Kyle Norton

📈 CRO 📈 @ Owner.com (Hiring), SaaS GTM Advisor & Investor

As CRO for Owner.com, Kyle leads a team of world class go to market professionals who help independent restaurants grow their direct, online takeout and delivery channels. He currently owns the sales, partnerships, onboarding, demand gen, revenue operations and enablement portfolios.

Kyle is also a Limited Partner (GTM Fund, Stage 2 Capital), Advisor, and Angel Investor for several SaaS-focused funds and startups, where he shares his insights and expertise on scaling, selling and servicing SaaS products.

Additionally, Kyle is a founding member and Co-Chapter Head of the Toronto chapter of Pavilion, a global community of revenue leaders and operators and host of the Revenue Leadership Podcast.

I spend a lot of time on stages talking about GTM AI, sales infrastructure, enablement systems.

All real. All important. None of it is what actually makes Owner truly special.

What makes Owner.com different is people.

A 22-year-old who was making $14/hour in restaurants, riding the subway in the dark both ways. Someone gave him a shot. Two years later he's leading a team, and the thing that fires him up most is returning that fortune to the next early-career kid who doesn't know what they're capable of yet.

A recent grad who joined us five months ago and told her manager, unprompted, "I can't imagine working somewhere where you watch the clock." She opens her laptop and suddenly it's 3pm.

An entire team logging in on a Saturday because the month wasn't finished. Nobody asked them to. Everyone's Slack bubble just turned green. People who had already hit their number were in the channel hyping up those who hadn't. That's not something you train into people. That's identity.

You can replicate the systems. You can replicate the infrastructure. You can replicate the AI tools that make us more efficient than our competitors.

But you can't replicate what happens when you put hungry, humble, growth-obsessed people shoulder to shoulder and enable them to do their life's work. That's something totally different and I'm so grateful to experience that environment everyday. 

We just dropped a video from our new Toronto office, which tells this story better than I can. Go watch it.

You watch is and think "hell yeah," we're hiring.

Young-Ghee "YG" Hong is an absolute GTM AI 🐐 and if you're in NYC, you should go learn from him.

Co-Founder @ Deepline - Universal API Gateway for GTM Data | Data + Growth infrastructure | Ex-Uber & Capchase

The teams actually getting results with AI + GTM typically aren't posting on LinkedIn. So we got a few to take a break from building to share their work.

Join us on 4/1, 6pm at betaworks in NYC for Claude Code + GTM Lightning Talks 

Concrete, real-world use-cases for GTM leader, GTM engineers, and founders trying to sift through the noise of how to use coding agents to drive pipeline today.

Speakers include:
- Young-Ghee "YG" Hong, Applied AI Lead, Owner.com - by hyper-focusing on fundamentals and data, YG's been making exponential improvements for Owner. 

And if you've seen Jonathan Shenkman & Kyle Norton's work building one of the most data-driven GTM orgs out there, that's even more impressive!

- Shashank Khanna - Founder in Residence, GTM Engineering @ Vanta

- 🏍benyamin ‎, GTM Engineer @ AirOps - early to the GTM engineering space, big pickup for the team that coined the term "Content Engineering" to bridge the worlds of content marketing -> SEO/AEO/GEO. 
 
- Garrett Wolfe - already a big month for him after releasing the State of GTME report. Both a practitioner and expert on how the space is developing sharing his expertise.

+ more!

RSVP now! If you've been to any event in NYC in the last 2 months, you know it this will be at capacity.
https://luma.com/ycfvnrlq

Neil W.

CEOs call me when ok is not good enough - Fractional CRO @revenue•x | Founder @PORCH

Revenue is everything and nothing else matters.
Revenue solves all problems.  

But to get it in today’s market - it's all about execution. 
GTM execution is the only moat anymore. 

And if you don't know how or don't have a team that gets sh!t done, you are in a heap of trouble. 

Most consultants and advisors are full of ideas, but suck at getting things done. You don’t need more ideas. You need people who can lead and execute and get sh!t done.

Neil / weitzmanGTM provides hands-on and specific guidance to build your GTM function and revenue. 
Get sh!t done.

