Seriously Don’t Do That™

Dan Griffith
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Seriously Don’t Do That™ is a weekly show for founders making high-stakes growth decisions and trying not to learn the hard way.Each episode focuses on one specific mistake founders make under pressure: U.S. market entry assumptions, emotional beachhead choices, premature sales hires, ICP chaos, compliance blind spots, broken pipelines, and board-level credibility gaps.Hosted by Dan Griffith, the show brings pattern recognition from real founder situations across healthcare, fintech, insurance, and other regulated or institutionally complex markets. Guest episodes validate the reality. Dan explains what actually went wrong and what to do instead.This isn’t hustle content. It’s not tactics without context. And it’s not agency advice.If growth feels harder than it should… you’re probably right.Seriously, Don’t Do That!

  1. Aug 20

    Seriously, Don’t Treat Conferences as a Lead Source

    Send us Fan Mail A conference isn’t a lead source. And treating it like one is one of the most expensive beliefs a founder can carry into fall event season. In this episode of Seriously, Don’t Do That, Dan Griffith breaks down why so many companies spend tens of thousands of dollars on conferences, booths, travel, badge scans, dinners, and team time, only to come home with a spreadsheet of names and no real pipeline. The problem usually is not the event. The right buyers are often in the room. The real problem is that most companies treat the conference like a one-time lead source instead of a sales sequence. There is a sale you make internally before the show. There is a meeting you sell before the show. There is a next conversation you sell on-site. And only after that does the product sale belong in the follow-up. Most teams skip the front of the sequence, show up cold, and try to sell the product to a stranger in a hallway while they are holding coffee and watching the clock. Seriously, don’t do that. In this episode, Dan covers: Why “bad show” is usually the wrong diagnosis Why the room is not the problem Why badge scans are not pipeline Why a booth is optional, but the sequence is not How to sell meetings before the event How to use LinkedIn and the conference app before you arrive Why the hallway conversation should close the next conversation, not the product Why follow-up must happen within 24 to 48 hours How to calculate real conference ROI The 4-question audit to run before your next event If you already paid for the booth, use it. But do not let the booth become the strategy. The booth is optional. The sequence isn’t. Run the 4-question audit on your next event before you fly: Is there a written plan, and does everyone know what they are responsible for producing? How many meetings are booked right now, and who is selling meetings between today and the show? What is the exact sentence your people say to close the next conversation, and does it have a date in it? Whose calendar has the follow-up block on it before the trip? Most teams find the gap before they ever leave for the airport. That is the point. 🎙️ Seriously Don’t Do That™ Hosted by Dan Griffith 🌐 greatergaingroup.com Live Thursday at 9 AM EDT. #SeriouslyDontDoThat #GTMStrategy #SalesPipeline LinkedIn | WEBSITE

  2. Aug 13

    Seriously, Don't Build Your US Go-To-Market Around Spend - with Chris Luiz, Scout InsurTech

    Send us Fan Mail Entering the U.S. market with a bigger budget doesn’t mean you’re entering it the right way. Dan Griffith sits down with Chris Luiz, founder of Scout InsurTech, to break down one of the biggest mistakes international founders make when entering the U.S. insurance market: trying to buy their way into credibility. They discuss why conference booths and badge scans rarely equal pipeline, why founders need to build relationships before scaling spend, and why selling into U.S. insurance means understanding an entire buying committee, not just finding one champion. Dan and Chris also cover: Why U.S. insurance market entry is a credibility problem, not a marketing problemWhere companies waste money when expanding into the U.S.Why founders should lead early market validationHow relationships outperform one-off conference interactionsWhy compliance, security, procurement, and governance can quietly kill a dealHow to build a focused target-account map before spending on market presenceWhat founders should validate before hiring a U.S. sales teamIf you’re entering the U.S. market, especially in insurance or another complex enterprise industry, this episode will help you avoid an expensive mistake: scaling spend before you’ve built the relationships and system to support it. Seriously, don’t do that.™ LinkedIn | WEBSITE

