I turn down half my sales calls. Here's what changed.

We get about 20 sales calls a month. I used to think the goal was to close as many as possible. That's what you're supposed to do when you're growing a company, right?

But I kept noticing the same pattern. The deals I pushed hardest to close were usually the ones that caused the most problems later. Tough industries, unclear expectations, clients where I knew deep down it probably wouldn't work. Every time I said yes to one of those, it cost us more than the money was worth.

So I started saying no more. And something weird happened - I started closing more of the calls I actually took.

I don't really sell on calls. I'm more of a consultant. Most people who get on a call with me have already done their research. They've seen what we post, they've read how we work. So they already know what we do. My job is to figure out what they specifically need and whether we can actually help.

Sometimes we can't. The offer is hard to sell on cold email, or they don't have the other pieces in place yet, or they're in an industry where we know results are going to be tough. I tell them that. I'd rather lose the deal than take their money knowing it probably won't work.

We sell to B2B SaaS companies. So when I'm on a call, I show them results from 10 other B2B SaaS companies we've worked with. I open up our dashboard and walk them through what we did and what happened.

I used to try explaining all the technical stuff - our AI personalization, our email infrastructure, how our systems work. I thought that would impress people. But I found the more technical I got, the fewer deals I closed.

Now I keep it simple. Here's a company like yours. Here's what we did. Here's what they got.

I turn down tough industries. I avoid deals where expectations are unclear. And I don't care about squeezing revenue out of every call.

This sounds dumb when you're trying to grow. But what it actually does is filter in the right people. The ones who do sign up show up curious instead of skeptical. They're in because they got clarity on the call, not because they got convinced. And when someone's in like that, they're really in.

Here's the weird part. We don't have a sales team. We didn’t use a CRM until later this year. I don't have a playbook or scripts. We still close about 50% of the calls I take.

I'm not saying those things don't matter. They'd probably help. But what this shows me is that if what you're selling is actually good, the infrastructure is an optimization. It's not the thing that makes it work.

The reason I can say no to people is because I know there are other opportunities coming. When your pipeline is healthy, you're not desperate. You can afford to be honest. And being honest on sales calls - even when it means losing the deal - is what built the pipeline in the first place.

Think about your most difficult client right now. Go back to the sales call notes or recording. I bet there was a moment where you knew it might not work, but you closed anyway. That moment is your filter for the next call.