Build and Scale your 1st Sales Team with me 🪄 | Build your Own Fractional Business with the Fractional School 📕 | Follow me on Instagram @matteopapaluca

Most founders don't struggle with sales because they're bad at it.

They struggle because no one ever taught them how to build it properly.

I've seen this pattern for years - first inside fast-growing companies, and now alongside founders building from zero.

I started my career in B2B sales at Ryanair, LinkedIn, and Cloudbeds, between Italy and Ireland, where I spent 15+ years selling, hiring, and leading sales teams.

I've hired 100+ salespeople, owned revenue numbers up to €10M, and lived the reality of scaling before it becomes "predictable".

Then I stepped into the founder world.

In January 2023, I launched Inscaler with a simple idea:
💡 help founders turn sales from chaos into a system.

Since then, I've worked with 150+ startups, supporting founders as they move from:

→ founder-led sales
→ to their first real sales team
→ to repeatable, predictable revenue

What I learned  is this:

Founders don't need more advice. ⛔
They don't need lead gen agencies ⛔
They don't need wannabe consultants but real operators ⛔

We focus on enabling founders exit the founder-led sales and build their first sales team right.

No hype. 
No "growth hacks".
Just fundamentals, appropriately applied.

⸻

Why Inscaler is different 👨🏻‍💻

I don't believe in copying what works for Series C companies and forcing it on early-stage startups.

I believe:

✅ Sales is simple — when the foundations are right
✅ Growing people matters more than chasing revenue
✅ If the process is proper, the numbers follow

(And yes, I do all this with a Calabrian accent.)

⸻

What's changing now ♻️

After helping 150+ startups hands-on and 600K in revenue, Inscaler is evolving.

We're transitioning into a productized sales offering - built for founders who want:

👍🏻 Clear sales foundations
👍🏻 Proven frameworks
👍🏻 Hands-on guidance without agency dependency

If you're a founder navigating your first sales hires, your first pipeline, or the moment where sales can't depend only on you anymore - this is precisely what Inscaler was built for.

I share practical sales lessons, frameworks, and real founder stories every week.

DM me to start a conversation or more on inscaler.com

Matteo Papaluca ⚡️

Today I'm launching something new.

Inscaler 𝗩𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀.

And honestly, this wasn't planned.

Since day one of Inscaler, I've helped 𝟭𝟱𝟬+ 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺.

I've always charged for services.

And I've never asked for equity.

Why?

Because diluting a cap table for sales execution never felt fair to me. (except for a few expectations).

Then something happened.

I kept getting the same question at home.

My brother, 𝗔𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗼.

He's a doctor.

Far from the startup bubble.

Every time I told him about a founder I was working with, he'd ask:

"𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘐 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦?"
"𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦?"
"𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘦?"

At first, I brushed it off as you would do with your old brother, you know.

Then I stopped and thought.

Who actually sees early-stage startups up close?

Not the pitch deck version.

The real one.

I do.

I sit with founders while they build revenue from zero.

I see how they sell.

How do they hire.

how they build their products.

If a company works, I know it early.

If it doesn't, I know that too.

That's when it clicked.

If I'm already putting my time, brain, and energy into these businesses…

Why wouldn't I put my own money behind the ones that prove it on the field?

So here we are.

Inscaler Ventures backs early-stage Italian founders.

Family-owned.

Small tickets for now.

More capital is coming.

We're officially open for pitches and applications.

If you're curious, all the details are on the 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 → 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀 → 𝗩𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀.

And if you're a founder building something real,

You know where to find me.

Matteo Papaluca

Founder at Inscaler.com | Your First Sales Team Done Right | Helped 150+ startups

Inscaler Discovery Call Full Framework (Matteo at the whiteboard) 📋🖊️



#sales #coaching #whiteboard

Nothing beats a well-designed and clear sales cycle

My 1st YouTube video is out - not the best I know, but we're getting there 😅

👉🏻 https://lnkd.in/dfDMFgXh

I've seen founders lose their startup because of a bad hire.
Because of their *first* sales hire.

It happens more than you think.

