In this episode of Selling Intelligence, John Tecce, Vice President of Growth at 2X, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to explore why traditional digital outbound is losing effectiveness and what today’s sales organizations must do instead.John shares why B2B selling is facing a “trust recession” fueled by AI-generated communication, rising outreach volume, and declining buyer confidence. As inboxes become saturated and automation reaches its limits, he argues that sales leaders can no longer rely on activity metrics or volume-based prospecting to generate predictable pipeline.The conversation also examines why 2X intentionally built its revenue organization without BDRs, why the full cycle AE is becoming increasingly important, and how timeless sales fundamentals like relationship building, trust, community engagement, and human connection are becoming competitive advantages once again.Mark, KK, and John discuss why quantity is no longer the best predictor of sales success, how experienced sellers can combine AI with classic sales principles, and the mindset required for modern account executives to thrive in an increasingly uncertain market.What You’ll Learn:Understanding the Trust Recession: Why AI-generated communication and digital overload are making buyers increasingly skeptical of outbound sales.Why Digital Outbound Has Changed: How years of automation have created more noise than opportunity and why quality now matters more than quantity.The Return of the Full Cycle AE: Why reducing handoffs creates stronger buyer relationships, better accountability, and more consistent revenue growth.Community Over Cold Outreach: How creating value before buyers enter an active buying cycle builds long-term trust and pipeline.Modern Sales Competencies: The mindset, adaptability, and relationship-building skills today’s sales professionals need to succeed.Key Topics:The trust recession in B2B salesAI-generated communication and declining buyer trustOutreach saturation across email and LinkedInWhy digital outbound is producing lower returnsThe evolution of marketing automationActivity metrics versus quality metricsWhy quantity is no longer the primary sales KPICreativity in outbound prospectingThe VITO letter and direct outreachOld-school sales techniques in modern sellingThe decline of the traditional BDR modelWhy 2X operates without BDRsThe return of the full cycle account executiveReducing buyer handoffs throughout the sales cycleBuilding credibility before the first meetingCommunity-driven pipeline generationBecoming a trusted connectorCreating value without expecting immediate meetingsThe importance of human connection in AI-enabled sellingPresence of mind and relationship mappingAdapting to constant market changeSeparating assumptions from reality during the sales processAI as an enabler, not a replacement for sales fundamentalsGuest Spotlight: John TecceJohn Tecce is Vice President of Growth at 2X, where he leads half of the company’s revenue organization with a team of full cycle account executives operating without a traditional BDR model.A third-generation sales professional, John combines classic relationship-driven selling with modern AI-enabled execution. He has become a leading voice on the future of go-to-market strategy, helping organizations rethink outbound sales, trust building, pipeline generation, and revenue operations in an increasingly AI-driven marketplace.Resources & Mentions:2XKnownwellSixth SenseMarketoSalesforcePredictable RevenueGary VaynerchukLinkedInBob KellySelling to VITOHope Is Not a StrategyThe Go-GiverAGS Academy🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with today’s leading revenue operators, sales executives, and GTM innovators. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.Mark Petruzzi

Welcome to Selling Intelligence. Our guest today is John TC, Vice President of Growth at 2X, the firm that just its declared itself the first human agentic go-to-market services firm. John runs half of 2x's revenue organization, a team of 12 full-cycle AEs with no BDRs.And he is third generation sales who has spent the last year watching the tools that built his career stop working at scale. Two X recently announced its acquisition of known well, and John has a front row seat to where the market is heading.KK Anderson

Personal note before we start, when John, Mark and I spoke in preparation, we landed on the same diagnosis from two very different directions and he is living it inside his own team and we are diagnosing it with clients every week. The instinct everyone has is to add more activity. John's answer is the opposite and that's what makes this conversation well worth your time.Mark Petruzzi

