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Laura Craig started her career selling ice cream door to door in Sydney. She went on to manage major hair care brands at L'Oreal, oversee a $9 million marketing spend at Carlton & United Breweries, and eventually walk away from all of it to build something different.

VIVO Marketing is now 10 years old with over 350 clients. Laura built it as the deliberate opposite of the traditional agency model - no big office, no juniors doing the work of experienced marketers, just senior talent plugging directly into businesses that need real marketing capability without the overhead.

In this episode, Matt and Laura get into what's actually changing in marketing right now - and what isn't. Laura shares why AI is producing genuinely credible output in some areas while automation still falls short in others, and what that means for junior marketers trying to build careers in an increasingly automated landscape.

They also dig into what business owners consistently get wrong when they engage a marketer, why reducing the entire function to lead generation is such a common and costly mistake, and how to think about the fundamentals that need to be in place before any marketing strategy will actually land.

Laura also shares how she built the AI Marketing Summit in six weeks using AI - and what that experience taught her about where the technology is genuinely useful versus where the hype is still outrunning the reality.

If you're a founder trying to figure out how to resource your marketing function properly, or just wondering what good marketing strategy actually looks like in 2026, this one's worth your time.

scalr sagecast is proudly brought to you by scalr, a talent advisory business headquartered in Melbourne, Australia.

If you're a founder or operator thinking about your next hire, building out a TA function, or just not sure where your hiring process is letting you down - reach out to Matt directly at matt@scalr.com.au or find him on LinkedIn.

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Peter Solway set out to be a professional tennis player. When that didn't pan out, he found himself thrown into a sales role at a startup with no training, no playbook, and no idea what cold calling even was - so he just started dialling. Turns out he was good at it.

That accidental start eventually led Pete to found Founder Sales Solution, built around a problem he kept seeing repeat itself: B2B founders doing between $500k and $5 million in revenue who were ready to make their first sales hire but had no idea how to set that person up to succeed. In Australia, 48% of first sales hires don't work out. Pete's mission is to fix that number.

In this episode, Matt and Pete dig into exactly what it takes to get a first salesperson from zero to one. Pete walks through his four-step sales hire success framework, explains why giving a new salesperson the right "kindling" is often the difference between success and failure, and breaks down how to know when the timing is actually right to bring that role into your business.

They also get into BANT - what it is, why it matters, and why it's still a solid starting point for any founder trying to build a repeatable sales process.

If you're a founder still doing all the selling yourself and wondering what comes next, this one's essential listening.

scalr sagecast is proudly brought to you by scalr, a talent advisory business headquartered in Melbourne, Australia.

If you're a founder or operator thinking about your next hire, building out a TA function, or just not sure where your hiring process is letting you down - reach out to Matt directly at matt@scalr.com.au or find him on LinkedIn.

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Holly Smith has been an entrepreneur since she was 18. During COVID, she built a multiple six-figure online coaching business from her mum's kitchen table -- and hasn't stopped since.

In 2022, she published 30 Days to Happiness, a practical guide built around 30 habits designed to reconstruct how you experience your day. She's since founded The One Hour Workday, a program that has helped over 10,000 people reclaim 10 to 20 hours a week by focusing on what actually moves the needle.

In this episode, Matt and Holly dig into why busy work feels productive but rarely is, and what it actually takes to change that. Holly breaks down the philosophy behind the One Hour Workday - one focused hour per day on revenue-generating activities, built around energy audits, Most Important Tasks, and the kind of discipline that creates real momentum rather than the illusion of it.

They also get into micro habits versus bigger behavioural shifts, why task avoidance and shiny object syndrome are so common in founders, and how Holly went from fitness coaching to mental health to productivity - and why that journey makes complete sense when you hear her tell it.

If you're a founder who ends every day feeling busy but not quite sure what you actually achieved, this one's for you.

scalr sagecast is proudly brought to you by scalr, a talent advisory business headquartered in Melbourne, Australia.

If you're a founder or operator thinking about your next hire, building out a TA function, or just not sure where your hiring process is letting you down - reach out to Matt directly at matt@scalr.com.au or find him on LinkedIn.