Sam Jacobs

Founder & CEO

I build elite, modern GTM operators - CROs, CMOs, CCOs, and Revenue Operations leaders - who drive growth at the world’s fastest-growing B2B companies, including Salesforce, Hubspot, Stripe, Oracle, Snowflake, Clay, Klaviyo, Xero, Upside, Owner.com, Otter.ai, and Square

That’s the mission behind Pavilion, the leading global community of over 10,000 high-performance go-to-market executives. We exist to help ambitious professionals unlock and realize their full potential—not just as employees, but as leaders, thinkers, and builders.  

Pavilion is a paid membership for GTM leaders at every level. We provide tactical support, advanced education - incorporating financial literacy, advanced AI-powered GTM motions, and modern leadership tools - career acceleration, and a powerful peer network to help Members perform better in their roles and grow into the next. We operate in every major global hub and represent a new way of thinking about career development—community-powered, principle-led, and relentlessly practical.

This all started with a belief: that greatness exists within all of us. Sometimes it just needs the right mechanism to bring it forth.

To learn more, visit: www.joinpavilion.com

I also co-host the Topline Podcast with AJ Bruno and Asad Zaman.

And I wrote a bestselling book, Kind Folks Finish First, about building with kindness at the center.

Host, Sales Hacker Podcast

Host of The Sales Hacker Podcast featuring interviews and discussion with leading sales practitioners from high growth companies around the world.  

Learn more here: https://www.saleshacker.com/podcast-announcement/

I thought AI SDRs were a gimmick.  I no longer think that.  I do think that if you have a team of poorly trained people sending thousands of crappy emails, having a bot replace them won't do very much.

But, I can also recognize that an agent sending thousands of emails is cheaper than a team of humans sending thousands of emails.

And I also appreciate instant follow-up.

We've long discussed the exponential half-life of lead value as response time increases.  

Following up within 1 minute is 10x more valuable than an hour which is 10x more valuable than a day.

So there is definitely a place for AI SDRs.

But I think benchmarks and standards are important.  

That's why I partnered with Otter.ai to put together a new guide for B2B sales leaders on how to unlock the potential of AI SDRs.

What you’ll learn:

- Benchmarks that matter: See how AI SDRs outperform traditional reps with 10x outreach, 3x faster replies, and 50% lower cost per meeting.

- Key advantages: AI SDRs persistently follow up and boost meeting conversion rates from 15% to over 25%.

- Common pitfalls: Learn what to watch out for from over-automation to data accuracy and how to balance AI efficiency with human insight.

- Measurement framework: Know which KPIs every sales leader should track, including qualified meetings, cost per meeting, response time, and lead quality.

- Ethical and operational best practices: Maintain transparency, protect data, and know when to hand the conversation back to your rep.

AI SDRs are booking twice as many qualified meetings at half the cost. 

This guide shows you how to get there faster: https://lnkd.in/ezn6i-Vy

Data in the table below provided by Otter.

#sponsored

CEO @ Pavilion | Co-Host of Topline Podcast | WSJ Best Selling Author of "Kind Folks Finish First"

There's a pipeline crisis happening right now in B2B tech. Which means there's a growth crisis.  

And while this website is full of a lot of very talented people who can get a lot of likes and engagement on social media posts, 

Communities are where the real operators are spending time.

Real operators don't have endless hours building their brand on social media.  They're too busy running their teams to try and master the ever changing algorithm.  

But they do have time to talk to each other, share ideas and best practices, and try and find strategies that unlock growth.

This was one of my favorite such conversations this past week in Pavilion.  

And the best part was 15 different CROs, GTM operators, and true practitioners leaning in to share real stories from the front lines.  

The way we're going to navigate our new persistent state of uncertainty is through a community of diverse vetted expert opinions in constant dialogue.  

There is no single framework that will save you.

Nor one single thought leader (including me).

It's going to be about you and your engagement with a group of fellow practitioners.  

We've built the very best GTM community in tech over the past 10 years and I'd be honored if you joined us and contributed to the conversation.  

