Compliments, Fluff, and Ideas Are Deflections

Three things derail conversations and all three feel like progress. Compliments ('that's so cool, I love it') are the fool's gold of customer learning: they feel great and mean nothing. When you hear one, deflect it and get back to their life.

Fluff is generic claims ('I usually', 'I always', 'I would'), future promises, and hypotheticals. Anchor fluff to specifics: when someone says 'I always do X', ask when it last happened and what it looked like. The generic self people describe is aspirational; the specific past is real.

Ideas and feature requests are also deflections in disguise. Don't add them to your roadmap. Dig into why they want it. The request 'add Excel export' might really mean 'my boss needs a weekly report', which you could solve better a different way. Ideas are clues to motivations, not instructions.