I write about sales, leadership & productivity to help you become a top sales performer. RSM at Lonestar Forklift | AIB MBA

I’m Chris Crane, and my mission is simple:

Transforming industrial sales reps & teams into formidable professionals.

Over my 15-year sales career, I’ve closed over $100 million in industrial equipment deals, trained more than 150 reps, and led industrial sales teams across Canada and the U.S.

I built the Scaling Success System™ to give industrial sales teams what no one else offers: a sales operating system specifically engineered for industrial sales.

This system has taught over 150+ industrial sales reps & teams to operate as formidable professionals, and it can do the same for your team.

DM "sales" to learn more.

Chris Crane

Most companies hire one kind of rep, and expect them to do both jobs.

They want someone who can hunt.
They want someone who can farm.
They end up with someone who does neither well.

Hunters drive top-of-funnel.
They chase the deal until they get it. 
They don’t stop until the calendar’s full.

Farmers grow existing accounts.
They build solid long-term relationships.
They don’t stop until the client renews again.

Here’s what I’ve learned coaching both:

→ Farmers win with value.
→ Hunters win with volume.
→ Hunters need structure and a clean target list.
→ Farmers need trust  and a relationship to protect.
→ Both lose when you try to make them play the other’s game.

Learning to do both well is an elite level game. 

I have done both, and I can teach someone how to do both, but most companies cannot, and they wonder why they are missing their quotas.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://lnkd.in/dHH93M4u

Experience alone doesn’t scale. A system does. Turn industrial sales prospects into buyers with ARC5™

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Most sales reps consume motivation. Top sales reps study communication.

Everyone wants better closing lines.

Very few reps study the psychology behind why people say yes.

And the gap between those two groups is where commissions are made.

Here are 7 talks every serious salesperson should study.

→ Rejection tolerance — “What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection” by Jia Jiang

→ Listening discipline — “Want to Help Someone? Shut Up and Listen” by Ernesto Sirolli

→ Persuasion mechanics — “The Four Letter Code to Selling Anything” by Derek Thompson

→ Body language intelligence — “The Power of Nonverbal Communication” by Joe Navarro

→ Conversation control — “How to Have a Good Conversation” by Celeste Headlee

→ Managing resistance — “How to Deal with Difficult People” by Jay Johnson

→ Direct persuasion — “How 5 Simple Words Can Get You What You Want” by Janine Driver

Notice the pattern.

None of them teach scripts.
None of these talks teach product
All of them teach deep human behavior.

Because selling isn’t about explaining your product. It’s about understanding the person sitting across from you.

And the reps who study people always outperform those who study only products.

83% of sales reps run discovery calls with no structure.

They wing it.
They ask surface-level questions.
They pitch before the buyer even admits there’s a problem.

The call feels productive.
The buyer sounds interested.
And then the deal dies quietly two weeks later.

Here’s the 7-step discovery structure most reps skip:

→ Prepare
→ Start Calm
→ Build Rapport
→ Confirm the Agenda
→ Ask & Clarify Pain Points
→ Present Your Crafted Solution
→ Schedule the Next Follow-Up Call

Miss one, and control slips.
Rush one, and urgency disappears.
Ignore the order, and the buyer leads.

The result?

→ Buyers open up faster.
→ Pain becomes specific, measurable, and urgent.
→ Your proposal becomes the logical next step, not a hopeful pitch.

The takeaway:

→ The rep who controls discovery controls the deal.
→ Discovery is not a conversation, it’s a controlled sequence.
→ Structure creates urgency, and urgency creates movement.

Most reps try to close at the end. Elite reps start closing in the first 10 minutes.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://lnkd.in/dHH93M4u

Sales teams don’t fail because of skill.

They fail because they don’t care.
They fail because they’re not engaged.
They fail because they’re disconnected.

Motivation isn’t always about money.

It’s about meaning, mindset & execution.

Here’s what I know:
→ Trust must flow both ways.
→ Goals create clarity & direction.
→ Knowing the “why” drives performance.

