Happy Triple Threat Thursday.
Here’s one Signal to notice, one thing to Spark growth and one Shift to consider.
This week’s theme: Marketing is the safest place to hide a harder problem.
I’ve walked into more than a few companies where the first conclusion is already decided.
“We need more marketing.”
Pipeline feels light. Revenue feels uneven. So the assumption is simple. More leads will fix it.
What usually doesn’t get said in that first meeting is what’s happening after the first call.
Deals sit too long. Follow-up depends on who owns it. Pricing moves faster than it should. Buyers disappear after proposals.
None of that is as easy to solve as launching a campaign.
So marketing becomes the focus.
📡 Signal — What’s Changing
Lead flow gets scrutinized before sales habits do
In most revenue reviews, the conversation begins with volume. How many leads came in. What campaigns are running. What can be increased.
What gets less attention is consistency.
Response time often varies by rep. Follow-up cadence depends on workload. Some opportunities are worked thoroughly. Others quietly fade.
There’s longstanding research showing that a significant share of deals go to the company that responds first. Not because they’re better marketers, but because they demonstrate urgency and reliability. If response speed and follow-up aren’t tight, adding more leads won’t fix revenue. It will simply increase the number of half-worked opportunities.
This isn’t a criticism of marketing. It’s a reminder that awareness and execution are different problems.
If you don’t handle today’s leads well, tomorrow’s won’t behave any differently.
⚡ Spark — What to Try This Week
Run The “Double the Leads” Test
Look at the last quarter of data.
Total leads.
Qualified opportunities.
Closed deals.
Time to first response.
Deals that reached proposal and stalled.
Now consider this without overcomplicating it.
If inbound increased sharply next month, where would pressure show up first? Would your team respond just as quickly? Would follow-up stay disciplined? Would pricing hold? Would delivery feel steady?
Then go back through ten recent lost deals and read the notes carefully. Most losses are not caused by a lack of interest. They’re caused by hesitation, uncertainty, or something that didn’t feel solid enough to move forward.
Before expanding the top of the funnel, make sure the middle of it is steady.
Growth pressure reveals weak spots faster than it fixes them.
🔄 Shift — How to Rethink It
More leads feel productive. Hard conversations feel risky.
Increasing lead flow feels proactive. It’s visible. It creates motion. That makes it attractive when growth slows.
Looking closely at how deals are handled requires a different kind of work. It surfaces uneven habits, uncomfortable patterns, and sometimes performance issues.
So when pressure rises, leaders tend to focus on the part of the system that feels easiest to change.
But marketing can only accelerate what already exists. If sales follow-up is disciplined and delivery feels dependable, more demand compounds results. If those areas are inconsistent, more demand magnifies the inconsistency.
The question isn’t whether marketing works. The question is whether the rest of the system is ready for what marketing might bring.
Marketing scales what you already are, not what you hope to be.
📚 Worth A Look
🔗 Real B2B Sales Conversion Benchmarks for 2026
This recent guide outlines current conversion rates across the funnel and shows how top performers close gaps between stages, highlighting that most teams don’t even know if their close rates are competitive.
🔗 Why Current Marketing Strategies Won’t Hold Up in 2026
A February 2026 Entrepreneur piece explains that marketing alone won’t generate results unless sales enablement and CRM integration are part of the same system that turns leads into revenue.
🔗 B2B Marketing Trends Shaping 2026 Demand Engines
A January 2026 trend analysis shows that buyers now self-educate early, making pipeline success less about volume and more about relevance, precision, and alignment with sales, a reminder that throwing more leads at the system won’t fix weak handoffs.
📈 TL;DR
When revenue dips, the instinct is to generate more leads. The real issue often shows up in how existing opportunities are handled.
📈 One Question
Where, specifically, are your last ten deals stalling?
Thanks for reading Triple Threat. See you next Thursday with another Signal, Spark, and Shift.
— Alexandria Ohlinger
p.s. If this helped you think sharper or move faster, share it with someone who builds the way you do. And if you want more practical insight between issues, connect with me on LinkedIn.