In this episode of the Full Throttle Leaders Podcast, host Michael Falato interviews MK Marston, founder of Sales Sleuth. MK recounts her 30‑year tech career, beginning as a computer scientist at Novell, moving into marketing technology where she invented transactional email confirmations that were later sold to Acxiom. She explains the distinction between data‑centric firms like Acxiom and marketing‑tech firms like Epsilon, and how both are struggling to adapt to next‑generation sales solutions. Observing the burnout of B2B sales reps juggling dozens of tabs and disparate data sources, MK built Sales Sleuth to provide a unified, AI‑powered sales intelligence platform that aggregates first‑ and third‑party data, CDP information, and predictive analytics so reps have real‑time account insight. She emphasizes that AI enables this integration, turning what was previously a manual, time‑consuming process into an automated, up‑to‑date knowledge base. The ideal customers are large, complex direct‑sales teams—particularly in med‑tech, health‑tech, and other hardware‑focused B2B sectors—where human‑to‑human selling remains essential. MK also shares her outreach philosophy: use bots to open doors but follow up with authentic, limited‑touch human communication, avoiding spam. The conversation highlights the power of networking through podcasts, roundtables, and LinkedIn to generate warm leads. Finally, MK provides her contact details (phone 512‑970‑7798, LinkedIn mk.marston) for interested prospects.
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All right, everybody, Michael Falato back again with my best friend in the world, MK Marcin. Um, she started a product solution company, everything above that, called Sales Sleuth. But she's been in the space for 20, 30 years, right?
Yeah, you're being generous, right? A little bit more, a little bit more.
But, uh, we've been doing podcasts, doing roundtables together, and just combining our, our strengths of connections. And I want her on my podcast because she has so much more to give than just what we're doing on the roundtable. So tell us a little bit more about your journey to make Sales Sleuth and just be in sales your whole life?
Yeah, great. Thank you. So first, thanks for having me on the podcast. I really appreciate it. You know, I love working with you. I love what we're doing together and independently to help customers succeed, right? So yeah, and thanks for cutting my career in half and not saying how old I was. I appreciate that from you. So I started in IT software. I'm a computer scientist. And I just always thought it would be cool to use technology to help people build great businesses. And so I was part of a big company called Novell, and we were like the precursor to the internet. We wanted people using computers. And then I was like, okay, well, this is interesting, but like, how do people use all these tools we're creating? So then I went into martech and I created Again, like, I'm not an inventor. I'm not smart enough to invent things. I look for big business problems and then I go, wow, can we solve this with technology so humans can do what they're really good at? Talk to each other, coach each other, solve problems for their clients together. So I created transactional email, order confirm, shipping confirm as a marketing channel. That was really great. Sold that company to Axiom because like if we could know the person and we could know what they were buying, we could take better care of them. So now every time you get 5 receipts for buying a cup of coffee, that's my fault. Sorry, we should have put an off switch in it.
But you get what you said?
You get like 5 emails every time you buy a cup of coffee. You get one from Starbucks, one from your credit card, one from the loyalty program. Those are all those transactional emails that we invented. So I apologize.
What's the difference between like Acxiom and Epsilon?
So Acxiom really was the largest consumer data company. They really came more from the pure data side and Epsilon emerged from the marketing tech side. They ended up being both partners and competing. And I think you're seeing like that whole marketplace, right? Epsilon, Axiom, LiveRamp, Merkle, they're all going through acquisitions. They're all part of the holdcos. They're really struggling to figure out what their next generation of solutions needs to be. And they don't really understand sales from my point of view. And so I left the martech kind of space. I've always been CMO or CRO. And I started to look at what was happening before COVID And then the COVID crisis happened. And I'm watching B2B salespeople kill themselves working 60, 70, 80 hours a week with accounts that aren't going to close, deals that aren't going to happen this year. Then they get laid off and then they go to the next place and they're trying again. And you're seeing it. You're solving top, middle, bottom of funnel. I decided to solve that at the intelligence level. I want every sales rep to know everything about their account the whole time so they can do their job.
And not have to go to 10 places to look for it.
Yeah, 17 tabs open, right? Like you're in Salesforce and you're here and you're in Google Analytics and you're in LinkedIn Navigator and you're over here and over there. And you, the human, are trying to connect all these dots. That data's all out of sync and some of it not even relevant anymore. Then marketing throws an MQL at you and you're like, I don't even know how to start. So, you know, having carried a bag, been responsible for quota, ran teams, I was like, this is a huge problem. And I think I can use technology to solve it. And then—
I'm sorry, go ahead.
