I'm not saying all marketers are liars,

but... 😬 😬 😬

A LOT of what we do is promise things that go far beyond what we can guarantee.

We've been trained to "sell the outcome."

And in business contexts, that means selling the BUSINESS outcome.

Things like "getting more customers," "increasing revenue," "business growth," etc.

Here's the problem:

business outcomes are never driven by one thing

Every BUSINESS outcome is determined by an interlocking set of factors that span the entire BUSINESS.

Whether or not a B2B software company "wins more customers" is a function of...

• Precise ICP targeting and segmentation

• Marketing reach within target roles and industries

• Executive thought leadership and content

• Case studies, logos, and peer validation

• Brand credibility

• Differentiation from legacy tools or point solutions

• Positioning

• Competitive landscape

• Free trials, pilot programs, or POCs

• Pricing and contract flexibility

• Sales execution and account-based strategy

• Tech stack & ecosystem fit

• Regulatory and compliance readiness (SOC 2, HIPAA)

• Procurement process alignment (security, legal, etc.)

• Product breadth and roadmap confidence

• Channel or partner integrations

• Market timing and budget cycles

• Platform stability & uptime

• User experience

• Implementation onboarding support

And on and on and on.

No product that impacts all these factors.

And so... no product can guarantee a business-level outcome.

To tell someone that adopting a CRM will make them "win more customers" is simply a lie.

They will win more customers provided that...

ALL THOSE OTHER FACTORS THAT ARE UNRELATED TO A CRM ARE WORKING PROPERLY.

If you take someone who is just starting out and has no product yet and they buy a CRM...

...they will not "win more customers."

So what are TRUE outcomes that CRMs can guarantee?

They can help teams be more organized.

They can help teams do forecasting.

They can help teams see all customer touchpoints.

These are the REAL reasons customers purchase CRMs.

Notice that these outcomes are very "functional."

This is because all B2B software is, in essence, "workflow software."

Workers get software to help them do their work

(hence it's "workflow software")

A rule of thumb...

if you would feel very uncomfortable putting "increase revenue" in your contract as a guaranteed outcome...

...maybe avoid saying it in your marketing materials.

I understand you might think I am a hack for saying this.

But my co-founder and I do roughly $1.5m a year as a two-person consultancy, and we have never once promised any of these business outcomes.

We ONLY promise what we can GUARANTEE:

→ a clarified positioning strategy documented in a crystal clear homepage

If everything else is working,

then you WILL get those good business outcomes.

But it won't be as a result of us:

it will be the result of us + the thousands of other things you're doing that we won't touch