When a CEO scales outbound sales, John Karsant, founder and CEO of LevelUp Leads, holds that a defined ideal customer profile and message must be tested and proven before volume increases. On The Scaling Executive Podcast, Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach, asked Karsant how CEOs should think differently about prospecting so they can scale. Karsant’s answer centers on one sequence, applied to every new client campaign at LevelUp Leads: define the ICP inside live campaigns, prove it converts at small volume, then scale spend and headcount.
Karsant built that discipline over nearly a decade as a college tennis player and teaching professional before founding LevelUp Leads in 2021 to run outbound sales development, covering email, LinkedIn, and cold calling, for small and mid-sized B2B companies.
This episode is for CEOs who are ready to build a repeatable outbound sales engine but aren’t sure whether the fix is more reps, more tools, or better targeting.
Key Takeaways
- Outbound volume without a defined ideal customer profile (ICP) wastes spend. John Karsant, founder and CEO of LevelUp Leads, tests and refines a client’s ICP inside live campaigns before recommending an increase in call and email volume.
- Hiring an operations leader sooner is the single change Karsant says would have saved him the most time while scaling LevelUp Leads, because it let him hand off technical execution he was never suited to own.
- John Karsant manages functions outside his own expertise by asking diagnostic questions about cost, tooling, and feasibility, then approving the plan and holding the department owner accountable to it, rather than becoming an expert in every function himself.
- LevelUp Leads keeps cold calling a human function because federal telemarketing law restricts AI-placed calls without the recipient’s prior consent, a constraint that keeps live conversation a required part of the SDR role industry-wide.
- LevelUp Leads uses AI to analyze sales call recordings at scale and to build AI-simulated practice environments so new SDRs rehearse scripts before they get on the phone with real prospects.
How CEOs Test an ICP Before They Scale Outbound Spend
Many CEOs treat prospecting as a volume problem: more calls, more emails, more reps. Karsant says that logic breaks down without a defined target first.
“Well, the volume doesn’t really matter if you’re not targeting the right people or you’re not saying the right things.”
At LevelUp Leads, that means starting small on purpose. When a new client tells Karsant’s team they know their ICP, or admits they don’t, the agency builds and tests it inside the client’s actual outbound campaigns rather than in a planning document. Early campaigns run at limited volume while the team gathers feedback on which titles respond and why. Only once messaging converts at that smaller scale does LevelUp Leads recommend increasing volume.
That sequencing, small campaign first, proof of conversion second, volume increase third, is what lets a CEO scale spend with confidence instead of guessing. Karsant frames the trade-off directly:
“You want to start out small and start gaining some traction and then you can start scaling it from there.”
CEOs Hire an Operations Leader Before They Run Out of Hours
Asked what would have saved him the most time early on, Karsant didn’t point to a tool or a marketing tactic. He pointed to a hire.
Karsant worked as many hours as he physically could before bringing on an operations leader, handling sales and technical execution himself until he hit a hard capacity ceiling. He says that decision, made roughly a year into running LevelUp Leads, was his biggest unlock: it let him step out of operational and technical work that was never his strength and put his time into sales and managing the team instead.
Karsant applies the same logic to delegation broadly. Instead of holding onto decisions that belong to someone else’s department, he routes them there directly, even when a request arrives addressed to him personally.
“If you’re hiring people to own certain departments, then let them own that department and make those decisions.”
CEOs Manage Functions They Don’t Master by Staying Competent, Not Becoming Expert
A CEO cannot become an expert in every function a growing company needs, but handing off a function entirely isn’t an option either. Karsant’s approach is to stay close enough to ask the questions that keep him in control of the outcome without doing the work himself.
When a team member brings him a problem outside his own expertise, Karsant asks what it will take to fix it, what it costs, and whether the fix is a tool or a person. Those questions let him approve a plan and hold someone accountable to it without needing to solve the problem himself.
“So like you said, you don’t need to be an expert in it, but you need to at least be able to have the conversation and guide them.”