Click here: https://lnkd.in/gtYxeg7J

We're heading for a crash.  Unit economics was the unlock that drove 20 years of software growth.  Once people understood the basic math, we could confidently invest in GROWTH.  But when a new generation of AI founders don't understand that math, everything breaks.

BACKGROUND

Unit economics describe the relationship between:

- How you much you spend to get a customer
- How much they pay you back
- What it costs you to service them
- How long they stick around

The basic assumptions are:

- It's expensive to change someone's mind (CAC)
- Once they change it, they stick around for awhile (Retention, GRR)
- It costs little to service them (Gross Margin, Cost of Service)

So ... 

- Even if it's expensive to acquire a customer
- Because they stay for a long time and it's cheap to keep them
- You can spend more than you make today knowing they'll be around for a long time and pay you back

THE AI HYSTERIA BREAKS THE MATH

Fast forward to today.

- Is it still expensive to acquire a customer?  YES and it's getting more expensive all the time

- Is it still cheap to service them? NO most AI companies have manufacturing-like gross margins. Replit has negative gross margins.  Meaning they lose money every time they make a sale.  So AI companies don't look like traditional software.

- Do they stick around a long time? Probably NOT.  If you can grow that quickly on Experimental Revenue you have no idea if those people are going to stay.  And you need them to stay MUCH longer because your margins are so terrible. 

The entire equation is broken.

Once the equation breaks, you eventually hit a wall, run out of money, and shut down your company.

As long as investors will underwrite bad math, you're safe.

The minute the winds change direction, you're screwed.

So what do you?

Don't listen to me, I'm just over here trying to teach people to how to build long term businesses.  I'm probably doing it wrong :)

But if you do want to survive the chaos, DM me and we can talk about the little community I'm building to empower GTM operators of the future to flourish in a new world of persistent uncertainty.

Jared Robin ⏭

Helping Founders & GTM Leaders Go-to-Market Collaboratively | Founder of RevGenius community of 40k+ GTM leaders | Startup Advisor | “The most important thing you can do in sales and life is be a homie” - Bloomberg

The loudest don’t win. The most resonant do.
I help founders turn audiences into movements.

I’ve seen how resonance scales:
•Built RevGenius from 0 → 55,000 members & 7-figure revenue in 3 years
•Scaled multiple startups from 0 → 7 figures, including 2 exits
•Advisor to 12+ SaaS startups

,I work with founders & GTM leaders to:
•Clarify their POV so it resonates
•Build audiences & communities that compound
•Spark movements that define categories

If you’re ready to grow by resonance, not noise, let’s connect.

Writer

Launched a newsletter helping Founders, Fractionals and GTM Leaders go-to-market collaboratively.

I'm deleting 10,000+ LinkedIn connections.

Here's why:

I hit the 30k connection limit and realized most of them don't see my content and I don't see theirs. The algorithm buries us to each other.

I'm shouting into a void of people I haven't talked to since high school or past jobs. They're doing the same to me.

So I'm trimming down to the community I'm actually building with - people in the trenches of revenue, growth, and go-to-market. Founders building the future of their spaces.

It's not personal. It's about making this platform work.

Resonance > noise.

(Using LeadDelta to bulk remove because doing it one by one was brutal. No affiliation.)

Community is the ultimate leverage.

Jared Robin

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li_at

I help founders create markets, not fight for them 🏴‍☠️

I had no job, no money, and a 380 sq ft apartment in the East Village.

So I sent 300+ LinkedIn DMs a day with one simple ask: "Want to join an inclusive sales, marketing, and RevOps Slack community?"

10%+ said yes. That's 900 people a month.

It worked because I struck a nerve. Covid hit, people were isolated, and every other community was either exclusive to leaders or wasn't really a community at all.

I saw the gap and built something different- a place where everyone belonged.

RevGenius took off. 1,000-3,000 new members joined a month once word of mouth spread. The vibes were immaculate.

