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Welcome to 2026. You are back in your rhythm.
Calendar is filling up. Inbox is live again. Teams/Slack messages are non-stop.
The machine is running.
But here is the question nobody wants to answer honestly: What are you actually going to do differently this year?
Not what you hope changes. Not what you wish your team would fix. What are you doubling down on, and what are you cutting, for real this time?
Was this newsletter forwarded to you?
Because if you are being honest, you already know what worked last year and what crashed and burned. You know which tactics brought revenue and which ones burned time. You know which tools paid for themselves and which ones collected dust. You know which events generated pipeline and which ones were expensive networking theater.
The data is sitting right in front of you. The question is whether you have the backbone to act on it. I mean…honestly, act on it.
Most people never do. They know what is broken. They just do not want to be the one who admits it.
So let’s address it so you can crush your year ahead.
Let’s dance.
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The Instinct Trap
Most leaders make decisions based on instinct, not evidence. They double down on what feels comfortable, what they have always done, or what everyone else is doing. That is how you stay stuck.
Doubling down should never be instinctive. It should be behavior and data-led. You double down when the signals are undeniable, when the momentum is visible, when the market is pulling you forward, not when you have a good feeling about it.
Think about the best decision you made last year. I bet you did not make it because you felt like it. You made it because the data was screaming. Because customers were moving toward you. Because conversion went up. Because deals closed faster.
That is the standard for everything in 2026.
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Double down when customers move faster toward you, not away. Your close rate accelerates. Deal cycles shrink. Buyers are leaning in instead of hesitating. This is not a vanity metric. This is a market signal.
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Double down when AI or automation removes friction and increases conversion or retention. You implement a tool, and suddenly your team closes 20 percent more deals with less effort. That is not luck. That is leverage.
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Double down when behavior changes mid-journey in your favor. Prospects who used to ghost are now replying. Demos that used to stall are now converting. Customers are renewing faster and asking for more. The market is telling you something.
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Double down when the market pulls your product ahead of your roadmap. You keep hearing the same request, the same pain point, the same urgency from different customers. You are not chasing the market. The market is chasing you.
This is where capital concentrates. This is where talent clusters. This is where your brand messaging sharpens, and your competitive edge becomes real.
If you see these signals, you do not test it. You double down hard.
If you want to check out other articles i’ve written on this, check it out here:
The Cost of Inaction in Business
The Brutal Cut
The harder part is the cut. Because cutting means admitting you were wrong. It means killing something you championed six months ago. It means looking your team in the eye and saying, we are stopping this. We all make mistakes. It happens. Just don’t keep burning a hole in your company’s pocket for useless technology.
Most leaders do not have the stomach for it. They let bad tactics limp along because stopping feels like failure. They keep underperforming tools in the stack because we already paid for it. They continue attending events that generate zero pipeline because it is good for brand awareness.
That is cowardice dressed up as optimism.
If something is not working, kill it. Do not wait for a financial crisis to force your hand. Do not wait for your board to ask why the numbers are flat. Do not wait for your best people to leave because they are tired of wasting time on tactics that do not work.
Cuts hurt in the short term. But they save you in the long term.
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Cut when the tactic has had 90 days, and the needle has not moved. Cold email generating zero meetings? Stop. Whitepapers getting ignored? Stop. Trade shows burning budget with no deals? Pivot. You gave it a fair shot. It did not work. Move on.
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Cut when the tool is not being used. If your team is not logging into it, if adoption is under 30 percent, if you are paying for seats nobody wants, cancel it today. Sunk cost is sunk. Do not throw good money after bad.
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Cut when the activity drains energy without creating results. If your weekly pipeline meeting feels like a therapy session instead of a strategy session, restructure it or kill it. If a process exists just because it has always existed, it is not a process. It is a tax on your time.
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Cut when you are doing it because that is how you have always done it. Tradition is not strategy. Legacy process is just inertia with a better name. The companies that move fastest are the ones willing to question everything.