Consider this:
→ Start with a 30, 60, 90 plan.
→ Align the team with this objective.
→ Explain the “why” to create full buy in.

Watch what happens with your team in 90 days with full focus on this effort.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://scalingsuccess.co/

71% of sales teams miss quota, and it's not because of effort.

They track revenue.
They track activity volume.
They ignore the indicators that actually drive outcomes.

The dashboard looks full.
The pipeline “feels” healthy.
And the quarter still comes up short.

Here are the KPIs every serious sales leader must track:
→ Key Sales Activity
→ Sales Cycle Length
→ Sales Pipeline Value
→ Average Order Value
→ Product Performance
→ Lead to Opportunity Conversion
→ Opportunity to Sales Conversion

Miss one, and blind spots grow.
Track them inconsistently, and patterns stay hidden.
Obsess over lagging metrics only, and you’ll always react instead of lead.

The result?

→ Forecasting becomes predictable.
→ Coaching becomes precise and data-driven.
→ Revenue stops feeling random and starts compounding.

The takeaway:

→ Activity without conversion tracking is noise.
→ Revenue without pipeline math is guesswork.
→ The leader who tracks the right numbers controls the outcome.

What you measure dictates what your team becomes.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://lnkd.in/dHH93M4u

I almost didn’t call back.

Something felt off.

The buyer sounded polite but distant on the first call.

Most reps would have written the deal off and moved on to the next name in the CRM.

But something didn’t add up.

The problem he described was too operational to ignore.

And when problems are operational, the cost is usually hidden somewhere deeper.

So I called him again.

→ Align: “I understand you’re busy and this might not be top priority right now.”

→ Redirect: “When the system breaks down like you mentioned last week, what usually happens to production that day?”

→ Clarify: “If the line stops for even an hour, what does that actually cost your operation?”

→ Reframe: “So if that downtime keeps happening every week, that’s hundreds of thousands a year lost, correct?”

→ Close: “If we can eliminate that loss, it makes sense to move forward, doesn’t it?”

The result?

→ The problem was bigger than he first admitted.
→ The cost of doing nothing was far worse than the investment required.
→ The deal that almost died on call one closed two weeks later.

The takeaway:

→ Deals rarely die because of rejection.
→ Most deals die because reps accept the first layer of the conversation.
→ The reps who win are the ones willing to dig one level deeper than everyone else.

Most lost deals aren’t lost. They’re just undiscovered.

Most salespeople will never close a seven-figure deal.

They think they can.
They act like they can.
But when the opportunity comes, they choke.

I've seen it firsthand.

I've watched seasoned reps stall.
I've watched managers fumble negotiations.
I've watched buyers walk away, never saying a word.

Here’s what I know:
→ Patience is a strategy. Use it.
→ Big deals don’t die in meetings. They die in silence.
→ If you can’t handle long sales cycles, you won’t survive.

Consider this:
1. Control the frame: If they lead, you’ve already lost.
2. Don't push, pull: Let the buyer convince themselves.
3. Slow down: The bigger the contract, the slower the close.

Big deals are a slow process. Learn to slow down, learn to ask great questions, and the deals will start to come.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://scalingsuccess.co/

Objections don’t kill deals, insecurity does. 

You get pushback.
You lose your composure. 
You spiral into defense mode.

Most reps crumble.

They talk too much.
They try to win the argument.
They forget their job is to lead. 

Here’s what I know:
→ Objections aren’t rejections.
→ They’re tests of your confidence.
→ The buyer is watching how you react.

Consider this:
→ Ask for clarification, find the real fear.
→ Your tone matters more than your answer.
→ Reframe the concern to their original pain.

Master the objection if you want to master the sale. 

Don’t fear them, embrace them.


If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://scalingsuccess.co/

Deals don’t die at the close. They die at discovery.

I learned this the hard way.
Early in my career, I ran a perfect demo.
Clear value, strong interest, confident delivery.

Then the buyer stalled.

“No decision right now.”
And I had nothing to anchor them to.

The problem wasn’t price.
The problem wasn’t timing.
The problem was I didn't equate cost with inaction.

