Gary Gentry III

EAST-4D works on their AI roadmap with a strategy based on a future forecast scenario for the year 2031. This strategy is a big challenge for a SME working in engineering and production of composites for advanced applications! https://lnkd.in/e9CUPu7Q

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Most SMB acquisition deals don’t fail because of bad financials… they fail because no one ever synthesizes all diligence into a clear Go/No-Go decision. QoE reports answer one question, legal another, market research adds more numbers… leaving the buyer to mentally stitch it all together. How do you approach the final Go/No-Go moment?

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💬 "Do you have 15 minutes to talk about your Q3 pipeline?" Me: "Only if you're bringing coffee and therapy." ☕🛋️ 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐬 — it’s about managing emotions, navigating objections, and surviving whatever CRM your company happens to use (or not use). But here’s a pro tip that’s actually useful: 👉 Stop chasing "maybe" from your buyers when it comes to closing a deal. "Maybe" is where your pipeline goes to die. Qualify faster. Disqualify faster. Spend more time with buyers who can buy and want to solve a problem. 🥷In my 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝟏𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐄𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐩 participants will work through templates on how to qualify fast & early so you're not hearing "maybe" from potential buyers. 4️⃣ spots remain 🔗 https://lnkd.in/g2Gem-3P You’ll thank yourself (and so will your quota).

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I sat with 10 other colleagues sharing family-style lunch at Yummy House in #convoysandiego yesterday discussing culture, community and communication in the context of business development and marketing. The last question I asked at the table was, "What do you think would contribute to growth in a healthy, innovative ecosystem in San Diego?" From networking tactics (good and bad) to San Diego culture and a bit of silo-ism, we reflected on the need for further engagement and growth in a benevolent team mindset that resists the pitch and efforts to build together. Sam Jacobs's challenge to "go and give" resonates loudly. Stop pitching. Inquire, invest, question, develop relationship and dialogue over ideas without strings attached.

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The Builder, the Fixer, and the Scaler.. Before you start a search for your next Sales Leader, you need to answer one question honestly: Are you hiring a Builder, a Fixer, or a Scaler? And confusing them is one of the most expensive mistakes I see funds make repeatedly. Here's how to diagnose which one your portco actually needs: 1. The Builder The Builder's job is to find the pattern in early wins and turn it into a process. What they look like on the ground: They've done it before at a company that had nothing. They have opinions on how to build a territory, a comp plan, a playbook before anyone hands them one. 2. The Fixer The Fixer's job isn't to build something new. It's to figure out what's actually wrong and operate in the mess long enough to clean it up. What they look like in the room: They've inherited a org mid-collapse and stabilized it and comfortable not having answers on day one. They ask harder questions than most people are willing to answer. Now if you hire a Builder here, they might ignore what exists, start over, create new chaos inside old chaos. six months of motion with no real progress and the board starts asking questions. 3. The Scaler The Scaler's job is to operationalize and multiply. The playbook is written and their job is execution, coverage, and speed. What they look like in the room: They've taken a working system from a small team to a large one without breaking what made it work. they talk about ramp time, enablement, and forecast hygiene. If you hire the Scaler before the system is actually clean. they try to pour process onto a foundation that isn't solid. Things break faster than before and now you have a Scaler problem on top of the original problem. So, Before you touch a single resume: - Does a repeatable motion exist? - If yes, is it working or just creating noise? - How many leaders churned and what actually happened? - What's broken: pipeline, conversion, or both? The answers tell you the archetype. Then go find someone whose career has scar tissue that matches that exact environment.

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Loved the opportunity to participate in the Utah Business round table where we dove into GTM strategy and the role of AI in the entire customer lifecycle - from outbound prospecting to retention and expansion efforts. A few key stats stood out to me: • Only 28% of a rep’s day is spent actually selling • Just 13% of reps follow a playbook That’s a lot of guesswork in a world where buyers are more prepared than ever before and expect more out of every interaction. The takeaway is simple: teams can’t afford to be unprepared. The future of GTM isn’t about working harder, it’s about working smarter. AI should help reps know what to do, when to do it, and why it matters… so the right actions happen at the right time and your GTM playbooks get executed. Excited to see this conversation gaining momentum. Thank you for having me, Catherine Bennett and Kenzie Koehle!

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I’ve been having a recurring conversation with SaaS CEOs and CROs since the markets rattled the SaaS valuations last month. Everyone is "transforming" their GTM with AI. But there is a massive (potentially fatal) distinction between being AI-Transformed and being AI-Native. If you’re a SaaS leader, knowing which one you are (and which one you should be) will determine your survival rate and capital efficiency for the next decade. The AI-Transformed GTM (The Incremental Play): Most legacy SaaS companies fall here. They take a traditional, human-centric engine like SDRs, AEs, CSMs and bolt AI onto the sides. The Result: Your SDRs write emails faster but they all sound the same and have many hyphens in them --. Your AEs get better call summaries. Your CS team has a smarter chatbot that sometimes thinks it sells coffee beans AND software. The Reality: Your unit economics haven't fundamentally changed. You’ve achieved a 10-20% efficiency gain, but you’re still carrying the same heavy headcount and the same linear scaling constraints. You’ve put a jet engine on a horse-and-cart. Giddy-up is hope.... not strategy. The AI-Native GTM (The Structural Play): This is what we are doing with customers right now! An AI-Native GTM doesn’t ask "How can AI help my team?" It asks, "If I built this today with zero legacy debt, what would the machine do?" The Result: AI isn’t a "copilot"; it’s the architect of the outreach, the qualifier of the customer interest, and the orchestrator of the expansion add-on. The Reality: Humans are removed from low-leverage tasks entirely. We shift the talent to "high-trust closers" and "strategy-orchestrators." Your CAC drops by 50%+, and your ability to scale becomes decoupled from your headcount. The Bottom Line: An AI-Transformed GTM is a better version of the past. An AI-Native GTM is the only version of the future that survives the margin compression coming to SaaS. The question isn't which LLM or Coding agent you’re buying. It’s whether you have the courage to redesign the machine itself. Would love to hear from my network... are you bolting AI on, or are you building from the core? #GTM #SaaS #ExecutiveLeadership #AIStrategy #CapsicumStrategy

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