Here are the topics we will cover today. In part one, three things: why Digital Outbound has hit a wall and what that means for every CRO. The death of the BDR and the return of the full cycle AE. And old school fundamentals through new mechanisms, how the best reps apply forever concepts through AI-enabled execution. Then in part two, which drops next week.We will get into two additional topics. What human agentic go-to-market actually means when you combine human agents and tech and the operating model of rethink: what to own, what to outsource, and how to decide. John, welcome to Selling Intelligence.John Tecce

Great to be here.KK Anderson

We are thrilled to have you. Okay, let's jump right into it. So much great stuff to cover today. And let's start with this idea of the trust recession and why digital outbound has hit a wall. And we bonded on this topic during the prep session, as I indicated in our introduction. as soon as I said,I said it, the trust recession, which by the way, I picked that up from Bob Kelly, who's the chairman of Sales Management Association. So all credit to him. You immediately reacted to it and we both totally agree that we are in a trust recession right now. And so let's start with you telling us like, what does that mean for you? What does it capture for you? Like, what are you seeing on your team and across your clients that makes that a phrase that really resonates for you?John Tecce

thing that really sticks out to me is the utilization of AI in all forms of communication that has led to a skepticism on the receiving end.How real the text that I'm receiving, whether it's a LinkedIn post or a message or an email or what have you, actually is from the human being versus how much of it was went through the AI car wash. And inherently, if you think about most of these models are ultimately trying to regress to the mean in terms of what they generate. And so you're ending up with this.copy paste of of phrasing and ways that things are said that strips out a lot of the human nature of it. And I think as a result, as B2B professionals, and when I say B2B professionals, that's under the whole go-to-market lens, everything from BDR to AE to CSM to executive, et cetera. there's the evergreen phrase of people buy from people who they know, like and trust, but it's kind of harder to get to know and trust them if you you have tofilter everything they send you through the lens of like how much of this, you know, is really them versus how much of it is Chat GPT or or Copilot or or Claude that they're running these thoughts and communications through. I'm a huge user of AI, to be clear, I'm very AI forward and I encourage my team to be the same. but when you come to the trust recession, I think a lot of it has to do with just a a distance now that exists between two people and the communication betweenKK Anderson

and a lot of the noise that it has created, right? It's almost deafening. There's so much noise out there in the market today. It's insane.John Tecce

It's it's insane. the BDRoutreach surge that we've seen in particular, whether it's again BDRs or otherwise, but Sixth Sense put out some research very recently that the baseline touches per contact was was about 17 in 2024. Not that long ago. We're in the middle of 2026. and this research came out a couple of weeks ago. We're now at 34 touches per contact. So it's doubled, number one. Number two, on top of that.KK Anderson

Ugh.my poor inbox.John Tecce

It ex well and inboxes, right? So what they found in that research as well was social in particular is the the biggest source of that growth. It went from about four and a half touches in twenty twenty four to now over ten in twenty twenty six. And so your email inbox is already hurting and and kind of getting hammered. And now, LinkedIn kinda used to be the okay, well if you send a a a really strong LinkedIn connect request or a really strong in mail, you had a good chance nowBut what we're seeing is the volume and just the increase in the noise in in part due to the ability to do it from a scale standpoint, an automation standpoint. but also, you're finding a lot of the inbox tools, both on the LinkedIn side and email, are becoming more intelligent to filtering out that noise. And so it's that's being countered with more noise and just more and more, more, more, and more, and we're at a point where the math just just doesn't math anymore.Mark Petruzzi

So John, you have been selling a long time now s so you definitely remember when digital outbound was still relatively clean. What has changed at the structural level and how does it show up in the numbers you're watching every day right now?John Tecce