AI came just when we needed it. Like, from my perspective, right? Because it lets us integrate these things. In a way that we couldn't before. I mean, I did this manually, Michael, for 2 years. First-party data, third-party data, CDPs, predictive analytics. I mean, it's like torture. It's like torture. And by the time you get the answer, it's like not even relevant anymore. The CMO's left and the CEO, the private equity companies fired the CEO and you're like starting all over again. So it was like, okay, stop, figure it out. And I think we're gonna end up— you know, I was reading today, 69% of the traffic on the internet now is bots.
Thanks. Half of it, uh, thanks to people like us, or me.
It does. It's gonna take—
I, I just, I just try to look at it like Use bot or automation to open a door, then, then you need a business date yourself. You're not, you know, have someone— no one wants to talk to a bot. But to open a door like what you and I did, it's like, hey, do you want to be on a roundtable or podcast? That's okay because you're just getting— you're saying hi. But past that, stop being a, you know, stop turning this AI, you know.
The work I did with you reactivated my network in a way that nothing else has, right? Like my, my LinkedIn little podcast, you know, gets likes and comments and things like this. But the approach that you took, and it got me connected with people who could be customers.
Yeah.
It got me connected with people who used to work with me that I really enjoy. And I got caught up on what's going on in their lives and their kids and their thing. You know, I mean, it made me incredibly connected through that activation. And the fact, the way that you message it and the way that you delivered it, like exactly what you're saying, use the automation in a human way.
Yeah.
Don't bombard people. Yes.
5 tiers of like messaging. No. If they're not going to answer you within 2 messages, leave them alone.
Yeah, and I got a bunch of, you know, and I'm still talking to people and they're like, oh my God, that's so cool what you're doing, and what does Michael do, right? At the end of the day, it ends up being about humans solving business problems.
Imagine taking what I do, I have to throw a commercial in here, and taking it and going after people you don't know at all.
Yeah.
You have like 8,000 connections, which is great. I've never seen so many people respond to 8,000 connections. So your connections are really tight compared to most people. But imagine you're going from 8,000 to 25,000. That's what you have. Now you can start going after people's second— your second connections versus your first connections, because you're going to run out of re-engaging your first connections at one point.
Sure. And like, the reason that you and I are friends is because I seriously care about people.
Mm-hmm.
Like, I want salespeople hitting quota, getting paid their commissions, and reducing the amount of time that they feel stressed and researching and working and chasing shitty accounts. Like, I authentically care. You authentically care. And so why people respond is they know I'm not gonna spam them. They know it's not gonna be stupid. They know it's not gonna— they know that it's gonna be from a place of, I think we can do better together. I think we can solve this business problem together. And the more that people share with us, you've had some of my colleagues on in other roundtables, like Drew May and some other people. Drew was my boss. He was my last boss at Axiom. I mean, we lived the problem together.
Right.
this shift that was going on in B2B and not being able to reach people. And so like, we're gonna solve it together. No one company is going to solve it.
And the funny thing is me dating the daughter of the founder of Exia.
It's a teeny weeny world. It's a teeny weeny world for sure.
So what's, what's, um, what's the best ideal customer profile for Sales Sleuth? Is it, is it someone that's mostly ABM? Is it someone that has a large sales team that is maybe a smaller SMB, or is it mostly the large whales? I mean, what's— if I was to push this out to somebody, who's the right person?
Yeah, thanks for asking that. So big, big direct sales teams with complex Solutions selling into a complex buying environment. So medical device companies, data warehouse builders, like millions of moving parts and 10 to 20 to 40 people on the buy side that are moving around. So we're going to focus in on medical device, health tech, because those people still— I like the people who build the thing. and deliver the thing to the customer who uses the thing to deliver a service to the end user, right? Those people are still in the human-to-human world. The software industry now, it's like, you know, we can make anything. Everybody thinks we can make it. I want to move away from that. So, I want to get into, you know, physical direct sales teams that have complex sales.
Okay.
And like, you know, you and I are both down in Florida. You're here part-time, I'm here full-time. We got a bunch of that going on in Florida. We got a ton going on in Jacksonville. We got a bunch going on in Tampa, St. Pete.
Oh, I'm full-time in Orlando. I'm part-time in Pompano. Yeah, so I'm definitely, definitely not Ever leaving Florida. It's the best state ever.
Yeah. So tech companies, medtech, healthcare tech, you know, those, the people where they still invest in salespeople, they believe in sales training, they, you know, they want their salespeople to be successful. That's who I want to focus on.
And what's the best— what's the best way to get ahold of you?
For me, probably the best thing is either DM me at my phone number, 512-970-7798, or hit me up on LinkedIn and just say, love to talk to you.
And your LinkedIn is?
mk.marston.
Yeah, so that's, that's all you have to put after LinkedIn.com/n/ the username. Yeah, you've been on the call, I mean on the podcast, and, um, we'll see each other on all the things that we're doing together. And thanks for being on.
You bet. Thanks for having me and have a magical Monday. See you soon. Thanks. Bye.
