Hey legend, happy holidays…

It is the end of the year, and I hope you have an amazing year.

I'm sitting in my home office in Sarajevo, staring at my Q4 revenue dashboard.

Best year ever.
30+ clients helped.
First consistent 10K+ months.

And I felt... empty.

Because I spent 8 months solving the wrong problem.

Let me explain.

In January 2025, I convinced myself the problem was systems.

I needed:

So I built them.

Relay workflows.
N8n automations.
Multi-step nurture sequences.

And you know what happened?

I never owned the one thing I should be best at.

I clearly explain the main problmessaaing fix.

Meanwhile, my buddy Ahmed was crushing it with:

Making MORE than me.

With LESS complexity.

I realized…

The problem was never the systems.

The problem was I didn't know what to say.

I had automation architecture. But I didn't have message clarity.

I could build workflows. But I couldn't articulate transformation.

I had tools. But I didn't have truth.

So I spent Q4 completely differently.

Instead of building more systems, I studied what made people say yes.

I analyzed 50+ successful client conversations.

I tracked which messages got responses.

I documented which stories created trust.

And I found the pattern.

The clients who said yes fastest weren't convinced by:

They said yes because I made them feel SEEN.

I articulated their specific frustration before they could.

I named the exact problem they were losing sleep over.

I showed them I understood the gap between where they are and where they want to be.

That's not a systems problem.

That's a message problem.

And once I fixed the message, everything else accelerated.

Same automation tools. Same simple workflows.

But now they converted because people actually resonated with what I was saying.

Here's what changed in Q4:

The lesson isn't "systems don't matter."

The lesson is: systems amplify your message.

If your message is unclear, automation just scales confusion faster.

But when your message is dialed in?

Then automation becomes rocket fuel.

That's what I'm focused on in 2026.

Not building more complex systems.

Building crystal-clear messages that make the right people immediately understand: "This person gets exactly what I'm dealing with."

And then letting simple automation do its job.

If you're a founder or tech leader who's been building systems but not getting the conversion rates you want...

The problem might not be your automation.

It might be your message.

Happy new year with a small gift for you.

I put most of the important stuff that helps me to grow this year into the one compelling guide.

Since I recap 2025, I would also add 2026 plans:

→ Building community in public - with you
→ Value first in outreach & content - for you
→ Earning trust and keeping it - because of you

Power to you,

Sabahudin "Value First" Murtic

P.S.

The founders who get this right in Q1 won't need to chase leads for the rest of the year. Their message does the heavy lifting while automation handles the repetition.

That's the difference between working harder and working smarter.