In this YouTube Shorts, Jason M. Lemkin explains why most companies cannot attract elite sales talent—top CROs and star reps gravitate toward the hottest brands, leaving the majority with sub‑optimal sales teams. He argues that instead of chasing external elite reps, firms should promote a data‑oriented, technically inclined internal person—someone who enjoys marketing, sales, and quantitative work—to serve as a "Chief Orchestration Officer" (COO). This role would manage and iterate on sales/marketing automation agents, requiring hands‑on oversight and daily data‑driven decision‑making. Lemkin stresses that autonomous agents without constant supervision deliver zero ROI, and that building this internal capability now will make the individual highly employable in the near future.
Chapters
Most of us don't have the hottest brands and we don't have the most elite CROs running them. So we end up settling for not the best sales team. That's the truth. Most, 99% of the best sales reps want to work just at the hottest brands. And the minute you're not, the minute your star fades just a little bit, they don't want to work. They, they immediately want to jump to the next one. It's just, there's a lot of reasons why. So bear in mind, 99% of all of the world cannot attract a team of gens or better. And you know, people are posting on LinkedIn that they wanna hire these GTM engineers, or I don't think that role exists today. I worry when I see these roles. I think today, and listen, if we get together in 18 months, we'll update this 'cause the world's changing so fast, right? I think today, 95% of 100, you've gotta promote someone internally. It's gotta be a nerd. Someone that likes marketing and sales and is quant. You know, a lot of B2C people are frankly good at this stuff because in B2C, sales and marketing are kind of the same thing, you know, but someone that's a nerd that loves to sit in front of data for a couple hours a day and, and route data and manage these agents. And, uh, they could come out of product, they could come out of marketing, but maybe they could come out of RevOps, but they better be nerdy. Odds they come out of regular sales approach zero. So I would find someone on my team that raises their hand and says, I've already done this. Okay. I, I've already, I've already written 10 apps in Replit and I, and I, and I love Vercel and I did this and I've already tried these ones on my own. Can I please manage these for you? And then have them be your chief orchestration officer. But it is a new skillset. It, it really is. And, and ultimately finding someone that's gonna spend an hour to two a day to manage these agents. Is the new frontier for us to figure out. Um, they, they do not, they, they operate autonomously, but not without constant oversight and iteration. That's the confusing part. And, and you just, if you just buy one of these products and disappear, you will have zero ROI. So maybe too long of an answer, but that's critical. And I just think, unfortunately, you're gonna, you have to grow this resource at home today. And going back earlier in the conversation, if that is you, you're going to be super employable next year. You're going to have so many job offers. You're not going to know what to— you're gonna have to beat them off.
