The Built To Scale Podcast
The Built To Scale Podcast, hosted by Shmuel Herschberg, explores how ecommerce and direct response brands achieve scalable growth. Each episode features in-depth conversations with digital marketing leaders who share specific strategies and tactics. The podcast is designed for founders, CMOs, and digital marketers seeking actionable insights on scaling their businesses.
Episodes
AI Can't Close Your Deals & How One Upsell Yielded $60K in Two Days | Rob Schwartz
One tweak. $60,000. In two days. Rob Schwartz, VP of Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives at ClickFunnels, breaks down the upsell most funnel builders skip, why your first funnel should be ugly, and where AI voice agents actually make money (hint: it's not closing).=================================What you'll learn:How a $47 VIP upsell before a webinar hit a 30 to 40% take rate and turned a "cap
Why This Business Consultant Refuses to Get Paid | Tim Kanter
Founders don't stall because they lack talent. They stall because they're doing everything themselves. Tim Kanter spent 10 years stuck at $275K in revenue, then built the structure that grew his agency more than 10x and got it sold. Now he embeds a full executive team inside founder-led businesses to do the same.=================================What you'll learn:Why being able to do everything is
The Profit Pyramid: How Built To Scale Actually Scales Brands | Jeremy Gillespie
Bigger ad spend does not mean bigger profit. For our 25th episode, Built To Scale founder and CEO Jeremy Gillespie sits down with Shmuel Herschberg to open the vault on how this agency actually scales brands, and it has almost nothing to do with the number on the ad account.=================================What you'll learn:Why Jeremy's biggest early mistake wasn't a bad campaign, it was hiring be
Reflections on 40 Years in Marketing: Super Bowl Ads, Storytelling, and AI Slop | Alan Schulman
Alan Schulman has 40 plus years in advertising and marketing. He wrote TV spots for Leo Burnett, FCB, and McCann Erickson before becoming one of the first creatives to take digital seriously. He was the first Chief Creative Officer ever hired by a consulting firm in the US, building out Deloitte Digital from two studios to seven. =================================🚨 Spoiler Alert:He worked on the 20
The $23.5 Million Rookie Mistake and Why Being Needed Makes Your Business Worth Less | Marty Fahncke
Most business owners will plan a two week vacation with more care than they plan the sale of their business, even though 100 percent of them will exit someday. Marty Fahncke has watched that gap cost owners millions of dollars. It once cost him $23.5 million of his own money, and he's spent his career since making sure other owners don't repeat it.=================================What you'll learn
Why This Business Model is Losing to AI and What You Should Do Instead | Scott Rewick
Scott Rewick spent $200 a day launching a new pain relief brand and it hit $300 a day in revenue almost immediately. No 90 day break-in period. No twenty person team. Just AI agents doing the work that used to take a copywriter, designer, and engineer a month and twenty thousand dollars to produce.Scott has 25 years in direct response, now runs skcommerce.ai, testing whether AI agents can build an
From BMW Engineer to Funnel Architect and Your Price Was Never the Price | Angelo Ferraro
People love to buy. They hate being sold. Angelo Ferraro built his entire business on that one line, and this episode breaks down exactly how.Angelo went from engineer at BMW to running the backend machine behind some of the biggest direct response funnels in ecom, nutra, and telehealth. He explains why the price tag was never really about the number, why a phone call recovers deals that email nev
The Hidden Profit Lever Most eCommerce Businesses Ignore is Costing You Money | Maria Sparagis
Payment processing sounds boring. That's exactly why most merchants ignore it, and exactly why Maria Sparagis says it's one of the highest leverage levers in your business.Maria has spent almost 25 years in payments and founded DirectPayNet to help high risk merchants stop losing revenue to default settings, bad decline handling, and a checkout flow nobody ever tested. In this episode she breaks d
Why "Buy a Business, Get Rich" Is Bad Advice and What You Should Do Instead | David Hori
Most people think buying a business means signing the papers, hiring a GM, and collecting checks from the beach. David Hori bought a company that got acquired by Toyota, then decided to spend his career telling people why that hands off dream is mostly a myth.=================================Join David's "Discover A Less Stressful Way To Sell Your Business" Webinar:🚨 SPOILER ALER! David is offeri
81% of People Want to Write a Book; Only 3% Do It: Talk Your Book Into Existence | Michael Giannulis
