S Brian Smith 🪜

I free founders from ops, sales, & management | Founder @ Strategy Ladders | Coached 1000s of B2B and Agency owners | Stop struggling, start enjoying business ownership 🏖️

Most founders of 7-figure B2B service companies reach a plateau where "strategy" isn't the problem—execution is. After years of consulting on the "how," my team and I shifted exclusively to building and running these high-growth engines for you.

Strategy is often used as a shield to avoid the hard, grinding work required to scale. Scaling to 8 figures requires two things: Great Lead Flow and an Excellent Team to execute it. Without these, your strategy is just a dream.

We have traded playbooks for performance, focusing on three specific levers:


➡️ Cold Email (B2B Labs) We deploy enterprise-grade outbound infrastructure that in-house teams can't match.

Scale: 10,000+ emails per week without risking sender reputation.

Performance: 40%+ open rates and $17.5M+ in revenue directly attributed to outbound.

Targeting: Hyper-targeted lists verified to ensure you only speak to high-intent prospects.


➡️ Google Ads (B2B Labs) Capture buyers actively searching for your solutions right now.

High Intent: Focus on decision-maker search targeting and aggressive negative keyword strategies.

Speed: Immediate visibility for high-intent keywords without waiting for SEO.

➡️ Modern Recruiting (Talent Labs) Hire faster and better without traditional placement fees or job-board spam.

Speed: We deliver an exceptional candidate shortlist in 7–14 days.

Vetting: Every candidate is screened for skill, motivation, and culture fit.

➡️ A Selective Approach to Consulting I still provide 1:1 consulting, but only for founders who can prove they have, or are able to build, the team and lead flow necessary to scale. People are no longer willing to pay for strategy without execution. And I’m no longer willing to provide it.

Build your engine: www.strategyladders.com

Founder & Head of Strategy

The Strategy Ladder Program delivers MASSIVE results to agencies, consultancies, and service businesses.

If your business is 25-85 employees, partially or fully remote, and you're stuck trying to "level-up," I will transform it with you.

The Strategy Ladder System will get you UNSTUCK. You'll develop a bullet-proof strategy that grows with your business, streamlines operations, scales your revenue, and sets your business up to continue to grow without you.

The Strategy Ladder System doesn't just change your business. It will transform YOU. You'll undergo a mental reset that frees you from the anxiety and beliefs that tie you to the day-to-day in your business. You're the leader of your business - if you don't change, your business never will.

The Strategy Ladder System has worked for over 400 entrepreneurs, delivering & implementing strategies that have:

💥 Scaled an agency from $150k to $4mil ARR in 10 months

💥 Increased a digital marketing agency’s productivity levels by over 450%, dramatically increasing profitability

💥 Streamlined a SaaS product’s roadmap, reducing development costs by 45% while increasing execution speed by over 25%.

💥 Developed and executing a repositioning strategy that landed a web development agency a long-term contract with a Fortune 100 company

💥 Repositioned of an app development agency that grew recurring revenue from 2% to over 50% of total revenue within three month

💥 Built a sales organization of 65 sales people in two years

💥 Orchestrated & executed a legal & and business strategy that lead to a sale of key assets of a SaaS platform for a significant premium over the market value of the company

Elon Musk Didn’t Build Tesla. He Built a Story.

🔹 2004: Musk invests in Tesla but isn’t a founder. In 2009, he sues the actual founders until they’re legally forced to call him one.

🔹 2013: He announces Hyperloop, claiming it will revolutionize transportation. Over a decade later, nothing exists. He later admits it was just a stunt to stop California’s high-speed rail project.

🔹 2016: He promises full self-driving Teslas by 2017. In 2019, he claims 1 million robotaxis will be on the road by 2020. It’s now 2025—still waiting.

🔹 2014: Tesla showcases battery swap technology, claiming it will allow instant recharging. Never happens—but they get millions in government subsidies anyway.

🔹 2020: Musk personally vows to fix the Flint water crisis. That didn’t happen either.

And yet, people still believe him.
Because story beats reality.

