Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
Your pitch is accidentally insulting your prospect
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Hey Reader, A founder I work with spent weeks validating his SaaS with Account Executives. The data was damning: AEs lose roughly 53% of their deals because they're prioritizing the wrong opportunities. But when he brought this up in conversations, prospects shut down. Not because they disagreed. Because they couldn't admit it. The problem wasn't the product. It was the pitch. He was, without realizing it, opening every conversation with: "You are bad at your job, and I have a fix." Nobody buys that – no matter how true it is. Here's the shift that changes everything: buyers don't resist solutions, they resist implied incompetence. When your positioning says "stop losing deals," your prospect hears "you've been losing deals." Their ego kicks in before their logic does. The deal dies in the first five minutes. The fix is to reframe around outcome and environment – not personal failing. Instead of:
Same product. Completely different emotional landing. The buyer adopts the solution without having to confess anything. They're not buying a fix to their failure – they're buying a professional upgrade. That's a much easier yes. The Clarity Filter Insight Your prospect will never buy a mirror that shows them losing – sell them the window that shows them winning. [Share on LinkedIn] [Share on X] Go look at your homepage, your cold email, your opening line on a call. Count how many times your messaging implies your buyer has been doing something wrong. If you find more than one – rewrite it today. They already know their problems. What they want to buy is a better version of themselves. Speak soon, P.S. Don't write code for a product nobody wants to buy. I built Traction OS to give you the exact 60-day roadmap, sales scripts, and validation templates you need to hit your first $10k MRR without guessing. From complete scratch or with an existing MVP. |
Clarity Filter
Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
Hey Reader, Alex had a great demo call with Billy, a marketing manager at an e-commerce brand. Billy asked good questions. Billy seemed interested. Then Billy went quiet. Alex assumed the product wasn't good enough. It was. The pitch was the problem. Alex was selling: "this tool does your email retention work for you." Billy heard: "this tool could do your job without you." That is not a sales pitch. That is a threat. Here is what most B2B founders miss when selling to employees rather than...
Hey Reader, A client came to me frustrated. They had the right targeting. The right demographics. E-commerce decision-makers, correct job titles, correct company sizes. Their LinkedIn ad campaign looked perfect on paper – and it was producing almost nothing. I wasn't surprised. Here's the thing nobody in your marketing agency will say out loud: LinkedIn's ad algorithm is years behind Facebook. It lacks the deep behavioral and intent data that makes paid social actually work. When you run a...
Hey Reader, A founder asked me last week how to respond to someone pitching a Shopify quiz app – 10x more expensive than existing competitors, no unique technology, no obvious edge. He expected me to help him dismantle the idea. Instead, I told him: I don't care about the idea. Here's the truth most early-stage founders don't want to hear: your product quality is almost never your real competitive advantage. You can have a worse product at a higher price and still win – if you have...