21/04/2026
The episode just went live.
Lead Hero founder Francis Rodino sat down with Paul Avins on The Grown Up Business Podcast and, by his own admission, it’s one of the strongest conversations he’s had on air.
Paul brings 21 years of experience coaching founders. He’s built and sold businesses and runs one of the UK’s sharpest scaleup communities. He doesn’t ask surface-level questions. He pushes deeper and pulls out answers most people don’t articulate.
The conversation focused on the challenges founders often deal with but rarely say out loud:
→ Why £1m to £5m businesses keep hitting the same cash flow wall
→ Why most “lead problems” are actually follow-up problems buried in a messy CRM
→ Why 60% of the market doesn’t even realise they have the problem you solve and how that changes your marketing entirely
They also broke down:
→ The RED Method (Roadmap, Engine, Drive) and the nine accelerators behind it
→ The five stages of buyer awareness and why most founders target the wrong one
→ How one client scaled from £15m to £25m by becoming a sales-first business
→ Why speed to lead has become the real competitive advantage and how AI is changing the rules
At one point, Paul remarked that Francis had just laid out a million-pound formula in four steps.
That’s the kind of host he is. He sharpens the thinking and makes the message land clearer.
And if this conversation resonates, the next step is obvious.
Francis will be speaking next week at the Scale Up Summit, Paul’s flagship event, alongside some of the UK’s most experienced operators. For founders serious about breaking through their current ceiling, that’s the room to be in.