  3. Aug 6

    The Golden Toilet Rule: Don’t Ignore Your Cloud Infrastructure

    Send us Fan Mail Your product can look great and still be sitting on terrible plumbing. Dan Griffith sits down with Tom Sas, a cloud infrastructure architect with more than 20 years of experience, to explain what he calls the Golden Toilet Rule and why founders should stop treating cloud infrastructure as something that simply “runs in the background.” Tom breaks down a common trap: software developers build the product, keep the infrastructure working, and everything seems fine. Until the company starts scaling. Then costs rise, security gaps appear, systems become harder to manage, and nobody is quite sure who actually owns the problem. Dan and Tom discuss: Why “it works” can be a dangerous standardWhy developers shouldn’t automatically own cloud infrastructureHow poor cloud visibility leads to unnecessary spendWhy every company needs clear infrastructure ownershipHow regular audits expose unused resources, rising costs, and security risksThe difference between guardrails and roadblocksWhen it makes sense to bring in a DevOps or cloud specialistWhy backup, disaster recovery, permissions, and cost controls need ongoing attentionTom also shares a simple five-step framework founders can use to assess their cloud environment: Assign ownership. Create visibility. Audit regularly. Build guardrails. Know when to call a specialist. Because great software running on weak infrastructure is still a weak business foundation. Seriously, don’t do that.™ LinkedIn | WEBSITE

  4. Jul 30

    Is LinkedIn Outbound Dead in 2026? The B2B Sales Prob Nobody's Naming (And How to Actually Fix It)

    Send us Fan Mail Four hundred outbound messages. Eleven replies. Three of them were "no thanks." A founder forwarded me the whole batch a couple of weeks ago and asked me one question: "Dan - is LinkedIn dead, or is it us?" Here's what I told him. It's neither. It's the thing sitting underneath both. So Thursday morning I'm going live on Seriously Don't Do That, and I'm going to prove it to you. What I'll walk through: ▪ Why the merge field isn't the villain and neither is the rep who sent it ▪ The eight-seat buying committee blueprint every outbound sequence should be built against (screenshot-able) ▪ Why "advanced personalization" isn't a writing skill, read the actual research and it describes the output of an architecture, not a better sentence ▪ The 3-7-7 cadence that captures 93% of replies by Day 10 and why my founder was missing 93% of his own pipeline ▪ The four-point check to run on your very next message (two real elements beat four filler ones, every time) ▪ The one-role, one-week assignment you can start Tuesday Two founders are showing up to this one. The founder who's about to conclude the channel is dead. And the founder who quietly knows it isn't and can't quite explain why nothing's landing. If you're either of them, this is the eleven minutes you want on your calendar. 🔔 Register to watch live  Live on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook. See you Thursday. LinkedIn | WEBSITE

  5. Jul 23

    You Didn't Get Scammed. The agency did exactly what you hired them to do. That's why you lost.

