by Yacine Hacene
Are you a B2B founder or leader navigating the complex journey from $1M to $10M ARR? Welcome to The A.I. Growth Blueprint, the podcast dedicated to unlocking predictable, scalable growth for your business. In each episode, we dive deep into how high-end AI systems are revolutionizing core business functions. Subscribe now and start building your AI-powered growth engine!
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Publishing Since
8/25/2025
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May 27, 2026
<p>In this episode of The AI Growth Blueprint, I sit down with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-dixon-35a324b/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Mike Dixon</a>, President and COO at <a href="https://www.hoopshr.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Hoops</a>, an HR tech and consulting firm on a singular mission: build winning teams for their clients.</p><p>We go deep on what's actually broken in the recruiting process, how Hoops uses agentic AI to eliminate guesswork from the hiring funnel, and why the first 90 days post-hire are more important than the entire interview process combined.</p><p><strong>We cover:</strong></p><ul><li>The 3 client profiles Hoops serves and the membership model that makes enterprise-grade recruiting accessible to SMBs</li><li>How Hoops uses AI to benchmark compensation, score job market difficulty, and screen candidates before they ever hit a hiring manager's calendar</li><li>Why concentrated turnover in the first 90 days is a five-alarm fire (and what it's actually telling you)</li><li>The AI arms race between employers and candidates and how Hoops navigates it without disqualifying people based on AI-generated resumes</li><li>The radiologist case study: why the roles we thought AI would kill are actually expanding</li><li>Workflow replacement vs. role replacement: the Hormozi framework applied to HR</li><li>The baby bells analogy: what legacy copper wire telephone companies teach us about the pace of disruption</li><li>Mike's 6-year vision for Hoops and the one problem he'd solve with a magic wand</li></ul><p>If you're a founder, operator, or HR leader trying to figure out how AI fits into your people strategy without making expensive mistakes, this one's for you.</p>
May 13, 2026
<p>In this episode of <strong>AI Growth Blueprint</strong>, Yacine Hacene sits down with <a href="linkedin.com/in/owen-healey-26a7a9121/?skipRedirect=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer"><strong>Owen Healey</strong></a>, co-founder of <a href="https://www.firststopclosers.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer"><strong>First Stop Closers</strong></a>, to unpack a new model for scaling high-ticket offers without the heavy upfront retainers that often come with traditional sales agencies.</p><p>Owen shares how First Stop Closers partners with founders on a commission-only basis, helping them refine their offer, build sales systems, create scripts and frameworks, close deals, and eventually hire and train their long-term sales team. </p><p>The conversation explores why trust, alignment, and genuine belief in the offer are essential in high-ticket sales, especially as more founders look for lower-risk ways to grow.</p><p>Yacine and Owen also dive into the practical role of AI in sales, from AI-powered DM setting and faster speed-to-lead to automated reporting and workflow optimization. Rather than treating AI as a replacement for human sales expertise, they explain why the smartest operators use it to remove friction from the sales process while keeping humans focused on relationship-building, strategy, and closing.</p><p>If you are a founder, sales professional, or operator trying to understand where sales, AI, and agency models are heading, this episode offers a grounded look at what is changing, what is being commoditized, and where real expertise still creates an edge.</p>
May 8, 2026
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattdentino/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Matt Dentino</a> is Director of Velocity Coaching at <a href="https://braintrustgrowth.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">BrainTrust</a>, a firm that has spent 15 years training sales teams and leaders in the art and science of world-class communication. Matt brings 35 years in industrial automation and a deeply personal origin story rooted in family, service, and intentionality.</p><p>In this episode, we get into why the real problem in sales and leadership is not a skills gap but a communication gap. Matt breaks down the neuroscience behind first impressions (your brain decides in under a tenth of a second), why hitting people with facts and features before building emotional connection triggers the amygdala and shuts the conversation down, and what "connect before you transact" actually looks like in practice.</p><p>We also cover BrainTrust's three-phase engagement model, from their NeuroMessaging voice-of-customer research process to 12 to 24 months of reinforcement coaching, and how they built BTAI, a custom AI role-play tool that gives sales reps a safe space to practice and get scored between sessions.</p><p>We close on the bigger picture: the Gallup stat that only 20% of the workforce is actively engaged, what it takes for founders and leaders to flip that number, and why showing up in resonance at work starts with showing up that way at home.</p>
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Are you a B2B founder or leader navigating the complex journey from $1M to $10M ARR? Welcome to The A.I. Growth Blueprint, the podcast dedicated to unlocking predictable, scalable growth for your business.
In each episode, we dive deep into how high-end AI systems are revolutionizing core business functions.
Subscribe now and start building your AI-powered growth engine!
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