I had three conversations last week that all followed the same pattern.

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Founder tells me they're stressed about growth. I ask what they're doing. They reel off a list: paid ads, SEO, cold outreach, social media, content marketing, partnerships, events.

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Then I ask: what's actually working?

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Long pause.

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"We're not really sure yet. We're still testing everything."

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Here's the thing. In 2025, the pressure to move fast and be everywhere is intense. Everyone's racing to adopt the latest AI tool, launch on the newest platform, automate everything possible.

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But the businesses that are actually growing sustainably? They're thinking differently.

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They're slowing down. They're getting clear on what's working. And then they're doubling down on quality over quantity.

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The speed trap

There's this assumption in startups that faster is always better.

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Launch faster. Test faster. Scale faster. Automate faster.

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And look, speed matters. I'm not suggesting you move at a glacial pace or overthink everything.

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But there's a difference between moving with purpose and moving just to feel like you're making progress.

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I see so many B2B businesses throwing money at paid ads because it feels like growth. They're getting leads, right? Except when you dig into it, those leads aren't converting. Or they're converting but churning quickly. Or the unit economics just don't work.

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But it feels fast. It feels like you're doing something.

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Meanwhile, the slower work of actually understanding your customer, building genuine relationships, creating something remarkable? That gets pushed aside because it doesn't show immediate results.

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What actually compounds

Last week I wrote about the shift from ads to ambassadors. This is the same principle applied more broadly.

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The marketing activities that compound over time are almost never the fastest ones.

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A great customer relationship takes months or years to build. But once you have it, that customer becomes a reference, an advocate, a source of referrals, potentially an advisory board member. The value multiplies.

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A strategic partnership takes time to develop trust and figure out how to create value together. But once it's working, you're accessing their audience, their credibility, their network.

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Thought leadership that actually positions you as an expert doesn't happen overnight. It takes consistent insights over time. But eventually, people start coming to you already half-sold because they've been learning from you for months.

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A referral engine doesn't exist until you've delivered enough value to enough customers that they naturally want to tell others. But once it's working, it's the highest quality pipeline you'll ever have.

None of these things are fast. All of them are more valuable than any paid ad campaign.

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The difference between testing and flailing

"We're still testing" sounds strategic. But often it's code for "we don't really know what we're doing."

Real testing means:

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• Having a hypothesis about why something might work
• Giving it enough time and resource to actually test that hypothesis
• Measuring the right things
• Making a decision based on what you learn
• Then either doubling down or stopping

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What I see instead is businesses sort of trying lots of things at once, never committing fully to any of them, then wondering why nothing's working.

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Here's what we say on repeat: you're better off doing one channel brilliantly than five channels badly.

Pick the channel where your customers actually are. The one that makes sense for your business model. The one you can consistently show up in.

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Then commit to it for 6-12 months. Properly commit. Not "let's try this for a month and see what happens."

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The case for relationship-focused growth

Remember the Notion case study I shared? They hit 90% organic growth by focusing on a small group of passionate users and building real relationships with them.

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Or look at what we talked about with ambassador marketing. The companies winning aren't the ones with the biggest ad spend. They're the ones with the strongest network of genuine advocates.

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This isn't slower because it's inefficient. It's slower because relationships take time. Trust takes time.

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Word of mouth takes time.

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But the payoff is so much better than what you get from paid acquisition:

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• Higher quality leads that are already pre-sold
• Better conversion rates because they come through trusted channels
• Lower churn because they understood what they were buying
• Built-in advocacy from people who chose you, not just clicked an ad

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One of our clients spent their first year building deep relationships with 50 customers rather than chasing thousands of leads. Those 50 customers have since referred over 200 new customers. Zero ad spend. Just remarkable work and genuine relationships.

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What quality over quantity actually means

It's easy to say "focus on quality." It's harder to actually do it when the numbers aren't growing as fast as you'd like.

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Here's what it looks like in practice:

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For email marketing: Stop trying to grow your list as fast as possible. Focus on attracting the right people and creating content they actually value. I'd rather have 500 people reading every email than 5,000 people ignoring them.