🚀 His companies miss deadlines by years (or forever), but investors stay excited.
 🚀 He fakes demos and sells visions, and people line up to give him money.
 🚀 He turns PR disasters into proof of his genius.

For founders, here’s the takeaway 👇

Execution matters, but narrative moves markets.

You can have the best delivery in the world, but if you don’t own the story, someone else will.

Story beats reality. Musk understands that better than anyone.

Now, the real question: do you?

Do you agree that story trumps reality? Or do you realize it's true but it makes you ick... 

Drop your take below. ⬇️


✌️🧡🌮

Plug & Play Growth Engines to get you to 8 Figures | Cold Email ($17.5M+ Generated) | Google Ads | Elite LATAM Recruiting (7-14 Day Shortlists). Strategy is dead ☠️ execution is everything 🚀

Most founders don’t validate offers. They decorate them.

Most founders “test” a new offer like this:

- Rewrite the website
- Post 12 times on LinkedIn
- Debate the pricing for 3 weeks
- Call it “market research”

That’s not testing.

That’s hiding.

If you're not actually getting in front of customers.
It's just a "wait and see" approach.

Cold email is one of the fastest ways to test a new offer in the real world.

New messaging. New ICP. New angle.
In-market feedback in days, not quarters.

Why cold email is the perfect offer test

Because it forces the only questions that matter:

- Do they care? (opens + replies)
- Do they understand it? (clarifying questions vs “sounds cool”)
- Do they want it now? (calls booked + urgency)
- Is the price insane? (pushback, negotiation, ghosting)

3 real examples

1) New ICP test (same service)
You run a dev shop. You want to shift from “anyone who needs code” to Series A B2B SaaS with messy onboarding.

Email 50 heads of product.

If 10 reply with “this is literally our problem” - you’ve got something.
If 0 reply - it’s not the ICP. Or your hook sucks. Either way you know fast.

2) New angle test (same ICP)
You sell paid media. You’re torn between:

“lower CAC”
“fix lead quality”
“speed to pipeline”

Run 3 mini-campaigns: same ICP, different promise, 100 prospects each.

Whichever gets the highest *positive reply rate* wins.
Not likes. Not vibes. Not your opinion.

3) New offer test (new packaging)
Instead of “retainer”, you pitch a 14-day Sprint:

Audit + plan
1 campaign shipped
KPI targets
fixed fee

If prospects say “love the sprint, what’s next?” you’ve got a wedge into the longer engagement.

How to test an offer in 7 days

Day 1: Pick ONE variable
Don’t change everything at once.
Choose one:

- ICP
- Pain
- Promise
- Offer format (sprint vs retainer)
- Price point

Day 2: Build a tight list (200-500 people)
Specific beats big.
Example:
“VP Ops at 50-300 person logistics companies using NetSuite”
not “ops leaders”

Day 3: Write 3 hooks
Each hook is one sharp “they care about this” claim.

Examples:

“Most agencies don’t have a lead problem. They have a follow-up + capacity problem.”
“Your funnel isn’t broken. You’re multiplying zero.”
“You’re one resignation away from chaos - and you feel it.”

Day 4-6: Send 50-150/day
Keep volume clean. Track replies manually if you have to.

Day 7: Read replies like a scientist
Categorize every reply into:

- Yes / interested
- Not now
- Wrong person
- We do this already
- Confused
- Hostile

Then adjust ONE thing and run it again.

What “good” looks like (simple scorecard)

- If you can’t get 1-3% positive replies, your offer isn’t landing (or your list is trash).
- If you get replies but no calls, your CTA or proof is weak.
- If you get calls but no closes, your offer/price/positioning needs tightening.

Cold email isn’t just lead gen.

It’s a lab.

You can find out what the market wants… while everyone else is “building the funnel.”


✌️🧡🌮

Mexico is a war zone... only if you believe the news.

I've lived in Mexico for 5+ years. I'm a US Citizen and permanent resident of Mexico.

It is 1450% safer here as a US citizen than ANY major US city (more below). The citizens & police are friendlier and more helpful.

