Turn Customer Conversations Into Decisions in 4 Weeks
My cat has a more rigorous research process than most B2B companies (it's probly the glasses) Meanwhile, companies are treating customer research like throwing spaghetti at a wall and asking AI to help them figure out what noodles stick. Here's my actual repeatable methodology for turning customer/prospect conversations into impactful biz decisions, and it takes 3-4 weeks (not months): 1. Define the business question We don't start with research. We start with the decision the business needs to make. 2. Design the interview system I intentionally talk to different kinds of customers, not more of the same kind. That's how we tell what truly matters versus what's just situational. 3. Run deep buyer interviews - 2 to 3 weeks, not months I focus on real decisions and tradeoffs (not opinions). Behavior is more predictive than preference. During interviews, I do a lot of "Take me back to when..." many times your buyers never even thought about why they did the things they did and it's interesting to them too 4. Synthesize patterns (and outliers) into customer truth An insight only counts if it explains past behavior AND predicts future decisions. 5. Translate insight into strategic leverage Clear tradeoffs: I help figure out what to double down on, what to deprioritize, and why. 6. Align the org around one customer truth Insight only matters if the organization actually uses it to make impactful biz decisions. My cat puts those glasses on and investigates, one computer screen at a time, with complete, repeatable focus. Your customer research should work the same way. (Be like my cat. Have a repeatable system.) p.s. what did I miss? what's hard for you these days?
Your Biggest Fear Signals Your Next Breakthrough
I spent 16 years becoming a CRO, and then I quit to post on LinkedIn. For two years, I knew I needed to leave. Every time I got close, I found a reason to wait. Not enough savings. Not the...
Match GTM Playbooks to Your Revenue Stage
Good GTM isn’t about copying playbooks. It’s about knowing which playbook applies at which revenue stage. That’s why lists like this are useful if founders read them correctly: • Early stage → clarity beats scale • Mid stage → alignment...
Join 250k+ B2B Leaders at SaaStr AI 2026
250,000+ B2B founders and operators in the SaaStr community. For 3 days in May, we're all going to be in the same place. SaaStr AI 2026. May 12-14. SF Bay Area. If you've ever gotten value from SaaStr—this is the...
AI Accelerates Partners Turning Into Competitors by 2026
One thing that has really really accelerated the past 12 months is your partners competing with you. Expect the trend … to continue even more, and much faster, in 2026. The pace of the AI Age is leading to partners becoming competitors...
Be Less Wrong Faster: Master Buyer Psychology
You’ll never be right in business But you can be less wrong, faster Learn buyer psychology
Continuous Offer Testing Drives Sustainable Growth
How to grow quickly and more profitably? Keep offer testing until you find an absolute winner and then continue testing various iterations and variations of that offer. When you stop testing is when you stop seeing incremental lift and growth.
Right Accounts Drive 65% of Success
"The 'who' is everything. 65% of your success comes from targeting the right accounts" Kathy Macchi on The Transaction .
Master AI Search: Strategies to Outrank Google Results
In 15 minutes, Michael King is joining SparkToro Office Hours to present what to do *DIFFERENTLY* to appear in AI tools vs. classic Google results. You should probably be there. I threw in a few samples from his deck as...
Don’t Normalize AI Risks: Start with Boring Foundations
What if the most dangerous moment in innovation isn’t failure…but the moment we decide the failure cost is “acceptable”? Here's the funny thing - that's just Wednesday. We do this for every innovation. This video kicks off a new chapter...
Hire Advisors with Real Experience, Not Just Talk
You would never hire someone full-time who hasn’t done the job. So stop giving consultants and talking heads who’ve never done the work the spotlight or your $$$$$. Experience matters. If you’re going to bring someone in, vet them like...
AI Must Boost Revenue or It Doesn’t Count
If your AI feature, your AI product, your AI team, your AI copilot didn’t materially boost revenue … 👎 It doesn’t count Try again
More Data, More Noise: Focus on Strategic Insights
The AI insight problem that nobody's talking about 😳 We added AI to our customer research process. Suddenly, everything is labeled an "insight" 🤯 🫣 🫠 Customer mentioned pricing twice? Insight. Someone used the word "integration" in feedback? Insight. Pattern...
Trusted Event Partner Lets Teams Focus on Story
It’s officially event season again. And guess what? Conferences, RKOs, tradeshows... they are super hard. The planning, the logistics, the on-site craziness... the swag... 💙 Great experiences are super hard to produce and reproduce and reproduce I get asked fairly...
