Mark Kosoglow

Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)

Are your customers your growth engine? They should be.

As a teenager, watching 14 videos in the back storeroom on a 7" black and white TV to learn how to sell shoes at the mall was a great foundation. Running a small business with 200+ employees showed me how to be organized. Creating a highly profitable sales territory from one dead for a decade was hard work. Managing 12 salespeople across 9 states cemented my sales philosophy. Getting one of the fastest growing SaaS companies in history to $250M+ in revenue taught me how to balance scaling and delivering a world class customer experience.

Working with a customer-centric team with, by far, the best, smartest, hardest working people I've ever worked with....well, that's an honor and privilege I get to enjoy everyday.

CFO - Chief Fun Officer

Doing dad stuff, exploring interesting and fun opportunities...cookin' up something SPICY!

I love coaching reps. Quick debrief after a call? Yes please!
But, it always felt a bit random, which makes me feel I'm missing something.

What's worse is coaching is the most high value activity managers do.

I tried to use call scorecards several times, but they never lasted long.

Create a rubric, listen to the call, score the call on the rubric, review with rep.

Sounds so easy and organized, BUT it never worked. WHY?

1. Rubrics are hard to create →

How many items is too many? Not enough? What’s most important? How do we make this complete but not so cumbersome it’s a pain to do? What did we forget? When was the last time this was reviewed? Did we launch anything that impacts the rubric?

2. Rubrics are hard to score →

They are often subjective (one manager thinks it’s a 5, but another give is a 3). 

There are also “roll ups” of things that were dynamic through the call. Example: How was the rep’s tone in the call? What happens if it was bad but got better?

3. Too many calls, too much time →

If a manager has 8 AEs, and each AE has an an average of 15 calls per week. 
Team has 120 total meetings.
Each call is 30 mins of average.
A manager has 60 hrs of calls (30 hrs if you run on 2x).
There are discos, demos, negotiations, onboarding, roadmap calls.
So, 30 hrs of 6-8 diff types of calls to score.
Got different regions and segments and it gets worse quickly.

4. Hard to sustain →

Sure, you can do a couple call coaching blitzes, but over time, I've found getting managers to do this consistently and thoroughly never lasts. 

I finally gave up on scorecards.



Then, came AI. The always-on manager that can score anything.

I recently saw Glyphic has AI scorecards.

The AI looks at every call, scores it, creates rep insights.

This is what sales management was always supposed to be, but it never got there.

If the future of buying is a personalize, relevant, self-paced engagement that teaches the buyer everything they need to make the best decisions, then the future of selling is a personalized, relevant, self-paced engagement that coaches the seller on everything they need to help buyers make the best decisions.

You couldn’t do this.

It was impossible...took too long, too subjective, too random.

Now, you can.

If you stop learning as a rep, that’s on you.

If you aren’t being coached by a manager, that’s on them.

Will there be some wrong advise and scoring? Sure.

But, the consistency in it being down and how it is being done outweighs that.

We should #neverstoplearning.

This is a perfect application of AI to overcome a human problem.

Everyone has AI. Humans are the differentiators.

Asad Zaman

Sales Talent Agency, Inc.

Over the past 16 years, we have helped 1500+ companies across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific hire elite talent for every GTM role, from CROs to BDR and everything in between. Along the way we have facilitated over $550M+ in salaries while maintaining the lowest replacement rate in the industry at 3%.

Our clients include: Salesforce, SAP, NICE, Kronos, Varicent, Pavilion, Tipalti, Coda Payments, VersaPay, Docebo, Rollworks, Teads, PatSnap, Deliverect, Fidelity, RBC Ventures, Constellation Software, Honeywell and Bosch.

Google Reviews: 4.9 rating with 250+ reviews
Case studies and references: 200+

Managing Partner of Executive Search 

Managing Director of Executive Search 

Account Executive

Pavilion

Co-host of Topline 🎙️ | Ambassador | Founding Member of CEO Pavilion 

Toronto Region Board of Trade

2019's Young Professional Of The Year 

Techstars

The worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. Founded in 2006, Techstars began with three simple ideas—entrepreneurs create the future, collaboration drives innovation, and great ideas can come from anywhere. Today our mission is to make innovation accessible to everyone, everywhere. We do this by connecting startups, investors, corporations, and cities to create a more sustainable and inclusive world. Since 2006, Techstars has invested in more than 3,000 companies and today has a market cap of $75 Billion.

Mentor

ShopDev

ShopDev is a full-service technology and design company specializing in software & product development and technology acceleration.

Board Member

Forbes Human Resources Council

Member and Contributor 

Quantum Mob

Quantum Mob is a Toronto based full-service software consulting firm providing design, JavaScript web-based applications, Java micro services and DevOps solutions.

Advisor

TFR Inc.

Co-Founded a technology start-up focused on providing tools to health and wellness companies. Launched a MVP in 4 months and signed up 50+ clients within the first 6 months.

Co-Founder

Hunger Buddy

Co-Founded an enterprise technology start up focused on revolutionizing the food industry by providing a comprehensive web and app based platform to connect restaurants with their customers.