It started with a 27-person LinkedIn group chat that was so active the app crashed multiple times a day. I moved everyone to Slack and went all in.

That chair between the windows? That was my office for a year. I was surviving on unemployment, drinking too much coffee, staying up too late.

But the mission mattered more than my job search.

5 years later: 60,000 members.

Grateful I never stopped building.

It only took me 10+ years on LinkedIn, but I did it! Hit 50k followers.

Been on LinkedIn prospecting since I first got into tech. 

Since, I've seen a MASSIVE evolution in gtm & the platform:
- from not being allowed to 'social sell' to a key motion
- from tons of cold dms to building content.
- from prospecting to building community
- from climbing sales ranks to solopreneurship
- from manual work to automation to ai
- so much more

Through this platform I built a community of 55k revenue professionals. 
Through this platform I built a new career path for myself.
Through this platform I built a professional friend group unlike any I could have imagined.

Thank you all for contributing to over 50k followers here, 80k on our company page and more importantly, being a part of the change.

Here's to the next 50k 🚀

I've known Leslie for a few years now. And she just continues to level up.

Watched her launch her own business.
Watched her drive amazing results for her clients.
Watched her build her brand and speak everywhere.

And now, if that wasn't enough...

Watched her write a book that soared to the top of the charts.

She invited a bunch of incredible GTM leaders (and friends) to a luncheon last week which she hosted.

Hung with the homies Joshua Bailey, Jacob Fleisher, Katrine Reddin 🦕, Julia Carter, Ben Bartolone and so many more as vibes flowed. 

As wonderful as the book "Profit Generating Pipeline' is (a USA Today top 50 bestseller), Leslie is way better. 

I mean look at her energy in the background supporting Josh and I homie-ing it up :)

Appreciate you to the moon.

I help founders stand out from the noise 🏴‍☠️

When the homies Michael Petery & Benjamin Douablin invite you to dinner, you show up.

Had a blast talking about wild investment stories, the data space, and thinking differently.

Loved getting a chance to also hang with Jacqueline-Amadea Pely, Charles Crnoevich, Santtu Koivumäki, and David Walker, a group of tremendous revenue leaders building the future of GTM.

Big props to FullEnrich for going into a commoditized space and forging a new category (data optimization?)! 

Shout out to Wegmans Food Markets too - who knew they could launch a Michelin Star restaurant in a prime location?!

GTM is hard. Building a community of leaders gives us all the support we need.

Thinking about creating new markets to make going to market less noisy is the added sauce.

I want to start hosting some dinners in NYC. Who's in?

I had zero fashion experience. Zero magazine experience. I was 30 years old. 1 year later I was being invited to 40+ fashion shows a season and was in line to become an ambassador to Korea.

Here's what happened in between:

I launched Deux Hommes Magazine with my co-founder Carlos. We were newly obsessed with menswear. We wanted to make money eventually, but first we wanted to build something that mattered.

At the start, we wrote about the same mainstream brands all the big publications covered. We weren't being seen, and honestly, our content wasn't as good as theirs. How could we compete? Did we even want to?

Everything changed when I walked into Shop Untitled, a boutique in the West Village. The entire store was filled with brands I'd never heard of. Avant-garde designers I'd never seen in any major magazine.

And the fashion was better.

I took photos of every label. Hit Google. Found more boutiques, more designers, more incredible work that nobody was covering.

These brands wanted exposure but couldn't get it- too young, no PR budgets, no connections. The big mags ignored them.

I found our niche.

For the next four years, we built a team of writers and editors from schools like Parsons. We featured exclusively emerging designers. I was making $0 and working 40 hours a week on this- on top of my day job.

After a slow start, things clicked.

We hit 10k monthly readers. We threw the biggest men's NYFW party. Top trend forecasters followed us. Design schools discussed our work. We won international fashion film awards.

We stopped competing where we couldn't win, and solved a problem nobody else would.

I showed up for dinner. I left with proof that everyone complaining about outbound just sucks at it.