You're a founder.
Limited sales background.

You know you need to build your first sales team. 
So what do you do?

You hire the senior salesperson.

Big CV.

From a competitor.

Investors like it too.
They feel safer when you're not the only one selling. 🙈

Let's call her Maria.
You pay her a lot.
More than anyone else.
3x your founder salary.

Maria joins.

You give her the title: Head of Sales. CRO, whatever.

A few months go by.

Maria is slow.

She doesn't really get it.

After the first quarter:

❌ No deals closed
❌ No outbound pipeline (she has no time…)
❌ Blame it on your product
❌ Didn't hire or built anything meaningful

She doesn't fit.

You are back in sales, involved in all deals + on Maria's deals.

After two quarters, it's almost over.

No trust.

On either side.

She thought it would be easier.

You thought the same.

You ask around.

You bring me.

I assess Maria and find critical miss on her leadership skills. 
She never managed reps or built a process from the ground up.

She never been in a startup, either, only in safe corporations where everything is ready.

Shortly after, she leaves.
As expected.

The damage is done.

You lost 6 months and thousands of run rate.

Maria lost 6-9 months of her career.
She was successful before, but now she feels useless.

You start again from zero.

I see this story all the time in early-stage startups.

It's not your fault.
It's not Maria's fault.
It's about timing, system, and fit.

Wrong moment.
No structure.
Wrong role.

If you want to avoid this mistake, I put together 

the 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺.

✔️ questions to ask before hiring
✔️ A-players scorecards
✔️ 3 interview templates, including questions
✔️ Gsheet to track all your candidates without spending money on ATS

____

You can get it by signing up for my new YouTube channel.

𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 "𝗬𝗼𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗯𝗲" 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗗𝗠 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸 to sign up (we must be connected).

It has 0 subscribers right now - just getting started with our weekly videos starting next week 📹

Inscaler Demo Full Framework (Matteo at the whiteboard) 📋🖊️


#sales #coaching #matteopapaluca #demo

One of the most promising industries I see in Italy right now -->
Marketing agencies 🦸🦸‍♀️

For the first two years of Inscaler, 90% of my clients were tech startups.

And most still are.

Then an agency founder showed up.

Smart. Forward-thinking. 

He thought he needed a more "tech-style" way of building his first sales team.

So I stepped in as their Fractional VP of Sales.

At the beginning, it was messy.

No qualification frameworks. No real discovery. 

Sales happened via referrals and face-to-face.

And honestly? The classic tech playbook didn't land.

So I stopped forcing it.

I adapted.

Instead of pushing BANT or any other qualification framework ⤵
I asked the team to slow down and 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆.

Before briefings. Before proposals.

We started with simple questions:

- 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴?
- 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘷𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴? 
(most projects are based on tenders or RFPs)

Nothing fancy.

Then came the most difficult shift.

Marketing agencies are used to sending out proposals with poor qualifications. 

This leads to:

❌ low conversions - very low.
❌ productivity issues where they *think* they are busy.

So I asked them to stop sending out proposals and ask:

"𝘋𝘰 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝟧𝟢% 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴?"

Not 50? Okay.

40? 30 at least?

If the answer is no, don't send the proposal.

That one change alone saved time, energy, and morale. 💪

I love agencies ❤

The most significant upside often sits in industries that were left behind from a sales perspective.

Tech startups and scaleups know the playbook. 
Or at least they *think* they know 👀

Agencies were left behind. 

They used old sales tactics and a poor process. 

But now they are back on track.

That's why I'm excited to keep working with agency founders and their sales teams.

There's so much room to grow.





----

If you are an agency owner or a founder, I have a few spots open from February 2026

DM me for a free sales assessment or if you are not ready -> keep following Matteo Papaluca and Inscaler for more tips on how to build and scale your first sales team.

Inscaler's solo business crossed 600K in total revenue.

Here are 3 mistakes I wish I hadn't made 👇🏻

𝟭. 𝗗𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱

I love admin.

GSheets. CRM updates. Invoicing.

Most people hate it. I enjoy it.

What don't I enjoy?

