Why I Turned Down Three Customers

Hey friends,

Last month, I had three discovery calls in one week.

Three founders. Three products. All bright, motivated, and ready to invest in sales. (and in me).

They all came to me through LinkedIn.

By the end of each call, I gave them the same answer.

You don't need me yet. I turned them down.

What happened?

When sales slow, the instinct of a technical founder (no sales background) is to hire somebody with experience.

A fractional VP. An agency. A consultant. A "growth person".

You want leads.

You want certainty.

You want someone to lead you through the chaos.

But If you have zero revenue or close to zero, what you have in front of you is not yet a sales problem.

It is a product-market fit problem.

No sales leader, regardless of experience, can fix this.

Here's what you should do instead.

What to chase first: your LIRs (leading indicators)

Mark Roberge, in The Science of Scaling, defines leading indicators - early signals that business works before revenue and sales cycle can prove it.

These are the three I push founders to chase first.

Mark talks only about product LIR, I added a twist to it, including also LIRs from an outbound perspective (assuming you don’t have inbound):

1. Reply rate. Are people responding when you reach out? 5%? good! 1%? bad!

2. Open rate. Are your emails getting opened? 20%? bad…50%? good!

3. Cold outreach vs Meetings booked: 1%? bad! 3-5%? good!!

However, the most important LIRs are from a product perspective.

That’s where you really understand you got something in your hands that is working.

This one matters most.

1. Are users logging in daily?
2. Are they using the product? For example: you have an internal messaging app → are they sending at least 100 messages every week?
3. Inviting others? Do you see silent referrals coming in?

Get your outbound and product LIRs in place first.

Then you can start selling.

The 50 to 100K rule

When your indicators are real, close 50–100K revenue yourself.

Do it yourself.

Here is what you only learn by selling with your own face:

• The real objections
• Who actually buys (ICPs)
• What your product is really worth (and how much).
• What to say the moment someone says no
• The rhythm of a real deal cycle

How to apply it

Ok - now let’s assume you are Maria.

Early-stage founder with €0 revenue, who just launched her AI for lawyers platform.

Here’s what you should do before coming to me asking for help:

• Chase your three leading indicators first.
• Once usage is real, sell with your own face.
• Track every conversation - win or loss. Write the reason. Call the lost and ask for feedback.
• Spot patterns. Same objection three times? Well, you've got to do something.
• Get comfortable running deal cycles.
• Then bring in fractional help to systemise what works and scale further.

That’s the order:

1. LIR
2. Founder selling
3. System
4. Hire the team.

In this particular order, alright!?!

Why I said no last month

I could have signed all three founders, probably.

The proposals were ready.

The conversations went well.They wanted me.

But signing them would be wrong for them and for me.

If there is nothing to systemise, if there is no traction but most importantly If you’re pre-revenue, don’t write yourself off.

Chase leading indicators.

Sell with your own face.

Then call me.

Thanks for reading this far. See you all next week!