Joey Gilkey, CEO of TitanX, joins the show to tear down one of the most sacred ideas in go-to-market: that more activity equals more revenue.

Joey argues that most sales teams aren’t failing because reps aren’t working hard enough. They’re failing because the system they’re operating inside is broken. Cold calling still works, but only if you stop treating every prospect the same. Most people will never answer the phone, and pretending otherwise destroys rep productivity, forecasting, and morale. By identifying who is actually reachable before a call is made, teams can radically change the economics of outbound.

The conversation covers why SDR teams should be treated like a signal engine, not a meeting factory, and why founders keep defaulting to headcount when efficiency is the real constraint. By the end of the conversation, it’s hard to look at SDRs, outbound, or ‘activity metrics’ the same way again.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Setting the Stage

05:05 Understanding Titan X's Value Proposition

10:29 The Shift in Sales Strategies

17:14 Redefining Sales Development as an Ad Channel

20:15 The Importance of Messaging and Targeting

21:21 Understanding Messaging by Persona

24:41 The Importance of Follow-Up and Data

27:49 Dispositions and Their Impact on Sales

30:46 Data Aggregation and Coordination Drag

34:22 The Reach Rate and Cold Calling Strategy

39:18 Identifying Skill Gaps and Data Quality

40:05 Customer Success and Operationalizing Sales

43:01 The Challenges of Product-Led Growth

References in the Show:

https://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/2025/12/18/cmos-on-overhyped-marketing-trends-in-2025

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-cmos-comeback-aligning-the-c-suite-to-drive-customer-centric-growth

Quote of the Show:

"An ad doesn't give us feedback. An email doesn't give us feedback. It's why I love the phone. It's just conversational advertising. If we can activate an audience, not even around conversions and appointments and meetings, and instead we can uncover interest and intrigue and intent, the three I's, and we can take that intel, that could be the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the go-to-market cell, which is, I'm on the front lines getting information that no one else has from my SDRs.” - Joey Gilkey

Ways to Tune In:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpM8myxsUinc5bfLIbjJz?si=0af576adfb8e49f8
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cheat-code/id1692445190
• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/cb0b3afa-063f-4f3b-96be-b98214c74912
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CheatCodePodcast