Strategic work. Questioning what works. Preparing for what's coming next.

For a long time, I hid behind tasks I liked.

Now I block admin time and force myself to focus on 1 or 2 strategic goals per period.

𝟮. 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗽𝘂𝘁

Since day one, Inscaler had one offer. I never changed the structure.

3 Packages based on live hours with me.

I never sold "hours".
But my SKU was hours.

That's changed now.

After helping 150+ startups build their first sales teams, I finally have the data and the information to commit to clear outputs.

I couldn't do it before.

It took time. Longer than expected.

𝟯. 𝗔𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 "𝗼𝗻"

If I had nothing to do, I worked anyway.

Even during holidays.

A few days ago, my wife Federica walked into my office and said it clearly:

"𝘐𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘶𝘱𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘴. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘶𝘴."

She was right.

I worked on Christmas Day and when I was sick in bed.

I'm writing this at 6 am.
__

2026 will be a big year for Inscaler.
New offering. New structure.

I'm scared and excited at the same time.

The format works. That's clear.

Now it's time to step up.

Consulting and LinkedIn are full of noise.

My goal is simple.

Be the opposite of that noise.

We'll see.

Holistic Go-To-Market & AI for B2B / 12 domains / €2M up to €1B+ / 14 int. known experts.

As a Chief Revenue Officer, I operated 25+ B2B AI, SaaS and traditional companies in more than 20 industries, I can help you: 

- to build an AI-native modern revenue system. 

- to take your revenue system and team to the next level by taking full ownership as a CRO (full-time) or fractional CRO (every day, half a day)

- by supporting you and the team as a Revenue Architect and/or GTM advisor.

Stephane Maes

8 months in, I decided to shut down The GTM Syndicate and I'm looking for 1 (full-time) or two companies (my fractional, every day, half a day concept) to take their revenue system to the next level, using all my experience.

Can sugarcoat it LinkedIn style, but the truth is I didn't succeed in generating enough revenue and traction with the concept the past 8 months to make it a viable company - or to make a living out of it.

After ADCR Capital, I was convinced bringing together 20 known domain experts, spanning a narrative of the 21 domains of a modern revenue via "the house" narrative, would be a real game changer.

Most challenges are multi-domain and making the McKinsey focused on auditing revenue systems in total or a domain or subdomain would be refreshing. To be a real long term partner, who has that ability and that really knows you.

Turns out that was a mistake. But as the saying goes, you either earn, or you learn. Had 2 years of a lot of learning. I now decided for myself, it's time for earning again :).

I also had counted on certain dynamics between the experts and brand equity that catalyzed the brand. That ultimately didn't play out as I thought it would. That's also perfectly alright.

Deeply grateful to our 20 domain experts who lend me their face and brand for 8 months in my attempt to make this work.

Now I'm back on the market, looking for projects I can be passionate about as a seasoned operator (20+ B2B companies as executive revenue leader), ideally with an ACV of 50k to 1mio+, which is what my speciality is.

I always operated 1 or 2 companies historically and led the revenue team, taking it to the next level. It's what I always did since I was 22 years old, always via my management company. It's what I do.

Having been able to bring together this top group of people, hopefully is a demo of what I am capable of in terms of vision and building top teams. 

It's a piety customers or the market thought otherwise, but the market dictates and decides - always.

Would love to discuss, if I could add value to your company. Really someone who sits with you behind the whole chess board. Leading the revenue engine and team but also great with boards, investors, finance, funding and M&A - or overall contributing to the long term vision & strategy.

Feel free to reach out.

Looking for 1-2 companies as an AI-native revenue leader & company builder / CRO, Revenue Architect & GTM advisor / Winning By Design Ambassador

Since I shut down the GTM Syndicate a few days ago, what's next?

Back to being an operator & company builder, as a seasoned and AI-native revenue leader and Chief Revenue Officer profile.

Having effectively operated 25+ B2B SaaS, AI and traditional companies in the most various of industries, enables me to offer experience and a broad view, few can offer.

Gave it some thought and I'm open to finding the right company, with a great product and team where I can be very passionate about and have lots of fun.