To learn more, check out www.weitzmanGTM.com or DM me.

--

I am also the Founder of PORCH - an exclusive club for international and immigrant entrepreneurs for the personal side of the journey (the stuff that accelerators don’t do). To learn more about the PORCH, check out www.porchcommunity.com.

--

I try my best to...
- Punch up and go high when others go low 
- Admit mistakes
- Follow logic and reason
- Stick to the POP principles (Passionate, Optimistic, Perseverance).
- Keep my 100% Say/Do ratio

Co-Founder and Executive Coach

Your blueprint for starting and growing your fractional or consulting business.

Type the first word you see.

Did you find the same word as me?


P.S all words related to GTM/Sales or Human Kindness

🤙Neil Weitzman

Getting sh!t done | GTM Operator - Fractional CRO | Founder of PORCH

We should settle all political crap with a game of hockey - USA vs Canada.
Two nations represented. 
Backdropped by all the crap going on between the two countries. 
All of it put aside for sport.
Best on best.
Hard fought and incredibly fast.
You knew one little mistake would be the difference. 
Canada dominated most of the game. 
Hellebuyck a complete stud.
Team USA wins and remembers one of the best - Gaudreau 🇨🇦 
Team Canada - these guys wanted it more than anything if their life but showing great sportsmanship and making Canada proud.

What a game!

Congrats #USA x2 (Women and Men)
Congrats #Canada - We cheated and still got Curling Gold 🤣 

P.S If only we had Crosby
P.P.S Or some of these guys
P.P.P. S Why do I hate the Tkachuks so much?

Most deals are actually lost 48 hours AFTER the contract is signed.

We spend months nurturing a lead. 
We navigate 7 stakeholders, survive 3 demos, and finally get the signature. 

We celebrate. 💚🍾🥂
We ring the bell. 

We move on to the next lead.

Meanwhile, the buyer is sitting at their desk feeling a cold pit in their stomach.

It’s called Buyer’s Remorse, and in B2B, it’s lethal. ☠️

The Buyer High lasts about 2 hours. Then reality sets in  "Did I just waste $100k? Is this going to break? Will my boss fire me if this implementation fails?"

If they hear nothing from you for 3 days, that anxiety turns into "silent churn."

Here is the tactic to use if you as a CRO / Founder:

The moment the ink is dry, bridge the gap between the Sales Rep they trust and the CS Manager they don't know yet.

1) Personal Acknowledgement: "Hey [Name], I just saw the signed contract. I am genuinely thrilled to have you with us."

2) The "Next 24 Hours" Map: "I am sure "Sales Rep" communicated this but just in case - Tomorrow at 9 AM, you’ll get an invite from [CS/Implementation Lead]. They already have your notes on [Specific Pain Point]."

3) The Safety Net: "I’m not disappearing. I will be here keeping an eye on everything. We have a Slack channel set up just for your business and I’m staying in it to make sure the handoff (and everything else) is flawless."

Not hard and doubles up the hand-off messaging in case of an issue. Also shows Sr level awareness and support for the client.

If your sales team "ghosts" the client the second they sign, you are flushing your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) down the toilet.

Confidence is transferred through clarity.

P.S more goodness here: https://lnkd.in/eN7BWyJb

Cancelled my 1-1 with one of my sales reps.

Why?

They crushed quota (127%) 
Had a strong pipeline
Was contributing to the team
Seemed optimistic and happy.
Was working super hard

I felt like they were in a groove and didn’t need me

So instead of filling 30 minutes of their schedule, I felt like they might appreciate less of me :) and to let them keep doing what they do best.

Because not every meeting is a good use of someone’s time, even if it makes you feel more “in control.”

Call it macro-managing. (It’s the quieter, more respectful cousin of micromanaging.)

Here’s what it looks like for me:

→Set the vision
→Ensure they are going in the right direction
→Give people the right tools and insight
→Clear the path when things get messy
→Let them figure out the how
→Stay available, but not in their way

You don’t need to sit on their shoulder to be a good leader.
Sometimes, leadership is knowing when not to jump in.

