Ep. 111 – Building AI Fluency, Trust, and Modern Sales Leadership with Cherilynn Castleman - Part 2

In Part 2 of this Selling the Cloud conversation, Cherilynn Castleman joins Mark and KK Anderson to unpack what strong CRO leadership looks like in a time of rapid AI adoption and constant go-to-market change. As every team claims to be AI-first and tech stacks continue to converge, Cherilynn explains what truly differentiates leaders who drive real results.This episode dives into how curiosity with AI, disciplined daily usage, and protecting selling time translate into cleaner pipelines, shorter sales cycles, and fewer end-of-quarter surprises. Cherilynn also shares practical guidance on modern operating rhythms, how to run meetings that actually matter, and which metrics prove that change is working now, not quarters from now.What You’ll Learn:Building AI Fluency as a Leader: Why modeling curiosity, transparency, and experimentation matters more than mastering toolsAI as a Daily Discipline: How consistent usage creates confidence, clarity, and better decision-makingProtecting Selling Time: How CROs can reduce meetings and increase seller productivity from 10 hours to 15 to 20 hours per weekHumanized Outbound at Scale: Using AI for micro-segmentation while keeping messaging personal and relevantRunning Meetings That Matter: How 30-minute meetings, no slides, and clear ownership tighten pipeline executionProving Change with Metrics: The three numbers boards and CFOs care about to fund and support transformationKey Topics:CRO leadership in an AI-saturated GTM landscapeModeling AI curiosity and transparency across revenue teamsStop chasing tools and start building the right mindsetExact meetings, executive engagement, and decision-maker accessMicro-segmentation by persona, industry, region, and generationModern revenue operating rhythms and pipeline hygieneMeasuring cycle time, executive involvement, and multi-threaded win ratesGuest Spotlight: Cherilynn CastlemanCherilynn Castleman is a sales and leadership advisor who helps revenue teams adapt to modern buying behavior and post-pandemic selling realities. She is the author of Post-Pandemic Selling, a top Amazon bestseller that has been recognized by Salesforce as one of the top sales books for modern leaders. Cherilynn is also an active LinkedIn voice, hosting frequent LinkedIn Lives where she shares practical insights on sales leadership, AI fluency, and authentic connection.Resources & Mentions:Book: Post-Pandemic Selling by Cherilynn CastlemanWebsite: postpandemicselling.comRecommended Book: The Untethered Soul by Michael A. SingerLeadership Voice to Follow: Bill Green, former CEO of Accenture🎧 Listen now and follow Selling the Cloud for more insights on AI-driven leadership, modern sales execution, and building trust across today’s go-to-market teams.Mark (00:30)All right. Let's move to topic three. Leading as a CRO in a time of intensechange. So every team nowadays says they are AI enabled, they're AI first, and everyone's sales and marketing stack just looks very similar. So from the seat of the CRO, what actually differentiates leadership right now in your opinion? Could you give us two or three weekly behaviors you expect to seein the numbers of a CRO that is leading well.Cherilynn Castleman (01:04)Yeah, so a couple things. I think that if a CRO is demonstrating curiosity with AI, they are using AI, they are sharing with their team, this is what I did. I was working with the CFO for a huge company recently and they do a pricing exercise. And they normally would sit down for a couple weeks and work on this pricing exercise. And I challenged them to open AI and pull their data into their proprietary system.And in 30 minutes, they had done the entire exercise. And so it was like, wow, everybody's going to be impressed. I said, no, it's transparency. Tell them you used AI to do it. Demonstrate, model that you're curious. If you fail, talk about that. So number one, they're modeling curiosity. Two, it's a discipline. They're using it on a daily basis. They're talking about it on a daily basis.There are somewhere between 50 and 200 new AI tools every day. There are, when you look at go-to-market tools, there are somewhere between seven and 10 new tools every day. There's no way you can master the tools. Stop chasing the tools. It's a mindset. It's about confidence and clarity. The next thing that I would say is that ⁓ protect the selling time.Look at your meetings and make them very efficient. Get them down to 30 minutes. The goals is most sellers sell about 10 hours a week. You want to get your sellers to 15 to 20 hours a week. And so where you're going to see this, are you going to see a cleaner pipeline, you're going to see higher exact meetings. And so those are things you want to measure is not just meetings, but exact meetings, decision-maker meters. It will shorten the sales cycles and you'll have fewer surprises at the end of the quarter.KK Anderson (02:43)So good. was just on a coaching call just before this podcast episode actually...