Welcome to Signal // Noise — the newsletter read by CEOs, execs, and scrappy builders every Thursday. Each week, what I’m listening to, one deep dive, three links worth your time. Zero bullshit.

While I Was Writing Today’s Signal // Noise:

Hell yes. Work, by Gang Starr is an all-time fave.

Any time I want to start my day with a certain vibe, i let this banger rip. Again, ya welcome.

From sound to signal—let’s get this baby rolling with what’s on my mind…

One big idea, insight, or take — grounded in real work, not theory.

Last week, Coldplay accidentally did more marketing for AI-startup Astronomer than the company ever did for itself.

Incase you’ve been living inside a lil’ baby turtle shell & missed it, during a show in Boston last week, the band’s kiss-cam caught a couple mid-embrace. Chris Martin made a cheeky joke:

“Either they’re shy… or having an affair.”

As if the world needed more internet justice, it turns out, the guy was married (not to the Coldplay attendee), and was also the CEO of a billion-dollar tech co. And the woman - also married - was Chief of HR at said company. Ugh. 😭

Within hours, the clip went viral. TikTok, X, news outlets — the whole thing went bananas.

And suddenly, the world knew about Astronomer… just not for the reasons its PR team would’ve hoped.

Is this me using an overhyped (and sad) moment in the media to tie-in to a key sales lesson for founders? Why yes, yes it is.

But, here’s the truth most founders and CEOs forget:

This is a question that applies to more than scandalous bullshit and memes — it’s at the heart of sales and IMO, what i call the final conversion.

You’ve already worked hard to get prospects into your funnel; you’ve landed the first meeting or the first demo or whatever. They’re on the hook. You’ve worked the middle. Now you just need to close.

Welp, the best closer in the world - besides Phillies stud Brad Lidge circa 2008 - isn’t the email or deck you write. It’s the one your customers tell when you’re not around.

When you’re putting out fires and in the weeds with the day-to-day, I see too many companies treating social proof and testimonials like a checkbox:

That’s not marketing or sales. That shit is L-A-M-E.

Real closers sound like a DM, a causal referral, a super tight friend that says “Yo, you gotta talk to these guys — they really crush it at X, Y, and Z”.

But to be clear, that only happens if you’ve earned it.

When I was CEO of Hampton, this was one of our greatest advantages, and it wasn’t by accident. We built everything around our customers, around treating them like rockstars - and I hired my team according to that quality. Fast response time. Real support. Caring. We weren’t perfect, obvs, but we tried, and our customers felt it.

When prospects asked us for referrals, we could simply point to X or LinkedIn and say “search around” and they’d instantly stumble into 20+ public posts, from members, doing our closing for us.

We didn’t ask them to do it, but, they did our bidding. And you better believe we had a 40%+ closing rate!

Even now, in my advisory work, I see the same thing playing out.

The other day, I had a prospect call. Seemed promising. And the next day, I get a text from an old client:

“Just got a cold DM about you. Told him you were a freaking stud”.

Nevermind that they spelled my last name completely wrong; that text will probably close the deal without me putting in a lot more effort.

I don’t need to. My work speaks for itself, and I always put my clients/customers first.

So again:

What story is being told about you — and who’s telling it?

Because the most powerful sales tool in your business isn’t your copy, or your deck, or your funnel.

It’s your reputation.

And if you’re doing it right, you won’t have to broadcast it.

Everyone else will do it for you.

Dispatches from the field — lessons, stories, interviews, experiments.

The market keeps hitting all-time highs. That’s not a sell signal—it’s a reminder that timing the top is a bad fantasy. And if you sell, and then miss the 10 best days because you don’t know when to get back in, welp, now you’ve lost 5% per year. So sit tight, zoom out, and turn off CNBC.

Smart reads, sharp tools, or internet gems.

Search bots be damned, they’re gobbling up your bandwidth and not looking back. If you didn’t hear - or read about it - Cloudflare’s CEO announced a new “Pay-Per-Crawl” model, which flips the script and asks AI and SEO crawlers to pay their own way. Could change how the web gets monetized.

I just like hearing him talk. He’s a throwback to an earlier type of leader - humble, witty, values-driven, and an awww shucks veneer. Plus, one of the greatest banking operator-CEOs of all-time. J. Dizzle goes deep on leadership, risk, staying power, and why he still handwrites thank-you notes.

Ben Thompson talking that ish’ with a classic long-form post - the history of content, AI, the unbundling of the value chain, and what it means for how content & community play nice. This is a good read for anyone monetizing attention (or thinking about community).

Ever had a deal close or a customer purchase because of what someone else said about you or your company?

Come on, don’t be shy — hit reply and send me your best “customer-as-closer” moment, I’m collecting em’. I respond to every email.

Alright, have a good weekend, you animals.

Love yous.

Jordan