So I rebuilt how I run discovery using CICSR.
→ Context → I force myself to fully understand their current process before touching a problem.
→ Issue → I isolate where the process breaks and make them admit it out loud.
→ Cost → I quantify the damage until the number hurts to say.
→ Solution → I let them describe the future state before I ever show mine.
→ Resistance → I surface hesitation early while I still control the room.

The result?
→ Deals stop stalling.
→ Objections show up earlier and weaker.
→ Buyers convince themselves before I ever ask for the close.

The takeaway:
→ Bad discovery creates fake momentum.
→ Fake momentum collapses at the close.
→ Real discovery makes closing procedural, not emotional.

If you want better closes, stop trying to sound impressive and start forcing clarity.

P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://scalingsuccess.co/

The deal didn’t die because of price. It died because I skipped one question.

He was engaged.
He liked the numbers.
He nodded the whole meeting.

I thought it was done.
I moved straight to proposal.
I assumed alignment without confirming it.

Two weeks later he said, “We’re going in a different direction.”

Here’s what I missed.

→ I didn’t go deep enough into Context. I understood the surface process, not the internal politics.
→ I uncovered the Issue, but I didn’t press into real Cost with numbers tied to executive pressure.
→ I pitched Solution before asking the Resistance question that would’ve exposed the hidden decision-maker.

So I went back and did it again, the right way.

The result?

→ I quantified cost with his numbers, not mine.
→ I went back and rebuilt discovery from scratch.
→ I uncovered that his CFO had final sign-off and hadn’t seen the math.

The takeaway:

→ If cost isn’t quantified, urgency isn’t real.
→ Surface-level agreement is not commitment.
→ The rep who skips steps pays for it in lost commission.

Discovery isn’t about sounding smart. It’s about controlling the sequence.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉

Helping Founders Break the $10M Ceiling | Strategy, Cash Flow & Leadership Systems | Scaling CFO

I spent 25 years inside the machine.

GE Capital. GE Vernova. NBCUniversal. Unilever. Structured finance, capital markets, project finance across Latin America. I was the CFO who sat across from banks, governments, and Fortune 500 boards and made the numbers make sense. I closed an $800 million power plant deal. I managed capital market teams and hundred-million-dollar sales budgets. I built financial models that moved real money in real markets.

I was good at it. For a long time, that was enough.

Then it wasn't.

I stayed almost eight years past the moment I knew I was done. Eight years of golden handcuffs, institutional momentum, and not having a single person in my corner who could help me think through what leaving actually looked like -- financially, strategically, personally.

When I finally left, I made mistakes. I jumped into a startup that looked great on paper and had no financial foundation underneath it. I learned the hard way that passion without financial intelligence is just expensive optimism. Then I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars learning the things corporate never taught me -- how to sell, how to communicate with conviction, how to walk into a room and make people feel what I knew to be true about their business.

That education nearly broke me. And it turned me into something rare: a former Fortune 500 CFO who can read your financials like a surgeon reads an MRI and sit across from you like a partner who actually gives a damn.

That's what I do now.

I work with a small number of founders and executives -- people who've already built something substantial and want a strategic partner with real financial depth. Not a coach. Not a consultant recycling frameworks. Not a bookkeeper calling themselves a fractional CFO. Someone who's been in the rooms, closed the deals, read the balance sheets, and came out the other side with a clear point of view about what actually matters.

If you're a founder past $1M who can feel that the way you got here won't get you to the next level, I can show you exactly where the growth is hiding and where the model breaks.

If you're an executive who knows you're meant for something bigger than the title on your business card, I've been where you are. I made the leap. I can help you think through yours.

I don't work with everyone. I'm selective about who I take on because the work only works when both sides are all in.

One conversation is all it takes to know if we're the right fit.

Cruz Gamboa

Most founders don’t go bankrupt overnight.

They bleed slowly.
From numbers they refused to look at.

Revenue looks good.
Growth feels exciting.
Ego feels validated.

But:

➡️ Cash flow is tight
➡️ Margins are thin
➡️ One client controls everything
➡️ Burn rate is “we’ll figure it out”

That’s how businesses die.

