The Built To Scale Podcast

Shmuel Herschberg
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  • Marketing

The Built To Scale Podcast: Direct Response Marketing, Paid Media, and Scaling Strategies for Ecommerce Brands Everyone talks about scale. Almost nobody explains how it actually happens. The Built To Scale Podcast exists to close that gap. ========================= About the Podcast Hosted by Shmuel Herschberg, CMO of Built To Scale and founder of Shyn Media, the show sits down with top marketing leaders, media buyers, and DTC operators to break down exactly what drives scalable growth: paid media strategy (Meta, Google, YouTube), creative testing and production systems, funnel optimization, conversion rate strategy, email and lifecycle marketing, and the operational systems behind brands doing real revenue. No theory, no recycled tactics. Just specifics from people who've built and scaled ecommerce and direct response brands themselves. Each episode is built for founders, CMOs, media buyers, and digital marketers who want the mechanics behind growth, not another surface-level interview. ========================= Watch and Subscribe! New episodes weekly. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBuiltToScalePodcastApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-built-to-scale-podcast/id1885295516Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tTVaqWxfxnC4QcWMoG3ksInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebuilttoscalepodcast/ ========================= Continue the Conversation To learn more about Built To Scale, please visit https://www.builttoscale.co/ Want to talk about scaling your brand? Book a call.

  1. 3 days ago

    Lessons from $4 Billion in Performance Marketing and Scaling Past 7 and 8 Figures | Thomas McMahon

    Most ecom founders stuck in seven or low eight figures think they need more traffic. Thomas McMahon says they're earning exactly the traffic they deserve, and the real blocker is something breaking inside the business. Thomas spent years in business development at ClickBank and now runs Happy Scaling, an advisory firm for founder led ecom and direct response brands. We get into why the hustle that adds six or seven figures is often what keeps you from adding eight or nine, what the chargeback curve reveals about your funnel, and why direct response brands that never build a brand will struggle to exit. ================================= What you'll learn: - Why conversion rate operations matters more than conversion rate optimization - How to read refund and chargeback spikes to find the exact friction point in your customer journey - Why "we learned a lot" is a crutch, and what execution actually looks like - How to judge a new ad channel by budget, not just time, and why native fails when you treat it like Meta - Why pure DR brands are hard to sell, and how "brand response" builds a business buyers want - The signal that you've outgrown running your own business day to day ================================= About Thomas McMahon: Thomas is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Happy Scaling, which he runs with Dominick Keenan, ClickBank's former VP of Sales. With insight into $4 billion in performance marketing and consultative high ticket selling, Thomas helps ecom founders and the vendors who serve them scale revenue, protect profits, and avoid burnout. ================================= Key moments: (02:14) Vetting a business partner with 114 questions before launching Happy Scaling (05:20) Founders don't have a traffic problem. They have an operations problem. (10:17) Brand response vs. pure direct response (17:58) How long should you test a new channel? Follow the money. (21:07) Why "we learned a lot" is a crutch (26:57) How GLP-1s and peptides blew a hole in DR supplements (29:24) What a day 4 to 7 chargeback spike is telling you (34:54) Who actually buys pure DR companies? (38:28) Why DR operators resist organic, and why that's a mistake (41:54) How Built To Scale maps ad performance by pain point and audience (42:31) The Happy Scaling sweet spot: $5M to $50M founder led brands (46:34) The one thing stuck founders should stop doing ================================= Connect with Thomas McMahon: Website: https://happyscaling.co  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasmcmahon1855/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happyscaling/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thomas.mcmahon.94695  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@happyscaling  ================================= About The Built To Scale Podcast: Follow us on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/built-to-scale-agency/  Follow us on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/thebuilttoscalepodcast/  If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for a future episode, please email podcast@builttoscale.co.

    Lessons from $4 Billion in Performance Marketing and Scaling Past 7 and 8 Figures | Thomas McMahon

  2. 19 Oct

    Your Email List Is Dying and Here's the Fix with the Inbox Geek | Nelson Aquino & Paul Counts

