The Revenue Room™, by H2K Labs
Welcome to The Revenue Room™, brought to you by H2K Labs. Our podcast is designed for CEOs and their revenue-critical executive teams leading media, events, data/info, and marketplace businesses. We focus on boosting revenue, enhancing profitability, and elevating enterprise value. Each episode delves into cutting-edge data-driven strategies to accelerate revenue, manage risks, and establish scalable, predictable processes. We also discuss elevating revenue to the core of operational excellence, empowering you to consistently outperform your competitors.
The Revenue Room™, by H2K Labs
Your “All Green” Dashboard Is Lying to You | A CEO’s Guide to Revenue Truth
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In this engaging conversation, Taylor Kessel-Salomonsson, Chief Growth Officer at Naylor Association Solutions, shares her unconventional career journey from marketing to revenue leadership. She emphasizes the importance of storytelling in sales, the need for organizational alignment, and the significance of understanding the buyer journey. Taylor introduces the bow tie model as a new approach to viewing the customer lifecycle and discusses key metrics for revenue success. She also highlights the role of content as a growth engine and the differences between PE-backed and VC-backed companies. Throughout the discussion, Taylor provides valuable insights for CEOs and revenue leaders on becoming more data-driven and building strong relationships with C-suite stakeholders.
Takeaways:
- Taylor's career path is unconventional, starting in marketing and transitioning to revenue leadership.
- A strong marketing foundation is crucial for building effective revenue engines.
- Organizational alignment is key to overcoming revenue challenges.
- Understanding the buyer journey is essential for effective sales strategies.
- The bow tie model provides a comprehensive view of the customer lifecycle.
- Key metrics include volume, velocity, conversion rates, and time to value.
- Content should be viewed as a growth engine, not just a lead generation tool.
- PE-backed companies focus on efficient growth, while VC-backed companies prioritize rapid scaling.
- Taylor's transition to Naylor involved unpacking complex revenue challenges.
- The gap index presents opportunities for media companies to leverage their data.
- CEOs should ask about CAC to LTV ratios to understand revenue generation.
- Data is a starting point for conversations with C-suite stakeholders.
About RevvedUP 2026
RevvedUP 2026 is where CEOs and revenue-critical C-Suite leaders reset their growth playbook for the AI-first economy. Taking place March 23–24, 2026 at The Vinoy Resort in St. Petersburg, FL, this two-day strategy lab helps leaders pressure-test how AI moves from cost center to growth driver and turn data and disruption into competitive advantage.
About Heather Holst-Knudsen
Heather Holst-Knudsen is the founder and CEO of H2K Labs and Revenue Room™ Connect. A seasoned executive and operator across media, marketplaces, events, and technology, she specializes in digital transformation, data-driven growth, and customer-centric value creation. Heather shares her insights on multisided business models through The Revenue Room™.
About Revenue Room™ CXO
Revenue Room™ CXO is a private executive community for CEOs and revenue-critical C-Suite leaders navigating growth in the data and AI economy. Through curated peer discussions and strategy sprints, members tackle real-world challenges in revenue transformation, customer intelligence, and business model innovation.
Learn more or apply for membership at info.h2klabs.com/apply-cxo.
[00:00:00] Introduction to Taylor Kessel-Salomonsson, Chief Growth Officer at Naylor, with a background spanning Salesforce, DocuSign, startups, and revenue transformation.
[00:03:00] Taylor shares her unconventional path from marketing and storytelling at Salesforce to scaling platform growth at DocuSign and later leading revenue engines.
[00:05:00] She explains her philosophy that a true revenue engine is the marriage of marketing artistry and data science.
[00:07:00] Emphasizes aligning the entire company around a clear “why” and strong product-market fit to build an effective revenue system.
[00:08:00] Discusses partnering directly in sales conversations to elevate storytelling and move beyond transactional selling.
[00:12:00] Describes her rapid evolution at Naylor by breaking down silos across sales, marketing, ops, and retention to build one integrated growth engine.
[00:17:00] Shares how fixing a stalled CRM revealed deeper process issues, leading to implementation of the Bow Tie lifecycle framework.
[00:20:00] Explains the Bow Tie model—balancing acquisition with retention, expansion, and lifecycle rigor to eliminate revenue leakage.
[00:24:00] Highlights applying SaaS unit economics (CAC, LTV, product mix profitability) to complex media and association business models.
[00:27:00] Outlines key KPIs: volume, velocity, conversion efficiency, time to value, and net dollar retention as leading indicators of growth.
[00:33:00] Challenges the idea that content is a “vending machine,” arguing it should drive authority and intent—not just leads.
[00:37:00] Compares VC-backed growth (speed and ARR expansion) with PE-backed growth (profitable, efficient, margin-conscious scaling).
[00:42:00] Reframes the “Gap Index” in media as an opportunity to operationalize rich audience data with SaaS-level rigor.
[00:46:00] Advises CEOs to ask three critical questions: fully loaded cost of revenue, expansion potential, and retention timeline to calculate CAC-to-LTV.
[00:48:00] Warns leaders not to use data as a crutch—dashboards start conversations, but instinct and interrogation uncover the truth.
[00:51:00] Shares that her storytelling ability and systems mindset (rooted in early software development experience) are her core strengths.