Great salespeople don’t need babysitting.
They need space.

What do you think, more 1:1s, or fewer?


P.S this was a 2:1 where 🏄🏼‍♂️ Scott Leese and I were coaching Marcus how how to increase his calves. Our advice was perfect - ask him for a pic.

There is no universal GTM motion. Stop looking for it.

Context eats playbooks every single time.

What works depends on:
-Your buyer maturity
-Your price point
-Your sales cycle
-Your competitive environment
-Your internal capabilities
-Your timing
-Your ______

Best practices ignore context.


----

If you are a full-time in-seat GTM operator stop remember that best practices are the best for someone else - not you.

If you are a Fractional CRO/CMO/GTM Operator your job is not to import answers. It is to diagnose reality.

The shit many of us go through but never talk about. Almost no one talks about this openly. Time to shine the light on real life. 

Your feed is full of wins today. Closed deals. New roles. Record quarters. 
Lots of bragging and lead magnets. 

Some of those people are wondering how they are going to make it through the week.   
Others are worried sick about next months rent or next weeks bills for their kids.

That is the part no one talks about on LinkedIn.  

PORCH 💚Foundation Utility Club is trying to help. 

Thanks to so many of you - We just sent money to 2 more people for February.

I want to tell you about them. Not their names, just what they are going through.  

Person 1  
Spent their last 7 euros on groceries yesterday. Seven. 
That was it. That was everything.  
They started a company in 2023. 
It was working at first and then budget cuts, AI, etc.
The usual reasons companies give when they stop paying you.  
Emergency fund.  Gone. 
Loans from friends. Gone. 
Now looking for a job.
They made it to final rounds at 2 companies in February. 
Extremely worried about being homeless in March. 

Person 2
Was crushing their number as an Alliance Manager. 
Top performer. Doing everything right. 
Then they got laid off on Halloween. October 31st. Happy holidays. 
Single parent and sole provider to 3 kids - 2 in college.  
Borrowing from friends and family just to keep going.
They described themselves as being at the end of their rope.  


These are not people who made bad decisions. 
These are people who did everything they were supposed to do and still ended up here.   

A little bad luck a simple wrong turn. 
Many of us have been there. 
Don't judge. 


Utility Club is simple.  
Donations are pooled each month. 
We pick one or two people from the applicants to give a little big of a helping hand too.
One person is randomly selected and receives some money - a hand up. 
No names. No judgment. Just help.  
If you are out of work and facing a financial crisis... If you need a hand up 
Apply: https://lnkd.in/epJc8D-G

If you are in a position to give, even a few dollars matters. 
Donation link: https://lnkd.in/eQM-Y_24
  

No one should have to face this alone.

B2B / LinkedIn network assemble!!!!

Sizzle for cooking. Drizzle for finishing.  Instead of going artisanal or elegant, he used a ketchup bottle and clear product segmentation and built a $50M brand narrative rooted in rebellious marketing.  

Most startups chase a “premium” look, but Andrew Bennett flipped the script with Graza olive oil.    

This is how brand positioning and packaging become your strongest growth levers.   

Here is the lessons Andrew taught us:  

➡️ Positioning Over Packaging Don't just design a package; design a behavior. Make your product fit the customer's actual life, not an idealized version of it.   

➕Segmentation Creates Clarity Specificity and simplicity sells. Most olive oil brands claim to be good for everything, which confuses the average cook. Graza split the product into two distinct use cases: "Sizzle" (cooking) and "Drizzle" (finishing).   

👍 Build a Narrative, Not Just a Product Graza didn't just sell oil; they sold a "rebellious" identity. The bottle became a status symbol for people who wanted to identify as practical, modern cooks.   

💚 Calculated Rebellion Graza earned free attention by refusing to look like everyone else. In a sea of serious, artisanal glass bottles, a bright green squeeze bottle stood out immediately. Look at what your competitors are doing and consider doing the exact opposite to capture attention.   

Most brands try to be like the category leader. 
Thats easy and has limited upside.  

Be courageous. 
Be different.   