    The average email list shrinks about 22% a year, according to Nelson Aquino, and most brands are doing nothing about it. Meanwhile, they keep paying Meta and Google to reach people who already visited their website. For episode 30, I broke the format and brought on two guests: Nelson Aquino and Paul Counts, co-owners of InboxGeek. We get into why owning your audience beats renting it, how to win back subscribers who went cold months ago, and why AI will expose lazy email marketers instead of killing the channel. ================================= What you'll learn: - Why your list decays every year and how to re-engage non-openers instead of buying new subscribers - How to send emails when each subscriber is actually active in their inbox, not when your calendar says so - Why a once-a-month newsletter with 10 links is leaving money on the table - How story-based emails and pattern interrupts beat "on sale" emails in a crowded inbox - How website visitor identification turns anonymous traffic into an email list you own ================================= About Nelson Aquino and Paul Counts: Nelson spent 27 years in international marketing and sales at billion dollar footwear and apparel companies before leaving corporate to work with small and mid-sized businesses. Paul has been doing email marketing since 1998, when he was sending emails from a Hotmail account as a teenager. Together they bought InboxGeek, a platform that sends emails when subscribers are live in their inbox and helps brands capture their website visitors. ================================= Key moments: (08:48) What InboxGeek actually does, and how it wins back cold subscribers (11:09) Why your list quietly shrinks every year (18:33) Why you're not emailing too much (25:11) Pattern interrupts, open loops, and the power of empty preview text (30:35) Is it legal? CAN-SPAM, terms of service, and where it doesn't work (38:26) How Live Opens handles Apple Mail Privacy Protection (44:56) Why "smart sending" isn't that smart (47:01) AI and email: when the tide goes out, you see who's swimming naked (1:00:05) Nelson's prediction: an email resurgence in 2027 ================================= Connect with Nelson and Paul: InboxGeek: https://www.inboxgeek.com  InboxGeek on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inboxgeek/  Nelson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nelsonhaquino/  Paul on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulcounts/  Paul on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePaulCounts  Paul on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauljcounts/  Paul on X: https://x.com/paulcounts  ================================= About The Built To Scale Podcast: Follow us on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/built-to-scale-agency/  Follow us on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/thebuilttoscalepodcast/  If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for a future episode, please email podcast@builttoscale.co.

    Your Email List Is Dying and Here's the Fix with the Inbox Geek | Nelson Aquino & Paul Counts

  3. 13 Oct

    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 "capped out" audience into $60K in two daysWhy a two step funnel (lead magnet, thank you page) beats waiting for the perfect offer stackHow content creators leave money on the table with "link in bio" dead ends, and how affiliate links fix it without building a productWhy AI voice agents work best as a filter, and why Rob keeps leads on the phone with AI for under a minute before a human takes overHow Rob uses Claude connected to ClickFunnels to build pages and workflows, and to analyze sales data to decide what to offer next ================================= About Rob Schwartz: Rob Schwartz is VP of Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives at ClickFunnels, where the job comes down to turning signups into revenue. He spent over 15 years as a software engineer before moving to the customer side of the house. Through his firm Ozer Digital Solutions, he builds AI systems for businesses that already have customers: voice agents that answer real phone lines, follow up systems that reach every lead in seconds, and automations wired into the tools they already pay for. ================================= Connect with Rob Schwartz: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robschwartz10  Website: https://ozerdigitalsolutions.com  ================================= Key moments: 02:43 - Why the best way to understand your customer is to become one07:40 - Running ClickFunnels from inside Claude08:27 - The missing step between your content and your revenue11:14 - The affiliate link still paying Rob five years later12:59 - The VIP upsell that made $60K and created more intentful buyers15:26 - "I'd rather launch an ugly funnel than a perfect funnel"23:29 - AI voice as a filter: why 20 to 30% of inbound calls are the right customer26:05 - Five months building something non compliant, and the pivot28:40 - Why AI should hand off to a human in under a minute31:42 - Agents talking to agents: where AI voice goes next36:08 - Imposter syndrome and the founders stuck at day one42:09 - The mindset shift that breaks revenue ceilings44:18 - Using Claude to analyze two months of sales and pick the next offer ================================= About The Built To Scale Podcast: Follow us on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/built-to-scale-agency/  Follow us on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/thebuilttoscalepodcast/  For more information about Built To Scale visit: https://www.builttoscale.co/   If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for a future episode, please email podcast@builttoscale.co.

    AI Can't Close Your Deals & How One Upsell Yielded $60K in Two Days | Rob Schwartz

  4. 6 Oct

    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 exact reason founders become the bottleneckHow to hand off decisions gradually using approval thresholds, so your team stops running everything through youWhy every owner will leave their business "by choice or by force," and how to plan the exit before it's decided for youWhat buyers actually pay for when they acquire a service business (not your contact list)How to get a founder to open up the books without feeling like they've lost controlHow an embedded, rev share executive team differs from traditional consulting ================================= About Tim Kanter: Tim Kanter is the Founder and Chief Solutions Officer of Kanter Solutions. He has more than 30 years of business leadership experience and built an insurance agency to 20+ employees through organic growth and acquisitions before selling it at a strong multiple in 2024. Kanter Solutions now embeds a full executive suite (marketing, tech, operations, finance, HR, and leadership development) into founder-led service businesses to help them scale and prepare for a future sale, without founders giving up ownership or control. ================================= Key moments: (00:54) Selling rocks door to door at age seven(04:28) The common thread in every business he's helped scale(06:13) The "floor" concept: what founders need to stop touching(11:34) By choice or by force: why you need an exit plan now(16:45) Why he walked away from consulting(21:02) The day one conversation with a CEO who runs personal spending through the business(23:25) Getting founders to hand over financial visibility(30:17) Stuck at $275K after 10 years, and what changed(35:14) Why he isn't retiring at 49(37:24) The $100 million foundation goal ================================= Connect with Tim Kanter: Website: https://kantersolutions.com Email: tim@kantersolutions.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkanter/  ================================= About The Built To Scale Podcast: Follow us on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/built-to-scale-agency/  For more information about Built To Scale visit: https://www.builttoscale.co/   If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for a future episode, please email podcast@builttoscale.co.

