- The Middle of the Funnel: Where Leads Go to Die
More leads won't fix a funnel that stops moving. Before you invest in another campaign, what’s happening to the prospects already in your pipeline?
In this episode of Go To Market Coffee Talks, hosts Mark Jacobs and Rob Kriner tackle the challenge of turning initial interest into meaningful sales conversations. The focus: uncovering where momentum stalls, making marketing-to-sales handoffs work, and helping buyers take the next step.
Key questions for your team:
- Where are leads getting stuck, and how long are they sitting there?
- Which conversion rates, timestamps, and engagement signals reveal lead velocity?
- Does your follow-up reflect buyer intent and readiness?
- Is your nurture content helping prospects make a decision?
- Which sales opportunities need clearer ownership and a concrete next step?
For B2B marketing, sales, and revenue leaders, it’s a practical look at the space between generating demand and building a pipeline that moves.
Grab your coffee, rethink what happens after the lead comes in, and follow Go To Market Coffee Talks for more candid conversations about sales, marketing, and growth.
30m - Oct 15, 2026 - Nailing Industry Events: Getting Out of the Damn Office
Are you spending more time studying your buyers than actually talking to them? Industry events can be one of your most valuable B2B marketing investments—if you go in with a strategy beyond collecting badge scans.
In Episode 11 of Go To Market Coffee Talks, Mark Jacobs and Rob Kriner explore how conferences, trade shows, and smaller gatherings can help you build pipeline, test your messaging, develop partnerships, and hear what customers actually care about.
We get into:
• Measuring event ROI beyond booth traffic and immediate sales.
• Using face-to-face conversations to sharpen positioning and uncover competitive insights.
• Choosing when to attend, sponsor, exhibit, or speak.
• Creating your own customer dinners, roundtables, and small events.
• Connecting AI, intent data, and marketing automation with real-world relationship building.
For founders, marketing leaders, and sales teams, this episode challenges a familiar habit: investing in tools to scale your go-to-market strategy before you’ve tested whether your message resonates.
Before you buy another prospecting tool or book another booth, get clear on what you need to learn—and who you need to meet.
S1E11 - 23m - Sep 30, 2026 - One Shift At A Time: Hockey Lessons For Go To Market with Matthew Rubin
Put hockey fans in a room to talk Go-To-Market and you’ll get observations on line chemistry, grinders vs. goal scorers and why your star sales rep still won’t backcheck
That pretty much sums up our new episode: One Shift at a Time. Hockey Lessons for Go to Market.
It’s where Go-To-Market strategy meets hockey logic. Because building pipeline, creating pressure, and winning markets looks a lot like winning games. It’s about systems and doing the unglamorous work shift after shift.
We talk about:
Why line chemistry > lone superstars
Why grinders often beat goal scorers in real markets
How forechecking = smart pressure in sales and marketing
If you like practical GTM thinking, real-world lessons and a little hockey flavor, this one’s for you.
New episode just dropped!
33m - Jan 6, 2026 - 5 Pricing and Packaging Principles That Work As You Scale
Most startups design pricing the same way they design IKEA furniture: optimistically and without instructions.
Pricing isn’t math. Pricing is strategy. It shapes who buys, how fast deals close, whether your sales team discounts endlessly, and whether customers grow with you or stall out.
In the latest episode of the Coffee Talk GTM Podcast, we dig into 5 pricing & packaging principles that work in the real world, including:
- Why underpricing kills trust (not just revenue)
- How great packaging makes the middle option irresistible
- Why “flexibility” often becomes chaos at scale
- How to align pricing with your go-to-market motion
- And when it’s finally time to change your pricing
No academic theory. No fluffy frameworks. Just real stories, real mistakes, and lessons you can use.
If you’re a founder, operator, or anyone building a scalable GTM engine, this one might help.
31m - Dec 21, 2025 - Espresso Shot: 4 Things to Get Right When Building A Sales Commission Plan
That first sales commission plan has more influence on growth than most leaders realize. Recent conversations with founders and scale-ups keep surfacing a similar issue. Plans look fine on paper but quietly drive the wrong behavior. Early commission plans shouldn’t be clever. They should be clear, fair and economically sound. In this 2 minute Espresso Shot, I break down four core concepts every business leader should understand before distributing that plan.
2m - Dec 19, 2025 - Espresso Shot: Meditation for Sales Success
You’ve upgraded your CRM, your pitch deck, and your wardrobe.
It’s time to upgrade your nervous system.
In less than 2 minutes, we explore how a little meditation can help you show up cooler and sharper on every call.
1m - Dec 2, 2025 - Espresso Shot: Ever Ask a Question and Nothing Happens?
In the time it takes to drink a shot of Expresso, Mark spells the beans on the best type of question you can ask.
2m - Nov 17, 2025 - Selling When It Feels Awkward: Practical Tips for Founders
Many founders would rather be building than selling, but sales isn’t a superpower, it’s a skill anyone can learn.
In this episode, Mark and Rob break down how founders can sell authentically by talking less, asking smarter questions, building rapport, and mastering the pacing of bigger deals. You’ll learn practical ways to build sales confidence without changing who you are, and how to turn every conversation into real momentum for your business.
Looking for Go-to-Market help?
Mark's got your sales needs covered at Fractional Full Measure LLC
Mark's LinkedIn
Mark's Pie Adventures - Pie, Coffee and Conversation
Rob's got your GTM needs covered at Sync Strategic Digital
Rob's LinkedIn
S1E8 - 25m - Oct 28, 2025 - Selling to the Enterprise Buyer with Alex Rushent
Ever wondered what it takes for a small business owner to sell into a giant enterprise organization? This week, Mark Jacobs and Rob Kriner talk to futurist Alex Rushent about the steps entrepreneurs should take and the pitfalls they can avoid when considering selling to a large corporation.
