Blunt On Business

Being the best salesperson in your company feels like an advantage until every major deal, pricing decision, forecast, and customer relationship depends on you. 🥴For CEOs leading $5M to $50M tech and professional services companies, founder-led selling eventually becomes the single biggest constraint on revenue growth, leadership capacity, and enterprise value. Research and industry experience co...

We need to go hard at your business' growth, revenue, and scalability if you are to ever see your vision manifest!!!

Most AI pilots do not fail because the technology is bad.📉They fail because the business case is vague, the data is messy, and nobody owns the path from pilot to revenue. Recent enterprise data shows that more than 90 percent of AI pilots never reach production or measurable ROI because companies treat AI as a tool experiment instead of an operational growth strategy. In this episode of Blunt On...

Most CEOs believe the path from $5M to $50M in revenue is simply doing more of what already works. The reality is that nearly every revenue system, process, metric, and leadership discipline that got you to $5M starts breaking as complexity increases.🌋In this episode of Blunt On Business, Rich Laster 🧙🏽‍♂️breaks down what actually changes inside Revenue Operations as companies scale from founde...

Most CEOs of $5M to $50M companies think SalesOps is CRM administration, reporting, or fixing Salesforce problems. In reality, SalesOps is the operating system that creates💰predictable revenue, scalable execution, and forecast confidence as a company grows. In this episode of Blunt On Business,🧙🏽‍♂️ Rich Laster explains what SalesOps actually does inside scaling tech and professional services c...

Most $5M to $50M tech and professional services companies think founder-led sales is a strength. In reality, it quietly creates operational bottlenecks, weak forecasting, stalled scalability, and investor concern around revenue durability. In this episode of Blunt On Business, Rich Laster breaks down why CEOs become trapped inside the sales process, how founder dependency damages growth-stage exec...

If you're running a $5M–$50M tech or professional services company and still can't tell whether your AI investment is actually moving revenue, this episode is your wake-up call.1. 🔥 The ROI Reality Check CEOs Can't Afford to Ignore: Research from BCG and PwC confirms 65% of CEOs rank AI as a top-3 priority in 2026 yet over 56% report zero measurable revenue gains or cost reduction fro...

Most CEOs do not realize they are the bottleneck until growth starts slowing down. At $5M to $50M in revenue, the systems that helped build the company often become the exact things preventing it from scaling. Founders stay trapped in approvals, deal rescue calls, pricing decisions, hiring loops, customer escalations, and internal firefighting. Revenue grows, but complexity grows faster. In this e...

Most CEOs track dozens of metrics.🥱Very few use those metrics to actually run the business. In this episode, Rich Laster breaks down the🏗️ CEO Weekly Metrics Framework, the five metrics that determine whether your company is building scalable revenue or just reacting to noise. These are not vanity metrics nor board-only KPIs. These are operational questions that should be reviewed every single we...

Most Seed and Series A CEOs think they have a pipeline problem.⛓️‍💥They don’t. They have a client experience problem that is quietly eroding lifetime value, increasing churn, and making growth feel harder every quarter.📉In this episode, Rich Laster 🧙🏽‍♂️breaks down why early traction stalls, and why more leads will not fix it. The issue is structural. Most companies are still operating with a...

Most high value B2B deals are not lost in the sales conversation. They are lost in the buyer’s internal meeting after the call ends.☠️In this episode, Rich Laster breaks down the Skeptic Conversion Model, a practical framework developed over nearly three decades of selling and advising on complex deals. The model explains how skeptical buying committees actually process risk, and why traditional s...

📢The podcast goes live every Wednesday at 1pm PT & 4pm ET on YouTube, with the replay distributed on Spotify and major podcast platforms. To evaluate whether your inbound motion is earning the right leads or leaking focus, visit http://RichLaster.com

Mission driven companies fail because they lack a system for earning the right demand.🎯 In this episode, Rich Laster breaks down the📈 E.A.R.N. Model, a practical framework for converting mission aligned interest into qualified pipeline, closed revenue, and long-term enterprise value. Designed for Seed and Series A CEOs, this model shows how to respect your values without sacrificing conversion d...