    Send us Fan Mail A health tech founder gets on a call with Dan last year. Good product. Real customers. Clinical workflow tool. About 90 seconds in, he says: "Dan, we've spent about $80,000 on outbound in the last year, and I have nothing to show for it." Three agencies. Three. First one: six months, $12,000 a month. Booked meetings - but with office managers when he needed the compliance officer and the CMO. Second one: cheaper at $5,000 a month. Burned his sending domain so badly his own sales team couldn't get emails delivered to prospects they already knew. Third one was still running when they talked. And here's the part that stuck - he wasn't angry at the agencies. He was angry at himself. "I don't know what I did wrong." He didn't do anything wrong, except one thing. He bought activity when what he was missing was architecture. Seriously, don't do that. This episode is for two people: One of you has the proposal open in another tab right now. Twenty meetings a month, guaranteed. It feels like relief because pipeline is the one thing keeping you up, and here's somebody offering to just handle it. It's the same reason 70% of first SaaS VPs of Sales don't make 12 months - a stat Jason Lemkin has documented for years. Not because they're bad. Because they got dropped into a motion that didn't exist. No documented ICP, no message-market fit, no process. The agency fails for the exact same structural reason. Not a vendor problem - a physics problem. A composite story Dan's seen play out ~40 times: Company has real traction - $2-3M in revenue, founder closed most of it personally. Growth flattens, nobody can name why. So they do the logical thing and buy pipeline. Nine to twelve months, $50-100K across two or three agencies. What comes back: meetings with a director of ops who's genuinely interested and has zero budget authority, in a market where the compliance officer can kill the deal in a single email. Sales team chases it. Forecast fills up with ghosts. Everybody's busy. Twelve months in, Dan asks one question: what did you give them on day one? The answer: a list. Names, emails, a one-page product overview. The agency's onboarding doc had twelve questions - who's your ICP, what's your qualification criteria, who else is in the room on a deal, what's the message for each of them. The company answered all twelve. Every single answer was a confident, articulate, completely unvalidated guess. Nobody had ever done the work to know. If you're the one about to write the check - sequence it. Architecture first, then capacity. In that order, every time. If you're the one cleaning up - the domain will heal. The work you skipped is a two-week problem, not a $100,000 one. This is the whole reason the BUILT Revenue Engine starts where it starts. Buyer clarity first - before outreach, before install, before anybody spends a dollar on volume. Not because it's clever, but because everything downstream is built on it. You can't skip a foundation and then wonder why the house moves. Next week: we build the architecture itself - the actual thing a future partner or future hire would execute on day one. Segments, roles, messages, sequence. The complete handoff document. 🎙️ Subscribe for weekly GTM strategy for founder-led B2B companies entering regulated U.S. markets. 📩 Connect with Dan Griffith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dangriffithsr/ 🌐 Greater Gain Group: https://greatergaingroup.com/ 📅 Book a discovery call: +1 (864) 278-5044 Chapters: 0:00 The founder who spent $80K on outbound and got nothing 0:57 Seriously, don't do that 1:01 Two people watching this right now 1:26 The agency is not the villain 2:00 What agencies can and can't supply 2:11 Why your first VP of Sales fails for the same reason 2:42 The composite story - 40 times, same result 3:07 Meetings with the wrong people 3:50 The 12-question onboarding doc - answered with guesses 4:35 $100K spent amplifying an untested assumption 4:57 Why outbound fails specifically in regulated B2B 5:03 Forrester: 22 people touch a B2B deal 5:25 Six to eight distinct fears in the buying room 5:57 The personalization data - 5% vs 18% reply rates 6:30 Gartner: 73% of buyers actively avoid irrelevant outreach 6:52 The domain damage problem - expensive twice, maybe three times 7:23 Dan's verdict: stop before you write the check 7:43 Architecture first, capacity second - always 8:14 Five questions, 20 minutes, no vendor needed 8:46 Question 1: segments from closed-won data 8:57 Question 2: 8 buying committee roles and their specific fears 9:30 Question 3: written qualification standard 9:44 Question 4: documented sequence with owners 10:00 Question 5: where does a reply actually go? 10:45 If you're about to write the check 10:57 If you're cleaning up the wreckage 11:03 The BUILT Revenue Engine starts here — buyer clarity first 11:22 Next week preview: building the architecture itself #OutboundSales #B2BSales #GTMStrategy #SeriouslyDontDoThat #FounderLedSales LinkedIn | WEBSITE

  6. Jul 9

    Seriously Don't Hire a Distributor and Call Latin America "Covered" with Franklin J. Perez

    Send us Fan Mail So, most founders think Latin America is one market with one playbook. It's not. And the part that surprises people most? The first move isn't picking a country — it's picking a channel strategy. In this episode, Dan sits down with Franklin J. Perez — 25+ years of commercial leadership across LATAM and the Caribbean at Medtronic, Edwards Lifesciences, and Abbott — to unpack what companies get catastrophically wrong when they enter the Latin American MedTech market. The short version: they hire a distributor, disconnect, and treat the region as covered. Then they spend eighteen months wondering why the revenue never came. The product, as Franklin puts it, dies in the warehouse. Franklin lays out his Three Parallel Channels framework — distributor alignment, physician adoption, and payer access, all running simultaneously from day one — and makes the contrarian case for Puerto Rico as the lowest-risk, highest-speed launch pad into the region: FDA-regulated, commercially Latin American, and small enough to let you make your mistakes cheaply before you scale into a 50-million-person Colombia or a 200-million-person Brazil. If you're a founder eyeing LATAM in the next 12 months, this one's a map. Key Topics Covered Why treating LATAM as one homogeneous market is the fastest way to lose 18 monthsThe distributor trap: why signing a distributor is step one, not the strategyThe Three Parallel Channels framework — distributor alignment, physician adoption, and payer access run at the same time, not in sequenceWhy the payer landscape in LATAM is more varied than founders assume (Brazil's 65M private-insurance market vs. Chile's single-payer system vs. Colombia's US-style mix)The Puerto Rico launch pad: FDA-regulated, commercially Latin American, and built for cheap, fast validationThe 30-year-old perception problem — and why Europeans and Asians already have a head startBuilding a three-year LATAM plan instead of a three-month oneMemorable Quotes (timestamps approximate — pending guest approval) "If it works in Mexico, it should work here… that is not the case." — on the myth of one homogeneous LATAM market (~02:10)"The companies that are successful in Latin America work the three channels in parallel." (~06:40)"Puerto Rico affords you the luxury of making mistakes and correcting them without a high ticket cost." (~17:30)"The Latin American market is like a chess game. If you learn how to move every piece on the board, you're going to be very successful." (~29:15)"We're leaving money on the table by not going after these countries that are neighbors." (~26:00)Resources & Companies Mentioned LATAM MedTech Growth Partners — Franklin's firmMedtronic, Edwards Lifesciences, Abbott — Franklin's commercial-leadership backgroundConcepts referenced: 3PL (third-party logistics coordinator), formulary systems, GPO (group purchasing organization), Colombia's former "tutela" appeals systemTimestamps (Major Segments) 00:00 — Welcome + Franklin's background04:00 — The distributor trap: the #1 first-90-days mistake11:00 — The Three Parallel Channels framework19:00 — Puerto Rico as the LATAM launch pad27:00 — The 30-year-old perception problem35:00 — When LATAM stops being a side bet40:00 — Three things to do this week + closeCall-to-Action If you're thinking about the Latin American market — even if you're a year or two out — it's worth a conversation with Franklin now, before you sign anything. Connect with him on LinkedIn (link below) and tell him you heard him on Seriously Don't Do That. And if you're a founder eyeing the U.S. market, that's our home turf — reach out to us at Greater Gain Group. Either way, subscribe so you don't miss what's next LinkedIn | WEBSITE

