What We Stopped Doing

Sometimes best lessons come from what you stop doing. Best practices from books or conferences do not always work in practice.

This is an honest look at tactics we tried, and why we stopped.

Examples of things we stopped doing: 1) "Creative" opening lines — looked clever, but sounded forced. 2) Too long follow-up sequences — after 7th email it was spam. 3) Automated personalization — "{first_name}" is not personalization. 4) Optimizing for connection rate — we ignored conversation quality.

Each of these tactics looked good on paper. In practice they either did not work, or had negative side effects.

Creative openers: trying to be original can look unprofessional. Customer wants relevance, not entertainment.

Long sequences: line between persistence and spam is thin. After certain point you damage brand.

Fake personalization: people recognize when "personalization" is auto-generated.

Wrong metrics: optimizing for wrong thing leads to wrong results.

Rule: test, measure, and be willing to stop. Just because it works elsewhere does not mean it will work for you.

Red flags: tactic looks "clever" but results do not correspond. Or: works short-term, but damages long-term (e.g., aggressive follow-up → damaged brand).

• Test: try with measurable results
• Measure: track not just primary metric, but also side effects
• Stop: be willing to stop, even if it "should work"
• Context: what works elsewhere may not work for you

Willingness to stop: save time on things that do not work. But requires ego-less decision making.

Sticking to "best practices": consistency, easier explanation. But you may be doing something that does not work.

Regularly review what you do and why. "We do it because we always do it" is not a good reason.

Be skeptical of "guaranteed" tactics from books and conferences. Context matters.