Either dedicated (full-time) or two companies, according to my time-and-time again validated concept of being there every day, half a day (fractional).

Also very happy to guide revenue leadership teams and revenue team overall, as a GTM advisor, if you're already covered but would love to have me as a co-pilot and sound board.

How people buy has changed the past 2 years. A lot of people are still operating like two years ago, selling the same way, to a changed buyer in a changed world.

I could have a lot of impact on taking that revenue system next level and by building an ai-native revenue engine, adapted to today's buyer and market.

If you're building something cool, from early revenue up to 100m+, I'd be happy to explore if that might be a fit and how I can support you and the team.

Also not your typical "CRO" but a real company builder, proficient in finance, funding, investors, boards & M&A. Someone who really builds out the company with you and is much more than "just a CRO".

Open to VC-backed, PE-owned or bootstrapped.

Don't want to box it or limit it, curious what will come on my path now.

Also never worked 1 day in my life on payroll, so absolutely have that entrepreneurial spirit, by heart. It also has to work via my management company.

I also believe operators like that are very rare, and I truly could have an incredible impact, at the right company.

Feel free to reach out if that sounds like something worth exploring.

We don’t do deals. We build relationships. And in complex sales, that means time, patience, and a lot of asynchronous touch points.

Content, reputation and DMs. Conversations that go quiet and then restart months later. One of those conversations changed our entire direction.

A top CRO at a 100M+ company replied to an outbound message. We did discovery. At the time, I only had one thing to offer: a full revenue system audit. Really in the beginning of the GTM Syndicate and our first campaigns.

She gave me direct feedback. Clear. Sharp. Fair. And instead of defending the offer, we listened. That feedback became the reason I rebuilt everything.

We went from one monolithic audit to an overarching framework where companies can start with one domain, multiple domains, or the full system. Sales. Marketing. CS. RevOps. Partnerships. Subdomains when needed.

That was the real turning point.

Not a brainstorm. Not a roadmap session. One core ICP stakeholder taking the time to explain what would actually help.

Fast forward.

Nine months of iteration later. Continuous voice-of-customer loops. From rough outbound and MVP collateral to a fully orchestrated model with domain experts embedded where it matters.

Recently, their VP Sales left. She now needs to step and be the ad-interim solution herself and look for a permanent solution. 

Already overloaded (I l meanwhile learned how hard she works every day, to put that "overload" in full perspective). Already carrying the system. There only are so many hours a day.

She reached out again and asked a simple question: how would you help me turn Sales into a modern revenue system?

The answer wasn’t a deck.

We proposed:

1. First, a deep audit of the Sales domain

2. Then stepping in as ad interim VP Sales, part-time (every day half a day) up to 4/5th

3. A 6–12 month transformation where we build the system, build the team, then help hire and hand over to a long-term leader

That’s how I’ve always worked. Two companies at a time. Mornings and afternoons. Ownership, not advice.

I also told her, Sales of course never lives in isolation.

Marketing signal quality.
CS handoffs.
RevOps visibility.
Partnership motion.
ICP and ABM.
AI workflows for list building, intent, and account tracking.

When needed, Syndicate experts can plug in:

- Pricing and packaging that added 400M ARR across their 60 clients last year

- RevOps and HubSpot specialists mapping the full bowtie end to end

- Data and AI experts turning noise into usable signal

- Advanced, AI-driven Account-based Marketing

Nothing about this is transactional. It’s a relationship built over time, proven through iteration, and activated when things get real.

When your revenue system is under pressure, do you have partners who’ve already earned the right to step in and carry it with you?

We'd love to earn that right.

We don't do deals, we build relationships.

When was the last time you let someone look at your entire revenue engine?

Not a sales audit.
Not a marketing review.
Not a RevOps clean-up.

An outside-in look at how the whole thing actually behaves.

For most teams, the answer is never. Instead, help comes in fragments.

A sales expert looks at sales.
A marketing specialist fixes demand.
Ops cleans up tooling.
Everyone improves their part.

And still, the outcomes don’t change.

Because no one is looking at what those improvements do together.

