you're working in a high-growth company.

**[32:14]** Another thing I think gives the CRO some leverage

**[32:17]** and I think it's overlooked.

**[32:21]** Sam Jacobs, founder of Pavilion,

**[32:22]** talks about this quite a bit too.

**[32:24]** The partnership between the CRO and the CFO

**[32:28]** and having some financial literacy

**[32:30]** to be able to work together,

**[32:32]** I think is another angle that's really,

**[32:34]** really important to round out the role.

**[32:38]** - It's one that I think I understood the impact

**[32:42]** that it had in those early days.

**[32:43]** In the early days of push press,

**[32:45]** I built like our bottoms up model.

**[32:47]** I built a tops down model.

**[32:49]** I fit with you figuring out,

**[32:50]** how are we gonna hit growth targets

**[32:52]** to the point where, when our finance leader

**[32:56]** joined the org and I showed her everything,

**[32:59]** it was a lot of like, okay,

**[33:02]** we have our crap together to some degree.

**[33:05]** Okay, I'll take that as a compliment

**[33:06]** that we actually weren't completely flying blind

**[33:10]** when you get in a really strong finance leader in the seat.

**[33:12]** But even now, and through the fundraising process,

**[33:16]** it was critical to have financial acumen

**[33:18]** of understanding where the company's at.

**[33:21]** Obviously reporting to the board,

**[33:23]** that's important to have.

**[33:24]** I just don't know how you can do the job effectively

**[33:28]** day in and day out,

**[33:29]** where partnering with finance is so critical

**[33:32]** to doing the CRO job well,

**[33:37]** if you're not speaking the same language.

**[33:40]** And I just don't expect them to speak

**[33:43]** pure sales and marketing language,

**[33:46]** which means you need to go to them.

**[33:48]** And to that extent,

**[33:50]** I don't know how you build comp plans without it.

**[33:52]** And I don't know how you can launch a new campaign

**[33:55]** without understanding, LTV to CAC, CAC payback,

**[33:58]** what goes into each of those variables.

**[34:01]** It's all a requirement of the job.

**[34:03]** And I remember at one point,

**[34:07]** whenever they rolled out the latest financial model,

**[34:09]** it was like, oh, there's some of these terms

**[34:11]** that I don't know as well as I should.

**[34:14]** Or I don't know the benchmarks as well as I should.

**[34:17]** And I made a point to every single morning,

**[34:19]** sit down at 5 a.m., cup of coffee, look at our model,

**[34:23]** dig into one data point.

**[34:26]** What's the benchmarks for this?

**[34:27]** What does good look like?

**[34:28]** What does great look like?

**[34:31]** What is ours?

**[34:32]** And just spent an hour.

**[34:33]** And I did it every single day,

**[34:36]** until you just get to a point where you understand it all.

**[34:39]** And then when you're in a fundraising,

**[34:41]** when you're either you're in a pitch or you're in diligence

**[34:44]** and there's questions being fired at you,

**[34:46]** all the confidence in the world.

**[34:47]** But it took that like that day in and day out studying

**[34:49]** and work in order to get to that point.

**[34:52]** - Man, I just love hearing what your endurance

**[34:57]** and discipline is throughout pretty much every aspect

**[35:00]** of your life.

**[35:01]** I brought it up earlier.

**[35:05]** And I think this is another amazing example of it,

**[35:07]** but you've been in the CRO position for 10 years.

**[35:12]** And what does it take?

**[35:15]** What type of endurance does it take to stick to the mission,

**[35:22]** get through adversity?

**[35:23]** And what have some of those hardest moments been like

**[35:26]** throughout this journey?

**[35:27]** And how did you stay so focused?

**[35:32]** - One of the things that the Marine Corps does,

**[35:34]** they use an acronym for the leadership traits.

**[35:37]** You guys can look it up.

**[35:38]** It's called JJ Did Ty Buckle.

**[35:41]** I won't go through all of them,

**[35:42]** but one of the E's stands for endurance.

**[35:45]** I actually think it's probably one of the most

**[35:47]** underrated leadership traits, at least in a growth role,

**[35:51]** but probably in every role.

