Your Gut Feel Isn’t a KPI

I think the market will like this. I feel like outbound is working. My gut says we should double down on that channel.

Dude! Your gut feel isn’t a performance indicator. If instinct is your primary way of judging success your level of sophistication is about the same as a caveman. Instinct is great when you’re running from a lion. It doesn’t make much sense when you’re allocating dear dollars across B2B outreach campaigns. For fuck’s sake–stop chasing what “feels right” and just do what the data tell you to do.

And lest I come across as holier than thou, I’m not wholly immune to this. At Level Access we invested in tons of stuff that felt productive. Conferences are my favorite example. The team returns with stacks of business cards and great stories about conversations. Your gut says “hey, this is working.” Do the analysis. The cost per qualified opportunity from the vast majority of conferences is far higher than digital channels. To make it worse, the likelihood that that prospect is in a purchasing cycle is no greater than chance. Our strongest growth nearly always originated with customers acquired elsewhere that showed some real buying signal. Don’t get it twisted—events can help—they can help influence pipeline—but I’m not a huge fan of them generating high quality pipeline.

So what’s the fix? Objective, boring benchmarking. Comparing your funnel, efficiency, and growth metrics against peer companies. That will force discipline. Instead of asking “what feels right,” ask “where do we outperform and where do we lag?” That clarity turns allocation of dollars into a strategic lever instead of a gamble.

We’re building Scoreboard to do that. Run your metrics through it, compare against a curated peer group, and see immediately where to double down and where to stop wasting effort.