Better Business Building - Adem Manderovic

Closed Circuit Selling: Why the Funnel Is Breaking Your GTM Most go-to-market teams aren’t failing on effort. They’re failing on architecture. In this episode, we sit down with Charles Needham (co-author of Cold Call Algo) alongside Adem Manderovic (CRO School) to break down why the linear funnel is the biggest sacred cow in sales, and why Closed Circuit Selling is the better model for modern outbound. We unpack incentives, silos, CAC payback insanity, and why “meetings booked” became a broken religion. Then we get practical. How to run outbound as market learning. How to capture timing signals. And how to build feedback loops that actually make marketing, sales, and customer success stronger together. Tune in and learn: Why buyer journeys are non-linear, and funnels create blind spotsHow to shift from meetings quotas to conversation-driven market validationWhy intent data can’t replace first-party conversations If you’re a B2B marketer or revenue leader, this is the blueprint for building a GTM system that compounds instead of churns. 🔗 Links + CTAs 🧠 Learn how to drive revenue across your organisation with CRO School: https://theb2bplaybook.com/cro-school 🎓 Join our Demand Generation Program: https://theb2bplaybook.com/demand-gen... 💼 Need help running your own LinkedIn Thought Leadership Ads? https://theb2bplaybook.com/linkedin-a... 🧑‍🎓ACCESS our B2B COURSES: https://theb2bplaybook.com/courses 📺 YouTube:     / @theb2bplaybook   📩 Newsletter: https://theb2bplaybook.com/newsletter/ 📚 Latest content: https://theb2bplaybook.com/ 00:00 The “Sacred Cow”: Why the Linear Funnel Breaks Reality 01:00 Who’s Charles Needham (And Why He Thinks Like a Quant) 04:30 From Mortgage Bonds to CRMs: Seeing Sales as a Database 07:00 The Moment He Realised “Meetings Booked” Is a Trap 09:10 Closed Loop Continuity vs Funnel Checklists 11:40 What Silos Destroy: Feedback Loops That Never Make It Back 14:10 CAC Payback Madness: When “Growth” Becomes Insanity 17:10 The Conversations Model: Comp People for Learning, Not Meetings 20:05 Predictable Revenue Misread: “Market Development” Got Lost 21:00 VC Algebra vs Real Buyers: “The Customer Doesn’t Exist” 28:10 The 2008 Analogy: Incentives Create Fragile Systems 32:20 Intent Data Hot Take: “Or You Could Call Them” 36:00 The Guitar Demo: What “Cataloguing” Really Means 39:00 “Talk to Everybody”: The Outbound Belief Most CROs Don’t Hold 41:45 Fixing the Root: Change Comp, or Nothing Changes 48:10 Market Validation vs Cataloguing: The Language Problem 56:35 AI Didn’t Fix Outbound. It Scaled the Spam Cannon 59:30 What Works Next: Follow the Underpriced Channel (Then Move) 1:06:00 Cold Call Algo: The “Unplanned Communication” Thesis 💰 Need to bring in more revenue for your company (so sales and your boss love you??) Get the: 🔹 strategy 🔹 templates 🔹 tools So you have everything you need to drive more revenue for your brand. https://theb2bplaybook.com/demand-gen... ⁠⁠https://theb2bplaybook.com/closed-circuit-selling⁠⁠ 🤝 Partners Dealfront  BirdDog getbirddog.ai/ mention “Adem” Active Campaign.  Readystack  ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.readystack.ai/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Firmable  Humantic  ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://app.humantic.ai/login/?referral_code=CROSCHOOL⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ocean  ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.ocean.io?aff=yxfiiamhmaw4⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bitscale  ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bitscale.ai/?ref=adem⁠⁠⁠⁠