P.S saw this first from Chadlscott on Instagram - great stuff - follow him  

P.P.S Branding is a big part of GTM - read more here: https://lnkd.in/eN7BWyJb

Every damn LinkedIn post knows exactly what YOU should do for untold riches. 
Every deck has "best practices". Every so-called expert references them and every CEO expects you to know them.

They sound safe but they kill progress faster than almost anything else in GTM.

I used to chase them and I often still catch myself doing it.

Where do “best practices” actually come from?

Most so called best practices are reverse engineered from companies that already won or sometimes from people trying to sell you something. 

We look at the winners and say:
• This is how they structured their sales team
• This is how they sent emails
• This is the pricing model 
• This is the motion they scaled
  
Then we assume those caused the outcome. 
Sometimes they did but often they did not.

We forget about the hundreds of companies that followed the same playbook and failed. We forget about them for two reasons:

1. The people who failed are not writing blog posts, are not generally keynoting conferences and are not in your LinkedIn feed.
   
2. We want to believe it is easy. 
   
That is survivor bias in its purest form. 
There is comfort but danger in copying. 

Best practices feel good because they remove responsibility. If it does not work, you can say: “We followed the playbook.”

As a fractional CRO, I have seen this pattern everywhere.
• Founders copying outbound motions from companies with totally different ICPs
• Sales teams adopting frameworks built for enterprise while selling SMB
• Marketing teams mimicking content that worked because the brand already had demand

Here is what people forget: What worked for them often worked because of timing, distribution, brand, capital, or talent. Not because of the tactic itself.

I learned the hard way. 
Earlier in my career, I wanted certainty. So I leaned on best practices instead of judgment and over time, I noticed that the more senior and effective operators I worked with rarely talked in absolutes. They asked better questions instead.

• Why would this work here? 
• What assumptions are baked into this tactic?
• What breaks if we are wrong?
• What is the smallest version we can test?
  
They were not anti best practice. They were just skeptical and made sure to ask great questions to verify decisions.

There is no universal GTM motion that works for everyone. 
What works depends on: your buyer maturity, your price point, your sales cycle, your competitive environment, your internal capabilities, your timing, etc.

So if best practices are bullsh!t, what do we do instead? 

We should study what great companies do. But just treat it differently. 
Here is how;

1. Borrow principles, not tactics 
2. Test before you scale 
3. Assume you are different because you are
4. Be honest about constraints  (capital, time, talent, and brand all matter)
5. Trust pattern recognition over popularity (loudest ideas are generally not the best) 
   
Context beats playbooks every time. 
More here: https://lnkd.in/eN7BWyJb

Does the "sick cat" excuse everything?

In the world of AI are people forgetting basic professionalism 

Timeline
1. Message person to meet on topic X
2. I try to hard (my first red flag and I should have stopped there)
3. Book meeting eventually
4. Guy cancels meeting 30 min before
5. Reschedule meeting
6. Me and my partner get on the call and the Guy never shows up
7. No communication, no apology nothing and a week later I get this email
8. I respond with some passive aggressive crap 
   

I should have just said - we don't appreciate being stood up with no communication and have no interest in working together if you treat people like this.

Tell me I am wrong...

The millions you spend on SKO (flights, hotels, swags, entertainment and keynotes) is a waste - unless it's Jen Allen-Knuth who is worth 50x and 🥇 

You spend millions, do the SKO and for 2–3 days, it feels like the entire org is unstoppable. 

But here is the truth and you know I am right.

Most of the content doesn’t stick. 
If it did everyone all your problems would be solved? 

Are they? were they?
Is your team still motivated and crushing it?

There’s a reason cognitive psychologists have studied this for over a century. 

The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve shows that without reinforcement, humans forget a huge percentage of new information within days. 

In other words, reps will forget about the new training before you can say Pinocchio.

Don't blame the reps.
It's our job as leaders to fix this. This is a system problem. 

Training only becomes behavior change when it’s reinforced through repetition, practice, and coaching over time. 

In other words, a single training event might create some excitement but it sure as hell doesn’t create skill. 