Influencer Partnerships Triple Effectiveness of B2B Research
What's the connection between B2B influence, research and thought leadership? 74% of B2B marketers who frequently collaborate with influencers say their research-based content is very effective, versus only 29% of everyone else. That's a finding from our newest research report,...
Chat UI Isn’t Dead; Task Agents Need New Interfaces
"The UI is dead. Everything will be chat." This is the most dangerous myth in AI right now. I was talking about this with Lucas Puente , Slack 's VP of Research – and what we landed on changes how...
Authentic Storytelling Beats AI for Customer Advocacy
I nearly barfed on the boat. Why did I tell American Marketing Association CEO Bennie F. Johnson this on his podcast?! To illustrate a point about storytelling. And emotion. And the type of authenticity AI cannot conjure. (Also the type...
Insights From a Veteran B2B Tech Storyteller
Learn from my favorite B2B writer’s long (…LONG 😂) career helping brands tell stories around their tech ✏️
Turn Sales Kickoff Into a Unified Revenue Team
So what are you really going to do at your Sales kickoff? I encourage you to listen. Sales, please listen to Marketing. Marketing, please listen to Sales. Think about what you hear and respond with the an attitude of “help...
Talk to Customers, Solve Real Problems, Earn Bigger Paydays
Did you spend weeks or months building something no one wants? Congrats 👏 This is a rite of passage for every first time founder Even smart people need to get kicked in the teeth by the market before you realize how important it...
Begin with a Single, High‑impact, Easy‑to‑deploy AI Agent
"My CEO says we need to do AI, but my CFO won't give my budget. What do you we do?" with @kylecnorton "The answer: start with one AI Agent that solves a high ranking problem ... that is easy to deploy."...
Unified Brand Trust Drives Sustainable Growth
Authentic branding, trust and influence - Forrester are talking about it, Edelman are reporting on it. At a time when AI is diluting trust, brands are searching a way to strengthen it. In my experience, when sales, marketing and executives...
Claude Code Accelerates Business Development with Game‑Like AI
Claude Code for real business growth: • Accelerated Development: How I built systems in a few days that previously required an entire development team. A Google engineer mentioned Claude Code built something in an hour that took her team a year. •...
AI Generates Full GTM Plans, Redefining Marketing Jobs
If Claude Code can draft an ENTIRE GTM plan for you that's basically 95% there, what happens to most marketing roles? In here, we have podcast/YT ad scripts. We have event definitions for analytics. We have full funnel e-mail sequences. We have outbound e-mail...
AI Can Now Draft Complete GTM Plans Instantly
Claude Code literally drafted us an entire GTM plan for ClickFlow. I mean, just look at this one-shotted onboarding e-mail copy. Legit. How does this not just happen across the board for every role? The world is going to look very different...
AI Fluency Code Red: Master Claude Code in Six Months
Claude Code is a seminal moment. So much so that we're requiring the @singlegrain team to be proficient with it within the next 6 months. E-mail I sent today: Hi all, I didn’t get to fully land my message during the all-hands...
Original Content Drives AI Prompt Influence, Not Vendor Replication
HOW do vendors influence AI prompt results? #sponsored Gary Nugent , CEO of Informa TechTarget says THIS is the top question customers are asking. Full convo here: https://bit.ly/44hmmEc As buyers turn to AI, visibility and influence comes down to original...
Timing Beats Tactics: Offer Success Depends on When
Most marketers copy tactics, few study timing. • A good offer at the wrong time: crickets. • A weak offer at the perfect time: record sales. It’s not just what you say, it’s when you say it. Timing is leverage.
Prioritize Share of Voice Over Short‑Term ROI
Companies are very quick to ask if marketing is getting enough return from its budget, but rarely ask if that budget is doing enough to maintain a presence in the market. When marketing is judged on the short-term efficiency of...
Testing Daily Signals to Boost Operator Decision Speed
For 11 years, I’ve sent a weekly newsletter. Five hundred seventy-two issues built around links people consistently tell me they actually read. That cadence works. I’m keeping it. But frequency isn’t the same thing as usefulness. A lot of operator...
Prioritize the Right Platform, Don’t Spread Yourself Thin
Important Reminder for All Marketers: 👇 Yesterday I was chatting with a client (boat retailer) that told me they wanted to focus more on their LinkedIn efforts. My response: Why would you put your energy on a B2B platform when...
