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Navigating summer slowness. July 16, 2026 View Online | Sign Up | Shop It’s Thursday. While sports fans are still laser focused on the World Cup, the NFL is making strides ahead of its upcoming season. It was announced this weekend that tech billionaire Vinod Khosla and his family will purchase the Seattle Seahawks for $9.6 billion, breaking the record in NFL franchise history. In today’s edition: Summer lull Olympian moves Q&A with GM Energy CRO —Layla Ilchi, Jordyn Grzelewski REVENUE STRATEGY & LEADERSHIP Dog days Getty Images The summer months can impact any organization’s GTM strategy, with holidays and vacations stalling deals and slowing momentum. According to ZoomInfo, the summer activity lull could cost companies up to $400,000 in new business. So is there a way for sales teams to push through and avoid the seasonal blip? “It’s not so much [that] deals slow down—activity kind of slows down and there’s a lag,” said Trindl Reeves, CRO at insurance brokerage and consulting firm Marsh McLennan Agency. “What we do today is going to help us in Q1, so it’s important that the activity, as far as new business appointments and those kinds of things, are happening now.” CROs and sales leaders have taken note of this trend and factored it into their yearly planning. Slow and steady Some CROs are taking advantage of the slower period and refocusing attention on things they might not normally have the time to do. According to Bill Warshauer, CRO of rewards and incentives platform Tillo, this time can give CROs a chance to reevaluate priorities and make sure their team is on track to hit goals. “It’s just a matter of how you prioritize what those items are and your expected outcomes…Close out the year strong, build your pipeline for the following year, put yourself in a position for a rocket-ship start, while at the same time trying to get deals both boarded and then actually operating, so revenues can be realized,” he said. Some of Warshauer’s main priorities during the summer months are analyzing the business’s lead-to-cash (L2C) process to uncover areas of improvement. It also means reevaluating his team’s tech stack to experiment with new tools in the industry, and exploring new talent to add to his team. Keep reading here to learn about possible summer incentives.—LI        From The Crew The daily tech show you need Your commute home is about to get a whole lot smarter. Tech Brew Ride Home is the sharpest daily download for tech professionals who want to stay ahead. Every afternoon, host Brian McCullough offers insider context and no-nonsense takes from someone who’s been covering the digital revolution since the dot-com boom. This punchy, fast-paced podcast distills the day’s most important stories in tech, startups, and innovation into a format made for busy builders, leaders, and innovators. Listen now. REVENUE STRATEGY & LEADERSHIP En garde Caraa While many brands are locking into the World Cup, women’s accessories brand Caraa is looking forward to the 2028 Summer Olympics as part of its growth strategy. Co-founder and CEO Aaron Luo, a lifelong fencer, is banking on a passion project to spur growth for the over 10-year-old brand, which has revealed a partnership with USA Fencing in the lead-up to the Los Angeles Summer Games. The partnership kicked off with a capsule collection incorporating fencing motifs and styles for Caraa’s premium bags, and 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the USA Fencing Foundation. “The idea is that we wanted to learn from the community, hear the feedback, and then iterate from there,” Luo said about the ongoing partnership. “This will be one of the few [products] that we hope to launch before the Olympics, during the Olympics, and, of course, after the Olympics.” Connecting with the community As the US fencing network is relatively small compared to other sports participating in the Olympics—according to USA Fencing, it had just over 45,000 registered members as of August 2025—Luo is leveraging his connection to the community for the partnership. He hopes the collections appeal to both fencing enthusiasts and sports fans more broadly. “Because this is something that we care [about], because we want to give back to the community, we want to really give [customers] something that’s really cool,” he said. “The end product ends up being something that is special, and that’s something that we learn from the design standpoint that we’re going to translate more into other designs that we’re going to do.” Read more on how Caraa’s founder turned passion into profit.