Co-Founder and Director of Sales, Marketing and Product Development 

A to Z Property Maintenance

Co-Founded a property management company that evolved from basic lawn and driveway care into property renovations.  Got to work with 11 inspiring individuals, turned an accountants office into an art gallery and got some hands on business building experience along the way.

Co-Founder and General Manager

CEO of Sales Talent Agency | Co-host of Topline 🎙️

112,732 people have been laid off in 2025 - 26% less than 2024. 

2026 will be different. We predict between 500K - 1M cuts in US tech.

Here is how we got there:

+ We had less total lay offs in 2025 (112K) across less companies (220) compared to 2024. But, we had a 86% YoY increase in AVG Cuts Per Company. 

+ Those who cut, did more than they did in 2024 or 2023. Are they cleaning up the fat from ZIRP still or is this AI? I think it's a lot of AI because the roles being impacted the most are areas where AI works well (eng, design, prod, support).

+ We also know that the advantages of AI are not easy to get. 95% of enterprise AI pilots provide no ROI, and that's not just about AI. It's also related to how good people are at getting those advantages. More companies will get the benefits others are already getting, in 2026. Then we also have to assume that AI improves, which increases the surface area of where we can find productivity unlocks. 

+ There are 702K tech companies in the US today. 220 of them cut in 2025. I think that'll be between 1K-2K in 2026. Even if the avg cuts per co will drop as small and mid sized cos get the AI advantages, the total number would rise dramatically as the economy digests AI. 

This doesn't mean I am bearish about 2026. I also think:

+ The economy will do well in 2026. 
+ The job market will be hot for top talent. 
+ There will be more new cos being built. 

But there will be more cuts. And for some the job market will feel quite tough. 

We discussed this in detail on this week's Topline. Give it a listen and share it with someone who needs signal to navigate this job market.

CEO of Sales Talent Agency | Co-host of Topline 🎙️ | Editor of Topline Media

I loved using case studies in the hiring process. Used to be VERY high signal. But AI has made case studies as useful as a 30/60/90 day plan (0% signal to be clear). WHITE BOARDING SESSIONS are the replacement.

Hiring is hard. 

You have a few conversations to make a call on the risk vs upside of the hire. 

And it's hard to learn everything you need to learn just by talking.

So we use other tools. Personality tests. Intelligence tests. Case studies. Business plans. Etc. None are perfect, but they help.

Pre AI, the basic move was asking for a 30/60/90 day plan. Which at best tested how good they were at googling for templates. 

The better move was the case study. They would have think, solve, articulate and present against something relevant to the role and your co.

But now AI makes them 50-90% easier to do. 

We have been testing White Boarding Sessions as the replacement. It's working so well that I think it should have been the thing we always did. Here is how it works:

+ Pick a problem. Something like: we need to either go up market or enter a new geo to hit our 2026 growth target. how would you as the CRO think through this decision? 

+ Have data on hand. The right way to think through this is looking at internal and external data. Have the internal data on hand. External can be found live. 

+ Let them lead. But be a thought partner as you will be if you hired them.

This should take 1-2 hours. 

When done right you learn:

+ What type of brain are we getting?
+ How well can we collaborate?

Imp things to figure out, and now you know how to do so.

Microsoft Ending 2025 Lowering AI Sales Quotas!! 

Since the release of ChatGPT, Microsoft and OpenAI were clear AI leaders but are ending 2025 having lost the lead to Google (in model quality, and the integration of AI into products). This is a good reminder that markets are dynamic and customers want the best solutions, so if you have a competitor today who has the lead, don't give up. Our ecosystem is full of stories of companies coming from behind - Databricks did it to Snowflake not too long ago - but also just as many stories of people who gave up, either because they wrongly thought markets are static, or they got exhausted (understandable). 

The only way you can do this though, is if you have the talent density to fight back, which is about acumen, and drive. Everything in business is downstream of the brains of the people in the business, so don't compromise on talent density, even when you don't have the lead and attracting them is harder. 

Also, yesterday the Topline editorial by OnlyCFO wrote about if "sales reps are overpaid?" - which is all about sales quotas. Give it a read as it's important to get this right, because if you don't, then you either have a ton of people missing quotas, or you have to lower them, which are both alarming signals to the market.

CROs would love to end 2025 with their final AI GTM tech stack. "2025 was experimentation, and now we know." That's not the reality.

We know a lot, but we don't know enough to stop experimenting. 

Craig Rosenberg - who runs Platform at Scale Venture Partner - wrote in this week's Topline editorial, that so far GTM AI has been about "more quantity." That's fine, but we now need to move towards quality. Not just "more," but actually "better."

The thing that excited me most about AI was how it could 10X the amount of context a sales rep had before a call. For years we had traded research for volume. AI could change the need for that trade, but it hasn't yet. 

Mark Roberge wrote - also in his Topline editorial - how AI can also help with coaching. It can develop a profile on the person you are going to be talking to, and give you at bats at them before you actually talk to them. It hasn't yet.

So, don't rush into finalizing the AI GTM tech stack. It's not ready yet. 

It's not convenient, but there is more experimentation to go.

taplio

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Asad Zaman

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The Battle

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Asad Zaman

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