Overwhelmed by conflicting sales advice? Here’s the deal: not all advice is bad, but not all of it applies to your business. The key is knowing how to filter out what doesn’t fit your stage, market, or goals.
What you need to know upfront:
- Sales advice often clashes due to differences in business stage, market context, or luck (survivorship bias).
- Blindly applying advice designed for larger companies or different industries can derail your progress.
- The solution? Use a 5-filter framework to assess if advice aligns with your situation.
The 5-Filter Framework:
- Relevance to Your Stage: Does the advisor have experience at your current growth phase?
- Context Match: Is their market or audience similar to yours?
- Principle vs. Tactic: Focus on timeless principles, not one-size-fits-all tactics.
- Low-Risk Testing: Can you test their advice cheaply before committing?
- Data Alignment: Does the advice align with your numbers and results?
Key takeaway: Your data outweighs their theory. Trust your metrics and instincts over generic advice. Filtering advice effectively helps you avoid distractions, make smarter decisions, and stay focused on what works for your business.
5-Filter Framework for Evaluating Sales Advice
Why Sales Advice Conflicts
The advice you’re hearing might not be wrong – it just might not be the right fit for where you are. Understanding why sales advice often clashes can help you sift through it and figure out what truly applies to your situation. Spotting these mismatches is key to applying advice that aligns with your unique circumstances.
Stage Mismatch
Sales strategies often depend on where a business is in its lifecycle. Advice from Series B founders, for instance, assumes you have resources like large teams or the capacity to run high-risk experiments. But if you’re still working on product-market fit, that advice won’t serve you.
Take what happened at a StartupGrind after-party in San Francisco back in 2019. A Series A founder, fresh off raising $10 million, told early-stage founders they were “missing out on revenue potential” if they weren’t chasing VC funding. Many took his advice, prioritizing fundraising over building sustainable businesses. Fast forward nine months: the market shifted, the Series A founder burned through half his funding and had to return the rest to investors. Meanwhile, those early-stage founders were left with unsustainable business models.
"What works at Series C might not work at seed, and vice versa." – James Currier, General Partner, NFX
The best advice often comes from those just a step or two ahead of where you are – not ten steps ahead. Beyond your company’s stage, differences in market conditions also play a huge role in determining what sales strategies will actually work.
Context Mismatch
Market dynamics and customer behavior further complicate the advice you receive. What works for one type of business might be completely irrelevant for another. For example, selling enterprise contracts worth six figures requires long sales cycles and a heavy focus on relationships. Compare that to $50/month subscription models, which depend on volume and self-service. The strategies for one don’t translate to the other.
In fact, about 90% of the effectiveness of sales advice comes down to the context in which it’s applied – not the advice itself. If you’re targeting small businesses with $3,000 contracts and a 30-day sales cycle, tips on Account-Based Selling from someone working with Fortune 500 clients won’t be useful to you.
"Sales is not one-size-fits-all… VC’s, CEO’s, and yes, even VPoS’s can’t just rely upon a rinse and repeat approach." – Amy Volas, Founder, Avenue Talent Partners
Survivorship Bias
Even when advice seems backed by results, it’s often influenced by timing and luck. Success stories can make strategies sound like sure bets, but they don’t always account for factors that can’t be replicated.
Here’s an example: In July 2015, investor Chris Sacca admitted he passed on Dropbox because he thought Google Drive would “crush them.” He advised the Dropbox founders to pivot rather than compete with a tech giant. The founders ignored his advice and went on to build a multi-billion-dollar company. This shows that even expert guidance can fail when it overlooks specific advantages or circumstances.
Successful founders often downplay the role of timing or luck in their success. They may credit specific strategies while ignoring market conditions that no longer exist. What worked in 2019 or 2021 might not hold up in today’s economic environment.
The 5-Filter Advice Evaluation Framework
When you’re drowning in sales advice, it can be tough to separate the gems from the noise. That’s where this five-filter framework comes in handy. Think of it as your go-to checklist to evaluate whether a piece of advice is worth your time. It helps you avoid wasting energy on strategies that don’t align with your business stage or goals, ensuring your efforts stay focused and effective.
Filter 1: Does This Person Have Experience at My Stage?
First, consider whether the person giving advice has tackled challenges at your current stage. For example, scaling a business from $5 million to $50 million is a completely different beast compared to getting your startup off the ground.
"That 5,000-person company has a 35-person marketing function, customer success teams, and established infrastructure that made selling fundamentally different… That experience rarely translates to the scrappy, build-it-as-you-go environment of an early-stage startup." – Matthew Codd, Co-Founder, Cosmic Partners
If someone has successfully navigated the path you’re on – like moving from seed funding to Series A – they’re more likely to offer insights that resonate with your current hurdles.
