Everyone talks about scale, but how do brands really scale? That’s what Shmuel Herschberg is uncovering on The Built To Scale Podcast. Join him for a behind-the-scenes look as he sits down with digital marketing leaders and presses them on the specifics of scaling, and how ecommerce and direct response brands grow to new heights. Built for founders, CMOs, and digital marketers who want to learn what actually drives scalable growth.
The 5 Profit Levers: How to Actually Scale Your Business Profitably | Jeremy Reeves
Monday, June 1, 2026 • Duration 50:53
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 wrong)
Why lifetime value is a misleading metric unless you contribution-margin-adjust it and measure by cohort
The five profit levers in Jeremy's Scalable Profit Model: contribution margin, acquisition economics, LTV, operational efficiency, and capital return velocity
Why a 1% improvement in contribution margin can drive 4 to 6% in additional profit, and why most founders never touch it
How to use overhead per customer to diagnose whether your business is bloated or lean (with a concrete dollar figure)
Why AI is about to erase marketing advantages entirely, and what that means for how you compete
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About Jeremy Reeves:
Jeremy Reeves is the founder of Scale Advisors and author of The Scalable Profit Model. He started as a direct response copywriter and sales funnel strategist before building and scaling multiple eight-figure supplement and health brands. He now consults with DTC businesses on a performance basis, helping them add profit without adding ad spend.
If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for a future episode, please email podcast@builttoscale.co.
Lessons in Lifetime Value: Turn a $30 Buyer Into a $5,000 Client | Max Kramer
Tuesday, May 26, 2026 • Duration 40:53
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 you'll learn:
How Kramer Media operates as a white-label coaching division for info, supplement, and ecom brands without disrupting what those brands are already doing
Why the moment of purchase is the highest-leverage contact point and why email follow-up is already too late
The trust formula Max learned from marketer Eben Pagan: explain the customer's problem better than they can and they will trust you instantly
Why Max believes AI will never fully replace human coaching, and the one psychological dynamic that makes human accountability irreplaceable
The monkey brain problem with SOPs: why it is not enough to build systems, you have to become a slave to them even when your instincts say otherwise
Where Max lands on the quality vs. quantity dial for sales teams, and why his answer might surprise you
Why Max's biggest fear is not AI or competition but something entirely internal
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About Max Kramer:
Max Kramer is the founder of Kramer Media, a white-label coaching company that plugs into brands in the info, supplement, and ecom space and converts front-end buyers into $5,000 high-ticket coaching clients. He built his first coaching brand in the dating advice space in 2012, grew it to over one million social media followers, and used that decade of operational experience to build a backend coaching engine that now serves multiple verticals. He is based in the world he built from scratch, starting with nothing but a personal problem and a willingness to solve it.
The Built To Scale Podcast Trailer | Shmuel Herschberg
Season 1
Thursday, March 12, 2026 • Duration 01:45
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.
Takeaways
Scaling is a key focus in digital marketing
Podcast is for people building and growing digital marketing businesses
If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for a future episode, please email podcast@builttoscale.co.
Your Company Thinks It's Using AI. It Isn't. | John Munsell
Wednesday, May 20, 2026 • Duration 54:36
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 is
How John's 10 Levels of AI Mastery framework pinpoints exactly where your team is falling short
Why 90%+ of employees at most companies are stuck at level two or below (and how to fix it fast)
How proper training can compress 19-24 months of individual AI growth into 4-6 weeks
Why governance and training are the two things companies leave for last and why that is the most expensive mistake they make
How team makeup (the PAEI framework) determines whether your AI initiatives succeed or stall
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About John Munsell
John Munsell is the CEO of Bizzuka and the author of "InGrain AI." He sold his digital marketing agency client portfolio in 2022, right before ChatGPT went public, and spent the following years building a framework to help companies move from AI curiosity to full workforce transformation. His InGrain AI Certified Implementer Program is developing the next generation of Chief AI Officers.
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Key moments
(06:54) The $19K website that became a $150K engagement.
(13:33) Why "AI adoption" is a lie.
(14:22) Introducing the 10 levels of AI mastery. John breaks down the framework his firm uses to assess real proficiency, not usage, across entire organizations.
(21:03) The brick exercise. John splits 40 employees into groups and gives them five minutes to list as many uses for a brick as possible.
(28:36) Shadow AI is already in your building.
(33:57) The three-tier governance model.
Sculpting Your Life: From Rock Bottom to 3 Million Lives Changed | Paul Hoffman
Thursday, May 14, 2026 • Duration 52:33
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 binaural beat brain technology distributed by Mindvalley, Paul's framework is part neuroscience, part philosophy, entirely grounded in lived experience.
What you'll learn:
Why your subconscious mind is running the show, and the only way to change how you think
Paul's 7-step "Tuning In" framework for identifying what's holding you back
How to build a morning ritual that sets the frequency for your entire day
Why scaling starts with your foundation, not your funnel
How Paul uses AI as a creative tool without being technical at all
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About Paul Hoffman:
Paul Hoffman is the founder of Sculpting Your Life and a personal transformation architect who has worked with over 3 million people worldwide. He is a former advertising jingle writer behind the iconic "Have You Driven a Ford Lately?" campaign and the creator of a binaural beat brain technology marketed globally through Mindvalley. He speaks, coaches, and builds tools designed to help people stop living by default and start living by design.