Not from lack of ambition.
From lack of financial discipline.

Here’s the cheat sheet I wish every founder read earlier.

Ignore red flags early → pay the price later.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities,
check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.

If this helped, save it.

Former GE Capital Executive | I help founders and executives see what their financials aren’t telling them.

Your P&L Is Hiding the Real Problem.

Most founders check 3 things:

Revenue.
Profit.
Growth rate.

Then they relax.

That’s the mistake.

Because your P&L is a scoreboard.

Not a diagnosis.

And scoreboards don’t tell you why you’re winning,
or why you’re about to lose.

Here’s what it’s not showing you 👇

If revenue is growing but cash is tight…

You don’t have a profit problem.
You have a cash flow problem.

If sales are strong but margins are shrinking…

You don’t have a demand problem.
You have a pricing or delivery problem.

If profit exists but stress keeps increasing…

You don’t have a money problem.
You have an operational problem.

Most businesses don’t collapse overnight.

They erode slowly:

➡️ Slightly rising CAC
➡️ Slightly lower margins
➡️ Slightly higher payroll
➡️ Slightly longer collections

Small leaks.

Compounded monthly.

And because the P&L still “looks fine,”
no one panics.

Until they should have.

Here’s what real operators track:

✓ Gross margin trends
✓ Cash runway (in months) 
✓ Revenue per employee
✓ CAC payback period
✓ Churn rate

Those numbers tell you where the fire is starting.

Revenue is vanity.
Profit is sanity.
Cash flow is survival.

Read your P&L.

But interrogate it harder.

Because the businesses that scale aren’t the ones with the best revenue.

They’re the ones who catch problems before they show up on the bottom line.

Your financial reports are perfect.

Clean P&L.
Accurate balance sheet.
Cash flow that ties out.

Yet decisions still feel slow, reactive, or unclear.

That’s because reports don’t create leverage.
Interpretation does.

Most founders read numbers like history.
High-performing operators read them like instructions.

Every metric should force a decision:
→ double down
→ fix fast
→ kill it

If nothing changes after reviewing your numbers,
you didn’t review them, you admired them.

This cheat sheet breaks down:

➡️ The questions that actually matter
➡️ The metrics that lie
➡️ And how to spot 1% changes that unlock outsized results

Save this before your next finance review.

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cruzgamboadrive

patagonia-solar-llc

Most people would’ve quit.
They didn’t.

➡️ 2003.

Waco, Texas.
No hype.
No capital.
No backup plan.

Chip and Joanna Gaines quit stable jobs to flip houses.

They slept on air mattresses.
Made $300 in some months.
Maxed credit cards.
Half-finished renovations.
Joanna pregnant.
Chip doing the labor himself.

Friends kept asking the same question losers ask winners early:
“When are you getting a real job?”

Here’s the part most people misunderstand.

They weren’t building houses.
They were building taste.
A repeatable look.
A clear point of view.
Something people could recognize without a logo.

While others chased bigger markets,
they stayed small.
Cheap.
Ignored.

That was the advantage.

A local producer didn’t care about their revenue.
He cared about their authenticity.

How they treated clients.
How they worked together.
How real it felt.

➡️ 2013.

HGTV launched Fixer Upper.

By season two:

5M viewers per episode.
#1 show on the network.

Then they did what confused everyone.

At the peak…
They walked away.

Because TV was attention.
Not leverage.

So they built Magnolia.
A shop.
A restaurant.
A platform.

They stayed in Waco.
Lower costs.
Total control.
The town became the moat.

Today:
1.2M+ visitors every year.
$750M+ valuation.

Lesson:

Don’t chase scale.
Earn trust first.
Don’t compete where everyone goes.
Dominate where no one is looking.

That’s how you turn $300 months
into a generational business.

#scalingup #growth #ceo #founder

Founder Stories

Uber didn’t scale by starting cheap.
It scaled by starting premium.

Black cars.
Polished drivers.
A reference point that said: 
this is what great looks like.

That first price wasn’t about revenue.
It was about positioning.

