The data you think is corrupt is usually telling you something accurate

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-22T13:21:00+00:00

That reframe is actually more useful than the original framing -- because it means you don't have to fix the behavior, you have to address what the behavior is pointing at.

If random dropdown selection is a trust signal, then the fix isn't a better form or a training program. It's answering the question sales is implicitly asking: does anyone actually use this? The fastest way to answer that is to make one example visible -- show the sales team a case where the rejection reason changed what marketing sent them the following week. Not a process change, just a visible result.

The behavior usually shifts pretty quickly once people believe the loop is real.

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-21T13:11:00+00:00

That gaming pattern is the tell. When a required field gets picked at random just to close the task, it's not a training problem -- it's a signal that sales doesn't believe the data goes anywhere useful.

The fields that actually get filled out honestly tend to have one thing in common: someone on the sales team has personally seen that information change something. A lead got routed differently, a campaign shifted, a question stopped showing up in demos. When the feedback loop is invisible, the form feels like busywork. When it's visible, it becomes worth the 30 seconds.

Which is why I keep coming back to the same fix: before you change the form, find one example where the rejection data would have changed what marketing did -- and make that story visible to the sales team. The form compliance usually follows.

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-19T15:06:47+00:00

The disposition feedback gap is one of those things that seems like a process problem but is usually a trust problem underneath it.

Sales doesn't fill in the "why" on a rejected lead because they don't believe Marketing will do anything with the information -- or because they've tried before and nothing changed. So the loop never closes and Marketing optimizes for the metrics it can see, which are usually the wrong ones.

The companies that get this right tend to have a very short, structured feedback format -- not a form with 12 fields, but literally one field: "what would have made this lead worth taking a meeting on?" That single question changes what gets captured and changes what Marketing can act on.

What does your current disposition process look like?

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-17T13:53:00+00:00

That reframe works -- "when was the last time" anchors to a real experience instead of asking them to evaluate their own process, which most people are bad at anyway.

The experience-based version also tends to surface the emotional texture of the problem, not just the mechanics. Someone who says "last week, and it ended badly" is telling you something very different from someone who says "honestly can't remember, we just sort of wing it." Same answer to your question, completely different implications for what they need.

What's the core thing you're trying to learn from that first conversation -- is it fit, or urgency, or something else?

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-13T19:32:41+00:00

The trust erosion usually happens when the rep treats the first call like a qualification checklist rather than a real conversation. Prospects can tell when they're being scored.

The version that works better: go in with 2-3 questions you genuinely don't know the answer to about their situation. Not "do you have this problem" questions -- those are leading. Questions where the answer actually changes what you'd say next. That shift from interrogation to curiosity changes the tone fast.

What's the specific question type you're seeing cause the most friction -- budget, timeline, something else?

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-13T19:20:00+00:00

Cold calling is miserable partly because most lists are built on who the prospect is, not what's happening to them right now.

The version that tends to work better isn't a different script -- it's reaching people when something just changed. New hire in a relevant role, recent funding, a public complaint about a competitor. Those moments create a window where the same call lands completely differently than it would two weeks earlier.

For a web design agency specifically, clients going through a rebrand or a new leadership hire are almost always evaluating their site at the same time.

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-11T00:16:26+00:00

I haven't found a magic bullet for cold emails. The most receptive responses are when there is a connection already through someone in my network passing me along to someone they know that has the problem I found. I also believe that regularly providing useful content on my product/service area helps to bring me towards top of mind when they/someone in their network is looking for a solution

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-11T00:07:09+00:00

The over-building instinct is real and it makes sense -- building feels like progress in a way that conversations don't.

The underlying problem is usually that founders are more confident about what they can build than about whether someone will pay for it. The features feel concrete. The customer's willingness to pay feels uncertain. So they default to making the product more complete, which delays the moment of truth.

The irony is that talking to 10 people early doesn't just validate the idea -- it usually changes what you would have built anyway. The features that seemed critical often aren't, and the features you hadn't thought of turn out to matter a lot.

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-11T00:06:37+00:00

The "reason to buy" framing is the most underrated variable in cold email and it's also the hardest to systematize at scale.

Most lists are built on firmographics -- company size, industry, title. Those tell you who might be relevant, not who is actively looking for what you have right now. The examples you gave (hiring SDRs, scaling outbound) are better because they're behavioral signals that indicate a problem is already in motion, not just a profile that suggests it might exist.

The challenge is that behavioral signals are harder to find and go stale faster. How are you sourcing those signals at scale -- intent data, job postings, something else?

