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Vertical market strategy and revenue growth for B2B companies.

Get Vertical with Mike McCalley focuses on vertical market strategy for B2B industrial and SaaS companies. McCalley, founder and chief growth officer of The Vertical Solution, interviews executives and growth leaders on sales alignment, demand generation, and market positioning within specific verticals. The show is built for B2B operators who want precise growth strategies, not generic advice.

22 episodes
Channel Brief·Get Vertical with Mike McCalley · 22 episodes
Updated Apr 2, 2026

Fear, culture, and pricing power drive sustainable growth.

Get Vertical argues that leadership breakthroughs come from facing personal and organizational fear, embedding values into culture, and pricing with confidence. The channel grounds this in founder and executive stories.

Get Vertical with Mike McCalley builds its case around a single idea: the companies and leaders that win do so by naming their fears and turning them into competitive advantages. The channel does not traffic in generic business advice. Instead, it pairs founder origin stories—poverty-shaped decision-making, workplace safety convictions, AI adoption tensions—with hard outcomes: 20% YoY growth in cash collections, top 1% retail status, SaaS acquisition. The implicit thesis is that sustainable growth flows from culture, pricing discipline, and willingness to stay true to values even when markets shift.

Drawn from From Poverty to Pricing Power | Why Great Comp… and 3 more →

“How many people are you willing to hurt to make your product? If the answer isn't zero, we've got a problem.”

Wally Steidley, founder of The Safety Sherpa and Indigo Compliance

By the numbers

31%

U.S. employees actively engaged at work, Gallup 2025

61%

B2B buyers preferring rep-free buying experience, Gartner 2025

20%

new business failure rate within first year per U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

50%

startup failure rate by year five per U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

What the channel argues

InsightFear rooted in poverty shaped Casey Brown's underpricing, until she built pricing confidence and unlocked millions in value.→
DataRobby Humble's leading with love philosophy drove 20% YoY growth in Q3 cash collections at Penn Warranty without new products.→
DataNiche focus on trail running created market leverage; Trailhead Running Supply reached top 1% of run specialty stores in under three years.→
DataOnly 18% of entrepreneurs successfully launch startups; Rob Peabody spent 50% of his time fundraising across VOMO's entire lifecycle.→
Data61% of B2B buyers prefer rep-free buying experience; sales teams must focus on customer lifetime value over transactional acquisition.→

What you'll learn

•How personal trauma and fear unconsciously shape pricing and business decisions, and why naming them unlocks value creation.
•Why workplace culture and psychological safety are performance drivers, not separate from revenue—leading with love drove measurable growth at Penn Warranty.
•How niche positioning and community building—not scale or capital alone—create defensible advantage in commodity markets like specialty retail.
•Why 50% of founder time on fundraising is structural reality, and relationship quality with investors and teams determines survival odds.
•How sales automation and real-time feedback loops help sales teams compete in markets where 61% of buyers avoid salespeople.

What to do about it

→Audit your pricing against your origin story; identify where fear or scarcity mindset undervalues your product or service.
→Map your team's psychological safety: do problems surface early or get hidden? Design a listening system and commit senior leadership to one visible change.
→Define your true niche and measure community engagement (not just transaction volume); test whether community-building investments lift lifetime value faster than marketing spend.

Who and what shows up

Casey Brown

Founder, pricing strategy consultant

Shared how poverty-rooted fear unconsciously underpriced her services until she built pricing confidence and unlocked millions in value.

Robby Humble

CEO, Penn Warranty

Demonstrated that leading with love and psychological safety drove 20% YoY growth in Q3 cash collections without new products or marketing.

Drew Flowers

Founder, Trailhead Running Supply

Built specialty retail store to top 1% nationally in under three years through niche focus on trail running and community engagement.

Wally Steidley

Founder, The Safety Sherpa and Indigo Compliance

Built two companies around the conviction that zero workplace injuries should be non-negotiable; created first fully mobile-friendly safety training platform.

Rob Peabody

Co-Founder and President, VOMO (acquired by Virtuous, 2022)

Documented that startup survival depends on relationship-building; spent 50% of founder time on fundraising across entire lifecycle before successful exit.

Questions this channel answers

Q

Why do good companies underprice their offerings?

Fear and scarcity rooted in founders' early life experience shape unconscious pricing decisions; naming that fear enables repricing and value capture.

From Poverty to Pricing Power | Why Great Companies Unde… →
Q

How do you re-engage a disengaged workforce and drive growth at the same time?

Leading with love, creating psychological safety, and enabling teams to surface problems early accelerates resolution and boosts performance; Robby Humble achieved 20% YoY cash collection growth without new products.

A CEO’s Blueprint for Career Success: Leading with Love … →
Q

What's the real job of a sales team when most buyers do their research before calling?

Focus on customer lifetime value and cost of ownership; use automation and coaching to transform sales into a high-performance discipline that meets informed buyers' expectations.

Get Vertical! Growing with Sales for Success →
Q

How do specialty retailers compete with big-box and online retailers?

Narrow into a defensible niche, build community around shared values, and measure engagement and belonging—not just product curation. Trailhead Running Supply reached top 1% in under three years.

Get Vertical! Going from Idea to the Top 1% in Less Than… →
Q

What fraction of entrepreneurs actually survive the startup phase, and why?

Only 18% successfully launch; relationship-building with investors and team members is a key differentiator. Rob Peabody spent 50% of his time fundraising across VOMO's full lifecycle.

The Life of a Start-Up: VOMO →
Topics:Pricing and revenue strategyWorkplace safety and cultureSales process automation and CRMDigital marketing and AI adoptionFounder and CEO leadership journeysSpecialty retail and community building
Themes:Personal origin shapes business DNA; name it to transcend itCulture and values drive performance metrics, not vice versaNiche and community trump scale in competitive markets

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