We walked away.
A walk-away rate of 1 in 5 is a credibility signal, not a closing problem. Three recent engagements we declined, with the conversational scripts we used to deliver the no.
The walk-away rate is the single most credible thing on this site. About one in five engagements get a no, usually for one of three reasons: the owner is not bought in and an employee or family member was the one who reached out; the data infrastructure is absent, with no CRM, no consistent naming, no structured customer record; or the operator is hoping AI will fix a follow-up problem that is actually a culture problem. Telling a prospect they are not ready, then explaining what to fix first, is one of the highest-converting things a consultant can say. Several of those walk-aways come back six months later. The longform with three anonymized scripts ships in May 2026.
Coming online in 2026. The roadmap below is committed, the writing is queued.
Related reading
- 01
When not to use AI.
The five scenarios where adding AI guarantees a worse outcome.
- 02
The dangers of the wrong AI.
What goes wrong when AI is deployed on top of bad data, bad scope, or a culture problem.
- 03
Human-AI integration is the product.
Why the deterministic human step is doing the load-bearing work in every shipped build.