The Growth Focus Podcast

Gary Lafferty
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  • Entrepreneurship

The Growth Focus Podcast Channel is your premier destination for insights into Tech business, with a special emphasis on Business Growth and Scalability. Each episode we dive deep into conversations with industry leaders to uncover the strategies, challenges, and innovations propelling tech companies forward. Whether you're a seasoned executive, founder or an up-and-coming entrepreneur, The Growth Focus Podcast offers actionable insights to help you navigate the complex world of tech business growth and partnerships.

  1. 4 days ago

    More Leads Won’t Fix a Leaky Business | Drew Kelly

    Before you spend more money generating leads, look at where your business is losing the customers you already worked to win. More marketing can fill the top of the bucket. Poor sales conversations, rushed delivery, and neglected relationships can keep it leaking. In this episode of The Growth Focus Podcast, I sit down with Andrew “Drew” Kelly, Executive Vice President and Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at AJ Wayne & Associates, to explore what sustainable revenue growth looks like inside a relationship-driven business. AJ Wayne operates in professional liability insurance, but the commercial challenges reach well beyond that industry: standing out in a crowded market, communicating value beyond price, growing beyond referrals, and increasing capacity without sacrificing the service customers came for. We discuss a principle at the heart of my work with business owners: Better Before More. Before adding more leads, more activity, or more technology, examine how effectively your business handles the opportunities and relationships it already has. IN THIS EPISODE • How customer education supports stronger sales conversations. • What makes expertise valuable when buyers are comparing prices. • Why customer attrition deserves attention before another marketing push. • Moving beyond word of mouth with deliberate, personal outreach. • Using LinkedIn engagement to start relevant business conversations. • The problems that appear when sales outpaces delivery. • Using AI to give people more time to serve customers. • Why human judgment and genuine relationships still matter. If you run a B2B service business, consultancy, MSP, or specialist firm, this conversation offers a useful lens on winning business, keeping customers, and protecting the reputation that supports future growth. CHAPTERS 00:00 Standing out in a crowded, noisy market 01:14 Meet Drew Kelly of AJ Wayne & Associates 02:00 From philosophy student to insurance broker 03:18 Where an independent specialist fits in the market 04:47 What customers need beyond a quote 06:23 Customer education as a growth strategy 08:03 Old-school relationships, new-school tools 10:11 Communicating value beyond price 11:51 Consolidation and the cost of rushed service 14:05 The leaky bucket: marketing, attrition, and lost revenue 16:34 Growing beyond reputation and word of mouth 18:49 Scaling without sacrificing customer service 21:05 When sales outpaces your ability to deliver 22:14 Intentional marketing and better partnerships 24:25 Turning LinkedIn engagement into conversations 26:57 Giving value before pushing the sale 28:37 AI that supports specialist expertise 30:40 Confident AI output versus professional judgment 32:25 Questions to ask about your partners’ AI use 34:35 Building a reputation that lasts 36:30 Human connection and closing takeaways CONNECT WITH GARY LAFFERTY | HOST I help business owners identify overlooked revenue opportunities in their leads, sales processes, and existing customer relationships, then prioritise what deserves attention first. Growth Focus: https://growthfocus.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/growthfocus/ Email: gary@garylafferty.com CONNECT WITH DREW KELLY | GUEST Executive Vice President & Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer AJ Wayne & Associates Website: https://ajwayne.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjkelly Email: drewkelly@ajwayne.com JOIN THE CONVERSATION Where do... Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction to the Episode(00:01:16) - Meet Andrew Kelly and His Path into Insurance(00:03:46) - What A.J. Wayne Does and Problems They Solve(00:05:50) - Education as a Growth Strategy(00:07:53) - Old School Values with New School Tools(00:09:23) - Decommoditizing the Insurance Transaction(00:12:03) - Impact of Private Equity Consolidation(00:15:05) - The Value of Independent Partnerships(00:16:49) - Becoming More Deliberate About Marketing(00:19:09) - Scaling Growth Without Losing Identity(00:21:50) - What's Worked in Marketing Recently(00:24:42) - Intentional, Non-Pushy Marketing Tactics(00:28:25) - Chief AI Officer: Building Responsible AI Infrastructure(00:31:02) - Risks of AI Misuse and Broker Accountability(00:32:48) - Which AI Tools Brokers Should Actually Use(00:34:46) - Building Lasting Reputation Through Human Connection(00:36:18) - Closing Thoughts and Sign Off

