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Transcript

OK17: Inside Owner.com's $21M ARR Outbound Strategy: AI, Office, & 83% Hiring Success (Part 2)

With Kyle Norton, CRO at Owner.com

Listen now on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple.

P.S. Didn’t catch Part 1? Listen here. ⁠⁠⁠

Chef specials:

  • Internal AI use cases outperform external automation

  • In-office teams show 20-60% better performance metrics

  • Their outbound growth plans

In this 2nd conversation, Kyle Norton, CRO at Owner.com, shares deep insights on AI implementation in sales, the shift to in-office work, and strategic annual planning.

He discusses how his team leverages AI for internal processes rather than external automation, achieving remarkable results with tools like Avara for sales simulation and Momentum for CRM automation.

Kyle reveals compelling data showing 20-40% faster ramp times and up to 60% higher activity rates for in-office teams, leading to Owner.com's recent office opening in Toronto.

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Who is Kyle Norton?

  • CRO of Owner.com

  • Host of the Revenue Leadership podcast (Pavilion Podcast)

More context about the Owner's Sales team:

  • ACV: $5.5k

  • Sales Cycle Length: 4-7 days

  • Vertical SaaS: Restaurant industry

  • Buyer personas: Restaurant owners

  • Markets: North America

Some takeaways:

AI use cases

  • Internal AI implementation outperforms external AI automation - 95% of AI SDR implementations are "crap" while internal use cases like sales simulation and CRM automation show remarkable results.

  • AI SDRs are a race to the bottom - most implementations are just carpet bombing markets for short-term gains while destroying long-term brand value.

In-office vs remote sales teams

  • In-office teams demonstrate 20-40% faster ramp times and up to 60% higher activity rates compared to remote teams - challenging the remote-first narrative in sales.

  • The remote work "success stories" during COVID might have been misleading - companies that rushed back to office first were often those who failed at remote, masking the real performance gap.

  • The best remote-first companies are actually the last to return to office - because their remote infrastructure was strong enough to mask the performance gap.

Other takeaways

  • Environmental design trumps willpower - strategic dashboard placement drove 80% of activities into tier-A accounts without management intervention.

  • Management capacity, not market size, is the real limiting factor in sales team scaling - even with 300,000 potential customers, you can't give a green manager 9 reps.

  • Book-to-show rates are more about environmental design than rep discipline - systematic nudges outperform willpower.

  • Senior leadership hiring delays can be more costly than burn rate concerns - waiting to hire key leaders like VP Sales and enablement heads significantly impacts growth trajectory.

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Connect with Kyle:

Chapters

00:00 - Kyle Norton

01:12 The Pitfalls of AI SDRs

02:30 Successful AI SDR Strategies

06:40 Internal AI Use Cases

07:22 AI-Powered CRM and Momentum

09:18 AI Simulators and Training

18:35 Annual Planning and Outbound Strategy

24:23 Solving Problems as Revenue Leaders

24:52 Improving Book to Show Rates

28:14 Building Effective Habits

28:36 Nudge Theory in Sales

31:22 Hiring and Management Strategies

34:55 Remote vs. In-Office Sales Teams

42:37 Field Reps and Efficiency

44:09 Reflections and Future Plans