Did you know 81% of people want to write a book? Yet, only 3% ever finish one. Michael Giannulis built Dictate to close that gap, not by making writing easier, but by removing writing from the process entirely. You talk, an AI named Silas asks the right questions, and a book comes out the other end in your voice.Michael spent two decades in direct response marketing before building Dictate, and th
Why Amazon Sellers Keep Failing at TikTok Shop | Can Chan
Most Amazon sellers who try TikTok Shop fail within 30 days. Not because they lack budget, but because they're still thinking like Amazon sellers.Can Chan has spent over a decade building an eight figure e-commerce business, first on Amazon, then as one of the first sellers on TikTok Shop when it launched in the US. In this conversation, he breaks down why the two platforms require completely diff
Why Your ROAS Positive Numbers Might be Lying to You | Tyler Ryan
Most media buyers think a 1.5 ROAS is a win. Tyler Ryan has seen billions of dollars of data that says it might be a slow bleed.Tyler is the founder of LTV Numbers, now rebranded as Data Driven OS, and he has analyzed over three billion dollars in direct response and ecommerce sales. Before any of that, he was an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working on the team that landed the Cur
Why Not Me? The Growth Mindset That Changes Everything | Dr. Charles Livingston
Most people ask "why me?" Dr. Charles Livingston learned to ask "why not me?" That one shift turned a chiropractor into a digital marketer, and a digital marketer into the founder of one of DTC's most respected premium coffee brands.=================================What you'll learn:How Charles validated Life Boost Coffee with affiliates before spending a single dollar on paid mediaWhy he still fo
What You've Got to Fix Before You Scale | Francisco Bervis
Affiliates and media buyers don't build your funnel. They pour gasoline on a fire that's already burning. Francisco Bervis, Head of Marketplace at Everflow, breaks down exactly what brands need to prove before any partner will touch them, and the real math behind who gets a $400 CPA and who gets $60.=================================What you'll learn:Why your brand needs tested creatives and a work
This Advertising Channel Beats Meta | Andra Ionescu
The affiliate marketing playbook that worked in 2022 is not just outdated. It is actively working against you. Andra Ionescu, started off as an affiliate manager at MaxWeb, and has recently been promoted to the CEO role. She has seen every side of this industry since 2012, and is here to tell you exactly what has changed and what to do about it.================================= What you'll learn:W
What Remote Hiring at Scale Actually Looks Like | Michele Lambert
Most hiring fails before a single resume is reviewed. The job description is vague. The compensation range is too low to attract the right talent. The "one role" you posted is actually three jobs crammed into one. And then you wonder why six weeks in you're starting over.Michele Lambert has been inside this problem since 2012. She has built remote teams for direct response brands, internet markete
The Best AI and Marketing Principles That are Really Working | Kristen Palmer
Most marketers chase what's trending. Kristen Palmer has spent two decades identifying what never stops working.What you will learn:Why the webinar funnel is generating six and seven figure weeks in 2026 and how to build one that convertsLive vs. evergreen: which price points demand which format and why cold audiences cannot handle high ticketWhat a real eight-figure audit actually uncovers (and w
Copy Over Capital: From Pool Cleaning to a 7-Figure Supplements Business | Paul Lawrence
Most supplement companies need a doctor, a media budget, and a team. Paul Lawrence built Naturecast with none of those things. What he had instead was a ruthless understanding of copy, a willingness to outlast everyone else, and a list so loyal that 40% of his recent orders came from subscribers who had been with him for five years or more.What you'll learn:How Paul reverse-engineered a predictabl
Connected TV and the New Rules of Scaling | Kyle Kostechka
If your business is stuck in low ticket, you may be funding your own slow decline. Kyle Kostechka, former ClickBank performance marketing leader and advisor at Trident Growth, makes the case for why high ticket has shifted from "nice to have" to essential in this economy and what that means for how you buy traffic, build funnels, and think about 2026.=================================What you'll le
The 5 Profit Levers: How to Actually Scale Your Business Profitably | Jeremy Reeves