    More Leads Won’t Fix a Leaky Business | Drew Kelly

  2. 13 Oct

    The Deal He Lost Waiting for Perfect | Jan-Willem Steur

    Why Technical Expertise Isn’t Enough to Grow Your Business Waiting until everything was perfect cost JW’s company a major deal. A competitor brought a similar solution to market first. It’s a lesson worth hearing if you’ve built a strong business around your expertise but find that growth takes more than doing excellent work. In this episode of The Growth Focus Podcast, Gary Lafferty talks with Jan-Willem Steur, known as JW, an IBM Champion and business development leader at Naviam with 40 years of experience in enterprise asset management. We explore the gap between knowing your craft and growing your company. JW shares what he learned from costly mistakes, why he’s comfortable sharing knowledge with competitors, and how he gives his team the freedom to improve the business without waiting for permission. Then we get into AI. JW’s view is simple: you need a foundation before you build the roof. Clear processes, useful data and a defined business purpose come first. For founders and business leaders, the thread running through this conversation is commercial: how do you turn the value you already create into stronger, more sustainable growth? What you can take away Recognise when the pursuit of perfection is delaying a commercial opportunity. Give your team room to act, with early communication when something goes off course. Make your expertise visible so customers can understand why they should choose you. Compete on the strength of your proposition, rather than relying on software your competitors can also sell. Start an AI initiative with the business outcome, processes and data it needs. Learn from past mistakes while keeping your attention on the next chapter. Chapters 00:00 Introduction: expertise, trust and business growth 01:28 Meet JW: enterprise asset management and IBM Maximo 02:53 Better technology, greater complexity 04:54 Being an expert versus growing a successful business 08:51 Doocracy: giving your team permission to act 11:22 Admitting mistakes and the deal lost to perfectionism 14:09 Sharing knowledge with competitors 16:02 IBM Champions, passion and professional credibility 19:45 Why technical leaders struggle to become visible 23:18 Long-term ambition and the legacy you leave 25:39 Helping the market hear your company’s story 27:07 Mentoring the next generation of technical talent 31:39 AI needs foundations before it needs a roof 34:54 How JW uses AI to retrieve knowledge and build applications 37:55 Building a business that can thrive ten years from now 39:05 Where to connect with JW 40:34 Closing thoughts Connect with JW Jan-Willem Steur on LinkedIn Naviam IBM’s profile of JW and his EAM Business Capability Model Find the revenue gaps in your business Growth often means winning new business. It can also mean recovering opportunities you’ve already created and plugging the holes where revenue slips away. Gary Lafferty is a Revenue Growth Advisor and founder of Growth Focus. Through revenue and AI audits, Growth Focus helps business leaders identify missing links, prioritise the gaps worth fixing and make better use of the business, customers and opportunities they already have. Better Before More. Chapters (00:00:17) - Introduction and Episode Overview(00:01:28) - Meet JW: Asset Management Expert(00:03:17) - Growth Then vs Now: Technology's Double-Edged Sword(00:05:27) - Experts vs Successful Business Builders(00:07:05) - Coaching, Mistakes, and the Elastic Wire Philosophy(00:08:43) - Doocracy: Flat Hierarchy and Equal Teams(00:11:17) - Admitting Mistakes and Avoiding the Mask(00:14:35) - Sharing Knowledge Even With Competitors(00:15:47) - What It Means to Be an IBM Champion(00:17:50) - Work as Passion: 60-Hour Weeks and Purpose(00:20:22) - Why Leaders Struggle to Share Their Story(00:23:35) - The Big Hairy Audacious Goal and Legacy(00:25:56) - Helping Introverted Experts Find Their Voice(00:27:36) - Mentoring Youth: University Lectures and Water Management(00:32:02) - Where Founders Get AI Wrong(00:34:31) - Foundations First: Using AI Effectively Every Day(00:37:17) - Final Advice: Vision, Foresight, and AI's Real Role(00:39:22) - Closing Remarks and How to Connect With JW