**[35:52]** And I'll give you an example of this actually.

**[35:55]** You can look up Altos Ventures.

**[35:59]** They are our lead investor in both our A round and our B

**[36:01]** round.

**[36:03]** I think it's altos.vc.

**[36:05]** You can look, they wrote an article.

**[36:06]** It's like super famous in the Valley of like

**[36:09]** hedgehogs versus foxes.

**[36:11]** And they invest in hedgehogs.

**[36:14]** Hedgehogs are very much Dan, myself.

**[36:18]** We have like little hedgehogs on our desks

**[36:20]** and stuff like that, right?

**[36:21]** Like, and it's people who are about the mission,

**[36:24]** not about the just chasing an outcome.

**[36:30]** They invest in long-term founders.

**[36:31]** And so I think the reason I weave that in here

**[36:34]** is because I think that's so important to having endurance

**[36:37]** is that you have to be on the right mission.

**[36:41]** And anytime you feel yourself wanting to quit

**[36:44]** because it gets tough, you might be on the,

**[36:47]** it might be tough or you might be on the wrong mission.

**[36:50]** And I don't think in all these years,

**[36:52]** I don't think I've ever questioned the mission.

**[36:54]** I've never questioned helping gym owners because my life,

**[36:58]** I credit Brady and TJ and CrossFit to saving my life

**[37:04]** and making me a renewed adult human and functional.

**[37:08]** And so the mission will always be this

**[37:11]** until I feel like running a gym is no longer a struggle

**[37:15]** and that the gym owners are able to serve their community

**[37:18]** in a way that's profitable, gives them a happy home life

**[37:22]** and is not a drain or a chore like it is

**[37:26]** and has been for years.

**[37:28]** And so the endurance piece of it though comes into like,

**[37:32]** you do have a number to turn in.

**[37:34]** You do have a target to hit.

**[37:36]** Leading people is tough and growing a SaaS company

**[37:39]** is insanely difficult and there's gonna be those times

**[37:42]** where system goes down on a Sunday and you're like,

**[37:47]** oh my God, what are we doing?

**[37:50]** And you're just trying to enjoy lunch with the family

**[37:54]** because maybe you've been on the road for a week straight

**[37:57]** and now you're back at work.

**[37:59]** And so if you can't, I think, look at the mission and go,

**[38:03]** no, this is still important and I'm still locked into it,

**[38:07]** even when it gets tough, you can't be there

**[38:10]** for the long haul.

**[38:12]** And I guess maybe you shouldn't be, I don't know.

**[38:15]** The endurance piece is mission critical

**[38:17]** or is absolutely paramount in my opinion.

**[38:21]** - Hi, I'm curious too with your long tenure.

**[38:25]** And I mean, I can tell it takes an immense amount

**[38:30]** of endurance to go through where you were

**[38:33]** in the beginning to where you are now.

**[38:35]** But one thing that I love is this is actually

**[38:37]** a very interesting case study of how GoToMarket has changed

**[38:41]** because you actually have a lot of control

**[38:43]** over the variables, same company, same mission,

**[38:45]** same ICP, relatively similar solution, I'm assuming.

**[38:51]** I obviously like iterating and advancing over time,

**[38:53]** but solving a similar problem.

**[38:56]** I'm curious your perspective on how GoToMarket has changed

**[39:01]** from 10 years ago to today.

**[39:04]** And when I say that, I mean, how do you build pipeline?

**[39:08]** How are you finding sellers?

**[39:10]** How are you training sellers?

**[39:12]** What techniques, tools, methodologies are you using?

**[39:16]** What's some of the wisdom that's maybe held true?

**[39:19]** And then what are some of the things

**[39:20]** that have adjusted over time?

**[39:23]** - Yeah, I think generally there's a lot of,

**[39:27]** you have to be nimble or you have to pay attention

**[39:30]** to what, where does your market pay attention to?

**[39:36]** And how does that change?

**[39:38]** What are the latest, I don't wanna say trends

**[39:40]** 'cause that would be a bad way to phrase it,

**[39:41]** but like there was a time period

**[39:43]** where I couldn't get outbound to work

**[39:46]** and the majority of our leads were inbound.

