Rocket Revenue
Rocket Revenue is a weekly podcast dedicated to pulling back the curtain on predictable and repeatable revenue models for startups.
Hosted by Rocket Shipping's CEO Gabe Pankonin and Head of Revenue Troy Barter, the show provides an inside look at constructing scalable revenue architectures without needing to rely on outside funding to expand your sales skills and/or sales teams.
Across episodes, Gabe offers his own experiences with bootstrapping companies from idea to profitability. With refreshing honesty and humor, he can dissect the financial mysteries of fledgling startups.
How do you transform an untested business concept into one raking in recurring revenue? How do you identify and court that first set of customers who will stay?
Structured as part masterclass // part business case studies, the Rocket Revenue podcast equips you with actionable advice for every growth phase as a startup founder.
For those still at the starting line, Barter zooms in on presale tactics to validate and improve product-market fit. He focuses on mapping realistic and repeatable pathways to profitability. While he draws extensively from B2B Saas business models, the revenue fundamentals hold true across most startups.
With so much illusion (...or delusion) surrounding startup success stories today, these episodes spotlight the gritty reality behind the scenes. It explores common revenue missteps, outlining how to avoid and recover from them. Mistaking vanity metrics for actionable ones, acquiring users without a path to monetization, growing too fast—why not break down how these pitfalls threaten sustainability?
For startups powered more by bootstrapping by their elbow grease and expanding their community than venture capital, the Rocket Revenue podcast delivers a vigorous revenue reality check.
Let's lay out a blueprint for scalable, repeatable revenue that can provide a startup like you with a compass to navigate the winding road from ideation to profitability! Tune in to each episode to find out more 🚀 #RocketRevenue
Our reminder to you: We want to hear from you! Connect with Troy Barter or Gabe Pankonin on LinkedIn and send over your questions, comments, or concerns to discuss in our upcoming episodes. Collaboration is key; let's build a community.
Rocket Revenue
Episode 6: The Lost Art of Discovery
For the first time, you're hearing Barter fly SOLO on this episode of Rocket Revenue!!
Today, it's time for him to pull back the curtain on the SDR discovery process.
The initial approach is to focus narrowly on uncovering prospects who are willing to book meetings at any cost - but it's loose qualification standards like these that have reps working in the dark, rarely converting booked calls to ongoing deals.
By reframing Discovery as a series of 'incremental goals' (each in service to the next), the goal shifted toward building stakeholder investment beyond initial rate savings pitches.
Now, SDRs prioritize 1) identifying concrete operational pains, 2) quantifying their business impact, and 3) leading conversations to where Rocket provides an obvious solution.
Throughout the episode, Barter will break down the hands-on training techniques employed to drive this shift in the sales process, from repetitive roleplaying to aligning daily metrics to discovery objectives versus activity volume.
In a sales environment demanding constantly optimized conversion at each stage, there needs to be more surgical-level focus and training put towards Discovery.
Mastery arrives not through generalized tips... but targeted skill-building tied to the precise, measurable outcomes moving deals forward.
Rocket Revenue’s raw look at sales machine construction continues as always next week! Stay tuned 🚀