  3. 28 Sept

    She Made a $1 Million Mistake. Here’s How She Grew Her Tech Business After It | Reshma Moorthy

    How much revenue could a tech services company be leaving on the table because of the way it leads, prices, follows up, or communicates its value? On this episode of the Growth Focus Podcast, Gary Lafferty talks with Reshma Moorthy, CEO of Frontier Technologies, a second-generation IT infrastructure business. Reshma shares what she has learned from 20 years inside the family company, including a costly mistake she had to own, a pricing decision that tested her confidence, and the work of building a team she can trust. They also discuss how the move toward recurring revenue has changed tech services, where AI is helping Reshma’s team in its sales process, and why a founder’s own stories can help clients understand who they are buying from. Growth Focus is built around a simple idea: better before more. Before spending more to create demand, look closely at the revenue opportunities already inside the business. That means examining the customer journey, the sales process, the client experience, and the decisions that affect conversion and profitability. This conversation is especially relevant if you lead an MSP, VAR, IT services firm, tech consultancy, or another founder-led B2B service business. Reshma’s experience is a reminder that revenue performance depends on more than bringing in new leads. Leadership, pricing, trust, follow-through, and the ability to explain your value all play a part. Chapters 00:00 Why Gary wanted Reshma on the podcast 00:51 Reshma’s path into the family business 02:12 Who Reshma is outside the CEO role 03:25 First impressions and the value of listening 04:51 Choosing the family business over nursing 07:45 Frontier Technologies and the clients it serves 08:56 What helps a business keep growing 12:07 Delegation, trust, and getting things done 14:28 Cash flow and the challenges of leading a small business 16:38 Owning a costly business mistake 20:52 Finding the confidence to raise a project price 23:59 The shift toward recurring revenue in tech services 25:39 How Reshma’s team uses AI in sales 27:00 What her team sees as her greatest strength 28:51 Reshma’s vision for the next three years 30:50 Why tech founders should share their stories 33:13 Building authority by showing who you are 36:13 Reshma’s advice to founders: bet on yourself 36:57 How to connect with Reshma Connect with Reshma Frontier Technologies: https://ftiusa.com/ Tipsy Technologists: Available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMkB2WG91lD2F5Xmr7d05mg LinkedIn: Search for Reshma Moorthy Gary Lafferty is a revenue performance advisor and founder of Growth Focus Partnerships. The Growth Focus Podcast explores how founders and business leaders can generate more revenue from the business they have and the opportunities already in front of them. Subscribe for conversations on revenue performance, sales, leadership, customer experience, and growing a more profitable B2B services business. #GrowthFocusPodcast #RevenuePerformance #B2BServices #TechFounders #ITServices Chapters (00:00:17) - Introduction and Welcome(00:01:12) - Reshma's Background and Family Business Story(00:02:16) - Life Outside the CEO Role(00:03:27) - Misconceptions and Being a Good Listener(00:05:13) - From Nursing Dreams to Joining Frontier Technologies(00:07:53) - What Frontier Technologies Does(00:09:06) - Leadership, Discipline and Stoicism(00:11:03) - Setting Goals and Being Unapologetic(00:12:32) - What Leaders Get Wrong and Delegation(00:14:30) - Learning from Family Leadership and Cash Flow Lessons(00:16:29) - Owning Mistakes: The Misquote Story(00:20:04) - Growth Through Ownership and Vulnerability(00:21:24) - A Scary Pricing Decision That Paid Off(00:22:55) - The Value of External Coaches and Masterminds(00:24:05) - Industry Trends: Managed Services Evolution(00:25:43) - Using AI in the Business(00:27:04) - Team's View of Reshma as a Leader(00:29:08) - Vision for the Next Three Years(00:31:07) - Public Speaking and Sharing Your Story(00:33:57) - Belief, Manifestation and Owning the Room(00:36:05) - Final Advice: Bet on Yourself(00:37:10) - Where to Find Reshma and Closing Remarks