**[39:50]** And we didn't know how to do paid ads.

**[39:52]** And then we found out how to do paid ads.

**[39:54]** And it's like, there's a time period

**[39:57]** where Meta had amazing ROI and you gotta be able

**[40:00]** to pounce on that when you have it

**[40:02]** and when you have the opportunity,

**[40:04]** but you shouldn't be beholden to one channel.

**[40:06]** So then you're looking for like,

**[40:08]** well, what are the other channels

**[40:09]** and what didn't work last time?

**[40:10]** So there's like this constant experimentation

**[40:14]** that I think needs to be done in order to,

**[40:18]** or capture attention enough to actually convert it

**[40:21]** to something, a customer, something meaningful.

**[40:24]** And so when you ask like, how do we find sellers?

**[40:27]** Even that's changed.

**[40:28]** And it changed because early we hired gym owners.

**[40:32]** We hired our clients, which is a gift and a curse.

**[40:37]** One of the gifts are, they know the industry insanely well.

**[40:41]** They know your system very, very well.

**[40:45]** They have near zero ramp time because of those things

**[40:50]** and they have a strong network.

**[40:51]** So all great advantages for getting early traction.

**[40:56]** They generally are entrepreneurs, which is a benefit,

**[41:00]** but they don't like staying within tightly confined space

**[41:04]** and executing in the way

**[41:05]** 'cause they're an entrepreneur for a reason.

**[41:08]** There also may not be natural sellers or polished sellers.

**[41:13]** So that can be a little difficult at times,

**[41:17]** but thankfully in our space, everyone believes in coaching.

**[41:21]** And so that was maybe a unique advantage

**[41:24]** that we had at the time.

**[41:26]** And so we leaned heavily into that in those early years

**[41:28]** and we couldn't get outbound to work.

**[41:31]** But now we're at the stage in our company

**[41:32]** where we have a very strong outbound motion,

**[41:36]** very strong cold SDR outbound motion that,

**[41:40]** God, I wish we would have landed on forever ago.

**[41:43]** And our SDR team and our SDR leader

**[41:46]** have done an amazing job.

**[41:49]** And now that's the future sales talent,

**[41:52]** account executive talent that we have in the team.

**[41:55]** And I can't see a world where I would hire

**[41:58]** anyone that's not on that team to be an account executive.

**[42:01]** I don't think I'll bring anyone in external

**[42:04]** to sit straight to the account executive seat ever.

**[42:08]** - I love that.

**[42:09]** I love the bullpen and then giving people a path.

**[42:11]** And I'm sure there's a level of commitment that you can get

**[42:17]** when you have given those people opportunities

**[42:20]** as they've moved along rather than trying to find out

**[42:23]** or find mercenaries to bring into to be AEs.

**[42:28]** And I think it's a testament to the culture

**[42:31]** that you're building as well.

**[42:34]** - A hundred percent.

**[42:34]** I think the way that you find sellers,

**[42:39]** and it may change again, right?

**[42:41]** Like certainly, you could maybe fast forward time,

**[42:47]** see a world where AI voice agents ruin outbound.

**[42:54]** They always say marketers ruin everything, right?

**[42:56]** So we ruin outbound because we flood the market

**[42:59]** with AI voice agents.

**[43:00]** And then all of a sudden outbound is dead.

**[43:02]** Now you have to solve two problems.

**[43:04]** How do I replace this channel?

**[43:05]** And how do I replace my bench of sales talent?

**[43:09]** So that's generally how I look at solving

**[43:15]** almost every GTM motion is there's a series of factors

**[43:19]** that you have to kind of untangle,

**[43:21]** solve one, rinse and repeat.

**[43:26]** - You mentioned something in our prep session

**[43:28]** that I have completely stolen

**[43:32]** and used in all of my leadership meetings.

**[43:35]** So thank you.

**[43:36]** I'll pay you the royalties

**[43:37]** and you should get a nice check from that.

**[43:40]** But throughout your time,

**[43:42]** there are many bets and decisions and experiments

**[43:46]** and things that you have to make judgments on.

