In this episode of the Winning at Business and Life podcast, host Professor Pete Alexander interviews Erika Warfield, founder of MetaGrowth Ventures. Warfield explains how MetaGrowth builds fully remote, 100% commission‑based sales teams for SaaS founders, acting as an outsourced VP of Growth to scale revenue while allowing founders to step away from day‑to‑day selling. She highlights the company’s stress‑free performance coaching model—over 94,000 hours of mastery‑level coaching—to keep salespeople productive without burnout, and stresses the importance of creating exit‑ready businesses that are not founder‑dependent. Warfield advises leaders to shift from feature‑focused messaging to benefit‑driven communication, warning against spammy LinkedIn DMs that drain prospects and damage reputation. She cites Brennan Manning’s quote about giving or draining life in every encounter. The conversation also includes Warfield’s recommendations of fellow servant‑leaders (Josh Hirsch, Joe Arioto, David Fischette, etc.) for future podcast guests, a brief personal history of her first jobs at Six Flags and as a clarinet instructor, and how listeners can connect with her via LinkedIn or her website ericawarfield.com.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
Hi, my name is Erica Wardfield. I'm with MetaGrowth Ventures. Thank you so much for having me on, Professor Pete Alexander. Basically what I do— MetaGrowth Ventures is a company where we work with folks who ask us and retain us to build for them their very own completely remote, completely accountable, and completely well-trained 100% commission sales teams for them. And they do this because they basically want to step away from founder selling, They want to focus on the fun vision they had for their company. They want to increase their multipliers, and maybe they want to drop the fixed cost of draws and salaries. So they hire us to do all of that for them. It helps them scale their monthly recurring revenue. And I think the best way I can describe it is we are like an outsourced VP of growth to scale them 10x in a way that's safe, smart, and efficient. And we do that by hiring your own 1099 team of contractors and then coaching those folks to earn 6 6 figures by the end of the year.
Erica, it's great to have you on the show, and I love what your company is all about. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?
There's a couple of things, especially with your background in stress. Our performance coaches, if I look at them as a whole team, they've got about 94,000 hours of mastery-level coaching experience. So when they are working with our clients' sales teams, they are working holistically. It's almost like having Michael Jordan's performance coach, so to speak. So they're making sure they're not stressed out, they're making sure there's no burnout, all the while helping them meet their KPIs as salespeople. So they're very much about, alright, how do we do this and not create more stress, but not break the client system? So I think there's that aspect. And then for the clients, I love the fact that we're helping them put together an exit strategy, because I don't think people realize If the company is dependent upon you as a CEO or as a founder, you are never going to be able to sell that company. You make a great CEO, but you are not going to make a great employee. And ain't nobody going to buy your company if you have to come along with it. So I think those are some of the really good things about what we do.
Oh, and that's so insightful. I mean, a lot of people don't realize that, that it's, you know, you're not going to make a good employee because you've been used to running your own business. My goodness.
Right, right. Talk about stress for that person.
Oh my goodness. And for the people around them, probably. My goodness. Anyway, question number 3. I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
I think companies should probably read a chapter on creating a stress-free environment. For their employees or their contractors. I think if you were to have a chapter in there for people in general, I think they should read up on things that would have to do with health and how do they monitor their own stress levels. Because I'm thinking about you and your background, I think if there were a chapter that covered how do you get into your parasympathetic nervous system and just try to stay stay there as much as possible and alternative modalities, I think that would be fabulous.
Well, thank you, and I appreciate the plug. Question number 4: Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
I think business leaders in general could really take a page out of a copywriter's handbook, meaning I think they need to start addressing their benefits of whatever their product or service is. I think so many companies are starting to focus on features, and sometimes they'll focus on advantages, but the deal is a feature has absolutely no intrinsic value until the prospect assigns it a value. And the only way they do that is they have that lightbulb moment of, oh, here's the benefit to me. So just cut to the chase, create value, get to the benefit. What is going to be in it for the prospect? And just kind of stop wasting your time and theirs. I mean, right now I think we're seeing a very prevalent culture on LinkedIn. It's, it's all over, especially, um, and I'm speaking directly about the continual spamming we're seeing in the DMs. And it's— what that is is a constant demand on a potential prospect without providing any value or benefit whatsoever in the exchange. It is probably one of the most selfish ways to use the DMs. And I think Brennan Manning said this best, and he said, "In every encounter, we either give life or we drain it.
There is no neutral exchange." And you know, it's interesting that you say that. It's an energy exchange is what I hear you saying. It's either you're a taker or you're a giver. And you know, that whole spam DMing on LinkedIn, I got one yesterday where it was the first one that I saw that LinkedIn actually caught it as a spam because I saw it and then it— and like I blinked and then it disappeared and it went into a spam folder. So obviously LinkedIn has realized that there's a problem with that too.
That's what that was. That happened to me. It was like somebody sent something and I thought, I have no idea what this is, but let me check out what this joker has. I clicked on it and it was like suddenly not available.
Yep, yep.
I had no idea what that was.
There's a spam folder now, and I'm glad for that. And I just disconnected from that person because it wasn't anything relevant to me, not personalized, nothing. So, you know, heed the warning, everybody listening. If you start spamming people, you are gonna lose connections. Absolutely.
Oh, you could lose— I don't think they realize they could completely lose everything they've worked for on LinkedIn and lose their profile. I had one Yesterday, it was the connection request. The connection request was spam. Yeah.
They didn't give any slack. It was boom right there. Oh my gosh. Oh well. They got to learn. They got to learn. It's a negative branding on them. It's very insightful that you share that. Erika, thank you. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
Um, when I think of business leaders, I, I like to make the delineation between a business leader and then like a servant leader. And so I think those who would be really great servant leaders, who would be stellar on a podcast. I think our CEO and our COO of MetaGrowth Ventures, that would be Josh Hirsch or Joe Arioto. I would also recommend David Fischette of GoWest Creative. I would recommend Rocco Cilio of Rapid Funnel. I'm just gonna read these 'cause I've got 'em written down. Sean Marzullo of Acceleron, Rodney Fure of Dcube, and finally Eyal Cohen of ZenTap. He is like this boy wonder C-suite executive. I think all of those gentlemen would be great to have on your show.
Wonderful. Thank you for all those referrals. I will reach out to them. I really appreciate that. And our final question, question number 6, please tell me about your first job.
You know, there's always babysitting, but I think if I had to go back to my first real job where I actually had to pay the IRS. Out of my $3.50 per hour. That would have to be when I was 15 and I was working at Six Flags Over Texas in the ridiculous heat of Texas on asphalt, 40 hours a week. 40 hours a week. That would probably be my very first one. And then a little bit later, right out of high school, because I, I was following a classically trained musician's path at that time. I think within my first year out of high school, I was asked to come back and teach my former peer group at that high school and junior highs private clarinet lessons. And so that was a really fun gig, you know, as an 18-year-old to be teaching private clarinet clarinet lessons to people that I had literally just gone to school with the year before, and then the theater junior highs that were going into those high schools.
And I assume you weren't teaching them the classical music in the heat on the asphalt, right? It was indoor?
That was marching band. Every summer on the asphalt, practice ball field with the painted lines.
Yes, I'm starting to sweat just listening to this. Yeah, for having you on the show. How could people find you?
Well, they can find me on my LinkedIn profile, but also I just launched a website, and so I'm going through the different iterations as I recreate and add to. And but that's ericawarfield.com.
Great. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. For more insights and ideas, please go to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or iTunes and search for for the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