    Why This Business Consultant Refuses to Get Paid | Tim Kanter

  5. 29 Sept

    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 2014 Super Bowl ad "God Made a Farmer" for Dodge Ram. Now he runs Contagious Content, built around a simple idea: content has to move at the speed of the conversation happening right now, not the speed of your media plan. In this episode Alan makes a case that surprised even Shmuel: if you don't have the budget to do brand and performance and content all at once, start at the bottom of the funnel, not the top. Earn your way up. He explains why "poetry" still beats "plumbing" in storytelling. ================================= What you'll learn: How to sequence your marketing budget when you can't afford brand, content, and performance at the same timeWhat "poetry before the plumbing" means and why it matters more as AI tools multiplyHow AEO and GEO (answer engine optimization) are replacing traditional SEO as LLMs become the new search interfaceWhy conversational AI UI is going to break the business model of point-and-click SaaS platformsThe real story behind building the digital side of a Super Bowl ad, and how long that process actually took ================================= About Alan Schulman: Alan Schulman is the Founder, CEO, and Chief Creative Officer of Contagious Content, a studio built around creating content at the speed of cultural conversation. He spent his career at many of the leading ad firms before becoming the first Chief Creative Officer hired by a consulting firm in the US at Deloitte Digital, where he was a founding partner. ================================= Key moments: Why Alan calls a customer journey "just a funnel laid on its side"The Oreo "Dunk in the Dark" example and what it means to actually be contagiousWhat went into building the digital component of the 2014 Dodge Ram Super Bowl campaignWhy Alan tells his own team "don't show me another AI dashboard" ================================= Connect with Alan Schulman: Website: https://www.contagiouscontent.us/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanschulman/ Alan’s Channel on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4GovOqCZQqcOzCZSPTeaG7?si=0qdOQcrERwK4TmQY6i2xUw  ================================= About The Built To Scale Podcast: Follow us on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/built-to-scale-agency/  For more information about Built To Scale visit: https://www.builttoscale.co/   If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for a future episode, please email podcast@builttoscale.co.

    Reflections on 40 Years in Marketing: Super Bowl Ads, Storytelling, and AI Slop | Alan Schulman

  6. 22 Sept

    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: How to run the "Bali test" to find out what your business is actually worthWhy buying your closest competitor can grow revenue faster than any marketing campaignThe four exits every owner has to make before they ever sell the business (front line, management, leadership, vision)Why chasing tax deductions can quietly cost you far more than you save at the negotiation tableWhat actually separates a business that sells for 2X profit from one that sells for 10X ================================= About Marty Fahncke: Marty Fahncke is a Certified Mergers and Acquisitions Advisor (CMAA) and the founder of Westbound Road, where he helps business owners prepare their companies for sale, negotiate stronger deals, and grow through acquisition instead of relying on marketing spend alone. ================================= Key moments: 03:26 The first person to ever put a URL on a TV infomercial, and why marketers thought it would end his career08:47 How buying a competitor took two small companies to $30 million in sales in two years17:36 The food poisoning story behind a multimillion dollar acquisition negotiation34:45 The mistake that cost Marty $23.5 million, and the Harvard study on what owners lose by selling alone43:31 Why saving 20 cents in taxes can cost you $5 in valuation50:32 Why you don't have to be the foundation, you just need one that's strong ================================= Connect with Marty Fahncke:  Website: https://www.westboundroad.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martyfahncke YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@westboundroad/videos ================================= Marty’s Recommended Reading:  Boomer Sells the Business by Frank Felker and Marty Fahncke: https://www.amazon.com/Boomer-Sells-Business-Step-Step-ebook/dp/B0FCCL29D2/ Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy: https://www.amazon.com/Who-Not-How-Accelerating-Teamwork/dp/B08KYKR23H  ================================= About The Built To Scale Podcast: Follow us on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/built-to-scale-agency/  For more information about Built To Scale visit: https://www.builttoscale.co/   If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for a future episode, please email podcast@builttoscale.co.