**[43:49]** You're not gonna have perfect data.

**[43:51]** You might have data as a signal,

**[43:52]** but there's no guarantees and go to market

**[43:56]** and there's no guarantees in SaaS.

**[43:58]** And the phrase that I cannot stop repeating

**[44:02]** is what needs to be true.

**[44:06]** I would love to hear the origin of that

**[44:10]** and how you have used that throughout your role.

**[44:15]** - You know, the origin,

## 44:16 — "What needs to be true?"

**[44:17]** I think I've probably first uttered it a year ago,

**[44:23]** but I feel like I've always thought that way,

**[44:25]** which is you see a problem

**[44:28]** and maybe this is where it came from.

**[44:30]** It's like you would see a problem in growth

**[44:32]** and it would be like,

**[44:34]** well, you've only got a hundred demos

**[44:39]** being booked of your software in a month.

**[44:41]** And what needs to be true for us to get that to 200?

**[44:46]** And the inverse way is go,

**[44:47]** how do I get it to 200, right?

**[44:49]** But how do I get it to 200?

**[44:51]** For whatever reason,

**[44:52]** those words don't open my imagination

**[44:56]** the way that what needs to be true for us to have 200 does.

**[45:00]** And so now all of a sudden

**[45:03]** you can just start throwing everything at the wall.

**[45:07]** Everything.

**[45:07]** It's like, well, certainly if it was $0,

**[45:11]** we'd have a lot of demand.

**[45:13]** Okay, that's one.

**[45:14]** Doesn't mean that everything you throw at the wall

**[45:16]** should stick,

**[45:18]** but it just lists out everything.

**[45:20]** I mean, it's essentially first principles thinking,

**[45:23]** but it really is just a way, I think,

**[45:25]** to force yourself to unlock your imagination

**[45:29]** to all of the potential that could exist.

**[45:33]** And it's so easy to get like the narrow focus

**[45:37]** in any organization around.

**[45:42]** Go accomplish this.

**[45:43]** And you immediately go to,

**[45:45]** okay, I have this box of things.

**[45:48]** I have the toys that I have to build this thing

**[45:52]** are confined into this box.

**[45:55]** So let me go accomplish that,

**[45:56]** but only with these pieces instead of the inverse,

**[46:00]** which is just what needs to be true

**[46:01]** for this mission to be accomplished.

**[46:03]** And you go, well, the box doesn't exist.

**[46:06]** The toys don't exist.

**[46:08]** Imagine the toys.

**[46:09]** And you can build from infinite possibilities, right?

**[46:14]** So I think to me the reason why we've used it so much,

**[46:19]** especially recently at Push Press,

**[46:22]** and the reason why it's always top of mind today

**[46:26]** more than ever is because AI has actually allowed

**[46:30]** even that imagination and that creativity

**[46:33]** to come to life in a way that it didn't three years ago

**[46:37]** or before where maybe it did have constraints.

**[46:40]** And in order to do something,

**[46:41]** it needed to go through engineering or something else,

**[46:45]** but now everyone can be a builder.

**[46:47]** So now what's the excuse?

**[46:51]** So if you're not thinking that way,

**[46:54]** I don't know how you get anything done.

**[46:56]** - I don't take you as a person

**[46:57]** who gave yourself many excuses in the past,

**[46:59]** but I do also feel like the ceiling of what's possible

**[47:03]** has just been completely lifted.

**[47:07]** And for people like you mentioned,

**[47:09]** hey, maybe there were some barriers.

**[47:11]** I'm not a developer.

**[47:12]** I wasn't even a very good Salesforce admin.

**[47:14]** I needed some systems admins just to make RevOps work.

**[47:18]** But now we can build applications, build systems,

**[47:22]** even just getting your ideas on paper.

**[47:24]** Like one of my favorite things to do

**[47:26]** is just whisper flow into a giant Google Doc

**[47:30]** and just be like,

**[47:31]** can you turn this into something that makes sense?

**[47:35]** So there really are no excuses now

**[47:37]** and you have access to the most powerful technology

**[47:42]** that's ever been built and you can build it.

**[47:45]** You can do it today.

**[47:46]** - Absolutely, absolutely.

