This 3-minute read brought to you by the team at Rogue Pine
In this issue, you'll learn:
Recently, we had Brandon Ansley on the Grow Rogue Podcast, and you are going to love his story.
Brandon is the CEO of Carter & Clark, a company that’s gone from thriving to dominating, with a $50M backlog of projects.
If you think that sounds stressful, you’re right. But they’re handling it with systems, strategy, and (somehow) fewer headaches than most companies a quarter of their size.
Brandon isn’t the loudest guy in the room. He’s not the “hustle harder” type. What he is—is methodical.
His approach to scaling is a case study in getting things done without chaos.
If you’ve ever wondered why your company feels like a game of whack-a-mole instead of a well-run machine, this one’s for you.
Did you say $50 MILLION??
That’s right. A land surveying company built a backlog of $50M in projects while maintaining a high level of quality and client satisfaction.
For context: that’s not just revenue—it’s committed revenue. Deals locked in. Work guaranteed.
A lot of companies say they’re growing, but growth without predictability is just gambling.
We had all these different moving parts that weren’t talking to each other. So the first thing we had to do was create systems that made our lives easier, not harder.
Translation: before they scaled up, they had to stop working like a group project in college where nobody actually communicates.
The Process
Clarifying the Vision (Because Confusion Is Expensive)
A big reason companies stall out is that they don’t know where they’re going—or worse, they do, but no one else on the team does. Brandon fixed that immediately.
We realized everyone had a different idea of what success looked like. We had to get alignment—fast.
When everyone is working toward different goals, you don’t have a team—you have a group of people holding separate maps and wondering why they aren’t ending up in the same place.
Sales Isn’t Just for the Sales Team
Brandon flipped the way they thought about growth by making sure every part of the business supported sales.
If you don’t get sales, you don’t get to have a company. It’s that simple. But sales isn’t just about getting new business—it’s about keeping the business you already have.
Customer experience, operations, and fulfillment all became part of the sales process.
They weren’t just landing deals — they were keeping clients engaged long enough to turn one project into five.
The System That Made It All Work
This is where Brandon took a human approach to scaling.
“People think systems replace good people. That’s backwards. The best people won’t stick around if they don’t have the right systems to support them.”
As the company grew, they avoided overloading employees with more work. Instead, they built systems that let the team focus on thinking, not firefighting.
Lessons for Entrepreneurs
This isn’t just a feel-good success story. Here are three things you can apply today:
Lesson 1: Growth Doesn’t Fix Broken Processes. It Makes Them Worse.
If your business is held together with duct tape and caffeine, adding more clients isn’t going to help. It’s just going to expose every inefficiency you’ve been ignoring.
Brandon’s team fixed their communication gaps before they scaled. That’s why they didn’t collapse under the weight of success.
Lesson 2: The Best Salespeople Aren’t Always in Sales
Brandon got everyone to think like a salesperson. Not in a "pushy" way, but in a "pay attention to clients' needs" way.
We started looking at every interaction as a chance to make the customer’s life easier. The easier we made things, the more work they wanted to give us.
This means making it stupid simple for clients to say “yes” to more work with you.
Lesson 3: Scaling Requires More than ‘Working Harder’
Brandon didn’t just hire more people and hope for the best.
He streamlined.
He automated.
He built a business that could scale before he actually scaled it.
The businesses that win aren’t always the ones with the best product. They’re the ones that make it easiest for clients to get what they need.
That’s why Carter & Clark is stacking deals while other companies are struggling to keep up.
Watch the Full Episode
Brandon broke down his entire playbook on the podcast. If you want to hear how he did it, watch the full episode.
Final Thought
A $50M backlog doesn’t happen because of luck. It happens because of clarity, efficiency, and an unwillingness to keep doing things “the way they’ve always been done.”
So, here’s your move: Find one process in your business that’s slowing you down. Fix it. Then scale it.
And if you want to hear more stories like this, hit reply and let me know what’s been holding you back.
Until next time,
Reade