Every single US citizen who visits me is shocked at how safe they feel here, walking the city, especially at night.

What you are seeing on the news = PROPAGANDA.

Mexican news sources and some of my well connected friends all confirmed the involvement of US special forces in the "removal" of El Mencho.

The US is involved.

The timing is not an accident.

Just take a look at the USD vs Mexican Peso graph.

The US has been losing purchasing power since January.

Mexico is preparing for the World Cup.

The US has a strong history of disrupting the economies to the south of them. 

Recall 1997... Cuba's hospitality industry was fast growing and Cuban "dissidents" (aka absolutely not CIA 🙄) launched a 💣 campaign against Cuban hotels.

What you're hearing about in Mexico is no different.

Mexico has taken a slower approach of disrupting the cartels.

Why?

If you cut off the head of the snake, many smaller ones appear.

But they aren't organized. What you're seeing now will disappate.

What the US news isn't telling you?

The cartel members are clearing out civilians before creating chaos.

It's well known - there are severe consequences for harming a civilian. It rarely happens.

Here's the stats that the US isn't telling you:

78% of firearms seized in Mexico come from the US.

Over 90% of the drugs that flow through Mexico are consumed by US consumers.

There's been a 75% reduction encounters with drug runners at the US boarder due to the crackdown in Mexico.

So what's the real problem?

It's not Mexico.

It's the US fueling the violence... violence that largely, if not entirely, spares civilians.

More stats:

< 0.1% - The percentage of tourists & expats who experience violent crime in Mexico.

1.45% - The percentage of people in the US who experience violent crime in the US.

You are statistically 14.5 times more likely to be a victim of violent crime as a US Citizen in the US.

Don't believe what you are reading or seeing in the news and social media.

Sensationalism draws eyeballs. The truth is far less interesting.

What you're witnessing is an attempted assassination... of the Mexican economy.

Come at me in the comments güey 👊

Viva 🇲🇽

If you think your $1,000/month “EA” is going to unlock your calendar and scale your business…

You’re LARPing as a CEO instead of leading.
You didn’t hire an Executive Assistant.

You hired a Virtual Assistant with a fancier title and a broken job description.

And now you’re wondering why you’re still stuck reviewing your own travel itinerary, juggling Slack messages, and chasing your tail in ops hell.

Let’s fix that.

🧠 First, understand the difference:

Virtual Assistant (VA):

• Task-taker
• Needs clear instructions
• Good at executing a known to-do list
• Will take 2–5x longer to do a task you could do in your sleep
• Great for clearing clutter
• A clone hire (not a growth one)

Executive Assistant (EA):

• Strategic partner
• Anticipates needs you didn’t vocalize yet
• Handles ambiguity
• Adapts to your working style and makes you sharper
• Enables you to operate in your zone of genius
• A force multiplier, not a checklist completer

If you’re hiring an EA and getting VA output…
That’s disappointment on a payroll. Don’t call it delegation.

Many founders fail at this because they’ve never had a real EA before.

🛠️ So how do you fix it?


Step 1️⃣ : Stop being vague.

Write a real role description.

→ Is this person handling your inbox or planning investor roadshows?
→ Do they need to coordinate between departments or just book travel?


Step 2️⃣: Hire for initiative, not obedience.

A good EA doesn’t wait for permission. They preempt chaos and build order.


Step 3️⃣: Pay what the role is worth.

You want a $100K partner to run point on your calendar, communications, and priorities?

Then don’t shop for bargain-bin help with champagne expectations.


Step 4️⃣: Give them context, not just commands.

Your EA needs to know your rhythm, your goals, your blind spots.
The best don’t just manage your tasks, they manage your attention.

Founders: You don’t need more hours.
You need more clarity.
And the right assistant is the unlock for both.

Start treating the EA role like a leadership hire not a tactical afterthought.


👉 Ready to hire an Executive Assistant who will transform your work and life?

We have pre-vetted, highly experienced, Executive Assistants ready to go. 

Our matching process delivers EA's that are primed for success in your organization and our on-going support and guarantee ensures you get results that matter to you.

