No SDRs, Still Growing: How a CRO Builds Pipeline in 2026 | Xander Kotsatos, CRO at Aqfer

In sales, the most important thing is hitting your number. Xander Kotsatos says the second most important thing is being right about whether you will — because a quarter you blow out without seeing it coming breaks the same feedback loop as a miss. Xander is Chief Revenue Officer at Aqfer, running sales, customer success and technical solutions at the same time for the first time in his career. He was the first East Coast trader at what became one of the largest demand-side platforms, lived through an IPO, an acquisition, a private-equity rollup and a bankruptcy inside a single company, and helped lead sales at Beeswax through its exit to Comcast. Today he sells data infrastructure with no SDRs on the team. In this conversation with LeanScale co-founder Anthony Enrico, Xander breaks down what changes when one leader owns the whole go-to-market org, why sales should narrow its focus while CS and solutions widen theirs, what replaced volume outbound, why AI slop is making curation more valuable, and where he draws the line on AI — including why his sales reps don't use it to write proposals. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Why being right about your forecast matters almost as much as hitting it What actually changes when one leader owns sales, customer success and solutions Why sales needs narrower focus while CS and solutions need wider focus How Aqfer grew new business year over year with no SDRs The "I want to be your best SDR" model: leaders sourcing half of every rep's number Why recording customer calls — not just sales calls — changes coaching and account coverage Why AI slop is making trusted curators and good content more valuable, not less How to make the call when you only have half the data you need Where Xander lets AI in, where he keeps it out, and why AI can't be accountable The conference trick: play a character, and the three-point media-training rule CHAPTERS 00:00 — Intro: Xander Kotsatos, CRO at Aqfer 01:17 — Crashing an alumni reception in a blazer 04:16 — Play a character, and the three-point media-training rule 07:22 — Owning sales, CS and solutions for the first time 13:22 — Hit the number, then be right about whether you will 14:12 — Controlling the uncontrollable: two kinds of focus 17:39 — Recording customer calls, not just sales calls 21:11 — Full-cycle reps and the CEO-of-your-own-business mindset 23:33 — Growing without SDRs: "I want to be your best SDR" 27:18 — Slop, curation and where media attention is going 36:45 — Making the call without the data 39:40 — AI can't be accountable: Waymo vs. LLMs 46:23 — Why sales reps don't use AI to write proposals 49:37 — C-plus strategy, A-plus execution 51:18 — Wrap ABOUT THE GUEST Xander Kotsatos is Chief Revenue Officer at Aqfer, a marketing data platform that helps enterprises unify, process and activate customer and marketing data inside their existing cloud, where he runs sales, customer success and technical solutions. Xander graduated into the 2009 recession, talked his way into an internship at an Omnicom-owned PR agency, and went on to become the first East Coast trader at what became one of the largest demand-side platforms. He has since lived through an IPO, an acquisition, a private-equity rollup and a bankruptcy inside a single company, helped lead sales at Beeswax through its 2021 acquisition by Comcast's FreeWheel, and held sales leadership roles at Comcast before joining Aqfer. ABOUT THE LEANSCALE PODCAST The LeanScale Podcast is the show for GTM operators building the next generation of revenue infrastructure. Hosted by Anthony Enrico, co-founder of LeanScale, we go deep with the operators, founders, and executives shaping how modern go-to-market teams are designed, scaled, and transformed. ▶ Subscribe for new episodes ▶ Learn more about LeanScale: https://www.leanscale.team ▶ Follow Anthony on LinkedIn ▶ Follow Xander on LinkedIn ▶ Learn more about Aqfer: https://aqfer.com KEYWORDS / TAGS RevOps, Revenue Operations, GTM, Go-to-Market, CRO, Chief Revenue Officer, Sales Leadership, Customer Success, Solutions Engineering, Sales Engineering, SDR, SDR Team, Outbound, Pipeline Generation, Sales Forecasting, Forecast Accuracy, Pipeline Forecasting, AI, AI in Sales, AI Agents, AI Slop, Sales Operations, Sales Enablement, Sales Proposals, Ad Tech, Martech, Programmatic Advertising, Demand-Side Platform, DSP, Data Infrastructure, Marketing Data Platform, Connected TV, Event-Led Growth, Conference Strategy, Content Curation, Streaming, Advertising Week, Aqfer, Comcast, FreeWheel, Beeswax, HubSpot, Grain, SalesIntel, Claude, Waymo, B2B SaaS, Enterprise SaaS, Series A, GTM Strategy, GTM Engineering, LeanScale, Anthony Enrico, Xander Kotsatos HASHTAGS #RevOps #GTM #GoToMarket #AI #LeanScale #LeanScalePodcast #ChiefRevenueOfficer #SalesLeadership #CustomerSuccess #SalesForecasting #Outbound #SDR #AdTech #MarTech #DataInfrastructure #B2BSaaS #AIinSales #Aqfer