Ep. 144 – Building Predictable Pipeline and Breaking Revenue Silos with Thurman Sneed - Part 2

General Episode Description:

In Part 2 of Selling Intelligence, Thurman Sneed, Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, returns to show how the same “do the math” mindset can transform everything from account coverage and customer conversations to seller development and AI adoption. Thurman explains why Marigold moved from a round robin model to vertical specialization, how CSMs and SDRs can grow into revenue generating roles, and why a tighter ICP helps teams focus their resources where they can create the most impact.

The conversation also explores how sellers can use customer data and benchmark insights to build stronger business cases and quantify value for executives. Thurman shares how his team is applying AI to sales coaching, account preparation, pipeline generation, and churn prediction, while keeping human judgment at the center. The goal is not AI for the sake of AI. It is using technology where it can genuinely improve speed, capacity, decision making, and revenue outcomes.

What You’ll Learn:

• Vertical Specialization: Why moving away from round robin account assignment can help sellers develop deeper industry expertise and become trusted advisors.
• Turning CSM Knowledge into Revenue: How customer success teams can use their existing customer knowledge and relationships to identify expansion opportunities.
• Building the Next Generation of Sellers: Why giving SDRs opportunities to own and close smaller deals can accelerate their development and create stronger career paths.
• Getting Serious About ICP: How focusing on the right markets and customers can improve efficiency across sales, marketing, and customer success.
• Selling with Customer Math: How benchmark data and ROI calculations can help sellers turn value propositions into compelling executive business cases.
• AI That Earns Its Place: How AI can improve sales preparation, coaching, research, pipeline generation, and decision making without removing human judgment.
• Using AI to Predict Churn: Why clean, accessible data is critical for identifying customer risk before it becomes a lost account.

Key Topics:

• Vertical sales specialization
• Ideal customer profile strategy
• SDR development and career progression
• Customer success expansion opportunities
• ROI based selling
• Benchmark data in sales conversations
• Executive level value selling
• AI enabled sales coaching
• Sales productivity and capacity
• AI and revenue team efficiency
• Churn prediction and customer retention
• Human judgment in AI driven sales

Guest Spotlight: Thurman Sneed

Thurman Sneed is the Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, where he leads sales, customer success, revenue operations, and marketing. With a career that began in accounting and auditing before expanding into operations and revenue leadership, Thurman brings a distinctive financial and operational perspective to the CRO role. His leadership philosophy centers on disciplined execution, data driven decision making, cross-functional alignment, and helping teams turn ambitious revenue goals into practical, achievable actions.

Resources & Mentions:

• Marigold
• Vertical coverage models
• Ideal Customer Profile strategy
• ROI calculators and benchmark data
• AI enabled sales coaching
• Churn prediction
• The Two Millimeter Club by AGS

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Mark (00:38)

Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. If you're just joining in, you're in the right place. And if you come straight from part one, we picked up where we left off.

KK Anderson (00:48)

In part one, Thurman Sneed made three things clear. He came into the revenue seat through accounting and operations rather than through a quota. And that lens is why he thinks in arithmetic. He discovered that the individual level math he assumed his managers were doing with sellers was not actually happening. And he treats every function inside the company as a customer, which is what makes the outside selling work.

Mark (01:14)

So in part two we get practical. Thurman rebuilt the coverage model, taught people who have never carried a quota to carry one, pointed the same math at his customers, and now deciding where AI belongs in all of this. Thurman, welcome back. Let us pick up right here.

Thurman (01:33)

Thank you, Mark.

Mark (01:34)

So Thurman,

Rebuilding the coverage model. So Thurman, you inherited a model where accounts were assigned round robin and reps were specialized by platform. What was the first change you made and why that one first?

Thurman (01:48)

Yeah, the first thing that we did is we decided that we were going to have a vertical coverage model as opposed to round robin. And I made that first because I wanted fo I wanted our sales team to learn the customer, to, to learn the terminology, to be very specific, and to enjoy, what they were doing every day, as opposed to today I wake up and I'm gonna be serving.

this industry, the next day, I get a hospital, the next day I get an amusement park. It didn't seem fair, just from a basic level, so why not assign to a vertical and become specialist in that space?

KK Anderson (02:23)

So and in doing that allows them to almost brand their expertise and be thought of as trusted advisors and being able to solve the business problems that your customers are out there facing.