  4. 30 Jun

    Why Your AI Is Costing You Sales (Not Saving Them) | Travis McGregor

    Every founder I talk to is using AI to grow faster. Almost none of them are asking what AI is quietly costing them. This week I sat down with Travis McGregor, CEO of SLC Digital, who's built and exited one company already and is now building a second around mobile SIM security. Travis put his finger on something I see constantly working with MSP owners and B2B tech founders: AI isn't the problem. Treating AI like the source of your thinking is. Travis was at an event in San Francisco recently with forty AI companies in the room, and they all sounded the same. Same pitch, same language, same positioning. That's not a coincidence — it's what happens when everyone feeds the same prompts into the same models and lets the output do the talking. The companies who actually grow revenue are the ones who use AI as what Travis calls a clerk, an assistant for the repeatable work, while the founder keeps total ownership of the thing that actually closes deals: understanding the customer well enough to speak their language back to them. We get into why AI can only hand you probability while a human in the room can hand you certainty, why funding can quietly erode the thing that made your business different in the first place, and the one growth lever Travis says still works no matter what the market is doing. If you've ever wondered whether your AI-assisted growth is actually working, or just making you sound like everyone else, this one's for you. 00:00 — Why AI changes how founders hire, not who gets replaced 01:14 — AI as a clerk, not the source of ideas 02:25 — Good data in, good data out: the discipline most founders skip 04:14 — Where tech founders waste the most time and money 07:01 — Forty AI companies, one identical pitch: the sameness problem 08:23 — Why polish matters more once everyone has the same tools 12:19 — The 2018 mindset still running modern companies 13:52 — A hard lesson on scaling most founders learn too late 18:42 — What Travis would do differently in the first 12 months 19:11 — Funding, KPIs, and the slow erosion of founder passion 23:48 — The one action every founder should take after this episode 26:28 — Quick-fire round: stop doing, double down, the AI myth, the most dangerous scaling habit, and the growth lever that never stops working Guest Contact Travis McGregor, CEO, SLC Digital (Sovereign Line Communication) Website: slc.digital Email: Travis@slc.digital LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travis-mcgregor-33a41219/ Gary Contact LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/growthfocus Website: growthfocus.io ───────────────────────────── Book your Revenue Leak Audit In 30 minutes, you'll find out exactly where the holes are in your revenue, and how AI should — and shouldn't — be helping you fix them. growthfocus.io/revenue_leak_audit ───────────────────────────── Chapters (00:00:00) - Growth Focus: AI and the Startup Process(00:01:16) - Meet the CEO of SLC Digital(00:01:48) - How to Build a Business With AI(00:03:42) - WSJDLive: The Uses of AI in Business(00:05:30) - What Do Tech Founders Need to Do To Win?(00:07:04) - How to Get Your Message Heard in a noisy Marketplace(00:12:24) - Creating your own stories in tech(00:13:35) - What Businesses Need to Do to Survive in the Next 5 Years(00:15:07) - Tim Ferriss on Personal Growth(00:17:16) - Have You Reached a Point in Your Business That Nearly Broke You(00:19:22) - What Would You Have Done Different in Your First 12 Months?(00:20:26) - Have We Lost the Passion of VCs?(00:24:51) - 5 Tips for Growing Your Business(00:27:43) - What is the one thing founders should stop doing(00:30:08) - The One Growth Lever We Still Believe in(00:30:44) - Travis McDaniel on Tech Entrepreneurs(00:31:27) - Growth Focus: Revenue Leak Audit