DM me to get started.


✌️🧡🌮

I built a business I am proud of, but I stopped doing the work I was made to do: the work I love most and do best.

I have spent too much time building the machine and not enough time doing the work that lights me up.

For over a decade, I worked 1:1 with entrepreneurs and high performers to help them overcome the biggest challenges in their lives and businesses.

Mental blocks. 

The mindset shifts required to reach the next level.

Relationship challenges.

Understanding themselves more deeply and how that version of them can make the greatest impact in the world.

Developing and trusting intuition.

Learning how to stop playing checkers and start playing chess. In life and in business.

And, of course, business strategy.

I love that work.

And I am really, really damn good at it.

But truthfully, I got caught up in building Strategy Ladders.

I still run Strategy Ladders, and I am proud of what we have built.

But somewhere along the way, I hired consultants and coaches to work with clients, got a little too much ivory tower syndrome, and became overly focused on running the business instead of doing the work that truly lights me up.

It is time to change that.

I am taking on 3 private 1:1 clients for the next 3 months.

This work is about massively shifting your mindset, breaking through barriers, and putting you on a faster path toward the life and results you know you are capable of.

Nothing is off limits.

Business is always part of the conversation, but business is rarely the full story.

Your business is a mirror. It shows us where to look.

I have walked clients through partnership breakups, births, deaths, PR crises, divorces, business sales, and the mindset shifts required to navigate all of it powerfully.

If you are ready to face challenge with deeper energy, sharper thinking, and a new level of self-trust, now is the time.

DM me.

Or comment SHIFT below.


✌️💛🌮

If your leads doubled next month, would you grow or crash?

Most $2.5M to $25M service businesses are brittle in one of two ways.

They can sell, but delivery breaks.
Every new deal creates chaos, churn, and margin leaks.

Or they can deliver, but pipeline breaks.
The team gets quiet. The founder starts “testing ideas” again.

Scaling is not vibes.
It is boring math.

Predictable demand.
Execution capacity.

Quick doubling test:

Can you create 10 new sales conversations every week on purpose?
If your best operator quit tomorrow, do you still ship on time?

If either answer is no, that’s the bottleneck.
Not your website.
Not your brand.
Not your “strategy.”

What breaks first in your business if demand doubles in 30 days?

Most founders at $2.5M to $25M think they have a growth problem.

They're wrong.

They have a clarity problem.

They can’t answer 2 questions clearly:

1. What is our ONE growth constraint right now?
2. What is the next 30-day move that fixes it?

So they default to motion:

New web site.
New service line.
New hire.
New software.
New “strategy.”

None of that is strategy.

Here’s the fast diagnostic I use:

If you had to grow 30% in the next 90 days, what breaks first?

A) Demand (not enough qualified conversations)
B) Conversion (calls happen but they don’t close)
C) Delivery (you can sell it but can’t ship it cleanly)

Most teams are stuck because they try to solve all three at once.
That’s how you get expensive and average.

The play is boring and effective:

Pick the constraint.
Run one lever hard for 30 days.
Measure strictly.
Then stack the next lever.

👉 If you’re A (Demand):

Cold email is still the fastest way to manufacture qualified conversations on purpose.

👉 If you’re C (Delivery):

You need execution capacity and redundancy so growth doesn’t feel like a hostage situation.

A strong LATAM team is the highest value move I see for that.

Now the big one....

👉 If you’re B (Conversion):

You don’t have a lead problem. You have a “this isn’t an obvious yes” problem.

Two fastest fixes:
1. Increase lead intent

Paid ads can work here if you already know:

who you serve
what you sell
what you charge
what “good fit” looks like

Not because ads are magic.
Because they let you buy attention from people already searching.

2. Improve the offer and positioning

Most founders try to “sell harder” on calls.
The real win is making the offer easier to buy.

The tell:
If prospects say “sounds good, I need to think” you have ambiguity, not objections.

My favorite way to fix this fast:
Use cold email as a positioning lab.

Test:

niche language
pain language
outcome language
proof angles
pricing anchors

Until replies and booked calls spike.