CEOs Use AI to Train SDRs While Keeping Cold Calls Human
The same targeting discipline that governs LevelUp Leads’ campaigns extends to how the agency builds the SDR team executing them. Karsant runs an outbound sales agency, which puts him closer than most CEOs to a real question: does AI threaten the service he sells? Internally, his team uses AI in two specific ways. Call recordings are analyzed at scale so managers spend their review time on calls long enough to contain useful signal, not on calls that lasted fifteen seconds. And when LevelUp Leads onboards a new client, SDRs practice that client’s script against an AI-simulated caller before they ever dial a real prospect.
“It’s all AI, but they’re able to get some reps in kind of like you’re at the driving range on the golf course before you go to the actual course.”
Karsant is less optimistic about AI’s effect on outbound email, where AI-written messages have made the channel noisier for everyone.
“It’s email, the outbound email space has gotten very crowded.”
Cold calling has a structural protection email doesn’t: U.S. telemarketing law restricts AI from placing cold calls without the recipient’s prior opt-in. That keeps live phone conversation a required, not optional, part of the SDR role.
“In the United States, it’s illegal to use AI in cold calling.”
The CEO Playbook for Scaling an Outbound Sales Engine
| Principle | What it means in practice | Named evidence from this interview |
| Target before you scale | Confirm the ICP converts inside a live campaign at small volume before increasing spend or headcount | This sequencing has run unbroken across LevelUp Leads’ entire four-year operating history since its 2021 founding, keeping client ad spend tied to proven conversion rather than guesswork at every stage of growth |
| Hire operations before you’re maxed out | Add an operations leader once founder-led execution hits its ceiling, not after burnout forces the decision | That hire, made roughly a year into running LevelUp Leads, freed Karsant from technical execution he calls himself unsuited for, redirecting his time to sales and team management in the years since |
| Competence, not expertise, is the delegation bar | Know enough about a function to ask diagnostic questions and approve a plan, without needing to execute the work yourself | This questioning approach has let Karsant remain the approver rather than the bottleneck on technical and product decisions across LevelUp Leads’ full four-year run since 2021, without requiring him to become an expert in automation or delivery operations himself |
| Use AI to build reps, not to replace the call | Automate call review and skills practice; keep the live conversation, especially the cold call, human | This split lets LevelUp Leads scale call-quality review across every client account while keeping the cold call itself compliant with federal telemarketing law, a structural advantage no AI-calling competitor can legally replicate |
Quotes from This Episode
- “Lot of companies will come to us and they either say they know their ICP and don’t, or they’ll just say, don’t know my ICP.” — John Karsant, Founder and CEO, LevelUp Leads
- “I worked my tail off and did as much as I could on my own until I physically couldn’t work more hours.” — John Karsant, Founder and CEO, LevelUp Leads
- “So better to get somebody who’s an expert in that and let them own it.” — John Karsant, Founder and CEO, LevelUp Leads
Frequently Asked Questions
How should CEOs scale outbound sales without wasting spend on the wrong prospects?
Define the ideal customer profile first and test it inside a small, live campaign before increasing call or email volume. John Karsant, founder and CEO of LevelUp Leads, builds and refines a client’s ICP within their actual outreach, then recommends scaling spend and headcount only once that targeting shows it converts.
When should a CEO hire an operations leader while scaling a sales team?
Before the CEO physically runs out of hours to give the business, not after. Karsant worked at full capacity handling sales and operations himself until he hit a hard ceiling, then hired an operations leader, a move he calls the biggest unlock in LevelUp Leads’ growth because it freed him to focus on sales and managing the team.
Is it legal for a company to use AI to make cold sales calls?
No, not without the recipient’s prior opt-in. That legal restriction is why LevelUp Leads keeps cold calling a human function, using AI instead to analyze call recordings at scale and to run SDRs through simulated practice calls before they speak with real prospects.
CEOs Work with Glenn Gow to Scale Their Companies and Careers
Glenn Gow is The Scaling Executive Coach. He coaches ambitious executives into the CEO seat and CEOs into successful exits, backed by 25 years as a CEO and 5 years in venture capital. If this conversation was useful, you can apply for executive coaching with Glenn Gow or apply to be a guest on The Scaling Executive Podcast.
