What to Do When Your Pipeline Goes Cold

Hello Predictable Revenue community,

Book update: The Founder Sales Guide has helped push pre-sales to 177! Huge thank you to everyone who has already pre-ordered. If you haven’t yet, just email me your receipt and I’ll make sure you’re added to the presale benefits doc. Barnes and Noble is having a sale this week and today (Friday) is the last day, use the code: PREORDER25 for 25% off.

Pre-Sale Club: Next Friday at 9:30am PT I’m hosting a Q&A for anyone who’s pre-ordered the book. We cover everything from outbound sales, to closing deal tactics, to the dirty sales tricks that are working for me right now but I don’t want to share too widely. Send me your receipt and I’ll add you to the invite.

Youtube: I also recorded this one for Youtube - check it out here.

I remember staring at our forecast in January '22. It said we were on track to lose nearly $300k over the next three months. As a bootstrapped business, that would put us into the earth and leave me in personal debt forever.

Our forecasted losses were $100k per month on $300k of revenue.

"Hello rock, meet hard place."

My board members were telling me I needed to get prospecting, uncovering every rock in our pipeline, whatever we could do to hit our numbers. My exec team was looking for revenue everywhere. Our sales team was scouring their pipeline for deals to help us through.

What did I do? A fun little dance I call the freeze then thrash.

First, I froze. I did nothing for about a week, like this forecast was the T-Rex from Jurassic Park—if you don't move, it can't see you. I can still feel that cold blanket of anxiety wrapping around me as I write this.

Well, turns out that's no way to escape a T-Rex or an equally terrifying forecast.

Then, I thrashed. With less time to accomplish my goal, I started doing everything: cold email, cold LinkedIn, working my network, crazy prospecting ideas so bad they don't deserve a mention.

So at first I did nothing. Then I did everything.

Did either one help? Not really. They were both panic-induced reactions.

The first was the freeze—if I ignore it, it can't hurt me. The second was the thrash—if I don't stop working, I won't feel the stress.

Both were wrong.

Why We Thrash (And Why It Backfires)

When deals stall and your pipeline feels cold, your instinct screams: Do something. Do everything. You start thinking about firing your agency and hiring another one. You consider spinning up 10 new prospecting campaigns overnight. Your finger hovers over the "email all LinkedIn contacts" button. Maybe you need to rebuild your deck, slash pricing by 50%, launch a referral program, or pivot your entire go-to-market strategy.

This is thrashing. And it rarely works.

Here's what I've learned from watching hundreds of founders go through this cycle: thrashing leads to burnout, broken processes, and scattered signals to your market. When you're desperately trying everything at once, you actually stop doing what was working. You abandon the activities that got you this far because they don't feel fast enough, dramatic enough, or comprehensive enough to solve your immediate crisis.

In trying everything, you lose the one thing you needed—consistency. Your team gets confused by constantly shifting priorities. Your prospects get mixed messages about who you are and what you do. Your existing customers wonder if you're stable enough to bet their business on.

Most dangerously, thrashing causes commission breath—that desperate energy prospects can smell from a mile away. Commission breath kills deals faster than bad product-market fit because nobody wants to buy from someone who seems like they might not be around to support the purchase.

Your buyers need you to be the steady hand in their decision process, not another anxious vendor pushing for a close because you need the revenue now. They're already nervous about making the wrong choice. The last thing they need is a salesperson who seems more worried about their own problems than solving the customer's.

The Anti-Thrash Framework

Instead of panicking, I learned to use what Richard Rumelt calls "good strategy" thinking. This method came from his book "Good Strategy Bad Strategy," and it's saved my sanity more times than I can count.

1. Define the Situation

Write it down—literally write it down: What's happening? What's bad? What's not so bad?

2. Diagnose the Problem

Why are we in this situation? Is it timing? Process? Market conditions? Team execution? Competitive pressure?

3. Choose Your Guiding Policy

The guiding policy looks at the diagnosis, picks the hardest part of the problem, and prescribes a way through it. Do you need to cut expenses, raise debt, or find more revenue? All will depend on how you diagnose the problem.

4. Take Coherent Action

This is the plan—the steps that organize and focus the team around solving the actual problem, not just throwing resources at symptoms.

Three Rules to Avoid Thrashing

Rule #1: Trust Your Playbook

Stay cool. Panic causes commission breath, and commission breath kills deals.

Stick to your process—follow your playbook, ask the timing question, don't shortcut discovery. Work every deal like you're the advisor helping them decide, not someone who needs their signature to make payroll.

Rule #2: Focus on What's In Your Control

Most founders blame external factors when deals slip: the market, pricing, marketing, competitors.

Focus on what you control: your conversations, follow-up, discovery process, and ability to identify decision-makers. Channel your energy toward activities that actually move the needle.

Rule #3: Add Calmly, Not Chaotically

Launch new initiatives one at a time, like experiments. Give each one time to work before adding the next.

Companies that survive revenue dips make calm, measured adjustments—not blow everything up and start over.

The Free Money Most Founders Miss

Here's something most founders don't think to look for when revenue gets tight: there's often free money sitting in your CRM.

I'm talking about deals you, or your team, have already worked—opportunities where you've invested time, built relationships, done discovery. Deals that went quiet or got a "not now" but didn't slam the door shut.

These aren't cold prospects. These are warm relationships where you've already established trust and identified pain. If you spoke with them 6-12 months ago, chances are their circumstances have changed. They may not be ready to buy today, but they might.

I like to do "Follow-Up Friday": I block an hour every Friday and send 10 follow-up emails to deals from the past 12 months. Not pushy sales emails—genuine high context follow ups asking how things have evolved since you last spoke. (See “Mastering High Context Follow-Ups section here).

This is often the highest-converting activity you can do, and most sales teams completely ignore it.

Why This Actually Works

Every salesperson has felt this empty, concerning feeling when deals slip. It's part of the game.

The difference between companies that survive revenue dips and those that don't isn't how they avoid the dips—it's how they respond to them.

Winners stay steady. They trust their process and work existing relationships systematically. The market doesn't owe you revenue on your timeline, but if you stay calm and focus on what's in your control, you'll come out stronger.

What's your biggest temptation when deals slip? Hit reply and let me know—I read every response.

Collin 

PS - got my first review… thanks Dad! He powered through it in a day… but not until after he saw my mom was already ⅓ of the way through it. It’s obvious where my competitive streak comes from. 

PPS - If you really want to help out, ordering a copy from Barnes and Noble this week is one of the best ways. Apparently they use this sale as a strong signal for whether or not to buy hard copies for their stores.