  5. 26 May

    Why Your Close Rate Is a Partner Problem, Not a Sales Problem | Drew Allgeier

    Most tech founders are still running lead generation the hard way — cold outreach, event booths they hope will pay off, a sales team grinding through the funnel. Drew Allgeier has a different problem. He has more leads than his salespeople can handle, an 80% close rate, and Fortune 1000 clients including ConAgra, Tyson, and Cornerstone Building brands on his books. None of that came from cold calls. Drew is the founder of Starken Tech, a nationwide network infrastructure and LAN deployment company that's spent a decade building what most founders talk about but few actually build: an indirect channel that generates warm introductions daily. Not occasionally. Not when a contact remembers you. Every single day. What makes this different from the referral networks most tech companies try to build is the structure behind it. Master agents, strategic partners, and deeply embedded relationships across the technology supply chain — each one incentivised to pass deals because they get paid when Drew closes. The result is that by the time Drew gets on a call with a prospect, the trust is already there. The partner has done the work. The close is almost a formality. We also get into the 80% close rate in real terms — how active business intelligence from partners tells Drew where he sits against competitors, what the prospect is thinking, and when to adjust pricing before the proposal even lands. That's not luck. That's a system. And then there's the growth ceiling most fast-moving companies don't see coming — the plateau that hits when you can sell but can't deliver. Drew's take on why back-office investment has to run ahead of sales growth is one of the most practical things on this episode. If you're in MSP, VAR, or B2B tech and you're still building revenue the slow way, this conversation is worth your time. 00:00 — Introduction: Drew Allgeier and Starken Tech 00:53 — The 10,000 foot view: 10 years, Fortune 1000 clients, 80% close rate 01:27 — The genesis of the indirect channel: Jay Sherman Henderson and the authorised agent model 03:21 — What most founders miss when trying to build partnerships 05:15 — How master agents like Telarus and Sandler Partners work — and what it actually costs to get in 07:59 — Why events aren't lead generation — they're relationship maintenance 10:15 — The psychology of the booth cheque and why Drew's approach is different 11:10 — The 80% close rate: how partner intelligence shapes every deal in real time 13:51 — Qualifying everything: how to tell a real partner opportunity from a quote shop exercise 16:07 — Strategic partnerships vs. master agents: the Vtech example 18:28 — The continuum of technology services and how to identify partner adjacency 19:14 — Decentralised data centres, product development, and building end-to-end solutions 21:53 — M&A context: what founders get wrong when building a company to sell 22:44 — Organic growth vs. new logo acquisition — and why most people get the balance wrong 24:00 — Increasing consumption: the Seth Godin Purple Cow concept applied to client growth 25:05 — The three levers of revenue growth 26:04 — The plateau problem: what happens when sales outrun delivery capacity 27:47 — Why back-office investment has to run ahead of sales headcount 28:33 — Final question: what should a tech founder do differently this quarter 29:00 — Seek to be of service: the relationship-first philosophy behind consistent revenue 30:55 — "If they're not talking to you, they're leaving you" 31:31 — Close: people remember how you made them feel Drew Allgeier | Founder, Starken Tech starkentech.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drew-allgeier-3910384/ Gary Lafferty | Host, Growth Focus Podcast | Founder, Growth Focus Partnerships - growthfocus.io   linkedin.com/in/growthfocus  =============================== Book your Revenue Leak Audit In 30 minutes, you will find out exactly where the holes are in yo... Chapters (00:00:00) - How to Build a Lead-based Networking Company(00:01:50) - How to Build a Fortune 1000 Company Through the Indirect Sales Channel(00:05:31) - What's the Core Principle of the Indirect Channel?(00:07:56) - What Does It Cost to Develop an Indirect Channel?(00:09:51) - Sponsoring Events: The Cost of Doing Business(00:13:27) - How to Identify the Right Partner to Close a Deal?(00:16:41) - The Search for the Right Partner(00:18:01) - Strategic Partners: The Key to Growth(00:24:04) - What's The Mistake Companies Make When They're Planning to Sell(00:25:55) - The 3 Ways to Increase Client Spending(00:27:23) - How to grow your business without plateauing(00:30:07) - The New Way of Talking to Your Clients(00:34:27) - Growth Focus: Episode 38(00:34:57) - How To Find The Revenue Leak Audit