Yeah, I think you know when I started my career was when marketing automation in its in its current form was really taking shape. my first role out of school was was at Rico for a couple years and helped them launch at the sales level launch Marketo as an example. And it was like super cool that you could put in this template and you could pull and have it personalized by first name and by company name. That was like a really big deal, right? and at the time we were getting and then you you started to see theknow, the evolution of of RevTech and marketing automation into where now I can put in these all these different variables. It's like, my gosh, okay, now I can personalize that scale. I can put in company name and industry and based on industry I could put in these three client names of ours and like and you were getting a a really positive return on that because it was it was one, new on the recipient side and two, there was just less of it. And so as a result of those two factors,You know, you were able to to be more successful with that approach. what the SaaS industrial complex sort of created and through books like Predictable Revenue and other, the success of Salesforce and other firms was this idea of well, okay, well, if we just do more of that and we hire more people to do more of that, it we've always talked about a funnel forever, right? Or a bow tie. It's gonna more is gonna yield more. And for a while that was the case.first through email and then, as as far back as twenty eighteen, Gary Vaanderchuk's big thing was l LinkedIn was gonna be the platform of twenty eighteen. and you know, that that kind of pulled through in in through LinkedIn. And then by the way, once COVID hit, all we had was digital for a while there. And so that fur even further exacerbated it. And so I think, you I I look back on just the rudimentary basics of but a lot of folks of my sort of cohort of the middle millennial kind of age rangecame about when that was what you learned to do and you and wherever you started, whether you as an AE or a BDR, and that was, okay, if I just pull this slot machine or I just keep hitting these buttons, you know, the return, it was a math equation, right? and as we've just established that that is no longer the case. And so it's interesting now to look back on how successful that was and for good reason, but we've now effectively polluted that ocean to the point where there's there's no longer that many fish to catch through the volume approach.KK Anderson

You know, what's interesting is that, and we've talked about this a lot on the podcast before, is it's almost like the pendulum is swinging all the way back to the old school, which is so good for the really strong salespeople because trusted advisor, relationships, really being subject matter experts in what you do and your domain, the passion that you have for what you sell, all of those things that are so human and that makethe best sellers, the best, like that now is paramount. And when we were chatting, John, you told us a story that I'd love for you to share with our audience, that one of your team members used an old school like veto letter, right? To get in front of a chief marketing officer at a dinner. So tell us that story. And then before you do, just for the millennials in the group who never had to do a veto letter, like tell us what it is.John Tecce

Ha haKK Anderson

Tell us whatJohn Tecce

ha.KK Anderson

it actually is and then tell us what happened and why it worked and expand on that.John Tecce

Yeah, Ithink first and foremost, you mentioned at the top that I'm third generation sales at least third generation. I don't know further back than that. but my father, Michael T C was in sales leadership for his entire career. and so I grew up, you know, around around books like Selling to Vito and Hope Is Not a Strategy. And these were these were just things that were around me my whole life. And so I feel extremely blessed to have sort of entered this this profession with a lot ofTimeless values and concepts and so being able to pull back to those things, right? And so, sitting in the backseat coming home from from baseball practice and having learned what veto stands for and what a letter is, right? So s it's given the now that we're kind of thinking about this full cycle part of it, you know, we started to think about, okay, well, the digital channels have been polluted. that doesn't mean stop doing them, by the way. You can there are still fish to catch. it means you can't rely on them. And those are two different things, right? So you have to be thinking in a different way. Direct mail, not a new concept.So what sort of occurred to us, as we were sort of thinking through, okay, how can we zig when everybody else is zagging or vice versa, was well, we can rely on direct mail, but even that, you know, okay, that's gotta get sent to an office and get processed and what have you. exact yeah, we've got a few people that are remote, but through the investment and commitment from our our go to market organization around building community, our CMO Lisa Cole was attending aKK Anderson

