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 spots

+ How to shift from meetings quotas to conversation-driven market validation

+ Why 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.

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🔗 Links + CTAs

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🧠 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-generation-course

💼 Need help running your own LinkedIn Thought Leadership Ads? https://theb2bplaybook.com/linkedin-ads-agency

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🧑‍🎓ACCESS our B2B COURSES: https://theb2bplaybook.com/courses

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theb2bplaybook

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📚 Latest content: https://theb2bplaybook.com/

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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

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👥 Are you a B2B marketer in a small team??

💰 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.

See why other B2B marketers like you love The B2B Incubator

https://theb2bplaybook.com/demand-generation-course

S07 E213 - The B2B Playbook

#b2b #b2bmarketing #digitalmarketing #demandgeneration...

Why Sales & Marketing Broke (And How to Rebuild a Modern Revenue System) ft. Tony J Hughes

Most teams feel the symptoms — pipeline gaps, misaligned targets, MQL chaos, sellers chasing “now or never” deals.

But those are signals of a deeper problem: the revenue system itself is broken.

In this episode, we sit down with Tony J Hughes and Adem Manderovic to unpack why sales and marketing drifted apart… and how to rebuild a modern revenue system that actually matches how buyers make decisions today.

We get into:

• Why predictable revenue models collapsed
• How sales stopped validating the market
• How marketing lost strategic direction to MQL targets
• And how to replace the old funnel with a closed-circuit GTM system that creates control and credibility again.

We also talk ICP, cataloguing, air cover, performance gaps, and Tony’s new book Sentient — plus what AI means for the future of selling.

Tune in and learn:

• Why the old sales & marketing playbooks broke
• How to build a shared ICP that actually aligns both teams
• Why cataloguing is the foundation for a modern GTM system
• How to create air cover that supports real sales cycles
• The future of selling in a world of advanced AI

If you’re a B2B marketer or sales leader stuck in the old predictable-revenue logic, this episode is your blueprint for rebuilding alignment and revenue performance from the ground up.

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🔗 Links + CTAs

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🧠 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...

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🧑‍🎓ACCESS our B2B COURSES: https://theb2bplaybook.com/courses

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The Simple 3-Step B2B Demand Generation Strategy for 2026

🎓 Join our Demand Generation Program: https://theb2bplaybook.com/demand-generation-course

Most B2B teams will roll the same demand gen plan into 2026… and wonder why pipeline is flat.

In this episode, we walk through a B2B demand generation strategy for 2026 that small teams can actually run – and that’s proven to drive up to 70% of pipeline.

We break down our 3-step framework – Be Ready, Be Helpful, Be Seen – and show how it ties into the 95-5 rule, the 5 stages of awareness, and a simple cataloguing process that finally connects marketing and sales. If you’re a small in-house team under pressure to bring in revenue, this is for you.

We also show you exactly how we run this B2B demand generation strategy ourselves at The B2B Playbook – from 80/20 analysis and ICP documentation, to a weekly content engine and a realistic distribution mix that fits into 4–5 hours per week.

Tune in and learn:

+ How to design a B2B demand generation strategy for 2026 using the 95-5 rule

+ How to run 80/20 analysis, customer interviews, and cataloguing to define a sharp ICP

+ How to build a helpful content engine and distribution plan that your small team can maintain

This episode is a must-watch if you’re a B2B marketer in a small team who’s tired of chasing MQLs, arguing over lead quality, and getting stuck in “support” mode.

You’ll walk away with a clear, 3-step demand gen strategy for 2026 that aligns marketing, sales, and customer success around how buyers actually make decisions.

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🔗 Links + CTAs

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🎓 Join our Demand Generation Program: https://theb2bplaybook.com/demand-generation-course

🧠 Learn how to drive revenue across your organisation with CRO School: https://theb2bplaybook.com/cro-school

💼 Need help running your own LinkedIn Thought Leadership Ads? https://theb2bplaybook.com/linkedin-ads-agency

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SUBSCRIBE to our channel: / @theb2bplaybook

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GET the latest CONTENT: https://theb2bplaybook.com/

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00:00 The Simple 3-Step B2B Demand Generation Strategy for 2026

00:34 Our 5 BEs Framework – The Flywheel Behind Demand Gen

02:05 Updated: What Demand Generation Really Is in 2026

03:40 Why You Can’t “Force” B2B Buyers to Buy (Unlike B2C)

05:55 The Messy, Non-Linear B2B Buying Journey (Squiggly Line Moment)

09:00 The 95-5 Rule: Future Demand vs In-Market Buyers

11:05 Shaping Future Demand vs Capturing In-Market Demand

11:50 Using the 5 Stages of Awareness to Plan Demand Gen Content

14:05 Why Early-Stage Content Makes Capture More Efficient

16:05 TAM vs ICP vs “Day One Shortlist” – The Brutal Reality

18:05 Modern Demand Gen Objectives for 2026 (Quality to Quantity)

18:50 Step 1 – Be Ready: Your 80/20 ICP & Segmentation Process

22:00 Customer Interviews, Positioning & Documented ICPs

25:45 Mapping the Buying Journey Questions (5 Stages Applied)

26:55 The Big Upgrade: Cataloguing Your Market One Account at a Time

29:20 Step 2 – Be Helpful: Building a Helpful Content Engine

30:45 Case Study: Rivet’s “Construction Is Hard” Show

31:55 Content Repurposing System for Small B2B Teams

33:10 Capturing Subject Matter Experts Without Burning Them Out

33:55 Step 3 – Be Seen: Smart Distribution (1:Many, 1:Few, 1:1)

35:20 Capturing In-Market Demand: ABM, Review Sites, and Google Ads

36:20 What Changed From 2025? Why Cataloguing Is the Missing...