A PODCAST FROM UNRESTRICTED HUMANS
SMB Growth Plays
Skip the polished success story. Learn from other business owners what’s actually worth trying.
SMB Growth Plays is a small business growth podcast about real strategies owners have implemented in their own businesses.
Hosted by Mary and Layne | Click the cover to listen
New episodes soon!
GOT A STRATEGY WORTH SHARING?
We want to hear it. Whether you learned it in a boardroom or built it yourself
Every episode ends with the same open question: what’s a strategy you’d want to hear about from someone else? Mary and Layne will share their experiences too. And they want to build a place where business owners learn from each other.
The invitation goes out to two kinds of owners: the ones who took an idea from a corporate career and made it work at a fraction of the size, and the ones who never set foot in that world, and built an effective play from scratch. Neither resume is a requirement here; it’s the strategy that matters.
Got a strategy that worked (or one that didn’t?) Want to be a guest? Tell us about it.
THE PREMISE
Big company thinking, without the big company weight
Big companies have access to remarkable ideas for getting teams unstuck, energized and delivering better results. But those ideas usually arrive wrapped in language built for organizations with tens of thousands of people, and an entire department dedicated to rolling them out.
Most business owners don’t have that world. And they don’t need it. What they have, and what large companies often lose, is the ability to move fast, without five layers of approval standing between a good idea and doing something about it.
The strategies that turn around the world’s largest companies are often easier to run in a small or medium sized business. Not harder.
WHY MARY AND LAYNE BUILT THIS
Two people, asking the same question from opposite directions
Mary spent more than a decade coaching teams inside large enterprises, watching how strategy either becomes day-to-day work, or quietly falls apart. Layne has spent her career on the other side of that divide, working with people who built something from nothing and have zero interest in boardroom theory.
Together they got curious about the same question.
What’s the useful idea underneath these enterprise practices? What happens when you strip away the organizational weight and adapt it for a business your size?
The show isn’t limited to strategies with a corporate pedigree. Plenty of business owners never worked inside a large company and have built plays that are just as effective, and sometimes more so. This show is for both.
INSIDE AN EPISODE
One strategy. What happened when a real business tried it.
Each episode centers on one specific strategy a business tried. Sometimes one the hosts have run themselves, and sometimes one drawn from a guest’s experience.
What was happening
The situation before the strategy started, and what felt stuck.
What they were solving
The real problem the business was actually trying to fix.
What happened when they tried it
The strategy in action — including the parts that didn’t go as planned.
What changed afterward
What actually shifted, and what they’d do differently next time.
No polished success stories where everything goes according to plan. The useful version is the honest one.
WHO THIS SHOW IS FOR
This isn’t a show about acting like a big company
It’s about noticing that some of the best ideas live at the intersection of the two worlds: the depth that comes from working inside a large organization, and the speed and practicality that comes from running a smaller one. Both worlds show up on this show. As hosts. As guests. As listeners.
You’re running a small or midsize business
Teams of five to two hundred, still figuring out what systems fit at your size.
You spent years in the corporate world before starting your own
You know the ideas are good — you’re just done with the layers around them.
You built something from nothing and never wanted the Fortune 500 way
You want what works, without the boardroom theory attached to it.
You never worked a corporate job — but you’ve run plays that flat-out worked
Nobody handed you a playbook. You built one anyway, by doing it. That counts just as much here.
Take what fits your business. Leave what doesn’t. Make it yours.
This small business growth podcast is for owners who want useful ideas without the corporate machinery attached.
MEET YOUR HOSTS
Different backgrounds. Same question.
HUDSON VALLEY & TRI-STATE NY
Mary
25 + years in corporate business and technology leadership. Mary finds the door nobody else knew was there, and spent her career figuring out why some teams thrive while others stall.
Outside the show: long walks on the Hudson Valley rail trails, violin, and a household full of family and pets.
GREATER HOUSTON & MONTANA
Layne
A cross-industry strategist with a gift for cutting through noise. Layne has a knack for finding the two or three things that matter, and naming patterns everyone sees but no one says out loud.
Outside the show: usually outdoors with her husband, daughter and dog. Podcast enthusiast, avid reader, and self-described “wannabe gardener.”
NEW EPISODES SOON