Thurman (02:35)

Yes, truly to be able to solve it in a in a very meaningful way because they understand how they drive their outcome. So back to doing the math, how do they actually need to produce their pipeline, their conversions, their sales, whatever that might be, even if it's a not for profit, how do they need to drive more donations? if it's a government entity, what are they trying to produce as an outcome as opposed to it being so different in every conversation?

KK Anderson (03:03)

Right. And your your product at Marigold is you know, they're they're looking for they're using Marigold because they want to drive business and communications and conversions and so that's that's really important. Mm-hmm.

Thurman (03:18)

With specific

audiences. And it's not always the same way that you drive that content

KK Anderson (03:23)

Right. And

Thurman (03:24)

to those audiences.

KK Anderson (03:25)

it's definitely a way to create differentiation, When you can help with their problems. So you gave people who had been processing renewals for years a quota. So they're not used to a quota. It's kind of like handing the finance guy a quota, like you got,

Thurman (03:39)

This is that.

KK Anderson (03:39)

and you told them, you know, you're gonna train them and tell them to take advantage of of what they did not realize they already knew. And so

Like what what did that teaching look like week to week? We have so many, we have so many customers. I've seen it a hundred times, where all of a sudden a CSM turns into a, quota carrying member of the sales team. So tell us how you did it.

Thurman (04:00)

Well, one of the first things is to inject confidence in what they already knew. They have been involved in so many customer conversations. So many times a customer has has actually explained to them the pain that they are actually that they endure. And I love it when it's a case of when we bring on a new customer and that CSM is onboarding them and they're connecting with the challenge that they were having elsewhere.

Right. So they have learned that or they were learning that over the years, but not necessarily turning that lens and looking at it from a different angle. What if I took these customers that I have made happy and asked them to introduce me to another department at a university? Or is literally leveraging the relationships that they had built with their customer set? Right.

And so the training became more of let's inject the confidence because you know the platform better than some of our brand new sellers right now. You actually live in the platform. You've lived the customer experience. You've gone through the benchmark conversations and the performance conversations with a customer. Change that lens to someone that is reaching out that has not experienced that yet.

Mark (05:12)

Yeah, and I love how, Thurman, you're taking this more into the prescripted side. So let's go even a little further. you moved your SDRs from setting meetings to owning and closing the smaller deals themselves. What does that do for a seller's development, particularly an early stage seller, that handing off the meeting could never do?

Thurman (05:34)

Yeah, and we didn't move them holistically, but what I wanted to do was to ensure that our SDR team had a career path and that they understood that career path very early versus late. Right. And so ultimately that close closing of the deal is what we all think of, that's the account executive, But if we could help them get a little feel for why am I passing off this customer that I can go ahead and assist now?

I understand why why do I need to set up a meeting and make them wait a few days or a period of time when I can go ahead and service service them? And that's what an AE needs to do, If I can solve that pain, I can hear that pain, I'm hearing the challenges. Let's just go ahead and close the deal. and when they get ready and they're further into their career, a year, 18 months into their career, and they're ready to go to

That transition is so much faster. But at the same time, what it allows is it allows me to know who really does not want to do sales. Right. And do you want to be an SDR for from a career perspective? That's also okay. Do you want to transition and become a CSM one day? That's also okay. Right. But it allows those that are in this position that we traditionally think of as our bench for sales.

to be able to make that career decision very early.

KK Anderson (06:54)

So y you put it you in one of your th your therminisms, In the in our prep video was we started talking. you put it as eighty twenty, stop fishing in oceans, fish in lakes and ponds, do the math. No, how do you pick which lakes?

Thurman (07:08)

With to to be maniacal about the true ICP. we

KK Anderson (07:12)

Love that.

Thurman (07:12)

and again, there's it's easier coming out of my mouth than it sometimes is, but it's actually possible. Especially, you know, you go into a situation, it's like, wow, we're marketing to such a large audience. How can we make sure that a smaller audience actually hears us, though? And is that

When you do the math, is that gonna have more ROI and efficiency than trying to be so wide? And every single time it does. And so I used this literally the other day and I had to explain it, but I said, I'm fishing for wells and ponds. I know that that doesn't sound right, but I think everybody understands what I'm trying to say. I'm gonna focus on this vertical and I am going to go after fewer, right?

wells in that pond because I'm so focused and I know that we can serve them, When you fish in too big of an ocean, you're trying to sell sell to everyone, you're not helping your marketing team, you're not helping your sales team and helping them get educated, on a space that we can work. You're not you're not helping those SDRs. Everybody's kind of everywhere and not knowing how to really hit the outcome.