Most🧑🏻‍💼 companies do not have a messaging problem… In this episode, Rich Laster introduces the🧙🏻‍♂️ Messaging Matrix, a practical framework CEO clients use to align how your company speaks to your customers, investors, and talent without collapsing everything into bland, generic language. Instead of rewriting😠 messaging for every audience, the Messaging Matrix creates a shared structure tha...

Most CEOs believe their impact story should convert on its own. It does not.🙅🏽‍♂️ In this episode, Rich Laster breaks down why impact narratives often fail to translate into 📈pipeline, even when the mission is real and the intent is strong. Drawing from Ivy League research and hands on experience advising B Corps and growth stage companies, Rich introduces the Impact Narrative Operating Model,...

In today’s crowded market, “better” is not a value proposition. It is background noise.📢In this episode, Rich Laster explains why objectively superior products still stall in sales cycles, lose pricing power, and struggle to convince investors. After 27 years in B2B sales and revenue leadership, Rich has seen the same failure pattern repeat across Seed and Series A companies. Founders lead with f...

⚠️Purpose does not scale on its own! In this episode, Rich Laster breaks down a hard truth many purpose led CEOs are confronting right now. A compelling mission is no longer enough to protect runway, defend valuation, or earn investor confidence. Without a clear model and measurable execution, purpose becomes narrative, not strategy. Drawing on 27 years of revenue leadership and research from Harv...

If your company is growing but feels harder 🏋🏾to run every quarter, you may not have a scaling problem. You may have a design problem. In this episode, Rich Laster 🔍breaks down the difference between a business that runs and a business that scales. Drawing on Harvard, Wharton, and B Lab research, plus 27 years repairing revenue engines that looked successful on paper, Rich explains how growth ca...

Most founders are taught that product market fit is the goal. Hit it, scale it, and everything else follows. That advice is incomplete, and for growth stage CEOs, it is increasingly ⚠️dangerous. In this episode, Rich Laster breaks down the critical difference between product market fit and purpose market fit; and why product market fit only explains why customers buy once, not 📈why investors stay...

If your messaging is clear to you but unclear to the market, you are paying a hidden tax in every sales, fundraising, and partnership conversation. This episode breaks down the exact discipline behind the “So What?” Test, and shows founders how to create messages that instantly signal relevance and value. Strategy defines stakes, and messaging is how those stakes reach the market. If your message...

Most high growth companies do not miss📉 their annual plan because the market changed. They miss because the plan was never grounded in how revenue works. By Q2, the assumptions break, the reforecasting begins, and the CEO becomes the shock absorber for a system that cannot learn fast enough. In this episode, based on the article How High Growth CEOs Trade Performative Annual Planning for Scalable...

Most B Corps do not fail because their mission is weak. They fail because their mission is not engineered into their strategy and revenue architecture. As soon as growth pressure hits, values drift, product shifts, sales cuts corners, and investors push for compromises that erode trust. This episode shows impact CEOs how to prevent that. In this session, based on my article, How B Corps Scale With...

Choosing between a fractional CRO and a full time CRO is one of the most expensive strategic decisions a Seed or Series A CEO will ever make. In this episode of Blunt on Business, Fractional CRO Rich Laster breaks down the real framework behind that choice and exposes why so many early revenue leaders fail. You will learn: • Why the CRO role has expanded into a cross functional architect of revenu...

🧠 Your CRM should not be a filing cabinet for deal notes. It should be the operating system that runs your business. In this episode of Blunt on Business, Fractional CRO and revenue architect Rich Laster explains how high performing CEOs transform the CRM from passive software into a strategic engine for scalable growth. You will learn:• Why CRM failure is a leadership breakdown, not a tech issue...

CEO / Founder, your hustle got you here, but it won’t get you to scale. In this episode of Blunt on Business, Fractional CRO and growth strategist Rich Laster breaks down the shift every Seed and Series A founder must make: from chasing deals to building a true Revenue Engine that scales beyond your personal effort. You’ll learn:• Why “deal chasing” is the biggest ceiling on growth• The four-pilla...