Deep Product Knowledge Outweighs CEO Polish
For a long while, you probably aren't a great CEO But you know the customers The software The feature gaps The roadmap The competition How to sell it How to market it How to build it So maybe as flawed as you are You are still the best CEO
Formatting Numbers for Fluency Boosts Recall
Does something look off about this phone number? Or does something seem really right? Usually we see the last 7 digits break into a group of 3, followed by a group of 4. But here, they break into a group...
Customer Research Sells; Product Research Builds
I'm noticing confusion in b2b around customer research - we think we're doing customer research ( ✅ ) but in reality it's usually just product research 🙈 (to improve the product) Product research asks: "How do we improve our features?"...
Make Your Customer the Hero, Not Your Pitch
You should never try to make yourself, your company, or your product look too good in your presentations. This is a classic mistake. Because you are not the hero. Your company is not the hero. Your product is not the...
Build Business Pipelines Like Making Genuine Friendships
The process of building pipeline and winning new business is very similar to making a new friend. You typically don't just cold call someone in your neighborhood and ask if they want to get beers. But, if you're motivated, you...
First 1:1 Project Delivers Best Sales Call Ever
My client pitched using his new ownable idea for the first time. Best sales call he’s EVER had. (And he runs a $1M+ agency) This is the first 1:1 client project work I’ve done in 7 years. And I’ve gotta say, after...
Old PR Tactics Are Dead, Credibility Is Alive
Good Thor. I am tired of the "PR is dead" rhetoric. It's never been more important than it has in the past five years. We keep hearing: ❌ “PR is dead.” ❌ “PR is news releases.” ❌ “PR is media...
Publish Faster, Overthinking Kills LinkedIn Growth
I overthought my first 100 posts. Edited them to death. Spent hours on each one. Waited for the "perfect" moment to publish. Most of them flopped anyway. Then I started posting faster. Rougher drafts. Less editing. Just hit publish and...
Implement RevCO: Systematically Connect Content to Revenue
Most companies create content, but fail to communicate its value. That's because they are running tactics rather than building a system. Businesses need a way to clearly connect and communicate how they link Content to Revenue. To make it simple,...
AI Outperforms Average Sales Reps, Not Elite Teams
"AI can't beat the best sales teams," like CRO @owner + @kylecnorton. "No way." "But can it beat the sales folks that less hot startups hire? The 'mid pack' sales folks? The ones that never really learn the product? Yes....
Luck Favors Those Who Keep Building, Not Waiting
I get called lucky a lot. And honestly? I have been lucky. I had savings when I quit my job. I wrote on LinkedIn before it was popular. And a wife who supported me while I figured it out. But...
Most B2B AI Features Fail; Winners Do Differently
Hot take: 90% of "AI features" shipping in B2B right now are terrible. The companies winning are doing something completely different. Come to SaaStr AI 2026 May 12-14 and learn what actually works from founders with the receipts. https://t.co/Ff7DKVt1H2
Zero‑Click Era Ends Google Discover’s Traffic Reign
The last bastion of traffic-referring platforms was Google Discover. In 2025, it too cut ~20% of referalls to websites thanks to AI summaries, lack of product investment, and users' preferences for in-app consumption. The era of web traffic is nearly gone, replaced...
Thinking in Public Drives Alignment, Not Just Polished Performance
Building in public became a performance once everything was edited. Thinking in public is what building in public looked like before polish took over. Building in public used to create shared context. Now it often creates admiration. Thinking in public...
Psychology Beats Tactics: Top Hard Sales Skills
The 3 Hardest Skills to Teach in Sales (From 2,000+ Hours of Coaching) 👇 After two decades in the trenches and thousands of hours coaching sales professionals, I’ve realized that the "mechanics" of sales are (with the right coaching) easy....
Post‑crisis “Diligence” Masks Underlying Process Gaps
I keep seeing the same thing after teams realize something important too late. The impact shows up in how work gets done. Extra checks get added before meetings. People start keeping private notes. Someone is asked to manually watch competitors....
Founders’ Retention Payments Can Outshine VC Liquidation Preferences
Yes, VCs often have a “liquidation preference” But there is also a “founder preference”. It’s called retention payments, which can often be eight figures on top of any return from common. And are often structured in a way to...
AI Accelerates Competition: Stay Ahead or Become Irrelevant
Old rules: Around Year 5, the Competition Catches You in Whatever Made You Special Around Year 10, you have an Existential Threat. The tech world has changed so much, what you started with is sort of irrelevant. Today, with AI, often happens...
Innovators Need a Different Marketing Playbook Than the Masses
There's a lot to be learned about new product marketing through how people discover new music. Everyone knows people, and maybe you are one, who likes to find bands others aren't listening to yet, to be at the edge of...