  7. Jul 3

    Don't Map Just the Champion | Map the Whole Buying Committee

    Send us Fan Mail In this tactical episode of Seriously Don't Do That™ — Week 3 of the 12-week SDDT program and Episode 3 of the ICP Sprint month — Dan Griffith breaks down the single most common (and most expensive) mistake founders make in regulated B2B sales: single-threading a deal through one champion when 22 people decide. Using research from Forrester, Gartner, HBR, HIMSS, 6sense, and Prospeo, Dan reframes the ICP itself: it's not a persona, it's a committee blueprint. Then he walks the full 8–10 seat regulated buying committee — champion, economic buyer, IT/security, compliance, legal, procurement, finance, executive sponsor, and adjacent influencers — giving the objection pattern and the role-specific message each seat needs. You'll leave able to re-map your next three open deals this afternoon. What you'll get from this episode: ✅ Why "they loved us" deals stall in 40–60% of B2B sales conversations ✅ The 22-person stat that should change how you build every deal strategy ✅ The 8–10 seat regulated buying committee, role-by-role ✅ The objection pattern and message each seat needs ✅ The 2–3x close-rate lift multi-threaded deals deliver vs. single-threaded ✅ Your assignment: re-map your next 3 open deals (20 minutes per deal) ⏱️ Chapters: 00:00 — Cold open: Greenville, Samson, and why "everybody's best friend" kills deals 01:15 — The Don't: single-threading your champion 03:45 — Why "no decision" is now the default — Forrester, Gartner, HBR, HIMSS data 07:15 — The reframe: your ICP is a committee blueprint, not a person 08:45 — The 8–10 seat committee walkthrough — objection + message + proof for each 17:45 — The multi-threading payoff: 2–3x close rate (Prospeo) 19:15 — Your assignment: re-map your next 3 open deals 20:45 — Week 4 tease: the hidden influencers most ICPs miss 🤝 Want help building your real, evidenced ICP — the full committee blueprint — for your market? That's exactly what the ICP Sprint does inside our Revenue Growth Program — a 2–3 week, fixed-fee engagement where we build your prioritized segments, buyer intelligence, buying triggers, and your full buying-committee map. The whole room, not just the champion. Capital-efficient. Practical. You walk away owning it. Work with Greater Gain Group → https://calendly.com/greatergaingroup/q1-revenue-pressure-test LinkedIn | WEBSITE