Once the market believed Uber = quality,
they introduced UberX.

Lower cost.
Same app.
Same brand trust.

Now scaling was easy, because value was already proven.

This is the Scaling Up lesson most founders miss:

➡️ Use a premium offer to validate demand
➡️ Anchor perception at the top
➡️ Expand down the price ladder without breaking trust

Luxury sets the ceiling.
Access fills the volume.

Start cheap and you fight on price forever.

Start premium and you control how, and when, you scale.
#scalingup #growth #ceo #founder

Some people launch snacks.
Some create global empires from leftovers.

Arch West did the second.

➡️ 1960s. Disneyland.

Casa de Fritos. Tons of stale tortillas. Wasted daily.
A small vendor saw opportunity.
“Cut them into triangles. Fry them. Add some seasoning.”

No PR. No hype. No flashy launch.

Just execution.
Just obsession.
Just seeing value where others saw trash.

1966 → Plain Doritos, national launch.
1972 → Nacho Cheese.
From leftover tortillas → multibillion-dollar snack empire.

Scaling lesson:

Opportunities are everywhere. Most ignore them.
Those who see the leverage, execute relentlessly, and scale turn accidents into legends.

Some people chase attention.
Some quietly turn scraps into billions.

#scalingup #ceo #founder #businesslessons

Doritos

The most successful people I know believe in themselves… almost to the point of delusion.

Look at Sam Altman:

→ Ran Y Combinator → scaled Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox
→ Learned one truth: distribution + technology = unfair advantage
→ Built OpenAI → ChatGPT hit 100M users faster than any product in history

Here’s what most entrepreneurs miss:

You don’t scale by working harder.
You scale by stacking leverage.
Capital, talent, technology, timing.

All amplified when you believe early and commit fully.

Sam didn’t just launch a product.
He built the platform the future rides on.
Multi-billion-dollar partnerships. Global adoption. AGI-level ambition.

Scaling up is seeing the future before everyone else does and forcing reality to catch up.

The formula is simple:

1️⃣ Recognize leverage early
2️⃣ Commit fully, almost to the point of delusion
3️⃣ Stack capital, talent, and distribution
4️⃣ Let results justify belief later

Stop waiting for perfect conditions.
Stack your leverage.
Scale now.

#scalingup #growth #ceo #founder

Some people build loud brands.
Some build legendary ones in silence.

Michele Ferrero did the second.

➡️ 1924. Alba, Italy.

A small pastry shop. Almost bankrupt.
A father gone too soon.
A 24-year-old forced to take responsibility.

No press.
No hype.
No spotlight.

Just obsession.

He worked like an alchemist.
Formulas locked away.
Factories run with discipline.
Focus so sharp it scared distractions away.

1964 → Nutella
1968 → Kinder Chocolate
1974 → Kinder Surprise

Not just chocolate.
An experience.

A chocolatier quietly became one of the world’s largest toy creators.

But the real genius wasn’t just the products.
It was the culture.

➡️ No interviews
➡️ No politics
➡️ No yachts
➡️ No show-off wealth

Instead:

✓ Free buses for employees
✓ Above-average wages
✓ Summer camps for kids
✓ Generations of families hired together

He built belonging before it became a leadership buzzword.

Michele understood something many still miss:

Loyalty isn’t bought with bonuses.
It’s earned through care.

Iconic products don’t come from marketing noise.

They come from:

➡️ Absolute focus
➡️ Strategic silence
➡️ Obsession with the user experience

➡️ 2015. Monte Carlo.

He passed away at 89.
He left behind €23 billion.
And brands the world grew up with.

Proof that you don’t need to chase attention
to build something unforgettable.

Sometimes, the quiet builders win the longest.
#scalingup #ceo #founder

Growing companies don’t stall because of the market.

They stall because the CEO doesn’t scale.

Here are the real 3 mistakes:

1.⁠ ⁠The Founder Stays the Hero

You’re still:

➡️ Approving everything
➡️ Solving every problem
➡️ Closing every big deal
➡️ Fixing every fire

You built the business by being the best operator.

