Killing fast is the skill

Most teams are bad at outbound because they're bad at killing. They run a variant for a week, get ambiguous data, run it for another week "to be sure," and now they have a calendar full of dying experiments and no room for new ones.

The taxonomy

We pre-commit to four kill signals before any variant goes live:

1. Zero engagement at 80 sent. Not low. Zero. The market is not confused — it's indifferent.
2. Engagement without intent. Replies that say "interesting, send me more" with no follow-through. The angle is curious, not painful.
3. The wrong yes. Meetings booked with people who can't buy. The persona is wrong even if the message is right.
4. Drift. Reply rate trending down across waves. The vein is mined out.

Why pre-commit

Because in the moment, every dying variant has a "but what if we just..." attached to it. Pre-commitment kills the negotiation.