**[47:48]** The other thing about that statement

**[47:50]** that I think has resonated in our organization,

**[47:54]** I think it tears down some of the pointedness

**[47:59]** that like, can you go do this?

**[48:01]** Can you go do more might bring.

**[48:03]** So this actually came up the other day.

**[48:05]** One of the members on our team said,

**[48:08]** we can get this done probably April, late April, early May.

**[48:14]** And it's like, that's an eternity in today's age.

**[48:20]** And so rather than say like,

**[48:22]** hey, can you figure out a way to just move it forward?

**[48:25]** Like figure out a way to get it done in January,

**[48:28]** which is almost an indictment on the work

**[48:33]** that was done to put the previous date out there.

**[48:37]** And instead, what needs to be true

**[48:40]** for us to have it done by the end of the year?

**[48:44]** If you tell me it's a million dollars,

**[48:47]** that might be okay,

**[48:49]** depending on whatever the initiative is.

**[48:51]** If you tell me it's gonna take 10 people,

**[48:53]** you can tell me it's gonna take infinite cloud credits.

**[48:56]** Whatever it is.

**[48:57]** And then as an organization,

**[48:59]** we can at least have an open and honest discussion

**[49:01]** around is it worth that?

**[49:03]** But show me that you've gone through the thinking,

**[49:06]** not just of what you have to play with,

**[49:08]** which might legit be,

**[49:10]** if I only confined you to using these things,

**[49:14]** then maybe April's an acceptable timeframe.

**[49:17]** But if it's really the biggest bottleneck to our growth

**[49:19]** and it's really that important,

**[49:21]** then put it out there and let finance and our CEO,

**[49:26]** like let other people come to the table and go,

**[49:29]** you know what, I'm in.

**[49:31]** That's what it takes to get it done.

**[49:32]** Damn right, let's do it.

**[49:34]** But you gotta invite that conversation.

**[49:35]** I think you gotta do it in a way that opens up creativity

**[49:37]** and doesn't stifle it.

**[49:42]** - The most memorable example of this I have in my career,

**[49:47]** I was head of RevOps for a company called Email Edge,

**[49:50]** CEO, founder, Ray.

**[49:53]** Ray's a tough dude.

**[49:57]** He has very high expectations.

**[50:00]** He has no appetite for mediocrity and very, very ambitious,

**[50:06]** which is probably why he built a company

**[50:08]** that had a half a billion dollar exit.

**[50:12]** But I was head of RevOps to that company.

**[50:14]** I was in charge of building the operating plan,

**[50:18]** the growth model.

**[50:19]** And I remember our head of sales or head of marketing

**[50:23]** or head of customer success at the time.

**[50:24]** We all got in the room or like,

**[50:26]** this is what we think we can do next year.

**[50:27]** This is the plan, this is where we can go.

**[50:30]** Go to an offsite meeting, present it to Ray,

**[50:32]** and he's like angry.

**[50:34]** He's like, it's not ambitious, it's nothing.

**[50:36]** We can't do that.

**[50:37]** We need to be able to double again.

**[50:38]** At this point, we were at 20 million in ARR.

**[50:41]** We're like, we cannot conceive a way to go

**[50:45]** from 20 to 40 in one year.

**[50:47]** Like, what are you talking about?

**[50:50]** We just kind of went from I think 12 to 20

**[50:53]** at this point in time.

**[50:54]** So how are we gonna do that all over again?

**[50:57]** And we had a couple of meetings with him

**[51:00]** and I started to get frustrated

**[51:03]** and it almost felt like this weird Mr. Miyagi moment.

**[51:05]** I was like, you know what, fine.

**[51:07]** Ray, you wanna know how crazy your idea

**[51:09]** of doubling is this year?

**[51:10]** I'm gonna show you exactly what it's gonna take

**[51:13]** and I'm gonna show you that this is the stupidest idea

**[51:16]** you've ever had.

**[51:17]** So if you wanna get to 40 million,

**[51:19]** you're gonna need this many reps.

**[51:20]** We're gonna have to convert it this rate.

**[51:21]** You're gonna have to build this pipeline.

**[51:22]** The pipeline needs to come in right now.

**[51:24]** We're gonna need to activate these channels.

