Maximos Lih, founder and CEO of Emboldened LLC and a former operating partner at Google Ventures, argues that AI’s failures — not its successes — reveal a company’s biggest growth opportunities, and that leaders who treat AI as a one-for-one headcount swap destroy their own competitive moat. In this episode, Maximos draws on nearly a decade of investing in companies like Uber, Slack, and Flatiron Health to show why AI adoption is a leadership problem, not a tooling problem.

This episode answers:

• Why do most companies get AI adoption wrong from the start?
• What’s the difference between “the language of procurement” and “the language of utilization”?
• How did IKEA turn a 53% AI chatbot failure rate into $1.4 billion in new revenue?
• Why is efficiency a commodity that won’t protect your business?
• What single question reveals whether AI is actually working for you?
• How is the sales leader’s role expanding in the agentic age?

Ready to rethink how your team adopts AI? Connect with Maximos Lih at https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximoslih/

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Glenn Fleischman, Chief Revenue Officer at AYTM, an AI-powered consumer insights platform, argues the biggest AI risk in sales isn’t losing your job to an agent — it’s losing it to a colleague who uses AI better than you. In this episode, Fleischman lays out a practical, “bite-by-bite” path to AI adoption for sellers and leaders who feel overwhelmed by the pace of change.

Drawing on two decades of scaling revenue teams across SaaS and martech, Fleischman explains why discovery, empathy, and relationship-building still win enterprise deals — and why AI elevates the sellers who already work that way.

In this episode, Glenn Fleischman answers:

• Why does scaling a broken sales motion with AI only multiply the failure?
• Which sales skills will AI never replace in enterprise selling?
• How is AI moving market research from the DIY era into the “AIY” era?
• Why does messy CRM data break AI forecasting in tools like Gong?
• What are “sales caddies,” and how do they change sales enablement?
• Why is AI capability now a hiring prerequisite for every open role at AYTM?

Hear how Glenn Fleischman is building agents, sales caddies, and AI-ready teams — and book time with his team at https://aytm.com/

Visit us on Apple Podcast. You can also find SalesPOP! on all major podcast stations.

Glenn Sandifer, a 20-year sales and marketing executive at Securos USA, says AI belongs in sales only when it solves a real problem or automates a manual process — never as a mandate for its own sake. In this episode, Glenn explains how leaders can standardize AI tools across their teams, keep humans in control of every first touch and close, and reinvest the time AI saves into coaching.

This conversation tackles the pressure sales leaders feel from boards, investors, and customers to “do something with AI,” and offers a calm, practical path forward. Glenn draws on two decades leading inside sales and client experience teams in complex enterprise environments to separate where AI genuinely helps from where the human element is non-negotiable.

In this episode, Glenn Sandifer answers:

• How can sales leaders adopt AI responsibly without chasing hype?
• Why does inconsistent AI tooling across reps create security and data risks?
• Where does AI work best, and where must a human stay in control?
• What traits will successful salespeople need in the age of AI?
• Why is the future of sales leadership a return to coaching?
• What does effective post-call coaching actually look like?

Ready to lead your team through the AI transition? Learn more from Glenn Sandifer at https://www.glennsandifer.com/

Visit us on Apple Podcast. You can also find SalesPOP! on all major podcast stations.

Charlotte Johnson, founder and CEO of Drew and Rose, argues that marketing should be held as accountable for lead generation as sales is for closing — and the fix starts with compensation and shared meetings, not more campaigns. In this episode, Charlotte shows how tying marketing pay to leads, mapping the full funnel, and building a test-and-learn culture turn two siloed teams into one revenue engine.

Charlotte explains why even large companies still fight the alignment battle in 2026, and how leadership can avoid assigning blame by treating breakdowns as process problems rather than people problems. She also shares how Drew and Rose put skin in the game with a results guarantee and rebuilt the agency model around accountability.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why are sales and marketing still misaligned, even in big companies?
• How should you pay marketing so it’s accountable for leads?
• Why does leadership need to put both teams in the same meeting?
• What processes actually improve lead quality and close rates?
• How can sales and marketing use AI without widening the gap?
• What does the future of marketing look like in an AI-search world?