KK Anderson (08:18)

I love it. We had a guest recently on our podcast and his his saying was you can't teach a fish to climb a tree.

Thurman (08:26)

I like that. I might have to have it to reuse that one.

KK Anderson (08:28)

We're gonna have to have some outtakes. Outtakes of all the the fun analogies that we get on the show.

Mark (08:29)

Yeah.

Thurman (08:34)

Yeah.

Mark (08:34)

All right, so let's to our next topic here. so you've taught your team how to do the math from a sales perspective. Let's go into a little bit of doing the math for and with the customer. So your company has years of benchmark data sitting inside a platform that nobody was using in a sales conversation. What changed the first time?

a seller put it in front of a customer and how has it evolved from there?

Thurman (09:03)

Yeah, this this is probably one of the most fun things because this this ties into the teaching. It's and it also ties into the cross-functional are CSMs using this with customers. This is where you are. But guys, wait a minute. Salespeople, about this on the front end? That's exactly what your prospects are trying to achieve. So the first time this happened, a rep put together their own ROI calculator.

And they said it to the customer that was apprehensive about going ahead and signing a deal. And they needed to be able to show this to their board member to get approval. That was the that was the very first time. And then the next thing you know, is like we have a signed deal in two days. It was just it's awesome to see because I wasn't involved in it. It was the teaching starting to take place. I have this information that you actually don't have. This is how you compare to others and how.

Our software, our recommended change in process is gonna help you achieve these numbers.

KK Anderson (09:58)

You told us about one one of your sellers walked a CEO through what a cheaper alternative would have cost him in emails. You know, Marigold is an email communication platform.

Thurman (10:07)

Yes.

KK Anderson (10:09)

and like what it would cost him in emails that never reach an inbox. And you know, he

Thurman (10:14)

so

KK Anderson (10:14)

came back and signed the next day. Tell tell us a little bit about that story.

Thurman (10:17)

Yeah, this

one had to do with deliverability. And we know that you know some platforms don't have as high deliverability rates as others. and the rep explained, hey, you can go with that option, but let me just give you one metric, deliverability, right? And if you do the math on that deliverability, you may have forty thousand fewer emails hitting the inbox. How would that if you go through your math and your conversion, how

KK Anderson (10:40)

Yep.

Thurman (10:41)

would that translate into the lower tiers? And it became

the light bulb moment for the CEO when he signed the next day. So

KK Anderson (10:49)

Right.

Thurman (10:50)

just awesome.

Mark (10:50)

Love it.

KK Anderson (10:51)

And it's ironic

Mark (10:51)

So

KK Anderson (10:52)

too, 'cause it's all part of the conversion math for a seller, right? How many

Thurman (10:56)

Yes.

KK Anderson (10:57)

emails do you have to send to get these conversions to get the get the conversation? So yeah, cool.

Mark (11:02)

So Thurm Thurman,

Thurman (11:03)

Exact same.

Mark (11:04)

yep, what what about what has to be true about a seller before you really can trust them to make a numbers argument in front of an an executive?

Thurman (11:13)

But they get the numbers for themselves.

KK Anderson (11:17)

That's so good.

Thurman (11:19)

Yes. and that's why I wanna make sure that they get the numbers for themselves. If they can do the math for themselves, they can do the math for any customer.

KK Anderson (11:26)

Right. So, for our CRO audience out there, you know, most most of most companies, most BDB companies are probably sitting on all kinds of data that they have not ever thought about being able to quantify and turn into an ROI, or selling argument. would you agree with that? Like I just like kind of what comes to mind as I as I say that, do you think that's

Thurman (11:47)

When I go back through the history of the many companies that I've worked for, I

KK Anderson (11:50)

Mm-hmm.

Thurman (11:51)

absolutely agree with that. And it it goes back to and I this happens unnaturally or naturally, I guess you would say, that folks end up in silos and you just don't know. And it's just if you don't end up in environments where you're sharing and speaking and finding out, I didn't know that you had that. It could really be as simple as that. I did not know that we had that.