2026 has started. And go to market has already changed so much in 2025.

Buyers changed how they buy. Signals moved. Cycles fragmented. AI amplified whatever was already broken or already strong.

In this environment, fragmented help isn’t just inefficient. It’s risky.

Local optimizations now create second-order problems faster than before. Progress in one domain quietly breaks flow somewhere else.

That’s why our starting point is always the same. We look at the system from the outside in. One domain, multiple domains, or the full revenue engine.

Depending on size, scale, and complexity, that ranges from:

1. Me screening the entire revenue system end-to-end

2. A small number of selected domain experts based on your specific challenges and me, screening your revenue system

3. For €50M+ companies, each domain being reviewed by its domain expert, coordinated as one system.

But this doesn’t stop at diagnosis. We’re not a strategy-only partner. And we’re not a collection of advisors handing over a deck.

Through the GTM Syndicate, we embed with your team.

We stay involved. We help you to decide what to implement and when. And we make sure it actually happens! That’s the difference.

Strategy.
Tactics.
Operations.
Execution sequencing.
All owned, not outsourced.

The output isn’t advice.

It’s a clear picture of how your revenue system behaves today. Plus a prioritized action plan based on impact, dependency, and risk.

From there, implementation finally makes sense. And it also sticks. Where you as an executive are the orchestrator. We just help you to make better music.

And for the right company, I’m not just helping with orchestrating from the outside. I’m still open to rolling up my sleeves. 

Being there every day or half a day. As your CRO inside the business. Or as a close advisor to you and your team, 2 to 4h a week. See myself adding a lot of value there in both scenarios.

Hit me up if any of this would seem interesting to you.

When was the last time?

I watched Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off last night. It hit harder than I expected. Not because of skateboarding.

He was world-class early. Lived for competition. Then, years later, got tired of the competition while still living for it.

- That moment when the money dried up.
- When everyone around him said grow up.
- When his wife’s environment questioned why he was still trying.
- When he adjusted his life downward just to keep going.
- Selling the house.
- Tearing down the ramp he made with his dad.

He uses one word that matters here: jaded.

When you make serious money early and it just keeps coming, you don’t learn durability. You learn velocity.

You don’t think long-term. You don’t secure. You assume the tap is permanent. Until it isn’t.

They then had to make choices and adapted their lifestyle, so they could keep on skating and building.

I had my GTM superstar phase early and it lasted for 11 straight years. 

Recognition. Velocity. Being ahead of the curve. Then, a decade later, realizing that winning inside the game was no longer the point.

Competition stops being fuel at some point. It starts being noise. Then he felt free and started to create again instead of being a robot, as he describes it.

He then later went back to competition, because he lives for it. But he had changed because of that journey.

What struck me most wasn’t his success. It was his refusal to quit when the external signals flipped.

No applause. No certainty. Just the thing itself.

Skate.
Build.
Figure it out.
Never stop skating.

That’s not ambition. That’s identity. 

This is the Personal Transformation framework. 

Not the polished before and after. But the quieter shift from proving yourself to staying true to the thing you’re built to do even when it stops making sense to others.

Birdhouse, his skateboard company, wasn’t built at the peak. It was built after the illusion broke.

Most people don’t fail because they’re not good enough. They stop because the environment no longer validates the path.

I'll never stop skating.

The hard question is simpler than we admit. Are you still doing the work because it matters to you or because it used to win you approval?

Everyone is talking about closed feedback loops in GTM.

Marketing.
Sales.
Customer Success.
Partnerships.
RevOps.

But most teams can’t answer a simple question. What exactly is closing the loop?

Here’s the uncomfortable truth. A closed loop is not data flowing. It’s accountability flowing.

Most loops look like this:

- Marketing ships leads.
- Sales works them.
- CS inherits the outcomes.
- RevOps reports after the fact.

Information moves. Ownership doesn’t. So nothing is actually closed. 

A real closed loop exists only when three things happen at the same time. 

1. The signal travels end to end. Not activity, not volume but outcome-based signals that survive handoffs.

Why did this deal convert?
Why did this customer expand?
Why did this churn happen?