Alex has over 20 years of experience in the Intellectual Property industry. He is pre-launching his new venture, ciao.global, and is consulting with companies on how they can effectively manage their portfolio of intangible assets.
Looking for Go-to-Market help?
Mark's got your sales needs covered at Fractional Full Measure LLC
Mark's LinkedIn
Mark's Pie Adventures - Pie, Coffee and Conversation
Rob's got your GTM needs covered at Sync Strategic Digital
Rob's LinkedIn
S1E7 - 27m - Sep 24, 2025 - Moving from Founder Seller to Sales Team Leader with Brian Looney
On today's episode, Mark and Rob are talking to Brian Looney, a long-time veteran of sales and sales leadership with multiple successful stints as an entrepreneur mixed in (Gotham Partners, Huski.ai and currently Clozrr, Inc.). Brian loves the art of persuasion and working with sales professionals - a special breed who knowingly embrace a profession where, in the best of all possible worlds, a 30% success rate is considered absolutely crushing it.
Scaling from founder-led sales to a full sales team is one of the biggest and trickiest leaps for any business. In this episode, Mark, Rob, and Brian dig into the mindset shifts, must-do steps, and common pitfalls that every founder needs to know when moving from closing every deal themselves to leading a professional sales organization.
Looking for Go-to-Market help?
Mark's got your sales needs covered at Fractional Full Measure LLC
Mark's LinkedIn
Mark's Pie Adventures - Pie, Coffee and Conversation
Rob's got your GTM needs covered at Sync Strategic Digital
Rob's LinkedIn
S1E6 - 27m - Sep 15, 2025 - Sales Tools for Small Businesses: Apollo.io and Proposify
In this episode of Go-to-Market Coffee Talks, Mark and Rob conclude their conversation on sales enablement tools with a look at two platforms that make perfect additions to your tech stack after the CRM: Apollo.io and Proposeify. They break down why Apollo and Proposify are perfect extensions of your CRM, how small teams can use them to save time and build scale, and the ROI you can expect.
Looking for Go-to-Market help?
Mark's got your sales needs covered at Fractional Full Measure LLC
Mark's LinkedIn
Mark's Pie Adventures - Pie, Coffee and Conversation
Rob's got your GTM needs covered at Sync Strategic Digital
Rob's LinkedIn
S1E5 - 22m - Aug 28, 2025 - From Data to Deals: How CRMs Align Go-to-Market Teams
In this episode of Go-to-Market Coffee Talks, Mark and Rob dive into the role of CRMs in go-to-market strategy and why every team needs one. They break down why a CRM matters for sales and marketing alignment, how a platform like HubSpot helps lean go-to-market teams generate and nurture leads, and how sales leaders can close deals faster by viewing the entire pipeline and sales activity.
Whether you’re a founder building your first sales engine or a small marketing team trying to scale smarter, this episode will show you why CRMs are one of the best tools for small business go-to-market success.
Looking for Go-to-Market help?
Mark's got your sales needs covered at Fractional Full Measure LLC
Mark's LinkedIn
Mark's Pie Adventures - Pie, Coffee and Conversation
Rob's got your GTM needs covered at Sync Strategic Digital
Rob's LinkedIn
S1E4 - 24m - Aug 21, 2025 - Sales Tools for Small Businesses: Enablement Without the Overload
Small business sales teams are overloaded with tools. CRMs, automation, dashboards, but are they actually helping you sell? In this episode, Mark and Rob break down tips for starting with sales technology enablement.
In this part one episode they cover:
- How sales tech powers enablement at every stage of the sales process
- Where small business leaders should start when building a tech stack
- The traps to avoid, from tool overload to low adoption rates
Whether you manage a small sales team or run your own business, you’ll discover how to build a smart, ROI-driven sales enablement tech stack that helps your team sell.
Looking for Go-to-Market help?
Mark's got your sales needs covered at Fractional Full Measure LLC
Mark's LinkedIn
Mark's Pie Adventures - Pie, Coffee and Conversation
Rob's got your GTM needs covered at Sync Strategic Digital
Rob's LinkedIn
S1E3 - 23m - Aug 13, 2025 - What It Really Takes to Go from Services to SaaS
On this episode, Mark and Rob discuss what it takes for service companies to reinvent themselves as product companies. What are the major differences between being a service company and a product company? Why would a company want to make this change? What are the benefits, and what needs to be done to succeed?
S1E2 - 24m - Aug 7, 2025 - Why RFPs Don't Have to Suck
Welcome to the latest episode of Go to Market Coffee Talks, where your hosts, Mark Jacobs and Rob Kriner, are digging into the full GTM pipeline, from sparking demand to closing the deal (and everything in between). Mark and Rob serve up real talk, smart strategies, and the go to market pitfalls you’ll want to dodge.
On today's episode, Mark and Rob dive into RFPs and how organizations can get smarter about their process, and why implementing a technology solution makes sense for teams of all sizes.
Looking for Go to Market help?
Mark's got your sales needs covered at Fractional Full Measure LLC
Mark's LinkedIn
Mark's Pie Adventures - Pie, Coffee and Conversation
Rob's got your GTM needs covered at Sync Strategic Digital
Rob's LinkedIn
S1E1 - 21m - Jul 30, 2025