👉 What’s your main constraint right now (A / B / C)? 


(don't worry, Shark got some steak 🥩)



✌️🧡🌮

A bee does not waste its time trying to convince a fly that honey is better than 💩💩💩.

Graduate corporate life for entrepreneurial freedom — without jeopardizing your income or family 💚 | Pod: UncageYourself.FM 🎧

Directors. VPs. Executives.
Ready to go Corporate → Founder in ONE Year?

This is the smart path out — without blowing up your life.

We help corporate veterans turn their employer into an investor, compress their job by 50%, and launch a 1-of-1 premium business.

Corporate becomes a short-term asset — not a lifelong trap.

The system is called Corporate Graduation™.
And it works.

You’ve built a strong corporate life. But you’re likely facing 2+ of these:

1) Your time isn’t yours.
2) Work consumes everything.
3) Family & health get leftovers.
4) You’re just going through motions.
5) You know you’re meant for more — but have no idea what.

It’s costing you — emotionally, physically, financially.
You feel stuck. Fading.

That was me.
Divorced. Burnt out.
Later — remarried, rebuilt, and free.

I made my employer my investor.
Cut hours in half.
Launched a business around my genius.
Graduated corporate life — forever.

Now I help others do the same.

Corporate Graduation™ is the system.
165+ have used it to:

✅ Compress their job into 20 hours/week
✅ Exit with runway, not regret
✅ Build a premium service business that reflects who they are
✅ Create leverage through proprietary IP, not more hours

This is how you build your founder future — without burning bridges.

This isn’t about dabbling.
It’s about reclaiming your life.
For your family. Your future self. Those you’re meant to serve.

No “passive income” BS.
Just active transformation — with revenue, clarity, and agency.

Ready to graduate?

👉 DM me “GRADUATE.”

Matt Doan

Corporate secretly became my secondary environment.

I built my new "primary" in the shadows.

I was still showing up to work. Still delivering. Still getting promoted.

But everything had changed.

I joined a $10K entrepreneurial mastermind. I was the only corporate guy in the room. Everyone else was building businesses, scaling impact, living as founders.

I started messy: 
...Learning copywriting
...Funnel building
...Coaching skills
...How to build a founder-grade business from zero

I immersed myself in books, mentors, and peers who were living the future I was starving for.

And for the first time in my entire life, I felt alive.

Not in school, where everything was pre-programmed and standardized.

Not in corporate, where I was climbing someone else's mountain.

This was different.

I'd never been in an environment that felt authentically designed for me. Where I was being called and activated into a new future. Where I belonged.

Here's what I learned:

1) Environment does the work you can't do alone.

You can't think your way into a new identity. You need to be surrounded by people who already embody it. The right environment pulls you forward faster than willpower, discipline, or strategy ever could.

2) Choosing a new tribe is an act of Decoupling.

When I reprioritized who I spent time with, who I learned from, who I wanted to become like, corporate's grip on me loosened. I wasn't fighting to leave anymore. I was being pulled toward something I actually wanted.

3) No amount of information will activate you like this.

I could've read a thousand books. Taken a hundred courses solo. Studied every framework. But being IN the room with founders? Hearing their struggles, seeing their wins, feeling the energy of people carving their own path? That's what flipped the switch.

---

At any given moment over the last 10 years, I can point to multiple mentors or programs that keep me challenged, activated, pushed, inspired, and growing new skill sets and mindsets.

(This is vital.)

And I can point to that as the single most important factor in my Corporate Graduation.

Environment isn't everything.

It's the only thing.

The Decoupling starts when you choose where you belong next.

---

PS - Choosing a new environment was step one. Learning how to make corporate optional while still employed was step two. 

I break down the full framework in this new training: go.corporategraduation.com

My Double Life in Corporate

Wanna know the most dangerous word after "I quit"?

It's "consultant."

Your whole career has been defined by labels.

Analyst. Manager. Director. VP. SVP.

Each one felt like progress.
Each one was just a different-sized box.
Then you start thinking about what's next.

And what happens?

You reach for another label.

