S Brian Smith 🪜

Strategy Ladders

At Strategy Ladders, we specialize in driving explosive growth for agencies, consultancies, and B2B service businesses.

Our mission: help founders like you scale from 7 figures to 8 figures and beyond, unlocking your business's full potential.

We work with founders ready to accelerate growth, overcome operational bottlenecks, and build a business that can scale rapidly and sustainably. If your business isn’t achieving 200% year-over-year growth, it’s time to rethink your strategy.

The Strategy Ladder System is designed to do just that. It’s a proven framework that delivers a bulletproof strategy tailored to your business’s unique needs. Our system streamlines operations, drives revenue, and positions your business for sustained, long-term growth.

But we don’t just stop at strategy. We execute.

Our team of 8-figure founders and industry experts ensures every aspect of your business is optimized for scalability. From marketing and sales to operations and leadership, we cover it all—making sure your business is set to thrive as it grows.

Our results speak for themselves. We’ve helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs achieve remarkable success, including:

💥 Scaling an agency from $150k to $4M ARR in just 10 months

💥 Boosting a digital marketing agency’s productivity by 450%, dramatically increasing profitability

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

💥 Repositioning a web development agency to secure a long-term contract with a Fortune 100 company

💥 Growing an app development agency’s recurring revenue from 2% to over 50% of total revenue in three months

💥 Building a sales organization of 65 people in two years

💥 Orchestrating the sale of key SaaS platform assets at a significant premium over market value

If you’re serious about scaling to 8 figures and beyond, let’s connect. We’re here to provide the expertise and execution you need to achieve exponential growth.

Founder & CEO

I host Strategy Ladders, a no-nonsense podcast delivering real-world insights on scaling, optimizing, and thriving as a founder of an agency or B2B service company.

With 17+ years in the field, my team and I tackle core challenges in B2B sales, leadership, and business growth to help owners overcome bottlenecks and build high-performing teams. Think of it as having an outsourced co-founder in your corner, sharing tactical strategies on everything from digital marketing to operations—minus the fluff. Ready to put your business back to work for you? Follow us now!

Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Amazon 🎙️

Podcast Host

Trivr Eats, Inc

Advisor

S. Brian Smith Group, LLC

"Simply put, Brian has an innate ability to cut through all the bullshit/programming/stories and help one identify and achieve their goals. Working with him has made me more successful in business and has had an overwhelmingly positive impact on my personal life." - Serial Founder & Investor

"S. Brian Smith changed my perspective on life. In fact, he just changed my life - full stop. I’m a better person because of the work we’ve done and I will continue to grow because of the way he has taught me to think." - Entrepreneur, Founder, Executive

"Brian's ability to, not only think outside of the box, but to help me approach various situations from multiple angles is simply, genius. His approach is methodical, authentic, and most importantly, leads to tangible results." - Fortune 500 Executive

"S. Brian Smith is the best damn coach I have ever worked with." - Entrepreneur

Business & Mindset Super Coach to Entrepreneurs

Forbes Coaches Council

Founding Member

Institute of Coaching, McLean/Harvard Medical School

The Institute of Coaching, McLean/Harvard Medical School advances research and education in coaching by bringing together leaders in the field to accelerate research progress and disseminate coaching's best practices.

Fellow

Unicorn Puff

Unicorn Puff is a brain trust of experienced entrepreneurs who help B2B agencies grow. We work with B2B service agencies who are ready to grow. If you’re stuck in one of these spots, we’ll help you take your agency to the next level:
- Founders who are focused on sales, rather than building the business
- Revenue growth has stalled or plateaued
- Despite outbound efforts, most of your sales come from referrals

Chief Executive Officer

Have2Have.it

Chief Marketing Officer / Chief Strategy Officer

Soldsie

Social Kapture

Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)

The Founders Organization

Conceived, built, and operated a paid membership group with 1500 founders throughout North America. Responsible for organizing and executing events in 35 cities throughout North America and large activations at SXSW.

COO / Head of Strategy

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

Are you a founder of a B2B service business or agency generating $2.5 million to $25 million in revenue?

You've tasted success, but you know there's more potential.

You believe your business can reach 8 figures and beyond, but...

😒 You’re the primary strategist for clients.  
😧 You lack a high-level operations leader.  
😖 You’re the main revenue driver.  

You’re exactly who we help.

Imagine a business that thrives without you. A business where your team drives growth, not just maintains it. A business that gives you freedom—not more stress.

❌ Your team struggles to run the business without you.  
❌ Your growth isn’t on track to meet your goals.  
❌ Your team is solid but not equipped to scale to the next level.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

At Strategy Ladders, we’re not just another option—we’re the only serious option for founders ready to scale their 7-figure business to new heights. Our team is unparalleled—every strategy advisor is an 8-figure founder who’s been in your shoes, scaled their businesses, and knows how to help you achieve explosive growth.