Filter 2: Is This Context Similar to Mine?
Beyond stage, context is key. Advice that works for one market or customer base might fall flat in another. For instance, if an advisor has experience with long enterprise sales cycles but you’re running quick-turnaround deals, their strategies might not translate.
Take a closer look at factors like your Annual Contract Value, sales cycle length, and customer size. Ask yourself: Was their audience similar to mine? Did they face the same buyer behaviors I’m encountering? The closer their context matches yours, the more likely their advice will work for you.
Filter 3: Is This a Principle or a Tactic?
Not all advice is created equal. Principles – like understanding customer pain points – are timeless and adaptable. Tactics, on the other hand, are specific actions that might not work in every scenario.
"If someone can’t tell you when their advice wouldn’t work, they don’t understand when it would." – Foti Panagiotakopoulos, Founder, GrowthMentor
Be wary of advice that comes packaged as a one-size-fits-all solution, like "always do X." Instead, focus on advice that explains the why behind a strategy. Principles tend to hold up even as tools and market conditions evolve, while tactics can quickly lose relevance.
Filter 4: Can I Test This Cheaply Before Committing?
Great advice often comes with a low-risk way to test it out. For example, if someone suggests a new outreach method, try it on a small group of prospects first. Similarly, if pricing adjustments are recommended, pilot the change with a limited segment of your customers.
The idea is to experiment without overcommitting. Start small, gather data, and refine your approach based on what you learn. This way, you minimize risk while ensuring you’re only scaling strategies that show promise.
Filter 5: Does This Align with My Data?
At the end of the day, your own data should guide your decisions. If a piece of advice contradicts what your metrics are telling you, trust the numbers. Look at key indicators like win rates, deal sizes, and sales cycle lengths to see if the advice aligns with your current performance.
For instance, if your data shows that prospects who attend product demos convert at a high rate, but an advisor suggests skipping demos in favor of direct proposals, it might be smarter to stick with what’s working. Always ask: What would need to be true in my data for this advice to succeed, and does my reality match that?
Building Your Advice Immune System
Strive to be a decisive leader rather than someone who simply gathers advice. Your "advice immune system" develops as you track your decisions, measure their outcomes, and analyze why certain strategies succeed or fail. Keep a detailed log of the advice you receive, including its context and the results of applying it. Reviewing this log every six months can help you identify patterns: Which advisors consistently provide actionable insights? Which strategies worked well early on but became less effective as your business grew?
Instead of seeking direct answers, focus on asking sharper, more insightful questions. As Foti Panagiotakopoulos, Founder of GrowthMentor, explains:
"Advice tells you what to do. Mentorship helps you think better."
For example, when presenting a sales strategy to an advisor, encourage them to challenge your assumptions using your own data. This approach, where the advisor acts as a "sparring partner", pushes you to refine your thinking and strengthens your judgment far more than merely following suggestions.
To measure how well you filter advice, track key performance indicators (KPIs). Consider metrics like your success rate in implementing advice, a context alignment score (on a scale of 1–10) for each advisor, and your decision-making speed. Waiting for 90% certainty before acting can lead to analysis paralysis. Leaders like Jeff Bezos recommend making decisions when you’re about 70% confident – acting sooner helps maintain momentum.
Adopt the habit of asking advisors a revealing question: "Compared to other founders you work with, am I getting more or less value from our conversations?" This can uncover whether you’re effectively leveraging their expertise. If the answer suggests you’re falling short, it might mean you’re not providing enough context. Always ground your advice requests in relevant data – share details like your target customer profile, average revenue per customer, and current sales metrics. This keeps the conversation focused and ensures the guidance you receive is tailored to your specific situation.
Finally, remember the golden rule: your data outweighs their theory. If advice conflicts with what your numbers are telling you, dig deeper to understand the gap. Sometimes, the advisor may be right, and your data collection methods need improvement. Other times, your unique circumstances may not align with their experience. Either way, reconciling advice with evidence strengthens your ability to make sound decisions – a skill that will serve you well over the long haul.
When to Ignore Advice (Even Good Advice)
Even the best advice isn’t always the right advice – especially if it clashes with your data or the stage of your business. Just because guidance comes from a successful figure doesn’t mean it’s a perfect fit for your situation. The trick is knowing when well-meaning advice could lead you astray. A good starting point? Use the nuance test. Ask the advisor, “When wouldn’t this work?” If they can’t give you a clear answer, they may not fully understand the limits of their own strategy.