A lot of companies are scaling themselves into a cash flow crisis and they have no idea it's happening. Jeremy Reeves has built five eight-figure offers and generated over $200 million in revenue, and his biggest finding is that acquisition is the least important part of the equation.What you'll learn:How to calculate your real allowable customer acquisition cost (most brands get this completely w
Lessons in Lifetime Value: Turn a $30 Buyer Into a $5,000 Client | Max Kramer
Most brands are sitting on a revenue stream they have never touched. The moment someone buys your front-end offer, supplement, course, or gadget, there is a window of peak intent that closes fast. Max Kramer built an entire company around owning that window for other brands, and his model converts fresh buyers into $5,000 high-ticket coaching clients before the transaction is even a memory.What yo
Your Company Thinks It's Using AI. It Isn't. | John Munsell
Most companies think they've "adopted AI." They have a Copilot license, maybe a chatbot on the website. John Munsell calls that dipping your toe in the water. Real adoption looks completely different and the gap between where most companies are and where they need to be is costing them millions.What you'll learn:Why "AI adoption" is being measured wrong and what the right metric actually isHow Joh
Sculpting Your Life: From Rock Bottom to 3 Million Lives Changed | Paul Hoffman
Most people know what they want. The problem is they're their own biggest obstacle.Paul Hoffman has lived multiple lifetimes in one. He wrote one of the most iconic advertising jingles in history, built and lost everything, found his way back, and has since spent decades helping over 3 million people redesign their lives from the inside out. As founder of Sculpting Your Life and creator of a binau
The #1 Lesson After Sending a Billion Emails | Ryan Healy
If your email list is underperforming, the problem probably isn't your copy. It's your domain reputation, your segmentation, and the fact that you're mailing the wrong people. Ryan Healy has been in email marketing since 2002 and has sent over a billion emails across brands like Organifi, BIOptimizers, and Agora Financial. He's now co-founder of Upsender, an ESP (email marketing service platform)
The Ultimate Asset When it Comes to Building a Brand: Relationships | Nicole Starling
Most marketers chase tactics. Nicole Starling built a seven-figure affiliate career by doing something almost no one does well: actually following through.Nicole made the leap from 30 years of professional performing into digital marketing in 2020 with no background, no network, and no safety net. What she learned in the trenches of affiliate and influencer marketing cuts straight to the core of w
You're Wasting Over 50% of Your Day | Ben Harris
Ben Harris has placed over 10,000 virtual assistants in three years. His first question to every overwhelmed founder is always the same: what are you doing right now that someone else could handle for $10 an hour?That question changes everything.What you'll learn:How to run a time audit that reveals exactly where your days are going (the 15-minute timer method Ben credits to Alex Hormozi)What a "$
Stop Being Afraid to Sell to Your Email List | Liss Graham Ellis
Do you have a revenue engine sitting in the form of an email marketing list? Many do and they are scared to turn it up and email en masse. Liss Graham Ellis has been managing and monetizing email lists for over a decade. Her verdict is blunt: if you have buyers on your list, you should be selling to them. A lot. One of the first things she does when she takes over a new list is simply start offeri
Scaling Health Brands & the Move That Doubles Your Returns | Dr. Jesse Ropat
Most health brands are faking it. And the market is starting to notice. Built To Scale CMO Shmuel Herschberg sits down with Dr. Jesse Ropat, a doctor of pharmacy turned direct response creative strategist, to break down why authentic authority is becoming the single biggest lever in health and wellness marketing. This is not a conversation about lab coats. It is a conversation about what actually
ROAS Is a Lie. Here's the Metric That Actually Builds a Business | James Klein
Most e-commerce brands are optimizing for the wrong number. James Klein has spent 25 years in the supplement space watching founders chase ROAS while their businesses quietly decay. In this episode, he makes the case that lifetime value is the only metric that truly matters — and breaks down exactly how to build around it.What you'll learn:Why a high affiliate CPA model is structurally broken and
The Built To Scale Podcast Trailer | Shmuel Herschberg
The Built to Scale podcast, hosted by Shmuel Herschberg, focuses on the discipline of scaling in digital marketing. The podcast is aimed at people building and growing digital marketing businesses, and it provides candid talks about the wins, setbacks, and real lessons from industry experts.TakeawaysScaling is a key focus in digital marketingPodcast is for people building and growing digital marke