KK Anderson (12:13)

Right. And so like what would you where would you go looking? Like finance

Thurman (12:17)

The first

KK Anderson (12:17)

products, like where would you if you are listening to this and you're like, huh, I wonder what we have.

Thurman (12:22)

I would first go to product

KK Anderson (12:24)

Yeah.

Thurman (12:25)

and I would and I would start to understand what does what are the metrics that the product team has that we may not be aware that's in XYZ platform. Right. And can I use some of that information that's being collected in order to tell a story at the end of the day? That's what we're doing, right? To tell a story. Because

They don't the engineers don't always know the story that you're trying to express to a customer.

But that's where I would start first.

Mark (12:54)

All right, so our next topic here and final topic for this time with Thurman is the concept of AI where it earns its place. So not AI for the sake of AI or not AI. I mean it's gotta earn the right to be used. And KK and I know this space well. We've worked really hard to build metric models.

where you really can can build upon a focus of AI to ROI. And with those models, with the the work we do with our clients, we make sure we analyze where we're going to get the most bang for our buck for our clients. And we analyze and we know exactly how it's impacted it when it's when it's done. So with your team, you know, they watched you, I'm sure.

Teaching and coaching and they I'm sure loved it. but then you went a step further and you built a sales coach out of your own material. What did people start doing with that tool that you never really expect?

Thurman (14:00)

Yeah. Well, first and foremost, they were wild and it didn't take a long time for them to start using it. But what the first thing that they started doing with it is preparing. and the second thing that they actually started doing with it was evaluating what they had previously done on an opportunity or evaluating an opportunity and what they could do next. Now being able to see what what they said or heard in a gone call.

what notes that were documented in Salesforce. All all these different connections that they were able to pull together in a matter of seconds, just not realizing, right?

KK Anderson (14:35)

So you know, what's interesting about AI is that a lot of this a lot of these things could have been done before AI, but they weren't. And a lot of times it's because it just it would take so long. you talked you talked about that in our in our prep call, and I thought it was was really interesting. So what like in your opinion?

What does AI actually change for a salesperson?

Mark (14:57)

Yeah.

Thurman (14:58)

But it allows them to be quicker, to do things and and save time and to have an imagination in some particular cases, Because if I now I can go and put in an ask a question and when you're surprised, my God, now what else can I ask? And get some guidance. And it's

I don't want it, I don't ever want to take the human out then from our perspective, both from our product perspective as well as our sales perspective, is not to take what the AI output is and say, I don't need to filter it. It is now I can use my critical thinking skills all the time, And to focus on what is what is that result, what is it guiding me to do, but does that make sense is where I want them spending the time.

Right. Let me build a model, something that I can reuse. Let me help prepare and understand what is happening at this particular company because all that data is out there. But before, who really wanted to spend the time researching every single prospect realistically that they were engaging with if they had to hit numbers that we were talking about, the math.

KK Anderson (16:04)

Right.

Thurman (16:04)

So the math became easier, faster.

Because I can take this, I can read it, my God, I know how to apply it. Let's go. Right. So

KK Anderson (16:13)

Spot on. Yeah. And it's I mean, gone are the days where we would, you know, be searching for something on the internet, have to copy and paste it and put it in a document and compile all of your research and then read through it all and try and draft and come up with some differentiating statements and then decide which ones to use. And I mean it would be a two hour process. Right? Yeah, exactly. And now

Thurman (16:33)

Yes. Per. Yeah.

KK Anderson (16:37)

now

You can do it in a split second and then you can ask it to you can it can help you be critical in your analysis of it to identify what's most important

Thurman (16:46)

Yeah.

KK Anderson (16:47)

what what's the most important problem that customer is trying to solve. Really good. so go yeah, go ahead, Mark.

Mark (16:51)

So Thurman,

yeah. So okay. So one of the things we wanted to make sure we learned from you as well that you have four SDRs presently, and my understanding you have no plan to add a fifth because of some of the things you're building with AI. how do you think about headcount once capacity stops being a function of people?

Thurman (17:15)

That is a very good question, Mark. and the reason why I kind of gave you guys that input is for two reasons. One, you asked a question in episode one about I think it was episode one that came in, about us going through the SDR and teaching them to close deals. So that if that capacity relates first and foremost to that particular piece, right? This pit particular position.