2. Someone is responsible for acting on the signal. Not just or only shared visibility or alignment.

A named owner who is expected to change behavior upstream based on downstream reality.

3. The system is allowed to change. Closed loops break when insights are collected but architecture stays frozen.

ICP.
Qualification.
Incentives.
Handoffs.
Capacity allocation.

If none of those can move, the loop is performative. This is why many teams feel data rich and direction poor.

They built reporting loops, not learning loops and definitely not correction loops.

A closed loop is finished only when the system behaves differently next cycle. Otherwise it’s just a dashboard.

Where in your GTM motion do signals travel end to end but ownership stops halfway?

When is it time to replace a (full-time or fractional) CRO or to hire one?

You don’t miss a CRO because revenue slows. You miss one when no one actually owns how revenue works end to end.

Here’s the clean distinction I see in practice.

You miss a CRO when:

- Revenue problems are cross-functional, not local. Marketing, Sales, CS, RevOps are all doing reasonable things and the outcome still degrades.

- Decisions keep getting escalated but never resolved. Trade-offs exist, but no one has the mandate to choose between speed, margin, risk, and focus.

- Forecasts feel fragile. Not wrong, but constantly revised. The system reacts instead of predicts.

- Founders or CEOs are the glue. They are still arbitrating GTM conflicts weekly because no one else truly owns the system.

That’s not a talent gap. That’s an ownership gap.

It’s time to replace a bad CRO when:

- They optimize functions instead of flows. Sales looks “better” while cost of revenue, churn, or delivery strain quietly worsens.

- They confuse activity with control. More dashboards. More initiatives. Less clarity about why outcomes move.

- They act as a super-VP of Sales. Strong opinions on deals, weak ownership of the full revenue architecture.

- They explain misses with narratives, not mechanisms. Market, timing, buyers, execution. Never system design.

- Alignment becomes a meeting, not a structure.
Lots of talk. Same frictions. Same handoffs breaking.

That’s not bad intent. That’s role misfit at the current stage.

The hard truth most teams avoid… You don’t need a CRO when revenue is simple. You don’t survive without one when complexity overtakes intuition.

And replacing a CRO isn’t about performance. It’s about whether the company has outgrown how revenue is being owned.

Question worth asking honestly: who currently owns the behavior of our revenue system when things conflict? And do they know their stuff?

Coincidentally, I’m back on the market looking for an interesting company or 2 companies as a full time or fractional (every day, half a day) Chief Revenue Officer.

If me auditing your revenue system, combined with a priority based action plan sounds like something, also very possible.

And what makes me different than all others? I’ve factually operated 25 B2B SaaS, AI and traditional companies in as much industries. Enabling me to have a unique look at companies - and your company.

And having the ability to understand every department, every part of your revenue system but also finance, funding, investors and m&a.

That’s rare. Much rarer than you’d think.

First or second working day of the year.

The inbox fills up again.
Meetings restart.
Targets get repeated.

And almost automatically, teams drift back to volume.

More outreach.
More calls.
More campaigns.
More motion.

This week I had a conversation with a 40M ARR company. 

Their challenge sounded familiar: “We want to run a more focused motion.
But we keep sliding back into volume.”

Not because they don’t believe in focus. But because once pressure returns, reflex takes over.

December was reflection. January is reflex.

Here’s where it quietly breaks.

- ICP exists on paper, but isn’t enforced in the system.
- ABM is the ambition, but not the default behavior.
- GTM engineering is discussed, but not wired into execution.

So when decisions get fuzzy, the system does what it knows best.
It scales activity.

Volume isn’t the problem. Volume becomes the problem when it replaces choices that were never locked in.

- Which accounts do we not go after?
- Which signals actually qualify intent?
- Which parts of the motion are allowed to scale, and which are not?

If ICP isn’t operational, ABM collapses into targeting theater. If ABM isn’t executable, GTM engineering becomes tooling without leverage. And when none of it is explicit, volume fills the gap.

What decisions will you finally make explicit before the system pulls you back to volume again?

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