But scaling requires becoming the best architect.

If you’re still the hero, you’re the bottleneck.

2.⁠ ⁠No One Owns the Outcomes

Titles don’t equal accountability.

If revenue drops, who owns it?
If churn spikes, who owns it?
If margins shrink, who owns it?

If the answer isn’t ONE name, you don’t have ownership.

You have collaboration theater.

3.⁠ ⁠They Confuse Activity with Leverage

More hires.
More meetings.
More tools.
More initiatives.

But no single constraint identified.

Scaling is constraint removal.

Find the bottleneck.
Attack it.
Repeat.

That’s it.

Growth doesn’t require more effort.

It requires:

➡️ Better structure
➡️ Clear ownership
➡️ Founder evolution

Most businesses don’t hit a ceiling.

The founder does.
#scaling #CEO #growth #founders

Most “profitable” companies are one bad month away from dying.

Here’s why.

Profit is an opinion.
Cash is oxygen.

You can look profitable on paper and still miss payroll.
I’ve seen businesses doing 7 figures collapse because one client paid late.

Revenue doesn’t matter if:

• It’s delayed
• It’s unpredictable
• It’s already spent in your head

Growth makes this worse.

You hire early.
Lock in fixed costs.
Sign long-term tools.
Upgrade lifestyle.

Now your burn is permanent…
…but your income isn’t.

That’s the trap.

Another hard truth:
If the founder steps away and sales stop, you don’t have a business.
You have a high-stress job with employees.

Margins won’t save you.
Busy won’t save you.
Brand won’t save you.

Only cash flow will.

Simple rules that keep companies alive:

• Collect faster than you spend
• Keep fixed costs boring
• Build 3–6 months of runway
• Systems before scaling
• Liquidity before vanity growth

The strongest businesses aren’t the loudest.

They’re the ones that can survive a bad month without panicking.

That’s real leverage.

Most founders try to grow profit by chasing more revenue.

That’s backwards.

Profit doesn’t come from “more.”
It comes from better.

Here are the 5 levers that increase profit faster than revenue:

1. Pricing

If you’re scared to raise prices, you’re undercharging.
A 5% price increase beats a 30% increase in leads. Every time.

2. Costs

This isn’t about cutting coffee.
It’s about killing anything that doesn’t move revenue or retention.

3. Capacity

Your team isn’t maxed out.
Your systems are broken.
Fix utilization before hiring another person.

4. Customer Mix

Some customers cost you money.
Fire them.
Double down on the ones that pay, stay, and refer.

5. Operating Leverage

Build it once. Sell it many times.
Processes, automation, and repeatability are profit multipliers.

Here’s the truth:

Revenue feeds the ego.
Profit buys freedom.

Stop asking, “How do we grow faster?”
Start asking, “Which lever moves profit today?”

Founders who get this don’t need motivation.
They need systems.

Save this.
You’ll need it when growth starts hurting.

#scalingup #growth #ceo #founder

Your business is bleeding cash.
And you probably can’t tell me exactly where.

I know because I ask founders this one question all the time:

“What’s the ONE constraint holding back your growth right now?”

Most can’t answer it.

They give me three answers.
They say “hiring.”
Or “marketing.”
Or “we just need more leads.”

That’s not clarity.
That’s guessing with confidence.

The scary part isn’t that a constraint exists.
Every business has one.

The scary part is running a company for years without knowing what it is.

Last month, a $3M founder told me his margins were “pretty healthy.”

So I asked him to break it down by service line.

Long pause.

He couldn’t.

Turns out ~40% of his revenue was barely breaking even.
He’d been feeding his best people to his worst clients for two years.

He’s not dumb.
He’s sharp.
He’s just never been forced to look at the numbers that actually matter.

So I built something.

12 questions.
3 minutes.

It won’t fix your business.
But it will show you exactly where the money is walking out the door while you’re busy chasing the next deal.

Pricing gaps.
Forecasting blind spots.
Team financial literacy.
Working capital readiness.

The difference between a $3M business that stays stuck
and one that cleanly moves to $5M and beyond.

