Welcome to Season 3 of 10/10 GTM: The Podcast for Revenue Leaders!
Our guest for Episode 71 is Robert Clarkson, CRO, Stripe. Robert brings decades of experience to the conversation. Prior to joining Stripe in 2023, he held leadership roles at Payoneer, PayPal, and American Express.
In this episode, Ross and Robert discuss why it’s crucial to understand that customers buy outcomes, not products. They also talk about how sales is a people business, and that to succeed, you need to understand not just the buyer, but also your buyer’s customers.
Listen to the episode here, and get the key takeaways from our conversation below.
Why Customers Buy Outcomes (Not Products)
When customers buy products, what they’re really looking for is an outcome — a direct result. It’s about what’s in it for them. “People who spend most of their time talking about features and benefits can easily be outsold if they’re just selling different versions of blue, green, yellow, and red,” says Robert. “Because if someone comes along with some tweak on that color, customers can simply jump ship. And this can happen even if you have a superior product. But if you focus on outcomes, you never stray from why customers are actually buying.”
To understand whether you’re selling outcomes or products, Robert recommends asking these questions:
- Why is the customer buying?
- Will the customer actually benefit?
- How do you measure that benefit? For example, are they acquiring new customers, higher order values, more transactions, or reaching more geographies?
“If you’re in the race car business, you don’t buy a fast car simply because you want a fast car,” explains Robert. “Winning is everything. You want to cross that finish line first. So do you need a bigger engine, a lighter car, or better tires? It could be 50 other things, and you can sell those along the way.”
It’s also important to shift from simply selling to your customers to selling with them. Your goal is to partner with your customers and deliver a product that produces the outcome they need — one that helps them sell to their own customers and capitalize on new opportunities.
Know Your Buyers & Their Customers
As technology continues to advance and evolve, it’s easy to think sales is something that can be automated and almost hands free. But the reality is that sales is still a people business, which means to succeed you need to understand not only your buyers, but also your customers’ buyers.
“Technology is an incredible enabler,” Robert emphasizes. “It closes immense gaps between buyers and sellers. All the things you want technology to do, it’s doing. But technology is the enabler of success for your customers — it’s not what your customers are looking for. What they really want is a better life, a smoother transaction, a better vacation, better health — whatever the thing is that they’re buying. And technology shrinks the distance between want and have.”
To really understand your customers and their buyer’s needs, find a common thread. What benefits your customer and their customers? Keep in mind that the end customer is almost never in the room with you when a deal is being negotiated and signed. But you still need to consider their experience.
“I have a friend who is a very senior executive at Walmart,” says Robert. “And he said to me, ‘Don’t tell me what you’re going to do for us. Tell me what you’re going to do for my customers. We will always take care of ourselves. But if you’re telling me you’re going to take care of my customers or make their lives better, we can talk all day.”’
Ultimately, when you understand not only what your buyer needs but also what their customers want, you position yourself as a true partner rather than just another vendor. It’s a mindset that nurtures deeper relationships and drives long-term loyalty, benefiting everyone from the buyer to the end consumer.
About Robert
Robert is an experienced revenue and sales leader who began his payments career in 1994. After spending 14 years at GE Capital, he went on to hold leadership positions at American Express, PayPal, NortonLifeLock, and Payoneer. He joined Stripe as the Americas Revenue and Growth Leader in 2023, and was promoted to CRO in 2024.
