Stop Selling Features, Start Owning the Narrative | FYM Ep. 61

Speaker A: You can come up with the best strategy and the most compelling story behind it. But if the executive team doesn't just believe it, if they don't have the conviction to move forward with this new aim, it won't really matter.

Speaker B: You've got the great product, but no one gets it, you know, And I don't think it's a product problem. It becomes a market perception problem. Strategic narrative isn't just about the words we use. It's about how we show up, how we align, how we lead our teams.

Speaker A: I don't see enough startups understand this dynamic.

Speaker B: I also call it a litmus test. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Fuel you'd marketing podcast. I'm your host, Adi Sharma, and today I have a fantastic B2B leader, uh, John Rugee. John is a strategic, um, narrative and category design consultant for B2B companies. His company is, you know, he's the founder of Flag and Frontier, one of the sharpest minds in strategic narrative. And I can say that John helps ambitious B2B brands align their executive teams and craft narratives that command attention and market share. John, welcome to the show.

Speaker A: Thanks for having me here, Arti.

Speaker B: Pleasure, pleasure. I'm really looking forward to learning a lot more from you. Uh, category creation, category definition, and category design to category strategy. Everything is so important, so key. But sometimes people get confused around what to do first and what do all these buzzwords mean? So why don't we start with the heart of it? A lot of people discuss and confuse strategic narrative with messaging or some, uh, sort of a branding. But I've heard you say, and I've seen some of your newsletters, you know, that it's much deeper than that. So you spent nearly, I guess, two decades, would you say, shaping strategic narratives?

Speaker A: I've, um, spent two decades working in marketing. Uh, I wouldn't say all that time in strategic narrative, but over time, I certainly understood the. Started to appreciate the, uh, importance of it. Oh.

Speaker B: So talk to me a little bit about your current consulting firm and what do you do to help, uh, you know, category creators and CMOs stay in their lane and maybe, you know, shine?

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, okay, so there's one theme that I've observed with every company that I've worked with, and it's that this idea that every business goes through chapters as it evolves, this may not be, um, surprising to hear, but I think what's interesting to think about is when a business evolves from one chapter to the next, what are the things that has to happen in order for that transition to be successful and what are the ways that transition can go wrong. And um, strategic narrative can play an important role in that. So those transition points can be all sorts of different things. It can be an early stage startup getting its first round of funding and trying to take an idea and make it, um, and commercialize it. It can also mean an organization that's been around for decades that needs to maybe reinvent itself and stay relevant and continue to push its brand and its category forward. Um, when brands recognize that they're at a transition point and um, they need to kind of write the next chapter of their business, the place where that starts is whether the executive team is aligned on their aim, about where they're headed, why they're going there, and the story that they're going to tell themselves, their employees and the world at large about where their brain is going and what problem they're solving. Strategic narrative is a process that I use to help teams align, uh, around that aim and, and get clarity so they could move forward and um, write that next chapter successfully.

Speaker B: It's such an important, I think you're enunciating to the three P's that we talk with the problem market fit and the product market fit. And you kind of can go to any of those. You uh, know at any given stage in your business depends on where you are in your journey and are you launching a new product or you have to pivot because market conditions are such. But um, you know, where do you even, I think, you know, for our listeners who hear strategic narrative, you know, and think it's, isn't that just positioning? You know, how do you explain the difference between messaging positioning. Ah. And the narrative itself?

