The Podcast with Real Business Owners
Why This Podcast Exists
Most business podcasts don’t reflect reality.
They focus on highlights. They skip the decisions. They polish the story after the outcome is already known.
That’s not how real businesses are built.
This podcast is here to have honest, operator-to-operator conversations with business owners who are actually in the arena. The ones making decisions in real time. The ones dealing with growth, pressure, trade-offs, and consequences that don’t fit into a highlight reel.
These conversations aren’t scripted. They aren’t promotional. And they aren’t designed to sell anything.
The goal is simple: capture how real business owners think, decide, and operate while the business is still being built.
What they’re doing that’s working right now. What they tried that didn’t. What they’d do differently if they had to make the same decisions again.
We work closely with founders and operators across a wide range of businesses, and I see the same pattern over and over: the most valuable lessons never make it into public content. They live in private conversations, internal debates, and hard calls that don’t look impressive on social media.
This podcast brings those conversations into the open.
Guest Criteria
This podcast is designed for active business owners who are currently "in the trenches" building their business.
Guests should currently own and operate a business that is generating a minimum of $35,000 per month in revenue.
You should be actively working towards scaling and growth; whether that means growing revenue, building a team, improving systems, or stepping out of day-to-day execution.
Most importantly, guests must be open to real conversation — including transparency around what’s working, what isn’t, team structure, decision-making, metrics, and the challenges that come with building something meaningful.
About the Host
Derek works directly inside client acquisition and sales operations for service-based businesses, partnering with founders to take full ownership of their sales management and revenue systems. His work spans paid advertising, inbound and outbound lead generation, lead qualification, and sales execution—giving him real-time visibility into what is actually converting in today’s market.
As the founder of Rapid Sales, Derek operates as an extension of the leadership team, stepping in where sales performance, structure, and accountability break down. His perspective is shaped by being in the trenches with multiple teams simultaneously, not by theory or surface-level metrics.
On the podcast, Derek approaches every conversation as a peer. Guests can expect direct questions, thoughtful challenges, and a conversation grounded in reality—focused on decisions, trade-offs, and the work required to build and scale a real business.