"I'll be a consultant."
"I'll be a coach."
"I'll go fractional."

You've traded one box for another. Except this one doesn't come with benefits, a team, or a paycheck.

Here's what I've seen over and over:

People leave corporate, call themselves entrepreneurs, and end up trading time for money in a lonelier, less stable version of what they left.

I call this corporate replication.

You repackage everything you know under your own name and wonder why it feels exactly like what you left.

This is not the path I advocate.
The path I advocate is that of a founder.
A founder doesn't sell time for money. Ever.

What you bring to the market is valued by outcomes, not hours.

A founder builds a machine. A system that delivers remarkable outcomes for those who desperately need it.

That machine runs on three things:

1) Vision
A new future that needs to exist. A category you see because your experience gave you eyes others don't have.

2) Voice
You communicate that future with conviction. The window won't stay open forever.

3) Velocity
You move quickly. You attract people before the moment passes.

The real work? Extracting your IP.

You pull out the frameworks living inside your head. The patterns you've been running on for twenty years but never named.

You visualize them. Test them. Trademark them. Speak about them until people associate you with this category.

Right now, my clients are building categories like:

• Career Free Agency
• FinLaw Orchestration
• Motherhood By Design

None of them are billing hourly.

They're building machines.

This is the System pillar of Corporate Graduation.

Space gave you the room.
Self gave you the identity.
System is where you build the machine.

---

Give me your take - how does that land with you?

1 week of founder growth = 5 years of corporate growth.

Here's what just happened for me:

(Save this)

Last week, New Media Summit in Austin with 500+ builders. This week, a 3-day intensive mastermind with some of the most badass founders around the world.

Back to back. Intense. I'm drained.

→ In corporate, growth is slow. Incremental. Safe.
→ Same room, same conversations, same container.
→ You don't notice it b/c environment never changes.

One week in the right rooms reoriented how I think, build, and move. That compression becomes normal when you design your life around it.

If you're still inside corporate making great money but feeling the pull toward something more, these are the things nobody tells you about the other side.

5 things worth sitting with:

---

1) Your TOP job as a founder is content.

Not sales calls. Not funnels. Content.

Every hour on a great YouTube video, podcast, or Substack essay pays you back for months (or years). Builds trust with people you'll never meet... until they're ready to buy. 

100X ROI. Nothing in corporate compounds like this.


2) Nobody cares about you. Just their transformation.

I walked the booths at the summit. Companies winning had names like selfpublishing.com, The Scalable Company, and GrowLetter. Crystal clear outcomes. Zero "I help X do Y" language.

That's consultant energy. One-man band.

Category design means framing, naming, and claiming your own space. Shine the light on the category, not yourself (see Category Pirates).


3) Sales is hard when marketing is weak.
Marketing is weak when positioning sucks.

Every founder I met who struggled with sales had the same root cause two levels up.

Vague, safe, and generic positioning.

When positioning is sharp, marketing writes itself. When marketing works (which should be 80% of your days), sales becomes enrollment, not a pitch.


4) People don't haggle anymore. They binge and decide.

They want to experience your thinking through long-form content. YouTube, podcast, Substack. Non-negotiables, no matter your business type.

Buying decisions happen before anyone books a call.


5) When you see a window, throw a brick through it.

(Because windows close.)

Go pro. Not "I'll start when I'm ready."

The corporate →  founder shift means someone saw an opening and went all in. They know their audience intimately. They produce at volume. They treat content like a pro athlete treats training.

My positioning with Corporate Graduation® is locked down (legally, even). Category claimed. Now it's building a trust-building marketing machine — YouTube at the core, with podcast and Substack, all feeding one engine.

I'm going pro in marketing.

---

If you're reading this from inside corporate, leaning toward something more, you're not going to figure it out in your current room. Or at your current pace.

Change the room.
Build the machine.
Go pro.

PS - This is the message you needed to hear.

Corporate Graduation® Founder | Directors & VPs → Founder in ONE Year | 173 Graduates | Ex-BCG | go.corporategraduation.com

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Matt Doan

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