And no one's in the office.John Tecce

Dinner recently, and occurred to one of my AEs, Lucy Goodwin, who just finished up another incredible quarter, by the way, was like, you know, you're you're seated at a table with one of my prospects that has a very compelling go-to-market transformation going on right now. And we've tried through digital channels and we have a really compelling message. We just don't, we haven't been able to have the right vessel to deliver it. And it sort of occurred, hey, can I?Like so we talked about it and we kind of came around with like, well, you have the message. You have the veto letter. And for those unfamiliar with the veto letter, it's nothing more than a one-page letter with a a brief, succinct value prop, value statement, citing specifics to that company, what we think we can do for you, and then setting up a very direct follow-up. And so we had all those puzzle pieces together. So well, what if like, hold on, Lisa's gonna be at the same in the same room? What if you just physically have her like give that message to the person, which 30 years agoKK Anderson

slip her notJohn Tecce

Totally. And like 30 years ago is exactly what you would have done, right? Because you didn't have the digital channels to you only had in person or or the phone or or fax, right? And so she sure enough did that. And the recipient was blown away by he's like, no one's ever done this before. No one's ever given me a physically given me a a message outlining a value pro tailored value proposition relevant to them, specifics, right, and all those things. and really kind of stood out.in terms of, hey, these guys are different. Like this company's operating in a different way. I don't do anything different. We're just we're going back to the future a little bit around you know that type of thing. and it was just very well received on on their side has led to a continuing conversation towards what exactly what we want to do is getting on their radar in a meaningful way through a timelessKK Anderson

VEDO is, I believe it stands for very important top officer. Is that right? Yeah, that's really cool. I love that story, John.John Tecce

Yes, exactly.Mark Petruzzi

So John, for for a CRO listening to this who is still running a sequencing first high volume outbound motion, what is the one thing they should stop? Like, stop now. Not not tomorrow, stop today.John Tecce

Quantity metrics are no longer a reliable predictor of conversion. Now, there are some that might argue that never were. I would argue that they definitely were for a while. but I I don't think smashing the more button or looking at the how much button. I think I think effort and quantity is important. I do not feel that quantity is primary, and I think in a lot of organizations that is still looked at as the first place to go.it's the simplest, it's the most measurable, it's the most actionable. you only made this many calls or you know, this many outreaches? Okay, well let's try more. And don't don't get me wrong, we we look at quantity here too, and but but much more around looking at the quality of outreach and the channel within the outreach is made. I think those that's the big pivot that that I would suggest is taking a hard look at, okay, if we are at a point where unless there is a very cleargap in the will, it's probably a gap in skill around the quality of the outreach and the critical thinking and creativity around the channel of the outreach. I I also, we have a lot of leaders right now in in CRO and VP of sales and VP of revenue and growth roles that also came up during this era of, you know, not having the prior perspective and only kind of came up through the world of sequences and KPIs around sequences and BDRs to do all the PG work andWhen I say PG meaning pipeline generation. so I do think, you know, being able to look back at at quality and at channel is paramount.KK Anderson

Could not agree more, could not agree more. Okay, we're gonna jump into topic two, the death of the BDR, and I know that's a hot take. I know it's a hot take. But it's one that I'd love to hear your, kind of where your head is, and I know it's the return as we spoke of the full cycle AE, which is what you've done. And at 2X, you've never had a BDR function, and I know that was a deliberate structural decision.for your team and so walk us through the reasoning and tell us tell me what you mean when you say the full cycle AE is coming back.John Tecce