Speaker A: Well, that's a, it's a good question. It's probably a good place to land in some trouble because everybody has different definitions of positioning and, and uh, and messaging and category strategy. Um, okay, so here's how I think about things. Well, let me start with positioning first because I think that's where most people at least have some familiarity. There's a certain definition of positioning today that I think is different from where that term might have originated, uh, a few decades ago when Al Reese and Jack Trout coined the idea. Positioning, as you often hear it today, is about how do you, um, differentiate your product within an existing market category. So you know, you've probably heard that um, version of a phrase that goes something like, you know, our solution solves this problem for these buyers. And unlike other similar solutions, it has, you know, this point of differentiation A, B and C. That's kind of like the gist of positioning. Um, that's all fine and good. I suppose if, if you're in a situation where you are competing in an established market and really that's, that's all you have to lean on. Um, positioning when it first came out was really about the idea of planting an idea in the minds of your buyers, of positioning your brand around a concept. Um, it was less about positioning within a category and more around like what is the thing that I associate this brand with in my head when I think about them, which is a little bit different and a little bit more fundamental. I think. Um, when I work with companies, the businesses that I work tend not to be those that are, what would you say? Me too, players in an established space. Um, they're often building a new space. Uh, maybe they're reimagining an old space, maybe they're niching down. Um, and that, that initial version of positioning that I described doesn't really, it's not a very useful tool for us. Um, so the way I think about positioning now is there's a couple things. One is how are we making it clear what job to be done, our solution solves or our category solves. And then if you take it a step higher, let's say I'm designing a new category or a new niche. It's how do I contrast this new category with other categories that might be substitutes for, for what I'm solving for. So we can go further on that. But maybe I'll stop there to hear your thoughts.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think building a category comes within the overall your go to market strategy. And you know, it refers to kind of, I think for um, defining a new space for a product or any kind of a, ah, of a service that you're trying to launch which solves a problem within maybe a pre existing category. Or it could be a new category of its own to solve a new problem through your product or your service. Um, I think um, it could be either a fitting one into an existing category as you said, or it could be a new category altogether. But I think it's a, it's a comprehensive approach to outlining how a company will introduce ah, a new product or service to the market. Um, and that comes with a lot of target market analysis, your ICP building and on a whole lot of other things. But I think one thing that I have understood in my little experience of 16 years is that category definition cannot be just categorized by, just as you said, by creating a brand book or a positioning statement or a messaging statement, it's much, much larger than that. And I think, um, that is why it's so important that alignment within, uh, the organization is there. So, so for me, messaging, positioning, it definitely falls. Once you have, once you understand, you know, who you are, what problem are you going to solve and what is the category you're going to be actually in? And is there. What's the market size of, for that category? What is the appetite for that category per se? I'm not sure if I'm saying the right things, but that's how I see it, um, from my perspective. But I think alignment of executives around that category or that story, you know, is very important because I think every category has its own story. Right. But every story won't lead or land in your executive team's, um, you know, radar unless, uh, unless you really know what problem are you really solving and how are you going to be not in this crowded space and other brand or a product or a service. Right. So how do you define that that story needs to be so compelling? So, so what is your take on, you know, how do you create that best story or that best narrative, um, to land, um, you know, in that market space where people don't know if this, this need exists. And if this need exists, can your product solve that?

Speaker A: Yeah, Let me speak to, to something that's actually more fundamental than what you described, because I want, I, uh, don't want to skip steps. So when you, if you're going through the process of building a narrative, by definition it means that you're trying to capture a new direction for your business or a new chapter, like I mentioned before. Okay, so, uh, step, uh, back for a minute and think about what that might mean for, say, the cmo for the Chief Product Officer, for the, for the CEO, if you're, if you're changing direction in the business, or maybe even if you're just solidifying and clarifying your direction, it means you're doing things differently than how they were in the past. Right. And that brings unknowns, it brings risks. It means you might make mistakes along the way. And, um, you can come up with the best strategy and the most compelling story behind it. But if the executive team doesn't just believe it, if they don't have the conviction to move forward with this new aim, it won't really matter. You'll revisit that business a few months later and they're back to overanalyzing things. They're back to the status quo. They're rethinking a new direction. And so like the number one thing that we have to do isn't about like the quality of the story itself, although that's really important and we'll get to it. It's really about how do you get the team to believe that this is the right direction and how do you get to believe them to believe that they are capable of pursuing that direction. And so this is kind of the beef that I have with, um, some traditional, uh, the traditional approach to consulting. You know, most consultants will come in and they'll, they'll deliver a strategy to you or you pick whatever kind of consulting you want. It's something they go off and they hand it to you and then you go do it. But it's not really yours. Mhm. Right. It's, it's something that somebody handed to you. So to get back to your question of how do you do this effectively?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: You really have to start by first of all, building from first principles about what is true in the world, about what is true for the business, about what they are capable of, helping them see that for themselves. And then I think secondly, you have to approach the process of not really telling somebody what their narrative should be or what their strategy should be, but helping them surface that for themselves. So like, if I'm working with you and I can ask you challenging questions and push you a little bit, it might be a little uncomfortable. But if I can get you to think through what the strategy should be and I can get you and your team to do that collectively by the end of that exercise. It's not some, you know, crazy strategy that John tried to sell you guys on. It's, it's something that you came up with yourself. And so the level of conviction you have for that is, you know, know, far greater than any other process, 100%.