    The $23.5 Million Rookie Mistake and Why Being Needed Makes Your Business Worth Less | Marty Fahncke

  7. 15 Sept

    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 before he had systems in placeHow to use the Profit Pyramid framework to decide if an offer can actually support scale before you spend a dollar on itWhy "never be a one-legged stool" drives Built To Scale's entire channel strategy, and how Meta, Google demand gen, and YouTube each play a different role in the funnelThe real order of operations for scaling: creative first, then conversion rate, then funnel monetization, and why skipping the order breaks accountsHow to size a creative testing budget based on whether you have zero winners or several, and why 20% is the default starting pointWhere AI genuinely helps a media buying team, and why Jeremy still won't let it make scaling decisions on its own ================================= About Jeremy Gillespie: Jeremy Gillespie is the founder and CEO of Built To Scale, a performance marketing agency built around D2C health brands. Before starting Built To Scale, he ran paid media at LinkedIn and worked with startups in San Francisco, and he's personally taken ad accounts from spending thousands of dollars per month to over a half a million dollars a month in profitable spend. ================================= Key moments: 01:41 - The origin story: how three consulting clients on the side turned into Built To Scale18:03 - Creative as the tip of the spear, and why conversion rate is the next link in the chain22:38 - The 20% rule for creative testing budget, and when to flex it up27:18 - How AI tags creatives and builds persona matrices without taking over strategy43:06 - Rapid fire questions: Jeremy answers some the hottest questions facing the industry today. ================================= Connect with Jeremy Gillespie: Website: https://www.builttoscale.co/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygillespie1/  X: https://x.com/builttoscalesf  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/builttoscale.co  ================================= About The Built To Scale Podcast: Follow us on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/built-to-scale-agency/ or Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebuilttoscalepodcast/ For more information about Built To Scale visit: https://www.builttoscale.co/   If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for a future episode, please email podcast@builttoscale.co.

    The Profit Pyramid: How Built To Scale Actually Scales Brands | Jeremy Gillespie

  8. 8 Sept

    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 and run entire brands with a fraction of the human overhead. In this episode he lays out why he thinks mid-size DTC companies, the five million to hundred million dollar range, are getting squeezed by two or three person teams running agent stacks that never sleep. ================================= What you'll learn: How to build a working Shopify site, ad creative, and checkout flow in under an hour using AI agentsWhy the mid-size DTC company (the $5M to $100M range) is the most exposed segment in direct response right nowWhat actually breaks when you let AI run unsupervised (SKU mapping mistakes, wrong data reporting, "AI slop" creative)How to structure a portfolio of small AI-run brands instead of betting everything on oneWhy the four-hour work week thesis is more true today than when Tim Ferriss wrote it, and what people get wrong about thatHow agents are starting to talk to other agents, and what that means for how you'll manage a business in the next few years ================================= Key moments: The $200 a day test that produced $300 a day in revenue almost immediatelyThe 30-bottle checkout mistake that shipped ten times what customers orderedWhy Scott still checks his agent's reporting every morning instead of trusting it blindlyThe plan to run ten separate five million dollar brands off one centralized agent system ================================= Connect with Scott Rewick: Website: https://skcommerce.ai/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/srewick Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/srewick/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rewick/  ================================= About The Built To Scale Podcast: Follow us on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/built-to-scale-agency/  For more information about Built To Scale visit: https://www.builttoscale.co/   If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for a future episode, please email podcast@builttoscale.co.

    Why This Business Model is Losing to AI and What You Should Do Instead | Scott Rewick
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About

The Built To Scale Podcast: Direct Response Marketing, Paid Media, and Scaling Strategies for Ecommerce Brands Everyone talks about scale. Almost nobody explains how it actually happens. The Built To Scale Podcast exists to close that gap. ========================= About the Podcast Hosted by Shmuel Herschberg, CMO of Built To Scale and founder of Shyn Media, the show sits down with top marketing leaders, media buyers, and DTC operators to break down exactly what drives scalable growth: paid media strategy (Meta, Google, YouTube), creative testing and production systems, funnel optimization, conversion rate strategy, email and lifecycle marketing, and the operational systems behind brands doing real revenue. No theory, no recycled tactics. Just specifics from people who've built and scaled ecommerce and direct response brands themselves. Each episode is built for founders, CMOs, media buyers, and digital marketers who want the mechanics behind growth, not another surface-level interview. ========================= Watch and Subscribe! New episodes weekly. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBuiltToScalePodcastApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-built-to-scale-podcast/id1885295516Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tTVaqWxfxnC4QcWMoG3ksInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebuilttoscalepodcast/ ========================= Continue the Conversation To learn more about Built To Scale, please visit https://www.builttoscale.co/ Want to talk about scaling your brand? Book a call.

Information

  • Creator
    Shmuel Herschberg
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    32
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Shmuel Herschberg
  • Show Website
    The Built To Scale Podcast