Yeah, I think there's a few layers to it. The first layer goes back to the no like and trust aspect of any B2B, you know, go to market. And fundamentally, anytime there is a handoff involved, there is a risk around that that no like trust concoction to be disrupted. Right. And so to be clear to the BDRs out there, the work you do is valuable. The risk is in the handoff from okay.you're having a conversation or you're generating a meeting, and then immediately having to hand that off to somebody that the buyer already, before they've even taken the first meeting, has already talked to two people at this company. And they're like, okay. And then maybe we're introducing other people throughout the sales cycle. And then by the way, on after the sale is closed, then okay, I'm being handed off and I'm primarily working with the C like. And so there's just a lot of kind of handoffs that occur. And with that becomes a loss of context, a loss of personal accountability.And a loss of just comfort in consistency around around that accountability. And so what we found was as a 2x about a decade ago created the marketing as a service category. So think managed services or BPO, but for at the time B2B go to market or marketing, and now since we've expanded it to go to market, but as a category creator, say, hey, we we have to have someone on the front line that is a subject matter expert. The first interaction, the first engagement conversation has to be with someone who hascommunity presence, marketing community presence, that is, also local community presence potentially, has credibility, can have that conversation and really be able to provide a premium experience on the prospect side from the get-go. and minimize some of those handoffs so that throughout the life of bringing a client in and then eventually onboarding that, there is still that presence there and accountability there.So that's a big part of of of the decision for us at the time. And it's only really exacerbated in an ongoing way. The majority of what we find with our clients is repeat clients or or folks that we meet throughout this community. And you know, a lot of the research about the dark funnel or name your thing about buyers or X percent through the journey before they choose to engage, well, that only happens when you're not providing value before that percentage point to want to engage. And so also a lot a big part of our full cycle approach is making sure that we are constantlyin that community, providing value, staying connected, and aligning without the expectation of a meeting. And I think that's the other piece of it is the misalignment of KPIs. You have an entire function that is KPI'd on meetings. Well meetings aren't opportunities to sell potential I mean they might be, right? But a lot of buyers aren't even ready for a meeting yet. And so being able to is is that a KPI we track? It is and it is a proxy for success to some extent.But when you have an entire function that is only KPI on meetings, they're just gonna set up meetings because that's their job, right? Versus looking at it through a holistic lens of are we meeting with the right people at the right time about something they can act they're actually in a position to want to buy. And I've built enough credibility where, you know, most of the research from again, I'll cite that Sixth Sense Research and others say the first vendor that's contacted or engaged is typically the one that wins. I think it's like eighty four percent of the time, if I remember correctly.KK Anderson

Mm-hmm.John Tecce

Well, that's the AE that has to do that work leading up to that point to be the first call, right? That can't be a bifurcated process. And so that's kind of the what we've found and has really played out organizationally for us, but also what I've found my whole career, in terms of just being a a good AE, is constantly kind of thinking about pipeline generation. And I've been again very blessed to have a lot of leaders who have instilled that in me in terms of owning that for yourself.Mark Petruzzi

So you made an observation that most mid career sales professionals have never known a world where they could not send a personalized email or a somewhat cheeky gift and get a meeting. What does that mean for the skill gaps CROs are actually managing right now?John Tecce

There's a few things. one is acceptance and acknowledgement of what you just said is realizing that we are in a the answer is not more and the answer is not what you did before. didn't mean for that to rhyme, but maybe we'll put that on a on a pillow somewhere. looking looking at any there there really are no new ideas at this point, like at all of the different creative sort of of the twenty tens with hey, I saw on your Instagram.KK Anderson

Mm-hmm.John Tecce

You went to this place and I'm gonna send you a gift about whatever, or hey, you went to Villanova and they're playing against Seton Hall in the Big East tournament, I'll make a bet. Like all those different type of they were super cool in the moment in the 2010s, they work great, they were differentiated, they engage people. they've been maximized and played out at this point, right? And so I think really kind of reassessing and understanding what is actually creating the human connection of apotential buyer and I think emphasis big on potential in that community and being able to engage those people at a human level and at a pace that they're ready to engage with. A really good example that I found is is super helpful is when you're an active member in a community of professionals, whether it's an established community, like an actual community group, or just paying attention on LinkedIn. Okay, I see that, I have a client that I'm talking to over here.And they're looking for a director of RevOps. And then I see somebody else whose name popped up on my LinkedIn feed that was impacted by a restructuring, and they're in between roles. And they have the skill set, hey, I don't like I gotta I don't know you at all. Like, but I saw your LinkedIn post. You you seem to be looking for something that my client is hiring for. Like maybe you guys should talk. And like playing that connector role. I think we've really lost that concept, which again is not a new concept at all, right? This is a that was a fundamental piece of.KK Anderson