It’s smart to disregard advice that contradicts your data or comes from someone operating at a completely different scale. Take the example of Dropbox. Back in July 2015, investor Chris Sacca advised the Dropbox co-founders to pivot, warning that Google Drive would "crush them." But instead of taking his advice at face value, they trusted their own metrics – and Dropbox went on to become a multi-billion-dollar company. That’s the power of knowing your numbers; they reflect your unique reality in a way no advisor’s track record can.
Similarly, strategies that work for massive corporations often fail for smaller startups. Big companies can afford to take risks that would sink a smaller business. Their resources allow them to weather high-stakes moves, but for a solo entrepreneur or a small team, those same tactics could spell disaster.
Another red flag? Advice that overcomplicates your sales process. If you can’t explain why a tactic works in straightforward terms, you’re probably copying the surface-level actions of success without understanding the deeper mechanics. That approach wastes both time and resources.
Timing is another factor many advisors overlook. Market conditions change fast, and what worked six months ago might be irrelevant now. Plus, advice that pushes you toward goals you don’t actually want – like chasing aggressive growth when you’re focused on steady profitability – can derail your focus. Trust your instincts if something feels off.
Here’s a practical tip: apply the quarantine rule. Before acting on new advice, take a day or two to reflect. Ask yourself if it aligns with your goals, your data, and the core of what makes your business unique. Sometimes, making mistakes on your own terms is far more valuable than blindly following someone else’s playbook. By staying grounded in your reality, you’ll get better at knowing when to listen – and when to trust yourself.
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When to Seek Advice vs. When to Trust Yourself
After you’ve run advice through your 5-filter framework, the next challenge is figuring out when to lean on external input and when to rely on your own judgment. The key isn’t about gathering endless opinions – it’s about knowing when to stop listening and start taking action. As James Currier from NFX says, "You are your number one advisor." The real question isn’t whether external advice has merit but whether it’s worth your time and energy to pursue it. Let’s break down when to seek outside guidance and when to trust your instincts.
A simple way to approach this is: lean on external advice for tactical decisions, but trust yourself for strategic ones. For example, choosing a CRM, experimenting with sales tools, or testing new lead generation platforms are decisions that can be reversed. In these cases, consulting domain experts can save you hours of trial and error. On the other hand, decisions like pivoting to enterprise sales, overhauling your pricing model, or rethinking your go-to-market strategy require a deep understanding of your business’s unique dynamics – something only you can fully grasp. While outside perspectives can inform these strategic moves, the ultimate decision should come from your data and instincts.
To streamline your decision-making, consider applying the 70% rule for major choices. Once you’ve gathered about 70% of the information you think you need, make the call. Waiting for perfect clarity often leads to inaction. As Naval Ravikant wisely puts it, "If you survey enough people, all of the advice will cancel to zero. You have to have your own point of view." External advice is most valuable when you recognize you’re stuck in a single perspective or struggling to see alternative angles. In these cases, seek input from advisors who are just a step or two ahead of you – someone with relevant experience, like a founder running a $500K ARR business if you’re at $150K ARR. Their insights are often more applicable than advice from someone operating on a completely different scale, like a Series B CEO.
On the flip side, trust yourself when advice conflicts with your data or feels misaligned with your business. Your real-world results will always outweigh someone else’s theory. If your experiments and metrics show what works, stick with them. Alex Turnbull from Groove captures this well: "Sometimes it’s better to trust your gut and be wrong (and learn from it) than take someone else’s advice and be wrong (and regret not trusting your gut)." Acting on your informed instincts not only drives growth but also builds your confidence as a decision-maker.
The Danger of Advice Shopping
As you work on strengthening your ability to filter and process advice, there’s a sneaky pitfall to watch out for: advice shopping. This goes beyond simply seeking guidance – it’s when you look for validation of decisions you’ve already made or try to find permission to sidestep tough actions. Falling into this trap can drain your time, wear you down with decision fatigue, and leave you stuck while opportunities slip away.
Here’s how the validation trap plays out: you naturally lean toward advice that aligns with your existing beliefs and dismiss anything that challenges them. Alex Turnbull, CEO & Founder of Groove, sums it up perfectly:
"We’re a lot more likely to take advice if it validates our existing beliefs than if it contradicts them."
What happens next? You keep asking more people until someone finally tells you what you want to hear. By the time you’ve gathered all these opinions, the conflicting advice leaves you even more confused than when you started. This cycle can stall progress and create unnecessary roadblocks.
Then there’s the hesitation trap. If you find yourself saying things like, "I just need more information" or "Let me get one more opinion", you might be using advice-seeking as a way to delay taking action. Josh Kopelman, Partner at First Round Capital, puts it bluntly:
"Doing nothing is a decision. It’s the same as actively choosing to stay on the same path. And most founders don’t realize that."
