To the founders who think they're the best salesperson in the room... you're not
By lauracatherinemeyer · September 17, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
To the founders who think they're the best salesperson in the room... you're not as good as you think you are.
Here are 5 lessons I've learned growing my business from my NYC apartment to an award-winning global agency that has made the Inc. 5000 three years running.
1. Let go of sales.
I led sales for the first seven years, about five years too long. The year I let go, growth accelerated. Even the best salesperson can't sell full-time and run the business. Hire someone who can proactively source and close, not just work referrals.
2. People are the hardest part of the job. And the most rewarding.
Growth means change, and change is hard on everyone, especially when it means people moving on. I try to ground those decisions in real feedback and data, not gut reactions, and to make them with care. It never gets easy. But waiting too long is harder on the team than making the call.
3. Your existing clients are your next revenue stream.
Everyone chases new customers. But the forgotten opportunity is often sitting in the business you already have. Keep planting new revenue seeds even when the payoff takes time, new and existing business compound together.
4. Ideas don't make you money. Implementation does.
For years I thought my job was generating ideas... someone brings a problem, I present the solution, done. I was wrong. The idea is the easy part. The hard part is the follow-through: rolling it out, watching how people actually use it, fixing what doesn't work, and doing that enough times that it sticks. That's the work that actually moves the business.
5. Simple is a lot harder than sophisticated.
It's tempting to think that as you scale, more layers, more SOPs, more process means more control. In practice, it just makes everything slower. The real skill is building something simple enough that the whole team can move fast and that takes far more discipline than adding another system ever does.
None of this is a formula. It's ten years of learning when to adapt, what to stop doing, and remembering that growth is still built on human connection... with clients, with your team, and with yourself as a leader.