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For content: Stop churning out blog posts to hit a publishing schedule. Write when you have something valuable to say. Make it genuinely useful. One brilliant piece that gets shared and referenced beats ten mediocre ones every time.

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For outreach: Stop sending hundreds of templated messages. Spend time researching 10 people you genuinely think you could help. Write personal, thoughtful messages that show you understand their challenges. Quality conversations beat quantity of touches.

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For partnerships: Stop collecting partnership agreements like pokemon cards. Find 2-3 partners where there's genuine alignment and invest in creating real value together. One meaningful partnership beats ten superficial ones.

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For events: Stop trying to meet everyone. Have deeper conversations with fewer people. Follow up properly. Build actual relationships, not just LinkedIn connections.

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This all feels slower. Because it is slower. But the results are so much better.

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Understanding what's really working

Before you can focus on quality, you need to understand what's actually driving value in your business.

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Not vanity metrics. Not activity metrics. Real value.

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Ask yourself:

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• Where do your best customers come from?
• Which marketing activities led to customers that stayed and grew with you?
• What content or campaigns did your highest-value customers engage with before buying?
• Which relationships have created the most opportunities?

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Often the answer surprises people. They've been pouring budget into paid ads when actually their best customers all came through referrals. Or they've been focused on LinkedIn when their customers are actually finding them through partnerships.

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Take the time to understand this properly. Look at your last 10-20 customers. Talk to them. Ask how they found you, what convinced them, what alternatives they considered.

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This analysis might take a week. But it could save you months of pursuing the wrong channels.

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When automation makes sense (and when it doesn't)

I'm not anti-automation. AI and automation tools can be incredibly powerful. We use them constantly.

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But automation should amplify quality work, not replace it.

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Good automation: Using AI to analyse customer interviews so you can spot patterns faster. Using tools to help you repurpose one great piece of content into multiple formats. Automating repetitive tasks so your team can focus on relationship-building.

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Bad automation: Auto-generating mediocre content at scale. Automating outreach so you can spam more people faster. Using AI to have conversations your team should be having.

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The question to ask is: does this automation help us deliver more value to the people we're trying to reach? Or does it just help us do more stuff faster?

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If it's the latter, you're probably making the wrong trade-off.

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The businesses winning in 2026

The pattern I'm seeing across successful B2B businesses right now isn't about who's moving fastest or who's on the most platforms.

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It's about who's:

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• Crystal clear on what's working and what's not
• Ruthless about stopping things that aren't driving real value
• Willing to invest in the slower work of building relationships
• Focused on being remarkable in one channel rather than mediocre in many
• Using metrics that actually matter, not just metrics that move
• Patient enough to let compound growth work its magic

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This requires confidence. It means saying no to opportunities that seem good but don't fit your focus. It means sitting in discomfort when growth is slower than you'd like because you're building foundations.

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But in 12 months, while your competitors are still trying to figure out why their scattergun approach isn't working, you'll have real momentum. The kind that compounds. The kind that's sustainable.

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What to do next

If you're feeling overwhelmed by everything you think you should be doing, here's where I'd start:

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This week: Map out where your best customers actually came from. Not where you think they came from. Where they actually came from.

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This month: Pick the one channel that's shown real promise and commit to doing it properly for the next quarter. Not testing it. Doing it properly.

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This quarter: Build a framework for measuring what actually matters. Customer quality, not just quantity. Pipeline velocity, not just volume. Relationships built, not just connections made.

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This year: Get comfortable with being focused. With doing less but doing it better. With the fact that quality growth is slower but so much more valuable.

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The pressure to move fast isn't going away. But the companies that resist that pressure and move with intention instead? They're the ones that build something lasting.

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What's one thing you could stop doing to create space for better quality work? Drop me an email and let me know.

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P.S. This doesn't mean you can't move fast when it matters. But fast should be about execution once you know what works, not about constantly switching tactics because you're not seeing immediate results.