Speaker B: It's like, you know, you can't coach anybody who's not coachable. But also you have to make it their own. They have to come up with that plan. Right. You, you go through leadership coaching, you go through any kind of coaching or consulting for that matter. You got to kind of, you know, guide and steer the conversation, such, not manipulate, but, but ask that those questions, as you said, ask those reflective questions for uh, them to be able to go to those areas where they have never traveled in order for them to pull that out from them. Right. It's a, such a rewarding experience. But it's difficult because sometimes people don't know what they don't know. Right. And you can do that over a year. I would say sometimes you, we do workshops and we come out of those workshops not having those answers. And then all of a sudden the next early morning 7am I get a text message or go, hey, I was thinking overnight or I had this idea and you asked this question, I didn't have the answer or whatnot. Right. So I think um, these, these are important, I think steps to take as you get into that category definition of kind of uncovering what you are going to solve. But I think alignment you mentioned, you know, when your executives are not aligned, then obviously your team won't be aligned. And then there's no kind of buy in. And then there's no buy in. It just feels like, you know, you're slapping and coming together and batching it up together. Right. To make something seem like there is opportunity. But I think from you, what I want to know, because you've been in these rooms as well, what are the first few signs that you think that a leadership team isn't fully aligned around the story or the narrative?

Speaker A: Mhm. I think it's actually agreeing too quickly.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Well here's what I mean by that. Like if we're in a room and we're thinking through the strategy and, and the story behind it and, and people agree right away like the chances of that like actually being what they think and feel are very low. Us usually that means either I, like I don't believe in this process and I just want to get out of the room and move on so I can do whatever is on my task list. Um, or it could mean I'm not comfortable with being uncomfortable and having ah, a healthy disagreement and discussion. Um, and I say that because almost every time I've gone through this process there's been a pretty healthy level of debate and argument. But that's kind of what you'd expect because the, the product person's gonna have a different perspective and different information than the marketing person. And the CEO is gonna have a third set of information and it just goes on, you know, down the room. And so I want to see like if a team is committed to

Speaker B: sparring,

Speaker A: uh, with each other, you know, in, in a healthy spirit, it's a sign that we're on the right track and what we want to discover, we want to discover what's true. If we skip that and then everyone's just nodding their heads right away, then I have to push them a lot further to really find out what, what's going on.

Speaker B: Uh, those are fun moments. 100%. I agree. I, I, you, you said something so important that they agree too fast or uh, we don't kind of take every, I think business unit to, to share their own lens because if they don't then that's, you know, you're only seeing from a very tunnel CMO or CEO lens and that's not what's going to lead you to creating that movement, that category. Um, now question is, because that happens very often, at least what I see is um, the CEO has the vision, right? You, you have a moment in any of your past experiences when CEOs vision and the market reality are way too distant and they don't match.

Speaker A: M. Oh.

