Tropical MBA: Entrepreneurship & Founder Lifestyle · 2026-06-04 · 40 min
Dan interviews John Karsant, founder of Level Up Leads, a 73-person outsourced SDR agency doing about $6.5M/year revenue, built while living abroad (Argentina, now Barcelona). John shares how he found remote work early via Craigslist, then spun out a list-building service that nearly failed due to one-off sales before pivoting into full appointment setting - eventually cold calling, which raised value, doubled average sale while keeping churn steady, and enabled $15K - $20K/month packages. He explains why radical honesty wins deals, how a strong ops leader and an in-house client dashboard improved transparency, and which metrics matter most (dial-to-connect, meetings booked, show rate, and pipeline movement). In this episode: John discusses hiring ahead of the curve How he compensates reps based on client retention The decline of email outreach John’s inbound engine that drives 80 - 90% of leads Practical AI uses for role play training, transcript analysis, playbooks, and script generation The value of an experienced CEO coach John’s approach to investing and family life Thanks to this week's sponsor Wayfront - the AI-ready operating system for productized agencies.
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