Fair warning:
Most founders score lower than they expect.

That’s the point.

Take it free here: scalingcfo.io/assessments
No email wall.
No credit card.
No funnel gymnastics.

Just 12 questions and a mirror.

You might not love what you see.
But you’ll stop guessing.

#ceo #founder #growth #scalingup

Stop treating video like content.

That’s why it’s not making you money.

I was in Austin and went to Aleric Heck’s “Video Authority” book launch at Self Publishing.com.

I expected marketing fluff.
I got a mental reset.

Aleric built Ad Outreach into an 8-figure company from a college dorm.

No VC babysitters.
No Silicon Valley permission.
Just execution.

Here’s the mistake I see founders make with video:

They post to be seen.
Not to be useful.

Views become the goal.
Virality becomes the metric.
Sales become the mystery.

Aleric’s framework is the opposite:

If someone doesn’t buy from you, they should still feel stupid NOT to follow you.

Give so much value that:

➡️ They trust you
➡️ They respect you
➡️ They assume you’re expensive

Counterintuitive part?

The more you give away, the more you make.

Because trust compounds faster than attention.

This is leverage.

You record once.
It sells for you while you sleep.
While you work.
While you scale.

But only if you do it right.

Here is one of the pearls I took away from his talk...

One test Aleric shared wrecked most “AI content strategies”:

In the lecture, he talked about a split-test they ran at his firm:

✓ Full AI videos
✓ Talking head
✓ AI hook + real human

The winner? Hybrid. By a landslide.

Full AI lost.

Why?

AI gets attention.
Humans get trust.
Trust gets money.

Tools multiply.
They don’t replace.

Your face.
Your voice.
Your thinking.

That’s the asset.

If you’re a coach, consultant, or expert business doing $1M–$10M and video isn’t part of your growth system…

You’re choosing slow growth.

Not because video is magic.
Because leverage is.

Read Video Authority.
It’s not theory.
It’s a playbook.

Congrats on the launch, Aleric Heck.🔥🤝

If you want the exact framework behind this, not opinions, not theory,
Aleric put the full system in Video Authority.

👉 https://lnkd.in/eN7v7eqi

#sclaing #founder #ceo #growth

What’s one AI tool you wish existed, But still doesn’t?

Share your thoughts!

I will share more in about a week.

Best

Cruz

#scalingup #growth #ceo

graphical user interface, text, application

Power of One Cash Flow Hack!

“1% changes that multiply profits”

Most businesses chase “big moves.”
The real winners? They obsess over tiny tweaks that stack.

➡️ Increase Revenue

✓ +1% Price → Big EBIT jump
✓ +1% Volume → More cash in the bank
✓ Upsell/Cross-sell → Little effort, huge gain

➡️ Cut Costs

✓ -1% COGS → Direct profit hit
✓ Trim overhead → Kill inefficiency
✓ Better processes → Faster & cheaper

➡️ Optimize Capital

✓ Collect faster → Cash now
✓ Reduce inventory → Liquidity unlocked
✓ Extend payables → Stronger cash position

➡️ Track & Multiply

✓ Measure every 1% → See compounding magic
✓ 1% here, 1% there → exponential growth

Truth: 

Small tweaks everywhere > chasing “big moves.”

👉 If you want to see where your biggest 1% opportunities are, check out scalingcfo.io

Take the free assessments and find out exactly where to focus first.

The trillion-dollar scoreboard isn’t just impressive.

It’s a warning. ⚠️

AI is no longer a feature.
It’s infrastructure.

Distribution beats product.
Platforms compress margins.
Specialisation scales faster than breadth.

And the giants NVIDIA, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Apple aren’t just companies anymore.

They’re rails.

If you’re a $1M–$10M founder, here’s the real play:

➡️ Build on top of giants, don’t compete with them.
➡️ Own your audience, don’t rent it.
➡️ Go narrow, dominate a micro-niche.
➡️ Push recurring revenue.
➡️ Move faster than anyone with a board meeting.

The economy is consolidating at the top.

But execution speed is still decentralised.