  6. 12 May

    Why Founders Who Say Yes to Everything Stop Growing: The Enterprise Discipline Gap | Sean Miles

    Most founders think growth stalls because they're not selling enough. Sean Miles built RGX — a two-sided marketplace for enterprise asset disposition — landed AT&T as a client, tripled revenue, then deliberately hit the brakes. Not because things weren't working. Because they were working too well, and the infrastructure underneath couldn't hold the weight. That decision — to flatline intentionally, rebuild the platform, and absorb the short-term cost — is one the vast majority of founders in any sector won't make. They'll keep pushing deals through a system that can't deliver them, and wonder why churn follows growth like a shadow. Sean has 25 years in sales and built RGX from a cold idea into an enterprise platform handling multi-site asset disposition for some of the largest organisations in North America. He coined the term "enterprise asset disposition" deliberately, because language shapes what buyers think is possible. He evolved from pure SaaS self-serve to hybrid managed services to a sell-through white-label model — not because it was the plan, but because the market kept telling him what it wanted and he listened. In this conversation: what it actually takes to land and keep enterprise clients, how to pilot without giving everything away, when to say no (and why most founders are still struggling with it), and the $15M deal that didn't land on schedule and what it taught him about time-boxing every pipeline opportunity — even the ones that look like slam dunks. If you're running a tech business and your pipeline feels healthy on paper but fragile underneath, this is the conversation to have. 00:00 — Introduction: Sean Miles and RGX 02:25 — Why language matters: coining "enterprise asset disposition" 04:44 — Landing AT&T as a first major client through pilots and relationships 07:32 — The water balloon pipeline: managing growth pressure without breaking delivery 09:37 — Land and expand vs. freemium: what actually works with enterprise clients 11:38 — How the marketplace evolved: from self-serve SaaS to managed services 13:38 — Pivoting from sell-to to sell-through: the white-label opportunity 15:43 — Tripling revenue then flatlineing deliberately: the rebuild decision 18:30 — The MVP reality: selling before you've built it and the delivery gap 20:06 — When sales outpaces delivery: what that costs you 22:12 — Learning to say no: the discipline most founders are still lacking 25:00 — The $15M deal that didn't land: time-boxing your pipeline 27:29 — What most founders in the e-waste space are getting wrong 29:07 — Where to find Sean Miles Sean Miles Co-Founder and CEO, Recycle GX (RGX) Website: recycledgx.com Email: sean@recycledgx.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-miles-5717952/ Gary Lafferty LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/growthfocus/ Website: growthfocus.io =============================== Book your Revenue Leak Audit In 30 minutes, you will find out exactly where the holes are in your revenue and how to fix them. growthfocus.io/revenue_leak_audit SEO KEYWORDS Primary: enterprise asset disposition, B2B SaaS growth, e-waste marketplace, founder-led sales Secondary: enterprise sales cycles, pilot strategy, marketplace business model, revenue scaling, sell-through model HASHTAGS #B2BTech #FounderGrowth #EnterpriseSales #GrowthFocus #CircularEconomy Chapters (00:00:00) - How to Grow Your MSP Business With Growth Focus(00:01:33) - Recycle GX: The Enterprise Asset Disposal Marketplace(00:06:16) - In the Elevator: How to Build a New Enterprise(00:08:45) - How To Manage Your PIPES(00:11:18) - Pilot Programs: How Do They Work?(00:13:44) - WSJD Live: The Future of Enterprise Asset Disposition(00:18:16) - Deliberate Breaks in the Sales Cycle(00:23:28) - Apple's Lessons Learned From The Palm(00:24:22) - How to Say No to Business(00:24:55) - Say No to Businesses(00:27:05) - What was the biggest deal You Lost?(00:28:37) - Gavin Walsh on Looking Outside Your Industry(00:29:01) - Growth Focused: What's Working In Your Business? With(00:32:25) - A Revenue Leak Audit(00:34:10) - How to Find a Revenue Leak

