#17 How to Scale Passion as You Grow

ABOUT THE GUEST - JASON SMITH, VP ACCOUNTS AT LEAGUESIDE 

Jason Smith has been with LeagueSide for over 3 years and currently oversees new business while also growing current accounts into new business lines. He has spent his career in the sport and entertainment space as part of two separate startup businesses as well as a stint as a Major League Baseball agent. His experience lies in Business Development, Marketing and Sales within organizations readying to scale. Jason studied Business Administration at George Washington University and in his free time you can find him hanging out with his family, playing with his dogs, or at a concert in the Philadelphia area. 

You can learn more about Jason through his LinkedIn profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonhsmith1/
 

ABOUT THE EPISODE:  

LeagueSide is a very cool business focused on connecting large advertisers to local youth sports. The founders and early team members are VERY passionate about what they do and very deliberate about how they sustain a culture that supports that passion, but how does that scale? Jason and I explore that in this episode, and he shares with us some of the very cool things LeagueSide does to stay passionate as they grow.  

0:42 - What is the best sales advice that Jason ever heard or received?  

5:47 - What’s the worst sales advice that Jason ever heard?  

7:45 - David maps out the target path for the episode - how does LeagueSide sustain passion as they grow  

8:23 - Jason shares a bit about the background of LeagueSide, what is the mission and who they help  

10:00 - Jason talks about how they got early traction with large clients based on the innovative nature of the value proposition and the natural passion that the team members have for the business  

12:20 - How did the dynamic of the company change as they grew from a handful of people to a few dozen?  

15:25 - How do you effectively bring people into an organization with a fine balance between passion & innovation on one side and process & discipline on the other?  

17:09 - How to embrace the fear of failure in a growing organization?  

19:40 - Where does Jason see the company growing in the near term, i.e. until we are getting out of Covid and youth sports (the domain of LeagueSide) is back in full swing  

21:11 - How does Jason envision institutionalizing the passion as the company scales to a much larger size?  

23:05 - If Jason knew then what he knows now with respect to sales...  

25:25 - Where is the best place to find Jason and to learn more about LeagueSide