That’s your edge.

If you're building between $1–$10M and want to scale intelligently, not just aggressively

Come to the workshop → https://lnkd.in/efBiFQRg

I keep having the same conversation.

Founder calls me. Revenue is up -- sometimes way up. 

But they're taking home less than when the business was half the size. 

They hired the consultants. They wrote the plan. They pushed harder on sales. And somehow the business keeps snapping back to the same number like a rubber band.

After sitting across from enough of these founders, I started seeing the pattern. It comes down to three things nobody wants to talk about -- and none of them have anything to do with selling more.

I broke it all down in this week's newsletter.
#scalingup #founders #growth #CEO

I talk to a lot of founders. Like, a LOT. And something keeps coming up that I can't ignore anymore. Almost every conversation -- doesn't matter what 

Open article: The 3 things nobody tells you about getting stuck by Cruz Gamboa • 5 min read

The 3 things nobody tells you about getting stuck

Most founders don’t have a growth problem.
They have a focus problem.

Their dashboards are full.
Their results are not.

Tracking more KPIs doesn’t make you smarter.

It just gives you more ways to avoid the hard decision.

Here’s how serious founders think about metrics:

If a number doesn’t change what you do this week,
it doesn’t belong on your dashboard.

That’s why the only startup metrics that actually matter answer 4 questions:

1. Is demand growing?
2. Are customers staying?
3. Are they paying more over time?
4. Are we running out of cash before we figure it out?

Everything else is noise.

The best operators I’ve seen track 5–7 metrics max.
They review them weekly.
And they tie each metric to a clear action.

Everyone tracks KPIs.
Very few track the right ones.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities,
check out scalingcfo.io.

Free assessment.

If this helped, save it.

The Hidden Cost of Optimism in Your Financials

Optimism doesn’t build businesses.

Cash flow does.

Here’s how optimism quietly kills companies:

1. Optimism delays action
“I’ll hire a CFO at $10M.”
No.
You’re stuck at $3M because you didn’t.

2. Optimism ignores the downside
You planned for the average outcome.
Business gave you the worst one.
That’s not bad luck. That’s bad planning.

3. Optimism spends future money
You’re spending like next quarter’s revenue is guaranteed.
It isn’t.
Hope doesn’t clear payroll.

4. Optimism hides leaks
2% margin loss feels small.
Until it happens across 4 lines.
Now you’re bleeding 8% and wondering why growth feels hard.

5. Optimism skips the buffer
No cash reserve isn’t confidence.
It’s arrogance.
Survivors don’t guess right, they prepare longer.

6. Optimism assumes peak performance
Your model requires you to crush it every quarter.
You won’t.
Systems beat motivation. Every time.

7. Optimism creates fragile plans
If losing one client breaks your business,
you don’t have a model.
You have a wish.

8. Optimism avoids hard calls
Cutting bad products.
Renegotiating vendors.
Walking away from “almost profitable” deals.
These feel bad.
They work.

9. Optimism makes scaling harder
The best founders plan pessimistically
and execute aggressively.
Everyone else just “stays positive” until reality shows up.

Here’s the truth:
Real confidence isn’t thinking things will work out.
It’s knowing your numbers so well
you can survive when they don’t.

99% of founders do this backwards.

They try to scale a business
that no one has proven they want.

Then they try to sell a business
that only works because they exist.

Here’s the real order:

1. Start
Don’t build the product.
Sell it first.

If no one pays, it’s not a business.
It’s a fantasy.

2. Scale
Do less. Better.
One offer. One audience. One channel.

Systemize everything.
If it needs you to survive, it’s not scalable.

3. Sell
Buyers don’t pay for hype.
They pay for predictable cash flow.

Clean books.
Recurring revenue.
Low founder dependency.

Start with proof.
Scale with systems.
Exit with leverage.

That’s how you build something that prints money, not something that prints stress.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities,
check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.

If this helped, save it.

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The Battle

Chris Crane

Cruz Gamboa

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The Battle

Chris Crane

Cruz Gamboa

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Chris Crane's LinkedIn Performance

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