Matthew Lattanzio says his consulting website has produced zero inbound meetings, so most of his business still comes from LinkedIn content and referrals.
Lattanzio, a restaurant tech specialist who led revenue at 7shifts, limits himself to four or five clients at a time and says fractional work is lonely.
Lattanzio uses Claude, connected to his client call recordings, to turn proposals and scopes of work that once took hours into minutes.
A fractional CRO fills his calendar without his website
Matthew Lattanzio's fractional CRO practice runs entirely on reputation. His website has booked zero meetings, yet referrals and LinkedIn content keep him full, built on deep restaurant tech expertise and experience leading both sales and marketing. Capping his client load and handing admin to AI keep the model sustainable for a solo operator.
Takeaways
Referrals and LinkedIn win clients, not his website. His website has never booked a meeting. Clients come from LinkedIn posts about family life and work-life balance and from referrals by other fractionals and past clients. He runs no paid ads, and almost every new client asks to speak with a past client.
Vertical depth speeds clients to product-market fit. He was head of revenue at 7shifts, which grew revenue from 4m to 20m, and earlier VP of marketing at a Toronto burger franchise with over 50 locations. He has built demand generation for eight restaurant tech companies and now adds AI and contractor technology clients.
Put sales and marketing on one number. Having served as both CMO and CRO, he calls bridging the two functions his superpower. He sees most tension between the teams as unhealthy and aligns both to a single revenue target, whether the motion runs on free trials or booked demos.
Cap clients to stay available on demand. He takes four or five clients at a time in roughly ten-hour weekly blocks and keeps Fridays off. He rejects the one-client-per-day schedule many competitors use because clients need him reachable. Even so, five deeply embedded roles meant heavy context switching.
Claude turns hours of admin into minutes. Claude, connected to his Fathom call recordings, holds a project file per client with positioning documents and scopes. It drafts proposals, service agreements, follow-up presentations and prospect lists in minutes instead of hours, though he doubts this sets him apart from others.
Fractional work pays more but feels lonely. He earns more than he did as a full-time operator, and CEOs treat him as a peer. He can fire bad-fit clients, having signed some by mistake. The trade is five bosses and no one to share good or bad days with.
Where fractional leadership goes next
He predicts fractional work will keep spreading as companies choose experienced leaders over developing their own.
Many CROs at his stage have done two or three full-time stints and are burnt out. He has no wish to return to full-time early-stage startup roles.
He is weighing early-stage embedded CRO roles and work with organisations of around 10,000 employees, sometimes replacing a director.
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On this episode 2
Show 1
After almost two months off with his two young children, he aims to end the year with better mental health and more efficient client management. He recommends a sabbatical to anyone.