John Basar is a killer (to the right of me) - 30-40 meetings booked a month at HockeyStack.

The dude crouching in the middle of the front row?

Meet Gautam: 200 meetings booked in his first 6 months. 

Over 50% of meetings booked via cold call. Savages.

I went to this dinner last week expecting a nice meal and to hang with the spectacular company I advise. I ended up with a lesson in outbound.

And its not just these 2. It's the whole team. 

Discussed hiring, outbound, and so much more. Learning a ton.

Alex Choi and Emir Atli (Hiring AEs) have this team humming. 

Had an amazing time hanging with the homies Lily Roosevelt, Amulya Vadrevu, Daniel Garcia and so many more.

What I love the most about Hockeystack is they are absolutely crushing the inbound game. And, yet, they have taken the time to make sure their GTM doesn't end there. 

Oh ya, and they are building something different than those in the 'attribution' space (where they started). 

Don't let the gurus tell you outbound is dead. It's alive and well for those that know what's up.

Join the movement.

LFG 🏴‍☠️

Clay gets a 30-40x multiple. Most data companies get 3-5x.

Same revenue. Wildly different valuations. Here's why:

GTM has 3 metrics that matter - not just revenue.

1. Drive actual revenue

This goes without saying. If it's not consistently filling the pipeline and closing deals, it's theater. Brand plays and awareness matter, but only after you've proven you can make money.

But doing this alone? You're playing in somebody else's category and subscribing to the average valuations thereof.

In the data space, hit $10M ARR and you'll get a 3-5x multiple. That's solid - but it's not 10x.

And it certainly isn't 30-40x like Clay.

The reason? You're capped by the category leader's potential.

Clay didn't just build better data tooling. They built orchestration, a system for action. They sculpted a new space. Time will tell how big it gets, but they're not competing on data multiples anymore.

2. Expand category potential

Whether you're creating a new category or redefining an existing one, marketing needs to create hunger for the problem you solve. When you frame, name, and claim a category - demand converts to revenue automatically.
Airbnb didn't compete with hotels. 

Uber didn't compete with taxis. Salesforce didn't compete with on-prem software.

They found problems with the old way and built solutions that created a bigger pie.

The markets for each FAR surpass the original "competing" space. And they've owned it ever since.

3. Increase company valuation

Investors don't buy what you've done. They buy what you could become.

Marketing shapes the story of massive category potential and positions your company as the inevitable winner.

Category kings get higher valuations (Clay, Airbnb, Cursor) because the categories they create are expected to build exponentially bigger pies.

The metrics - revenue growth, customer growth, margins - just validate the bigger vision.

Props to Christopher Lochhead 🇺🇸🇮🇱🏴‍☠️ for first exposing me to this framework.

When you align your entire GTM team on these three metrics - not just sales on revenue - you stop competing in someone else's category and start building something that actually matters.

Down with silos. 🏴‍☠️

8 pm yesterday - we won Thanksgiving.

Grateful for:
- a family that doesn't take themselves too seriously
- a partner who supports me endlessly
- a network and community that are friends first
- the privilege to be able to put it all on the line
- all the texts yesterday with folks I lost touch with
- my beautiful nieces who are so funny and fun
- my health, food on the table, and roof over my head
- whoever took this photo (still unknown)
- being able to build on a tremendous foundation
- the leftovers we have for weeks because we cooked too much

Drop a 🦃 if you also ended up horizontal by 8pm. 🤣

This week a company made me schedule a 45-minute discovery call with an SDR to buy payroll processing. For one employee.

I was looking for a new payroll provider this week. Just for a single employee company.

Expected the process to be quick and easy. Nothing to negotiate, no unique integrations needed - just needed to understand who could do the job.

Payroll processing.

And maybe to see if I was eligible for PEO. No site would confirm or deny if I was. (Note: it’s not rocket science, it’s based on employee opt in count)

Here’s what buying payroll looks like in 2025:

All 3 websites: No clear pricing. No details on PEO eligibility. All required I speak to someone.