Waiting until you feel completely "certain" can mean missing your chance to act. Studies show that for entrepreneurs, over 90% of the advice worth following comes from less than 10% of the people you consult.
To break free from advice shopping, try this: pause for 24–48 hours before acting on any new advice. This gives you time to reflect and avoid making rash decisions based on the latest input. Instead of asking, "What should I do?" share your plan with an advisor and encourage them to challenge it. Phin Barnes, Partner at First Round Capital, explains the value of this approach:
"The entrepreneur often already has the best answer to a problem. A good advisor will bring it out by forcing them to walk through the problem again and again."
Ground your questions in real data – like your conversion rates, sales cycle, or customer feedback – rather than vague hypotheticals. And if you’re hesitating on a decision, chances are, you already know the answer but are looking for external validation to avoid the discomfort of acting on it.
Conclusion: Filter the Noise, Trust Your Judgment
Using the five-filter framework and strengthening your "advice immune system" highlights a key truth: most sales advice isn’t inherently bad – it’s just not tailored to your situation. The real issue? Advice that works wonders for one business might completely miss the mark for yours. Context and stage matter far more than the reputation of the person giving the advice. A strategy that drives results for a Series B enterprise likely won’t translate to a $250K ARR small business. What does carry over? Core principles.
Here’s your next step: focus on timeless principles instead of situational tactics. When someone insists, "You should always do X", ask them to explain when their advice wouldn’t apply. If they can’t, they probably don’t understand the principle behind their suggestion. Apply the five-filter framework to sift through advice, and let your own data guide your decisions.
The most successful founders absorb knowledge from everywhere but ultimately trust their own judgment. You already have many of the answers – you just need to believe in them. When advice doesn’t sit right, trust your instincts, especially when backed by your data. It’s better to make mistakes while learning on your own than to regret staying stuck because of someone else’s flawed guidance.
Use your framework to cut through the noise and make decisions grounded in what works for your business.
Need help distinguishing valuable insights from distractions? Get clarity on what works for your stage – join our next Founders Meeting. Spots are limited, and the group is small. Don’t miss out.
FAQs
How do I know if sales advice applies to my business stage?
To determine if sales advice fits your business stage, take a moment to reflect on a few important questions:
- Does the advisor’s experience match your current stage? If their achievements came after reaching $10M ARR or managing a large team, their insights might not be helpful for a solo B2B founder navigating the $100K–$1M ARR range.
- Is their context similar to yours? Think about factors like market type, deal size, and sales cycle. For instance, strategies for landing $500K enterprise contracts may not work for selling a $5K annual SaaS subscription.
- Is the advice a principle or a tactic? Universal principles, such as "focus on qualified leads", tend to apply broadly. On the other hand, specific tactics often depend on stage, industry, or other variables.
Whenever possible, try testing the advice on a small scale and compare it to your own data. If it doesn’t align with the patterns in your metrics, it might not be the right fit for your current situation.
What are the risks of following sales advice from larger, more established companies without careful consideration?
Blindly following sales advice from larger companies can create significant challenges for early-stage founders. One major issue is stage mismatch. Strategies that help $100M+ businesses scale are often ill-suited for a solo founder trying to close smaller deals in the $5K–$20K range. Applying these tactics too early can drain your time and resources on processes that simply don’t align with your current priorities.
Another key factor is that context matters. The market dynamics, buyer personas, and sales cycles of enterprise-level companies are vastly different from those of small B2B startups. For example, a strategy tailored to selling complex SaaS products may completely miss the mark if your offering is a straightforward service. This disconnect can lead to lackluster results and unnecessary frustration.
Lastly, much of the advice out there is clouded by survivorship bias. What worked for a successful company may not work for you, especially if their success stemmed from specific conditions or timing that no longer apply. Without carefully evaluating advice through the lens of your own stage, market, and data, you risk adopting strategies that don’t fit, wasting resources, and undermining your confidence in your own decision-making.
How can I test sales advice without fully committing to it?
To evaluate sales advice effectively, start by crafting a clear hypothesis about the expected outcome. For example, you might hypothesize, "Sending a follow-up email will boost conversions by 10%." Once you’ve defined this, conduct a small-scale, low-cost experiment. This could involve targeting a handful of qualified prospects – say, 5 to 10 accounts – and testing the new tactic, such as a fresh email template, against your current method.
Keep the process simple by using basic tools and aim to collect data within a week or two. Compare the results to your original hypothesis. If the experiment shows a noticeable improvement, consider rolling out the tactic on a larger scale. If it doesn’t, refine your approach and test again, or move on to other strategies. This quick, cost-effective testing method helps you base decisions on real data, ensuring that only strategies that truly work for your business move forward.