Is the one that is at the cusp of being able to help an AE be more effective, build more pipeline, build more meetings. We all know that that is the math. We need more meetings, But at the same time, this same position is the one that is allowing me to have more sales reps in reality, Because the more that they can take on the low end, the more my AEs can deal with the higher end. And you guys do the math. The more time.

the more deals on the higher end, right? With the same win rates, I'm gonna make more money at the end of the day, So that that's that's what's happening for me with the AI. Everybody's gonna become more efficient. This SDR role is is the cusp of the beginning of the math.

KK Anderson (18:21)

It really is. It's such an exciting time. you know, we've had guests on who have who have said that the S Dr role is coming to an end, and I totally It's it is just changing shape, right? The

Thurman (18:30)

it's not. It's changing shape.

Mark (18:33)

Yeah.

KK Anderson (18:34)

the ability for them to be a differentiator and you know

It's just it's changing shape and I think it's gonna be it's gonna be really exciting to see where AI can take that. So now you're looking at AI to predict churn better than than some of the tools you bought to do exactly that. what what has to be true about your data, before that works?

Thurman (18:55)

Well, as in any project, almost regardless of what it is, we got to make sure that the data is actually clean. but but the second most important part about the data is that we're it's accessible. and when I say accessible, if we wanna see the actions that someone takes in the platform or the actions that someone is taking in the market outside of us.

Right, being able to see that someone is looking at a competitor in advance as an example, right? Is that accessible information to us? If it's accessible, can we use it? Can we apply that almost to what they're doing on the on the other people's websites to what they're doing in the platform and put a formula together to say, these two things are related and it's gonna result in turn. Now we can insert the human back into.

the situation and say, let me make a phone call. Let me find out what may be going on before they ever know. Before we ever get a sense that they are considering alternatives.

Mark (19:55)

Beautiful. Well, Thurman, let's go on to our rapid fire part of our segment, and it's five questions, same five every episode. And let let me set you up with your first one. What was the first product or service you ever sold?

Thurman (20:11)

See when talk about this before, but it was Quizno Sandwiches.

KK Anderson (20:14)

Aha

Mark (20:15)

Nice, okay.

KK Anderson (20:17)

Okay, Thurman, who is your favorite CRO or CEO that you follow?

Thurman (20:22)

My f ooh, that's well, that's really tough. I'm gonna say my current, Lisa Mayer is my favorite CEO.

KK Anderson (20:29)

There you go, getting brownie points.

Thurman (20:31)

Yeah.

Mark (20:32)

So a leadership or go to market practice you believe every sales and marketing leader should adopt.

Thurman (20:38)

Leading by example, servant leadership.

KK Anderson (20:40)

I love it. Now for my favorite question, Thurman. Advice you would give your twenty one year old self.

Thurman (20:46)

Determine what you're going to own. In my particular case, I would tell people, invest in real estate as soon as you possibly can.

KK Anderson (20:53)

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Mark (20:54)

Excellent. Okay. So Thurman, this has been absolutely terrific. Where should people go to follow you and follow what you're working on?

Thurman (21:04)

I would say first go to LinkedIn. I have found myself loving to post. So I try to post at least once a week about a therminism, but I'm actually it's kind of fun because I'm bringing people along in my journey. I've been CRO for about eight or nine months now and I'm sharing some of those and it's been pretty fun.

KK Anderson (21:22)

Well, if you take one thing out of this conversation, take this. Nobody on your sales team is going to believe a number you have not sat down and show them. So do the math. It's a magical, very simple, way to think about it. and actually everything Thurman walked us through today comes back to, you know, managers sitting down with their sellers and managers coaching their sellers and walking them through the journey and the pathway on how to get.

things done. And that's exactly what we do inside the two millimeter club, which is an AGS program. It's a small group data-driven coaching program for frontline sit sales managers. You're in a room with up to eight sales managers from non-competitive companies. They will learn to identify and coach the small shifts in seller behavior that add up to exponential movement and pipeline. They're

Six months the cohort the whole program is six months, but you can break it down into two month sections and they launch monthly. If you're interested, come look at get ags dot excuse me, get dashags.com forward slash two mm club. That's wwget ags dot com.

Thurman, thank you so much for joining us today. and we look forward to having you again sometime on Selling Intelligence.

Thurman (22:44)

Thank you, KK. Thank you, Mark. I enjoyed it.

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