  7. 6 May

    The End User Gap: What Tech Founders Get Wrong | Courtney Poulos |

    There is a gap that sits quietly inside most tech products. It is not a feature gap or a funding gap. It is the gap between the user you pitched and the user who actually shows up. Courtney Poulos has been a real estate broker for over two decades. She runs Acme Real Estate in Los Angeles and Acme Florida in Orlando. She has also become one of the most honest and direct testers of PropTech products in her industry - reviewing platforms publicly, giving founders unfiltered feedback, and watching what breaks when theory meets the actual working day of a professional in the field. This conversation is not about real estate. It is about what happens when a founder builds a product for the person they imagined rather than the person who will use it. It is about the IKEA effect, the way proximity to a problem warps how clearly you can see the solution you have built. And it is about what AI actually costs a business when the quality control sits with the human operator, not the platform. If you run a tech business and you have ever wondered why churn comes earlier than the numbers predicted, or why "user friendly" is the most expensive phrase in your product documentation, this episode gives you the answer from someone sitting on the other side of the sale. 00:00 — Introduction: Who Courtney Poulos is and why her perspective matters to tech founders 01:35 — What 21 years across a disrupted industry actually teaches you about business survival 03:55 — The competitive reality: being out-teched while you are still building 05:50 — Why most PropTech is not informed by the people it is supposed to serve 07:20 — The Real Estate AI Coach channel and what honest product testing reveals 08:42 — How rare it is for a founder to actually respond to criticism and what that tells you 10:07 — Why Perplexity is replacing specialist platforms and what that means for your moat 10:31 — The holistic approach: sitting with the user for a full working day before you write a line of code 11:31 — The pitch deck user versus the actual user — a live example from the dot-com era 13:36 — The VC-driven AI bolt-on problem: what it costs when AI is added without accountability 15:02 — AI hallucination in regulated industries and the liability gap nobody has solved 16:30 — Is AI actually saving time or creating a new layer of quality control? 17:48 — Why some buyers respond better to an AI voice than a human one — and what that means 18:36 — Where AI integration genuinely works and where it is still being oversold 20:28 — The fireplace analogy: why AI is making human expertise more valuable, not less 21:47 — The case for keeping the human in the loop — and what happens when you do not 25:28 — What the best PropTech products are getting right that most are still missing 27:00 — AI and fiduciary responsibility: who is accountable when the consumer loses? 29:14 — The one thing tech founders consistently get wrong about their end user 30:37 — Why human customer service is still the most underrated retention tool in tech Guest contact Courtney Poulos — Broker Owner, Acme Real Estate Instagram: instagram.com/theclosedcloses YouTube: youtube.com/@AcmeRealEstate Real Estate AI Coach Channel: youtube.com/@AcmeRealEstate Host contact Gary Lafferty — Growth Focus Partnerships LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/garylafferty Website: growthfocus.io =============================== Book your Revenue Leak Audit In 30 minutes, you will find out exactly where the holes are in your revenue and how to fix them. www.growthfocus.io/revenue_leak_audit Hashtags: #GrowthFocus #TechFounders #PropTech #AIinBusiness #ProductMarketFit Chapters (00:00:00) - Courtney Polis on Tech Recruitment & Growth(00:01:16) - Real Estate Broker Courtney Polis on CNBC(00:02:19) - How to Survive a Career With a Unique Brand(00:04:22) - Real Estate Business Owners vs Tech Founders(00:12:11) - Pitch Deck and Proptech: Overvaluing What They(00:14:39) - Real Estate: The Impact of AI on Business(00:19:31) - The Future of Telemarketing Is AI, Not Humans(00:21:42) - Will Real Estate Jobs Go From Computers to Humans?(00:26:16) - Does AI Make Real Estate Jobs Harder?(00:29:57) - Real Estate AI Coach: The Human Customer Service(00:34:07) - What Every Tech Platform Needs to Know

