Many sales calls follow a rigid framework of questions without a clear goal. This leads to confusing customer responses ("demand hairball") and a premature, ineffective product demo. The focus is on pushing supply instead of truly understanding the customer's blocked demand.

Entrepreneurs often blame slow growth on market saturation. The reality is they lack the marketing skills to reach the 99% of the market that isn't already solution-aware. It's an ego-preserving way to avoid admitting a skill deficit.

Buyers often volunteer the exact details of their problem—their project, its urgency, and their frustration with current options. However, traditional sales training teaches founders to ignore these cues, interrupt the customer, and pivot to pitching their solution, thereby missing critical information.

Founders often quit for the wrong reason: struggling to schedule meetings, which is merely a lack of data. The true signal to pivot or quit is when you've successfully engaged potential customers who have clear demand (pull) and they still explicitly reject your solution after multiple iterations.

Founders often believe their product is flawed when facing rejection. However, if they're only speaking to 1-2 potential customers a week, the core issue isn't product-market fit. The real problem is an insufficient number of conversations to validate or disprove any hypothesis. You haven't earned the right to have a PMF crisis yet.

Vague positive signals ("we're considering prioritizing this") create false hope that wastes months of effort. This "lukewarm demand" is a trap that keeps founders from making necessary pivots or confronting the reality of no true market pull.

When sales calls feel positive but result in ghosting, founders often blame a lack of urgency. The real problem is usually a flawed conversational approach. These "polite train wrecks" feel good in the moment but fail to address the customer's core needs, leading to a misdiagnosis of why the sale failed.