Our program provides direct access to a handpicked team of world-class experts in marketing, sales, operations, project management, finance, HR, and more. These aren’t just consultants—they’re industry leaders who’ve built, scaled, and exited businesses like yours.

With Strategy Ladders, you’ll do more than scale from 7 figures to 8 figures—you’ll transform your role in the business. You’ll step out of the daily grind and into true business ownership, where your business works for you, not the other way around.

Here’s what we deliver:

✅ A growth system that injects rocket fuel into your business 🚀  
✅ Strategies that make your business work for you, not the other way around 💎  
✅ Freedom from being irreplaceable ⛓  
✅ A clear path to becoming an owner, not just an operator 💪  
✅ Maximizing the value of your business 💰

Our results speak for themselves:  
"Working with Strategy Ladders has transformed my business and my outlook on life. Their expertise and insight are unparalleled."

"Thanks to Strategy Ladders, I went from 60-hour workweeks to 40, with a clear plan to reduce further. Their guidance is worth every investment."

If you’re ready for exponential growth and a real transformation in your business and life, let’s talk.

One final note: We’re not here to make you corporate. We challenge the status quo, and we will challenge YOU to achieve greatness.

🪜 Visit www.strategyladders.com to schedule a call and discover how we can elevate your business to the next level.

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

Fable

Speaker and Coach

Lingua Nua Consulting

Dr. James McCabe is a European story expert, dramatic writer, as well as a strategy adviser to Flowfactory.

'Lingua Nua' - Returning to the pureness and essence of language - is a boutique story agency specializing in transmedia narratives deploying classical story design from the worlds of drama, fiction and film. 

We function both as school and studio, providing a range of coaching, consulting and creative services including keynote addresses and conference talks, seminars and workshops, primary research and content generation. 

We are experienced in crossing language and cultural borders for a global audience. We bring technology solutions to real life using timeless dramatic and narrative techniques. 

Our suite of services spans journalism, copywriting, speechwriting, ghostwriting as well as script doctoring. Our projects to date have been conducted in Germany, the United States, Switzerland, Britain, Ireland and Austria. 

As new trends in brand journalism, native advertising, gaming and transmedia storytelling gain traction, we develop and deliver a full range of video, graphics and story content. Our mission is to transform traditional marketing and communication into unique Story IP for business leaders, communicators and their agencies.

The Story Doctor

area22

Chief Storyteller

The Story Doctor - Speaker & Author

Dr James McCabe is a pioneer in adopting classical story design from the world of arts to commerce. Classical storytellers such as dramatists, novelists and screenwriters are the professionals when it comes to human attention, because narrative is their only intellectual property. As the commercial world learns narrative IP rules in an attention economy, the opportunity exists for replacing rhetorical devices with narrative ones. Where rhetoric seeks to persuade, narrative seeks to involve - a much deeper connection involving not only hearts and minds but - uniquely - both hemispheres of the human brain. Storytellers know how to transform ideas into feelings so they live on in the audience around them. James is a master in transforming the authority, logic and proof of business rhetoric into the universal empathy, suspense and surprise now required to attract customers, investors, employees and the public. Your enterprise and your career exist between human attention and memory - two resources governed by the narrative faculty.

James McCabe

The perfect illustration for how story propels artistic value, just as it propels product and service value. Now imagine the life of Vincent if the story had accompanied the art simultaneously.

Senior Sales & Business Development Leader | 20+ Years Driving Revenue in SaaS, Technology & International Markets | Bilingual (English/Spanish)

The moment I realized I'd been doing storytelling all wrong.

For years, I knew storytelling mattered. Every sales training, every marketing book, every successful pitch I witnessed—they all hammered home the same point: stories sell.

So I told stories. Lots of them. But here's the uncomfortable truth I had to face: knowing storytelling is important and actually doing it effectively are two completely different things.

I had the raw material—my experiences, my insights, the lessons I'd learned—but without a methodology, I was just... talking. My stories lacked structure. They meandered. They didn't land the way I hoped.

I was missing something critical. Then I met Steve Rawling and 🎴 Charles Burdett, the creators of Storyteller Tactics and Pip Decks. That's when everything changed.

They showed me that storytelling isn't just an art; it's a craft. A learnable, repeatable process. They gave me the frameworks to turn my lived experiences into strategic communication tools.

Suddenly, I wasn't just sharing anecdotes. I was architecting narratives with purpose, impact, and structure.

It was the missing piece in my arsenal—for my entrepreneurial ventures and my professional career alike. Now? I'm ready for showtime.

Want to see masterful storytelling in action?

Watch this brilliant piece by Istok Pavlovic below. He tells the untold story of Johanna van Gogh—the woman who transformed her brother-in-law Vincent from an unknown artist into a legend.

This is what storytelling methodology looks like when it's executed flawlessly. Istok is an absolute master, and his creations are brilliant. 
 
What's been your most significant breakthrough in how you communicate?

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S Brian Smith 🪜

James McCabe

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