—LI        Sponsored By Von Short on bandwidth? If the analyses that could change how your business runs keep sliding to next quarter, check out Von’s latest report. It breaks down 10 prompts for analyses that top revenue teams run most often. Every analysis comes with a starting prompt; just download the guide to see how you can apply them. REVENUE STRATEGY & LEADERSHIP Driving growth Aseem Kapur The No. 1 US automaker is betting that the future of transportation won’t be defined by EVs alone, but by a host of complementary technologies that will make electrification an appealing proposition for consumers and power companies alike. To that end, General Motors in 2022 launched a wholly owned subsidiary called GM Energy, which is responsible for EV charging, home energy storage, and vehicle-to-home solutions. GM Energy sells products like bidirectional EV chargers and stationary home energy battery storage units. The unit is home to GM’s only person with the title of chief revenue officer, Aseem Kapur, who joined the company in 2022 after a nearly 20-year career at New York City’s primary utility provider, Con Edison. Morning Brew recently caught up with Kapur to discuss GM Energy’s latest announcements as the business looks to take advantage of the AI-driven growth in electricity demand in the US. GM, in partnership with utilities like PG&E in California and DTE in Michigan, aims to advance vehicle-to-grid tech that enables EV drivers to send power back to the grid, and is developing next-gen sodium-ion batteries for grid-scale energy storage. Amid a slowdown in demand for EVs, automakers increasingly are investing in energy storage to generate new revenue, use the factory capacity previously slated for EV batteries, and ease their customers’ transition to EVs. Today, GM has more than 250,000 EVs on US roads that are capable of bidirectional charging, with plans to significantly expand that number in the years to come. GM doesn’t break out GM Energy’s financials, but Kapur said his team is laser-focused on quickly boosting the unit’s revenue multiplier. GM Energy’s VP previously told us that through most of 2025, the business saw 30% MoM revenue growth and a 5x increase in charging and energy product sales. About 70% of GM EV purchases also include a GM energy product. Learn how this CRO drives the top line for the business.—JG        active pipeline Stat: 26%. That’s how much investment banking revenue could increase this year. (CNBC) Quote: “AI may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years. [The technology] could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards.”—The “We Must Act Now” statement signed by nearly 200 economists and researchers (the New York Times) Read: Why recruiters can’t find workers and new grads can’t find jobs (it’s not AI). (the Washington Post) In your influencer era: #samsales just dropped a new LinkedIn algorithm guide. Every tip, trick, and hack comes directly from #samsales founder Sam McKenna, a LinkedIn Top Voice and official brand ambassador. Read the full guide here.* *A message from our sponsor. A closer look at Kroger’s deal to buy Giant Eagle (Retail Brew) The proposed $1.65 billion deal could help sinking foot traffic both grocers have been facing. Employers and employees are having very different experiences with AI (HR Brew) 81% of business leaders think AI has increased employee productivity in the past year, but it’s also caused more career instability and stress for employees. GitHub and Genpact execs talk measuring AI ROI (CFO Brew) Reduced labor costs are no longer a primary consideration, experts say. Share the Brew Share the Brew, watch your referral count climb, and unlock brag-worthy swag. Your friends get smarter. You get rewarded. Win-win. Your referral count: 0 Click to Share Or copy & paste your referral link to others: revenuebrew.com/r/?kid=953893c8 Forget sifting through endless listings. Revenue Brew and CollabWORK highlight only a handful of roles each week, chosen for your interests and industry. Click here to view the full job board. National Director of Business Development Operations at ARCO Chief Growth Officer at ERP International Sales Development Representative at New Age Logistics Chief Revenue Officer at First Book Chief Revenue Officer at Brandability Inc Written by Layla Ilchi and Jordyn Grzelewski Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. Get smarter in just 5 minutes Business News: Morning Brew Tech & AI News: Tech Brew Markets News: Brew Markets Real Estate News: The Playbook Money & Career: Bossy Take The Brew to work Marketing Brew CFO Brew HR Brew IT Brew Retail Brew Healthcare Brew Founder Brew Interested in podcasts? Check out ours here. ADVERTISE//CAREERS//SHOP//FAQ Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here. View our privacy policy here. Copyright © 2026 Morning Brew Inc. All rights reserved. 22 W 19th St, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10011