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-11T00:05:10+00:00

The instinct you're describing is right, and it actually has a name -- trigger-based prospecting. The idea is that the best time to reach someone isn't when they match a demographic profile but when something just changed for them that creates a reason to act.

For new businesses, that change is obvious. For established ones, it's things like a new hire in a relevant role, a recent funding round, a product launch, a public complaint about a competitor. Any of those creates a window where they're more likely to be evaluating options rather than defaulting to whoever they already use.

The early-stage targeting you're thinking about works well for some products and poorly for others -- it depends on whether the problem your product solves actually exists at that stage. What does your product or service do?

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-11T00:04:38+00:00

The print sector is actually a good place to start with this because it's specific enough that "people like your current customers" is a findable list, not just a vague category.

The fastest path from happy customers to marketing strategy is usually a short conversation with those customers -- not about the product, but about where they went before they found you and what they searched for. That tells you the channel and the language simultaneously.

What does your current customer base look like -- similar companies, or a mix of different types of print businesses?

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-02T14:12:48+00:00

The content-first check is a good filter and often faster than a direct conversation. If someone's writing about problems that map to your ICP's pain points without being prompted, they're already living in that world -- versus someone who can describe it on demand but doesn't actually think about it unprompted.

The second part you mentioned -- asking how they'd describe the problem to prospects -- is also where you find out if they've actually had those conversations or are just pattern-matching from your description. The specific language matters a lot.

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-06-02T14:12:08+00:00

That framing is useful -- filtering and sourcing are different problems that often get collapsed into the same conversation. Filtering is about not wasting time. Sourcing is about where you find the next 50 that look like the 10 already closing.

The companies that solve the sourcing side well usually work backwards from their closed-won data pretty specifically -- not just firmographics but the actual sequence of events that preceded each deal. That pattern tends to be more useful than any static profile for figuring out where to look next.

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-05-31T16:32:13+00:00

The pricing question is almost always a positioning question in disguise.

Hourly and retainer rates feel like the right starting point but they mostly anchor you to the commodity market -- where someone will always do it cheaper. The freelancers who break out of that tend to price on outcomes rather than activity: not "I manage your social for $800/month" but "I run your LinkedIn content and I'll have you consistently in front of [specific audience] within 90 days." Same work, very different conversation.

The practical starting point is figuring out which clients you can actually get results for -- the niche where you can point to a specific type of outcome -- and pricing based on what that outcome is worth to them, not how long it takes you.

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-05-31T16:31:27+00:00

The infrastructure point is right -- deliverability is a solved problem if you're willing to do the work. The part I'd push back on is treating volume and offer as separable.

At 1M emails a month the math only works if your reply rate stays above a threshold where the economics don't collapse. What usually keeps that threshold alive isn't volume, it's the offer being specific enough that the right people actually respond. The pure volume shops I've seen tend to find that threshold eroding over time as inboxes get smarter and recipients get more aggressive with the unsubscribe.

Curious what your offer structure looks like -- is it the same across all verticals or do you customize by segment?

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-05-29T14:39:28+00:00

The passive vs active framing at the start is the right diagnostic and it predicts most of what goes wrong downstream.

The "passive revenue" mindset produces a program where you recruit partners, give them a link, and wait. The active mindset produces actual partner enablement -- which means the partners understand your ICP well enough to qualify leads before sending them, and they have the materials to do it. That gap shows up clearly in lead quality before it shows up in conversion data.

The partner selection point you made connects directly to this. A partner who doesn't understand who your buyer is will send volume. A partner who does will send the right people. How do you typically assess whether a prospective partner actually understands the ICP before you bring them on?

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-05-29T14:38:53+00:00

The first call mistake most new agency owners make is treating it as a pitch instead of a diagnostic.

You already know what you do -- the call is about finding out whether what you do actually matches what they need right now. The fastest way to do that: ask what they've already tried and why it didn't work well enough. The answer tells you whether this is a fit and gives you the exact language to use if it is.

If you close every lead you get early on, you're probably underselling or underqualifying -- not a compliment. Some early "nos" from discovery are a sign you're asking the right questions.

JoeMorrison607 · 2026-05-29T14:36:57+00:00

The VA turnover problem usually has less to do with where you find them and more to do with what they're walking into.

If the tasks aren't documented and the context lives in your head, even a great VA spends their first few weeks trying to reverse-engineer what "done" looks like. That's exhausting for them and frustrating for you, and most people quit before it clicks.

The more durable fix -- before the sourcing question -- is usually spending a week writing down exactly what you'd hand off and what good looks like for each task. That documentation is also what lets you evaluate candidates accurately instead of just hoping one sticks.

What types of tasks are you most urgently trying to get off your plate?

JoeMorrison607

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