  8. Jul 2

    Your ICP Is Probably Aspirational, Not Real | Build It From Evidence

    Send us Fan Mail Dan just got back from training for a sprint triathlon and realized something uncomfortable - he's not the athlete he thinks he is anymore. The video doesn't lie. The times don't lie. And that gap between who you think you are and who you actually are right now? That's the entire episode. Last week was about founders with no ICP, just a fuzzy guess. This week is harder. These are founders who have a written ICP. It's in the deck. It's on the website. It's everywhere. And it's wrong - not sloppy wrong, aspirational wrong. Two real examples: A healthcare founder insisted his ICP was Enterprise Health Systems. When Dan asked him to pull his most recent closed-won deals, every single one was a regional payer under 300 employees - driven by a compliance deadline they didn't have the internal team to handle. Enterprise systems already had that team. They were never actually the buyer. A fintech AI founder insisted his ICP was Tier 1 banks. Closed-won said otherwise - small local credit unions and community banks under $5 billion in assets, facing the exact same KYC scrutiny as the giants, with none of the internal compliance staff to handle it. Both were winning deals. They just refused to look at who they were actually winning with. This mistake has a name - writer João Fernandes calls it confusing your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) with your ACP (Average Customer Profile). Your ICP is the wish list, the ego logo. Your ACP is who you actually win with, repeatedly and profitably. The fix is building your ICP from your ACP - reverse-engineering from evidence, not ambition. The data backs this up: - Go to Market Playbook (March 2026): 80% of early-stage founders treat their ICP as aspiration rather than description - Kalungi (January 2026): vague personas turn ICP into a horoscope - "a forward-thinking innovator who values efficiency" - Salesforce 2026 State of Sales: ICP should come from real CRM data - revenue, sales cycles, product usage — not vibes - 6sense Buyer Experience Report (2025): the buyer's pre-contract favorite wins over 80% of deals — meaning if you're not it, you're walking into a fight you've already lost - Forecastio (2026): companies that scrapped their ICP and reverse-engineered real win triggers cut forecast variance from 25-30% down to under 10% in three quarters That's not a marketing win. That's predictable revenue. Your 4-move audit for this week: Move 1 — Pull all your closed-won deals from the last 12-24 months. Lay out the hard attributes: company size, vertical, sub-segment, employee count, revenue band. Move 2 - Find the cluster. It's almost always tighter and more boring than your deck admits. Move 3 - Don't skip this one. Interview the customers you actually won. Ask what was happening the month they decided to buy. That trigger is your real ICP. At Greater Gain Group, this is exactly what our ICP Sprint does - a fixed fee, $7,500, two to three week engagement covering stakeholder interviews, closed-won analysis, a full buyer committee map, and a 30-35 page strategic document with prioritized segments, buyer intelligence, triggers, messaging, and where your real buyers actually hang out. Not a persona deck in a drawer - revenue clarity. Your ideal customer isn't the one you had in your head. It's the one who already said yes. Chapters: 0:00 Intro — sprint triathlon training and a hard truth 0:54 The gap: chasing who you wish you were 1:11 Recap: Week 1's fuzzy ICP mistake 1:32 This week's harder problem: a written but wrong ICP 1:55 Story 1: the "Enterprise Health Systems" founder 2:24 What closed-won actually revealed 2:51 Story 2: the "Tier 1 banks" founder 2:59 What closed-won actually revealed (again) 3:23 Naming the mistake: ICP vs ACP 3:51 ICP is the wish list. ACP is who you actually win with. 4:34 The real trigger behind both stories: compliance deadlines 5:56 "If you don't know the target, everyone's a target" 6:14 Go to Market Playbook: 80% treat ICP as aspiration 6:26 Kalungi: vague personas are a horoscope 6:38 Salesforce: ICP should come from CRM data, not vibes 6:52 6sense: pre-contract favorite wins 80%+ of deals 7:34 Forecastio: forecast variance drops from 25-30% to under 10% 8:04 Move 1 — Pull your closed-won deals 8:30 Move 2 — Find the cluster 8:56 Move 3 — Interview the customers you won 9:18 Move 4 — Run it on closed-lost too 9:31 Firmographics = who. Triggers = when and why. 9:48 This week's challenge 9:54 Week 3 preview: mapping the buying committee 10:17 What the Greater Gain Group ICP Sprint includes 10:57 Closing: do the audit LinkedIn | WEBSITE

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About

Seriously Don’t Do That™ is a weekly show for founders making high-stakes growth decisions and trying not to learn the hard way.Each episode focuses on one specific mistake founders make under pressure: U.S. market entry assumptions, emotional beachhead choices, premature sales hires, ICP chaos, compliance blind spots, broken pipelines, and board-level credibility gaps.Hosted by Dan Griffith, the show brings pattern recognition from real founder situations across healthcare, fintech, insurance, and other regulated or institutionally complex markets. Guest episodes validate the reality. Dan explains what actually went wrong and what to do instead.This isn’t hustle content. It’s not tactics without context. And it’s not agency advice.If growth feels harder than it should… you’re probably right.Seriously, Don’t Do That!

Information

  • Creator
    Dan Griffith
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    69
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Seriously Don’t Do That™
  • Show Website
    Seriously Don’t Do That™