**[51:26]** Churn's gonna have to be here.

**[51:27]** And it's like, see Ray, it's impossible.

**[51:30]** And he goes, this is everything I've been hoping for.

**[51:35]** (laughing)

**[51:37]** I was like, what did I just do?

**[51:41]** - You just did it.

**[51:43]** - I was like, oh, this is it.

**[51:45]** And I didn't have the words for it,

**[51:46]** but the what needs to be true.

**[51:50]** That's exactly where my mind was going.

**[51:52]** Like, okay, like it may sound ridiculous.

**[51:55]** Like, hey, Ray, you gotta hire 200 salespeople by January

**[51:59]** or else we ain't getting there.

**[52:01]** Fine, okay, well, let's start with that.

**[52:03]** And then if we need to pare that down.

**[52:05]** But then I love how it moves the conversation,

**[52:07]** just like you mentioned, to the inputs.

**[52:10]** Let's argue about the inputs.

**[52:13]** And then we'll see what output that'll produce.

**[52:16]** - Right, right.

**[52:18]** And the example you just gave is perfect

**[52:24]** because from there, if you have to hire 200 reps,

**[52:26]** it's like, okay, well, what needs to be true

**[52:28]** for us to hire 200 reps?

**[52:30]** Well, we better have a damn good recruiting process.

**[52:32]** (laughing)

**[52:34]** You back into the entire plan to make it happen,

**[52:38]** piece by piece.

**[52:39]** And so to me, it's one of those things

**[52:42]** I wish I would have even maybe put into words earlier.

**[52:46]** But again, it's just one of the ways

**[52:48]** I've thought about things over,

**[52:50]** for as long as I can remember,

**[52:53]** and then landing on the words about a year ago, I think,

**[52:56]** and now echoing them probably to the point

**[52:58]** where it makes my team sick.

**[53:01]** But it's always a signal of,

**[53:03]** I wanna see a little more at this point,

**[53:06]** for better or for worse.

## 53:09 — Wrap + Nick's ask: drop into a local gym

**[53:09]** - Well, Nick, this has been incredible.

**[53:12]** Thanks for sharing everything.

**[53:13]** First of all, your story.

**[53:14]** I just love the commitment and risks

**[53:17]** and betting on yourself

**[53:19]** and the relentless endurance

**[53:24]** that you've displayed throughout your entire career.

**[53:27]** I think it's something that anybody interested

**[53:29]** in aspiring to be a CRO

**[53:30]** or aspiring to be in this type of leadership position

**[53:33]** should be taking notes from.

**[53:35]** And I also really appreciate your approach

**[53:39]** to how to build, go to market, where RevOps fits

**[53:43]** in things you wish you would have done earlier.

**[53:45]** I think you can help someone skip a bunch of potholes

**[53:49]** on their way to their next stage of growth.

**[53:52]** And then I don't think I will ever forget the phrase

**[53:55]** that you've left me with, what needs to be true?

**[53:58]** And I think if anybody's listening,

**[54:00]** you need to ask yourself and others

**[54:02]** that exact question more often.

**[54:05]** And I think it'll unlock all kinds of opportunities

**[54:07]** you never imagined.

**[54:08]** So Nick, thank you so much for being on the podcast

**[54:10]** and I can't wait to see what you do next.

**[54:15]** - Well, thanks a ton.

**[54:16]** Really appreciate you having me on.

**[54:18]** Appreciate everything you're doing for growth leaders

**[54:21]** and SaaS founders everywhere.

**[54:24]** My one ask is to anyone in the audience,

**[54:26]** go find a local gym, go find a local gym, take a class,

**[54:33]** see what they're doing.

**[54:33]** I think their gym owners all around the world

**[54:36]** are solving both a health crisis,

**[54:40]** making us all fitter, healthier humans,

**[54:42]** and they're solving a loneliness epidemic

**[54:45]** that I often don't think gets enough discussion.

**[54:49]** And so between that, making mental health better,

**[54:52]** they really are doing a ton of work to make our communities

**[54:56]** more powerful, healthier mentally and physically.

**[54:59]** So that's my ask for the audience.

**[55:01]** Go drop into a CrossFit affiliate,

**[55:03]** go drop into a HiRocks affiliate,

**[55:05]** go drop into, take a group class,

**[55:07]** promise you won't regret it.