Company 1- called me right after I submitted the form - startled me in a way I welcomed. The challenge? She needed to coordinate with 2 other reps depending on the program(s) I required. That would lead to another call just to get the answers I needed. That call - you guessed it - would have to happen on another day.

Company 2- (who I already work with for our international contractors) required I coordinate schedules with 2 reps which took a couple days of back and forth on email. They had the best solution for me but required an annual contract which was a non starter. No flexibility or desire to escalate. We’ve worked with them for a few years.

Company 3- the 45 min inbound SDR meeting. Filled out the form on their site. Got a calendar link. Realized I couldn’t get a same day call. Scheduled this 45 min call for the next day.

45 min calls may be the worst.

WTF would a company want anyone, let alone inbound SDRs, chatting for 45 mins call 1?

I just had 2 basic questions.

Waited the day. Hopped on the call.

They asked me “where I was calling from” on Zoom. Fuming.  I can’t be the only one that hates “canned” small talk?

Here are MY questions - I qualified myself out in 3 mins.

The process I had to go through for a simple purchase showcases a massive problem with the legacy buyer journey.

This doesn’t just happen with payroll. I’m seeing it across the board.

It works the way a company has structured it to work.

Not the way a buyer actually buys.

This is the perfect example of a movement that’s needed.

Who’s going to lead it?

Just got off a call with 2 founders saving their clients between 50-90%+ on tech stack costs alone. And that's not even including savings from employees they don't have to hire and time they don't have to spend.

This is the future - autonomous gtm.

Today you 'can' build whatever you want in tools like n8n but it requires a technical person who needs to spend hours building workflows who ends up babysitting them daily because of breaking points.

Most companies don't have that resource nor time (or costs) needed to stitch together dozens of point solutions. 

Just because you have a collection of point solutions with AI in it, doesn't mean your whole system you are building is autonomous.

Often the ai just optimizes the point solution (if that) and not the whole system. 

They've built tools like rb2b, birddog, usergems, and so many more in a matter of minutes in the same system. Easily unifying the data and workflows.

Cost savings? 

On just building rb2b, 60% or more. 
On unifying all the systems? multiples in time and revops manpower.

For a Series A (soon to be B) company they work with 50% savings month 1.
For another company, who's stitching many tools together? 90%

Allowing revops to not need to be systems babysitters? 
Priceless. Now they can become growth strategists.

Companies are using a system of record, a system of action, and theirs. Maybe one day they'll replace one or both of them too.

This is what an autonomous future looks like in gtm.

🏴‍☠️

6sense just changed from intent data to signals.

Note: their product is seemingly the same. They just changed the wording.

I'm just trying to make sense of how 'revenue marketing' differs from regular 'marketing'. It's a thinker...

Do you even vibe bro? Over 400 GTM leaders have signed up for Vibe Week:

1.  Masterclass: Learn how to build custom agents in n8n - Today
2. Vibe GTM Hackathon - Thursday

Explorium came to us wanting to help more GTM leaders learn how to build in AI.

So we put together this incredible week to make it happen.

Omer Har CEO of Explorium x Jane Farris Head of Data Science at Explorium are helping us with the fundamentals in building custom agents in n8n today.

And on Thursday we have a competition with about $5k in prizes ($1k Amazon Gift Card + Explorium credits). 

If you're going to flex your workflows, may as well make some guap doing it - https://lnkd.in/eaf9grCR

the 'modern gtm stack' puts too much onus on the operator - lots of tools, workflows, moving parts, and expenses to manage. 

the 'future gtm stack' will be less tools with at least the same (probably more) power.

clay is the closest thing today to it for sure. but some other point solutions are often still required.  tomorrow you'll be able to do way more in a single system.

plus there will be ai at core so truly autonomous gtm will be possible.

taplio

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Sam Jacobs

Jared Robin ⏭

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taplio

The Battle

Sam Jacobs

Jared Robin ⏭

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Sam Jacobs's LinkedIn Performance

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