Cutting is not about being negative. It is about being disciplined. Every dollar and every hour you waste on something that does not work is a dollar and an hour you could have invested in something that does.
Still, keep adding that value!
The 2026 Audit
Here is your homework before the end of January.
Step 1: Pull the data.
Go back to Q1 2025. Look at every major initiative, every campaign, every tactic your team ran. Write down the cost: time, budget, headcount. Write down the result: pipeline, revenue, closed deals. Calculate the ROI.
Do not guess. Pull the actual numbers. If you do not have the data, that is the first problem you need to solve.
Step 2: Sort into three buckets.
Bucket 1 is Double Down. High ROI. Clear momentum. Customers responding. This is where you lean in. More budget. More time. More focus. Build around it.
If events generated 40 percent of your pipeline last year, do twice as many. If social selling closes deals faster than cold outreach, train the whole team. If a specific vertical or customer segment converted at three times the average, build a dedicated play for them.
Bucket 3 is Cut. Low or negative ROI. No momentum. Draining resources. Kill it today.
Cold email with a 0.2 percent reply rate? Done. A tool nobody uses? Canceled. A weekly meeting that produces no decisions? Deleted. A hire that is not pulling their weight? Have the conversation.
Bucket 2 is Test or Optimize. Showed potential but underperformed. Give it 60 more days with a clear success metric. If it hits, promote to Bucket 1. If it misses, demote to Bucket 3. No gray zone. No limbo. Commit or kill.
Step 3: Communicate the changes.
Do not keep this analysis to yourself. Share it with your team.
Here is what worked last year. Here is what did not. Here is what we are doubling down on. Here is what we are cutting. Here is why.
Transparency builds trust. It also prevents your team from wasting energy on tactics you have already decided to kill. It signals that you are paying attention. That you care about efficiency. That you are not going to let a broken process drag everyone down.
The Cost of Inaction
If you do not make real cuts, here is what happens.
Your best people get frustrated. They see the waste. They see the inefficiency. They wonder why leadership is not fixing it. Eventually, they leave for a company that moves faster.
Your credibility erodes. If you say we are focusing on what works but keep funding what does not, your words lose weight. People stop believing the strategy.
Your growth stalls. You cannot scale by doing more of everything. You scale by doing more of what works and eliminating everything else.
The leaders who win in 2026 are not the ones with the biggest budgets or the flashiest tactics. They are the ones who have the discipline to cut fast and the conviction to double down hard.
What the Internet Taught Me This Week
From new tools, recent trends, and market updates, here is what has been on my mind.
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AI Job Loss: Why 5 Million White-Collar Jobs Face Extinction. Check it out here
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American contractors fear recession, access to labor may delay construction projects in 2026. Check it out here
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Trump order targeting defense contractor pay, stock buybacks is ‘full of ambiguity’. Check it out here
You already know what worked last year. You also know what did not work. The question is whether you are going to do something about it.
Stop waiting for a crisis to force the decision. Stop waiting for someone else to tell you to change. You are the leader. You have the data. Make the call.
Double down on what is working. Cut what is not. Do it now, not in Q2 when the numbers are already behind.
2026 is not the year to hope things get better. It is the year to make them better. Own it.
See you next week.
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Unlocking Hidden Potential – Reconnecting with Past Clients for Explosive Growth – Check out my free eBook on how you can find hidden gems in your past clients and help you crush your sales goals.
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AI for Business Development – Download our free eBook on how you can effectively leverage AI prompts to your advantage. From properly setting up your preferred AI tool, to how to shape your prompts, save time, and get the outputs you are looking for.
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Sales Resources at Your Fingertips – From tools, tips, demos, and how-tos, check out our Pages and content that can provide you with additional support, whether it be social selling, account management, or something else.
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Cribworks Advisor Program – Want more than just resources? Reach out to me and see if our Advisor Program can help you scale your business.
