Javier Lozano Jr. on Sales and Marketing Alignment, AI, and Fixing Leaky Pipelines | Thoughts on Selling Podcast
If your sales and marketing teams aren't aligned on revenue, you don't have a pipeline problem — you have a structural problem. In this episode I talk with Javier Lozano Jr., a fractional CMO and CRO who helps founder-led tech companies build the foundation for predictable pipeline. Javier has lived on both sides of the revenue equation, and he brings a rare clarity to why these teams need to be tied at the hip — not just collaborating, but sharing the same revenue goals.
We cover a lot of ground. Why customer success is really a piece of the marketing puzzle — because those customer stories become your most powerful sales enablement. How AI is already changing the game for teams that feed sales transcripts into language models and come out with sharper messaging, shorter sales cycles, and higher conversion rates. Why the feedback loop between sales, marketing, and operations is a closed system that breaks when any piece gets ahead of the others. And why saying yes to the wrong big opportunity — like a Grainger stocking order that would crush your operations — can be the smartest no you ever make.
One of my favorite moments is Javier walking through his HIRO pipeline metric — High Intent Revenue Opportunities — which tells you whether marketing is delivering quality leads or just noise. If your team is closing above 25%, you're in HIRO territory. Below that, either your sales team needs help or your leads aren't good enough.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Sales and marketing must align on revenue goals. Not MQLs, not butts in seats — revenue. When both teams champion closed-won deals instead of their own metrics, the finger-pointing stops and the pipeline becomes predictable.
Customer success is a marketing function. The words your happiest customers use are your best positioning, your best ad copy, and your best sales enablement. Kill the CSM function and you kill your brand's storytelling engine.
AI is already transforming sales enablement. Feed a hundred call transcripts into an LLM and you'll find out what's actually closing deals — often things your own reps can't articulate. Use that to rewrite your emails, refine your messaging, and shorten your sales cycle.
Use the HIRO metric to measure pipeline quality. High Intent Revenue Opportunities above a 25% close rate means marketing is delivering. Below that, you've got a targeting or lead quality problem that no amount of sales effort will fix.
Diagnose your leaky pipeline before you try to scale. Javier's free predictable pipeline diagnostic surfaces the two or three priorities that matter most — typically rev ops gaps and positioning problems — so you stop trying to fix everything and focus on what moves the needle.
FIND JAVIER
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/javierlozanojr
Website: boldermediasolutions.com (free pipeline diagnostic)
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