Speaker B: And, and when they don't match, what happens?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I, I mean I actually had one client where that happened before. Mhm. I started working with him. The CEO was too far in the future and the strategy kept changing. Um, I don't know if there's like a silver bullet because that's, that's a complex challenge to work through. But just to describe it in more of a generic way, one of the things that we try to look at is um, what I would call what I call category strategy. Um, and you know there's some work by a British uh, economist named Paul Garoski that I've studied who researched how categories evolve over time. Um, so he informed a lot of my thinking here. And essentially every category like begins with M. One player I suppose. And then if it's a valid idea, you'll typically see other people enter that space and then it goes through kind of an S curve where um, more players enter the market and then um, the dynamics tend to change. Where you know, most markets are a, ah, winner take, most dynamic. This is not true in every single space but that's kind of how things evolve and then that category might decline and taper off over time. So one of the things we have to look at is based on the problem we're solving today, does this represent um, an existing category? Does this represent a new category? Does it represent a new take on a category that's been around? And if we find that we are um, part of the reason, part of how we do that is we look at the problem that we're solving. If we can't find a problem that actually exists by a large number, large enough number of people that causes enough pain, that's a pretty good red flag that maybe you're too far out in the future and actually made this mistake with one. Um, several years ago I was working with A blockchain startup. And um, I took too much of the company's existing thinking for granted about the size of the opportunity. And they're looking back now, their thinking was valid. Um, this was like an enterprise application of blockchain. But what I learned was the, there were a few people who had this need, but there were not enough of them. And the ones who did have an interest were not capable of using a solution like this institutionally. So we were too far out in the future. So long way of saying sometimes you have to kind of experience what this looks like firsthand before you can kind of spot the signs.

Speaker B: Um, I agree. Uh, we had a client, we still have a client who about three, four years ago, they're a SaaS cybersecurity kind of a platform business. Uh, and they were thinking AI, all of that fun stuff. And um, we didn't have um, a whole lot of market that could have uh, adopted to what they were trying to build at the time. But we also knew how much time would it take for that need to search the um, time. So I think the gap needs to be. If the gap is several years then that's different. But if the gap is 18 months to 24 months, I find that's still pursuing because category creation takes time, depending upon the segment of course. But category creation does take time, you know. So I think um, you've really raised a good point to say how far out in the future are you, is there enough market sizing? What is the adoption rate going to be if you start to kind of push this out? And, and uh, and I think um, you know, once you have this narrative, once you. And, and that's not the end by the way. Right? Ah, once you have that, uh, it's just the beginning, right. It's the start. So what fascinate what comes next? You know, translating that big idea, that big vision into the day to day execution, that's where your teams have to be aligned with you 100%. That's why they need to be part of your decision making process. That time when we're talking about the product has different sales is a different lens. So those lenses have to come together to form one lens, one mission, one vision for that particular category. So question for you is once the narrative is defined, how do you operationalize it across the GTM functions, you know, like product sales and marketing? How do you ensure that that story doesn't just live in a deck? Right?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well here's a really simple way to think about it. Since we Won't have time to go into all the details. Um, you kind of hit the nail on the head, right? So you have this new narrative and it has ramifications for almost the entire business and maybe not the accounts payable department, but every certainly within the go to market function, everything has to change. And it can be very tempting to think, well, we have to change everything all at once. And then what happens is you end up biting off more than you can chew and you can, you end up just kind of stalling out and not really making any progress. So one place to start is I think, about what is your current audience know and believe about uh, your brand, about your category or about categories you're displacing and what do they need to know instead? So what is that delta between what's going on in their heads today and what should be going on for them to appreciate and understand the right things about where you're headed? So you just map that out. Then you can think, okay, what's the one thing that we can start to share now that will move them closer towards that goal? Mhm. Okay, so that's going to be a different answer for every situation. But it could mean we're going to start like, let's pick a really obvious one. We're going to start introducing um, some language around seeding or some content around, um, seeding the problem that we identified in our narrative in ah, a blog post series, ah, that's a pretty easy place to start. Relatively easy still demands a lot of brain power. But it's a heck of a lot easier than saying, oh, we're going to go change our whole website or we're going to go build a whole new messaging framework that goes all the way down to the product feature and uh, functionality and specification level. It's one thing they can start doing to build momentum right now and then we can think about, okay, when we've established that, what's the next thing that we want our audience to start knowing and understanding? Now there's some bigger things that we can do to create, um, if you read the book, play bigger uses the term called lightning strikes. Um, but the idea is what can you do that kind of breaks through the noise and gets people to sit up and pay attention and realize that something has changed about your brand. Um, so that's another piece that we explore. But I try to keep it really simple, not do everything at once, but just think very pragmatically, what can we do now to change the mindset of buyers and start there I also call