The #1 Lesson After Sending a Billion Emails | Ryan Healy
Friday, May 8, 2026 • Duration 51:00
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) and list management agency. This episode is a masterclass in how email actually works in 2026.
What you'll learn:
Why a "million person list" is probably worth nothing, and how to diagnose whether your list is actually viable
The deliverability fundamentals that determine whether your emails land or disappear, including domain reputation, IP health, and sender scoring
How to structure split tests properly so you're optimizing toward revenue, not vanity metrics
Why segmenting down to your most engaged users is the fastest way to rehab a struggling account
What the brands that are actually scaling on email have in common, and where the ones that plateau are falling short
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About Ryan Healy:
Ryan Healy co-founded Upsender, an ESP and email agency that has worked with roughly 70-80 clients over the past three and a half years, including major players in health, wellness, and financial publishing. He's one of the few people in this industry who has seen email evolve from local server software to AI-driven personalization at scale.
The Ultimate Asset When it Comes to Building a Brand: Relationships | Nicole Starling
Monday, May 4, 2026 • Duration 47:58
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 why most brand partnerships underperform.
What you'll learn:
Why follow-through and accountability are more powerful growth levers than any funnel tactic
How Nicole closed over a million dollars in affiliate sales for a single product through cold outreach and relationship management
The real difference between influencer marketing and affiliate marketing, and how to structure deals that protect your budget
Why brands are overpaying for content creators who can't deliver, and how to structure smarter partnership deals
The truth about email marketing in 2026: not dead, but definitely not a one-trick pony
How to build a diversified creator strategy across micro and macro partnerships without blowing your budget
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About Nicole Starling:
Nicole Starling spent 30 years as a professional musician performing 12-18 shows per week before pivoting into digital marketing in 2020. She's now Partnership Manager at Starling Studios, where she builds and manages affiliate and influencer relationships for brands across health, wellness, and e-commerce. Her superpower is relationships: she's known for relentless follow-through and building the kind of trust that actually converts.
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 "$10 task" actually looks like and why letting go of them is harder than it sounds
How Ben's VA manages his entire email inbox so he never misses what matters and never has to think about the rest
Why AI won't kill the virtual employment industry, and what history tells us about tech that was supposed to eliminate jobs
The three-phase Meta ads testing structure Sphere Rocket uses to scale a B2B service business
What Ben looks at every single day to know whether his marketing is working
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About Ben Harris:
Ben Harris is the CMO of Sphere Rocket Virtual Assistance and a former executive at ClickFunnels and ClickBank. He started selling autographed football cards on eBay as a teenager, scaled a supplement brand to become the top-rated pre-workout on Amazon, and most recently built a full web application using Claude Code with zero prior coding experience. He has spent the past decade sitting in rooms he says he had no business being in, and learning from everyone in them.
Stop Being Afraid to Sell to Your Email List | Liss Graham Ellis
Wednesday, April 22, 2026 • Duration 39:33
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 offering buyers more opportunities to buy. Because whoever ran it before her was afraid to ask.
What you'll learn:
What each subscriber is actually worth per month (buyers vs. leads, and why the gap is much bigger than you think)
Why a 100-word email outperforms a long-form essay and what your real job as an email sender actually is
The silent mistake bleeding subscriber volume (hint: not all your acquisition streams are connected to your ESP)
Why most brands are over-jabbing and under-punching, and how to fix the balance immediately
How email, SMS, TikTok, direct response, and direct mail work together to build a full brand universe
Why your email list and social channels are business assets with real valuation value, not just marketing tools
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About Liss Graham Ellis:
Liss Graham Ellis is the founder and president of List Management, where she manages and monetizes email lists for clients across health, e-commerce, and direct response. She is also the co-founder of a TikTok Shop management company helping brands connect with influencers to scale on the platform. Her path into marketing was accidental: she entered a fitness transformation contest, won, landed on a podcast, and built a full business from there without a single day of formal marketing training.
Scaling Health Brands & the Move That Doubles Your Returns | Dr. Jesse Ropat
Thursday, April 16, 2026 • Duration 38:29
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 moves the needle.
What you'll learn:
Why putting a real credentialed doctor in your VSL directly improves ROAS, click-through rates, and lowers refund rates
How to balance persuasive claims with compliance without crossing the line
The creative testing framework Jesse uses to squeeze maximum performance out of every ad concept
Why long-form VSLs are still printing money and what the future format looks like
How to use AI as a drafting tool without letting it flood your ad account with slop
Why volume of creative is the name of the game on Meta right now and how to build a system around it
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About Dr. Jesse Ropat:
Dr. Jesse Ropat holds a doctorate in pharmacy and has spent the last several years applying that credential where few others have: direct response marketing for health and wellness brands. He writes scripts, films creative, and serves as the credentialed authority figure for some of the top-performing VSLs running on Meta today. His unique combination of clinical knowledge and creative strategy gives the brands he works with a compliance edge and a conversion edge at the same time.
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