What if the biggest barrier to scaling your B2B business wasn’t your operations, market conditions, or even your team, but you, the founder? In this episode of Predictable B2B Success, Vinay Koshy speaks with Brian Smith, founder of Strategy Ladders, serial entrepreneur, and seasoned leadership coach who’s helped thousands of entrepreneurs unlock the next level of growth.
Brian’s journey spans boat-washing on a Florida island to closing multi-million dollar deals, and he’s distilled years of experience into a simple but powerful premise: your offer is your business, and your mindset is the real growth engine. Discover why most strategic frameworks keep you trapped, which common “security blanket” hires are holding you back, and why focusing 100% on sales, especially when juggling firefighting and growth, is the first rule of scaling smartly.
Brian challenges conventional wisdom with thought-provoking insights on operational bottlenecks, founder mindsets, and the art of constructing an offer so compelling that your brand (and business) can scale beyond your personal involvement. Whether you’re stuck at six figures or dreaming of an exit, this conversation is packed with tactical stories and no-nonsense advice you won’t hear anywhere else. Tune in and rethink what’s really driving your B2B success.
Some topics we explore in this episode include:
- Brian’s entrepreneurial background and the creation of Strategy Ladders
- Key challenges in scaling B2B service businesses
- The founder’s role as a growth bottleneck
- Mindset and emotional filters that hinder business progress
- Rapid, high-quality decision making for growth
- The importance of refining business offers and clear positioning
- Strategy Ladders’ unique advisory approach—including expert pairing and mindset coaching
- Examples of overcoming mental roadblocks (sales resistance, undervaluing services)
- Building clarity and authority in business messaging, especially on LinkedIn
- Creating a growth-oriented culture and strategic hiring (“growth hires” vs. “clone hires”)
- And much, much more...
Predictable B2B Success
The Predictable B2B Success podcast is about creating predictable growth in a business. This is a podcast for founders, business owners, and marketing and sales executives.
In each podcast episode, we unpack an aspect of creating business growth predictably. We look at how we can expand our influence and strategies to boost sales through the creation of remarkable experiences, empathetic content, and conversations.
Each episode features an interview with a founder, sales or marketing executive, or thought leader in the B2B space. We might be bringing on well-known authors or hosts of popular podcasts but most importantly you’ll hear from those who have hands-on experience in creating predictable B2B success. Through each episode, we’ll be helping you explore the best ways to create predictable purpose-driven growth of a business and sustainable revenue growth.
If you have any suggestions for future episodes or feedback on the podcast, get in touch via Twitter at @vpkoshy or through the website at https://www.sproutworth.com