So, when you get back from SKO, and pipeline reviews start, but...
Deals are slipping, and managers fall back into “forecast mode”... 
The new discovery questions get skipped…
The new objection handling gets replaced with whatever each rep “feels comfortable with.” 

You’ll realize (too late) that your SKO was nearly wasted. 

The best teams build a post-SKO rhythm that includes: 
– structured repetition of key messaging 
– spaced reinforcement over weeks (not days) 
– active practice, not passive consumption 
– testing for retention, not just attendance 
– role-play reps can’t “opt out” of 
– coaching managers can actually scale 

Because the only thing worse than spending millions on SKO is spending millions and then letting the investment decay in real time. 

All of this is why I'm pumped for my relationship with Avarra 

AI coaching sims and role-playing to help reps practice the new messaging, rehearse real objections, and reinforce learning after SKO so training becomes durable behavior, not a temporary motivational high. 

For most companies, SKO is it’s the most expensive and the biggest enablement moment of the year. 

The question is simple: Are you building a reinforcement engine after SKO or just hoping your reps remember everything?  

Remember that saying.... hope is not a strategy.
Don't let your SKO become one big nothing burger. 

P.S DM me if you want to see one of the Avarra sims I built.

I yawn through most presentations. And if you are being honest, so do you. 

Here is how to build an effective presentation with tactical tips you can actually use.

Presentations are painful because most people were never taught how to build them properly.
 
Once I learned how to structure and deliver a story, everything changed. 

> influence 
> outcomes 

Here's how: 
  
1. Start with the story, not the slides.  
Before you open Google slides or a new AI slide builder tool, open a blank page. Write out your core message. Then build your narrative like a screenplay:
 
Act 1: The problem
Act 2: The struggle 
Act 3: The resolution (your solution, insights, proposal)
 
Tactical Tip:  Use this prompt: “By the end of this presentation, I want them to believe / understand / decide __________.”  That’s your anchor.
 
 
2. Make slide titles work hard.  
Most slide titles are lazy: “Overview,” “Features.”  They tell you what the slide is not why it matters.
 
Instead, write titles like headlines in a pitch deck.
 
Bad: “Roadmap”  
Better: “Shipping 3 major features in 90 days.”
 
Tip:  Ask yourself “If someone only remembered this title, would they get the point?”
 
 
3. Use the Rule of 3, and no more.  
Three short lines per slide, max.  People can’t process more.
 
Even better? One strong idea per slide.  
Let the whitespace do the talking.
 
Tip:  Use progressive reveals and show one point at a time. Don’t dump all at once or they will be reading ahead instead of listening. 
 
 
4. Use images like design, not decoration.  
Avoid clipart and pointless stock photos. An image should earn its spot by clarifying or emphasizing your point.
 
• Show the customer’s actual quote.
• Use product screenshots.
• Diagram the system, don’t describe it.
 
Tip:  Ask: “If I remove this image, does the meaning change?” If not, delete it.
 
 
5. Numbers are the climax, not the data dump.  Instead of cramming charts with tiny legends, give your audience a number they’ll remember.
 
“We hit $3M in ARR in 4 months”
 
Tip:  Use full-bleed numbers. Make it the slide’s centerpiece. Then tell the story behind the stat with your voice.
 
 
6. Practice. Time yourself.  
This is the big leagues. The 1-minute-per-slide rule isn’t optional.  Got 30 minutes for the meeting? Thats 15 min of presentation + discussion and Q&A time = 15 slides MAX.
 
Tip:  Rehearse with a timer and record it. You’ll catch pacing issues and filler words. Awkward but works.
 
 
7. Your presence > than your deck.  People don’t just want info they want conviction. Believing what you’re saying matters.

Tip:  Stand up, breathe deep, and smile. On Zoom too. Energy sells.
 

Great presentations are structured storytelling, Once you treat presentations like narratives everything will shift for you.
 

What’s one presentation mistake you see all the time?
 

P.S this image is a whole story itself - drinking a margarita in a bag with Chris B. 

P.S.S More from me here: https://lnkd.in/eN7BWyJb

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