We have.John Tecce

selling up until the twenty tens was being that connector, being engaged with your clients. If anybody's read or listened to the Go Giver, that's a big part of the premise, right? Around the connector and the guy who's just having conversations all day long, but never seems to be getting anything done and yet he's crushing it. Well it's 'cause those conversations are leading to, okay, how can I align a a client need, whether it's something I sell or or not, to what they're trying to accomplish and or just providing value.And the law of reciprocity suggests that if you're continuing to do those things at any form of scale, it will pay off over a certain amount of time. so that's really like these are not new concepts at all. This is very much like B2B selling 101. We just have a whole generation of people that were never exposed to it. Again, the only reason I've been lucky enough to is through my own upbringing and through some great leaders I had early.KK Anderson

So true.Yeah.so true. you know, you, in doing that, you create trust and that is combating the trust recession. And we know that we're in. So, 100 % comes full circle. so quickly before we wrap up for our part one. So, in, the, when you think about the full cycle AE of today, right? What, like, what are the key?competencies or capabilities. It doesn't have to be, sales specific, but like what is it that you, they have to have to be able to do full cycle.John Tecce

Number one, they have to have the presence of mind to make these mental connections. They have to be able to see connections, whether those connections mean, okay, I have someone who moved on from a a two X client and went somewhere else. And now there's tools out there that can help you do that too, but still inherently the ability to read that. You have to have the presence of mind to sort of feel out in a cycle, hey, I think that person's fullyCommitted, like they might be moving on somewhere, right? You have have the presence of mind to start to see these things. partnerships is another good example. Like, so often, you know, 2X has a lot of great technology and other types of partners, but like just because we're not capital P partners, it doesn't mean you can't go find your peer AE at another company who's also selling to the person you're selling to and say, Hey, we're selling to the same person. Like our companies aren't partnered, but likeWe're both trying to do the same thing. Can you wanna talk and just like help each other here? Like just that presence of mind to make those connections is uncanny in terms of their ability to find success. Certainly in my experience personally, but also at 2x across my team. the second is the ability to embrace the uncertainty. we are I think the term unprecedented times first became most associated with with COVID era. And now it's just like what we live in.Like there it there is no precedented time. Yeah, like we're we are uncertainty is a part of the human experience. by the way, that didn't start with COVID either, but I think that that really brought it in generationally for a lot of folks. but with AI and with other things, you have to be willing to disrupt yourself all the time. You have to be willing to kill your darlings. You have to be willing to say, just because this worked for me last year or last month or last week, it doesn't mean it's going to work for me going forward.KK Anderson

This is what it is.John Tecce

And to be able to have that adaptability. And then I think the third one that comes to mind for me is you have to be able to separate the story you tell yourself from what's happening in reality. And I'll give Jen Wang, who's a a former 2X or helped build 2X from the ground up, just spoke with my team earlier today about this topic where she talked about the ability to sort of we all tell ourselves stories all the time about what's happening.because a story is better than no story, right? Like, hey, they're not getting back to me. Well, okay, well they're probably not getting back to me be because, you know, you make up some story about whatever, you go down some rabbit hole. I in that case, yeah, I do. that's a that's a good example. an excuse absolutely becomes a story in that case versus like, hey, you might have just reached out to him during a busy week. It's not that deep. There's no story. Get back on the horse and try it again.KK Anderson

Do you mean excuse when you say story?Mark Petruzzi

Mm-hmm.John Tecce

Well I and so I think there's a layer of being able to separate that and understand that okay, I need to focus on what's in front of me. I need to focus on how Jen put it, the next clean action, and be able to move forward. I found that those three things really right now in twenty twenty six are the biggest areas that set.KK Anderson

We will.So good.Mark Petruzzi

All right. So this is where we leave part one. We have covered the thrust recession, the collapse of the BDR model, and what it actually looks like when a firm stops theorizing and starts building the org around full cycle reps. In part two, John gets us into what human agentic go to market means in practice, how 2x is helping clients rethink the operating model.and where most organizations are making the wrong bet right now. We look forward to seeing you there.KK Anderson