  8. 28 Apr

    Why Your Partners Aren't Selling For You (And the Fix That Actually Works) | Missy Trumpler

    Most IT services companies trying to grow through partnerships hit the same wall. The partners are on board, the reseller agreements are signed, and nothing moves. Missy Trumpler, CEO of Agile AI Labs, built her growth engine almost entirely through IT services channel partnerships -- and she knows exactly why most of them fail. The answer is not a better partner programme. It is not better sales enablement materials. It is making the partner use the product themselves before they sell it to a single customer. If they do not own the knives, they cannot sell the knives. That one shift is what turned Agile AI Labs from a company with partners into a company with a channel that actually produces. This episode covers how she got there -- and the harder growth problem underneath it. Her company solves a problem the software industry has normalised so completely that buyers feel genuine shame admitting it exists. Getting a prospect to acknowledge a problem they have quietly decided to live with is one of the most difficult sales and positioning challenges any B2B tech founder faces. Missy has found a way in. What is in this for you: How to land your first real partners. Not warm contacts who agree to resell, but partners who use what you built, understand it from the inside, and can speak to it honestly in front of their own customers. Why most partnerships fail even when both sides want them to work. The problem is almost never the relationship. It is that the partner is selling from the brochure rather than from experience. How to sell into a problem your buyer has normalised. The conversation does not open in the first meeting. It opens about 20 minutes in, once the shame fades. Understanding why -- and how to get there faster -- applies to anyone selling a product that solves a problem the market has quietly accepted as the cost of doing business. What AI is actually doing inside software development teams -- and why plugging it into a broken process makes the damage arrive faster rather than fixing anything. The one piece of advice for IT and MSP leaders heading into the next quarter. Agile AI Labs: agileailabs.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/missy-trumpler-08779611/ Gary Lafferty | Growth Focus Partnerships Find out where your growth gap sits: https://growthfocus.io/revenue_leak_audit LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/growthfocus/ Chapters (00:00:00) - Growth Focus: Agile AI Labs and Partnering(00:01:56) - Agile Software Development: The Future of Learning(00:03:19) - In the Elevator: The Shift to IT Strategy(00:08:22) - Wastage in a Software Company(00:09:50) - What is Technical Debt?(00:13:01) - What's the Primary Growth Engine for Your Company?(00:15:43) - How did you land your first AI Partner?(00:19:30) - IT Services Producers on Partner Relationships(00:26:36) - The secret of the porn industry(00:27:13) - Is AI Coding a Gift for Your Company?(00:31:09) - WSJD Live: What to Do For the Next Quarter(00:33:57) - How to Get Involved in Agile AI Labs(00:35:33) - Revenue Leak Audit

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The Growth Focus Podcast Channel is your premier destination for insights into Tech business, with a special emphasis on Business Growth and Scalability. Each episode we dive deep into conversations with industry leaders to uncover the strategies, challenges, and innovations propelling tech companies forward. Whether you're a seasoned executive, founder or an up-and-coming entrepreneur, The Growth Focus Podcast offers actionable insights to help you navigate the complex world of tech business growth and partnerships.

Information

  • Creator
    Gary Lafferty
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    94
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025
  • Show Website
    The Growth Focus Podcast