Ready to make your marketing accountable to revenue? Learn more about Charlotte Johnson and Drew and Rose at https://drewandrose.com/

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Chad Coe, Founder of Coe Financial Group, replaces the hard pitch with what he calls “peopleizing” — leading with genuine care so prospects hire a relationship, not a sale. In this Sales POP! Expert Insight Interview, Chad shows how thoughtful questions, the right follow-up rhythm, and patience turn cold contacts into clients who say he feels like family. He draws on 25-plus years as a financial advisor to explain why most salespeople quit too soon and how to fix it.

In this episode, Chad Coe answers:

• What is “peopleizing,” and how is it different from traditional networking?
• How do you lead with value instead of pitching your service?
• What is the 3% rule, and how many people do you really need to reach?
• How do you handle ghosting without coming off as pushy?
• Why are patience and faith the habits that build a top 1–2% career?
• How do you keep a deal alive after a great first call?

Ready to build relationships that close? Visit Chad at cofinancial.com to book a free consultation.

Visit us on Apple Podcast. You can also find SalesPOP! on all major podcast stations.

Dilip Chetan, founder of Recursion Lab and creator of the Defensible Zone framework, argues that leaders racing to automate ask the wrong question — the smart move isn’t “What can we automate?” but “What human value must we protect?” In this episode he maps the moats AI erodes and the judgment, trust, and reasoning it still can’t replace. Drawing on 20 years across Google, Meta, Oracle, and Salesforce, Chetan gives sales leaders a practical way to decide what stays human.

This episode answers:

• Is AI actually causing tech job losses, or being used as an excuse?
• What is the Defensible Zone framework, and how do you apply it?
• How do you test whether your competitive moat is real?
• Should you automate sales outreach, or keep first contact human?
• Where should AI live — upstream on decisions, or downstream on grunt work?
• Which companies will thrive with AI, and which will struggle?

Ready to find the work AI can’t reach? Book a free consultation with Dilip Chetan at julianlighton.com.

Visit us on Apple Podcast. You can also find SalesPOP! on all major podcast stations.

Executive coach Julian Lighton, author of Navigating Your Next and a former McKinsey associate partner, says the average professional spends roughly 90,000 hours — a third of their life — on their career, so the single most valuable move is to stop drifting and decide what you actually want before circumstances decide for you. In this Expert Insight Interview, Lighton walks through his practical seven-step framework for clarifying your goals and building a confident path to reach them.

Topics covered:

• How do you figure out what you actually want from your career?
• What are the four unavoidable career transitions everyone faces?
• Why can’t you reach a big career goal on your own?
• How do you map where you stand using competence, context, culture, and mindset?
• What is the real cost of success — and what makes it worth it?
• How do you actually start when you feel stuck?

Ready to navigate your next move? Explore Julian Lighton’s framework and book a consultation at julianlighton.com.

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Curtis Sprouse, Founder & CEO of Eureka Connect, argues that behavioral science is the missing link in leadership: validated data accelerates how leaders understand their teams, and self-awareness—not title or tenure—is what actually separates strong leaders from struggling ones. In this Expert Insight Interview he explains why even successful CEOs carry blind spots, how trust is built, and what AI will and won’t change.

This episode answers:

• Why is behavioral-science data the missing link in leadership development?
• Why is a lack of self-awareness the biggest inhibitor of a CEO’s success?
• What makes a leader “unstoppable”—and why is consistency the real answer?
• Why do companies promote top performers into leadership they aren’t ready for?
• How do leaders build and maintain trust during hard times?
• Will AI replace the human side of leadership, or make it more important?

Connect with Curtis Sprouse and explore his behavioral-science assessments at eurekaconnect.com.

Visit us on Apple Podcast You can also find SalesPOP! on all major podcast stations.