Cold Calling Isnt Dead: Lessons from a Sales Ops Leader, with Grace Feeney, Smartling

In this episode of Rewiring Growth, Matt Curl sits down with Grace Feeney, Senior Manager of Sales Development & Operations at Smartling, who’s proving that the phones are alive and well... driving 33% of her team’s meetings.

Grace shares why running both sales development and operations is her secret weapon, how she slashed tool sprawl through tech stack consolidation, and why solving problems at 10 pm made her the leader she is today. She also digs into the future of AI in go-to-market — from augmenting research to creating a single pane of glass for every GTM team.

If you’re rethinking cold calling, wrestling with too many tools, or curious about where AI is taking sales, Grace’s story is packed with lessons you’ll want to steal.

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00:00 Intro
01:03 Grace's journey to managing both sales and ops
03:32 How evaluating tech stack led to leadership in ops
06:04 Simplifying the tech stack
07:05 Cold calling revival
09:52 Value of running both sales and ops teams
10:49 Future of tech stack, AI, and cross-team workflows
14:32 Cold calling in the age of AI
18:00 Global content, multilingual support & AI-powered translation
19:46 Connect with Grace