What separates companies that win from those that merely survive? Carson Poppenger traces Squeeze's 15-year climb from a basement folding table to a 400-person performance-based contact center — and shares the mindset shifts that made the difference.
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Key takeaways
- Playing to win generates offsetting upside gains; playing it safe leaves a business exposed only to downside risk.
- Strict adherence to an Ideal Client Profile (ICP) drove Squeeze's biggest wins in 2024 — every deviation from it underperformed.
- Squeeze's performance-based, no long-term-contract model aligns its incentives directly with client success, driving retention and continuous improvement.
- Incremental, compounding improvements — in technology, training, and environment — produce inflection-point results over time.
- Structured agent training (role-play, teach-backs, video libraries) creates consistent consumer experiences across hundreds of agents.
- Honest post-mortems on lost clients reveal what was controllable versus external, enabling targeted process improvements.
- Phone-based outreach remains essential for high-ticket consumer-direct verticals like mortgage, insurance, and home services.
Playing to Win vs. Playing Not to Lose
The episode opens with a sharp observation drawn from the Lions–Packers Thursday Night Football game: Dan Campbell’s decision to go for it on fourth down with the game all but sealed. The hosts connect that moment to a broader business truth — playing to win generates the upside gains that offset inevitable downside risks, while playing it safe leaves a company exposed to only the negatives. Carson Poppenger contrasts that with Ohio State’s conservative play-calling against Michigan, where superior talent went underutilized because the team was protecting a lead rather than pressing its advantage.
Squeeze’s 2024 Year in Review
The team runs an honest year-end recap. Two significant clients churned — one after an internal security breach forced them to cut all third-party vendors — but multiple big wins more than offset those losses, making 2024 a record year including a record November. Key technology investments completed this year:
- Automated agent commission processing across all commission structures
- In-platform chat features for agent-to-client interaction
- AI inbound agent built in-house
The team also applied a disciplined Ideal Client Profile (ICP) — deliberately walking away from business outside their core competency — and credits that focus as a major driver of their wins.
Origin Story: From Basement to 400 Employees
Carson founded Squeeze in March 2009 with a folding table in his basement, later moving to a $300/month basement office in Orem, Utah. Early operations relied on a call center in Cape Town, South Africa — an arrangement that proved difficult to diagnose and improve from a distance. In late 2011 he opened his own center in American Fork, furnishing it with free cubicles salvaged from a storage unit. The original concept was “Trash to Treasure”: take unconverted lead databases and extract additional revenue on a pure performance basis. Their first client, a tax company out of Jacksonville, Florida, stayed for seven years. Within the first year and a half, Squeeze helped drive $15 million in additional sales for that client using roughly eight to ten agents.
Why the Phone Still Wins in Consumer-Direct Sales
For high-ticket services — mortgages, home remodeling, life insurance — a phone conversation is almost always required before a consumer commits. Squeeze focuses exclusively on that moment: getting the right consumer on the phone and transferring them to a specialist who can close. This allows consumer-direct lenders and insurers to run loan officers closing 50–100 loans a month versus the industry average of three or four for relationship-based originators.
Training: “Squeeze the Gap”
Justin Jump overhauled Squeeze’s agent training around a four-step framework: explain, demonstrate, practice, evaluate. Key improvements include hands-on role-play with structured feedback sessions (strengths, then opportunities), teach-backs to verify comprehension, and a branded video training library called Squeeze the Gap that ensures every agent receives the same complete information — eliminating the knowledge gaps common in verbal-only onboarding. The consistency of that training is what allows 400 agents across multiple sites to deliver a uniform client experience.
Incremental Growth and the Ice-Cube Principle
The hosts invoke a simple analogy: an ice cube sitting at 31°F shows no visible change — but one more degree triggers the melt. Squeeze’s 15-year trajectory reflects that same compounding logic. Investments in office environment (open floor plans, murals, natural light), smart procurement of used furniture, and a culture where rehires are common all represent one-degree improvements that, stacked over time, produce outsized results.
If you're playing it safe, your only risk is downside. If you're playing to win, you're going to have those gains that will offset whatever bad things might happen.
— Carson Poppenger
Our business is aligned with your business — and because it's aligned with your business, we're going to do whatever it takes to get better.
— Carson Poppenger
If you have different processes for the same thing, you really have no process at all.
— Carson Poppenger
Don't stop. Keep chasing after it, keep making the changes, and eventually one day you're going to get there.
— Justin Jump
Episode chapters
- 00:11 — Intro & Lions–Packers Fourth-Down Moment
- 02:14 — Playing to Win vs. Playing It Safe
- 04:43 — Squeeze's 2024 Year-End Recap: Wins, Losses & Tech Investments
- 08:16 — Focusing on ICP and Core Competency
- 09:57 — Squeeze Origin Story: Basement Startup to 400 Employees
- 13:24 — Why the Phone Dominates Consumer-Direct Sales
- 19:03 — Building the Call Center: Scrappy Beginnings & Office Culture
- 27:18 — Incremental Growth and the Ice-Cube Analogy
- 33:32 — 'Squeeze the Gap': Overhauling Agent Training
- 43:18 — Final Thoughts and 2025 Goals
Frequently asked questions
What is Squeeze's business model?
Squeeze operates on a pure performance basis — clients pay only for the opportunities and results Squeeze generates, not for activity or retainers. There are no long-term contracts; Squeeze earns the business week to week.
What industries does Squeeze serve?
Squeeze focuses primarily on consumer-direct verticals where a phone conversation is necessary to close a sale, including mortgage, home services, and life insurance.
When was Squeeze founded and how did it start?
Squeeze was founded in March 2009 by Carson Poppenger, beginning operations from his basement with a few team members before moving to a small office in Orem, Utah. The original model was remarketing unconverted lead databases on a performance basis.
What is 'Squeeze the Gap' training?
'Squeeze the Gap' is Squeeze's internal branded training program featuring role-play scenarios, structured feedback sessions, teach-backs, and a video library — designed to close performance gaps and ensure every agent delivers a consistent consumer experience.
Why do consumer-direct companies outsource outbound calling instead of building their own call centers?
Starting a call center requires significant capital, time, and expertise in staffing, call cadence, scripting, and spam-tag mitigation technology. Outsourcing to a specialist like Squeeze lets high-value agents — mortgage officers, insurance producers — stay productive on closes rather than prospecting.
What does 'playing to win' mean in a business context?
Playing to win means actively pursuing upside opportunities even when they carry risk, trusting your capabilities, and making bold decisions — as opposed to playing conservatively to avoid losses, which leaves potential gains unrealized and still exposes the business to downside.