Speaker B: it a litmus test. You know, sometimes we've done everything in our capacity to understand where the gaps could be done. Everything. All data points are matching to say we got to go this route. But I think the analogy you gave is just take small little steps to, to kind of, you know, prove your point, start building upon it and that way it's not overwhelming while you're still running a very successful, profitable, sustainable business and you're just steering the ship. Right. So I uh, always say that maybe when you do the litmus test you realize that oh my gosh, I gotta revisit or pressure test my narrative again. You know, so that might just also happen because it's a loop. Right. And that happens sometimes. So um, who's involved? Like who owns the. I know the answer obviously, but who owns this overall narrative to execution and, and what should get measured during this entire time?

Speaker A: Yeah, well if, if you're questions in one.

Speaker B: I know, yeah.

Speaker A: If, if you uh, go back to. I'm going to give you a two part answer. The like the most the purest answer I can give you is well it should be the CEO because you're really talking about something that affects the business. Uh, I think that's true. But in practice typically what happens is this the CMO or you know, someone in a similar role ends up owning how to. How we take this core narrative and translate it into messaging, into content and into communications from the marketing standpoint. But you can't. Maybe there's some exceptions to this, but if you push it just to the CMO function then you risk. Um, there's, there's either like a product shift that that may happen or at least a clarification of where product should head. And so you can't just like hand it off to the CMO because the CMO is not going to tell a product leader what to do or keep them in check. Um, so one thing that I do is um, I work, um, I'll try not to make this a sales pitch but I work with clients every quarter to. As we think about what needs to happen to build the next chapter of the business. M. There's a list of about 12 things that we can look at. Some of them include marketing, but they also include things like R and D, product roadmap, even like finance and M and a strategy. We look at all of those areas together and we, we ask ourselves what needs to happen in these areas for us to successfully execute this category strategy. Mhm. And you might serve as something like oh you know what, we probably need to make some acquisitions later this year, but maybe we're not capitalized to do that. So. So then the CFO is, got it on, on their radar to start preparing for that. I um, think the, the set of things sends the index more heavily towards marketing just because there's so many things for them to do. Um, but yeah, to kind of put a cap on it. It's really just a lens for how you like with the narrative itself is a lens for how you think about your strategy and your planning going forward and you have to do that as a team.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. Ah, but I think um, you know, because both you and I have been long standing marketers and then founders, I think maybe we lean towards marketing teams to steer this more often. That's where we think they should. But you're right, it's one team and that one team approach has to happen in order for uh, I think when you're doing a category creation and I personally think because I believe in this traction model quite a bit, uh, you need integrators and I see the cmo, the cfo, the cto, see the head of product more like these mini integrators who report into the CEO to kind of lead their own segments and their own departments and functional functions to be able to create that one succinct uh, I think approach in that narrative. That's what all these mini lenses move to that one lens. You know I just see this as a fluctuating all these lenses coming together to form one. So before we dive too deep into the category execution, you know I want to zoom out for a second. I know that you've said the category strategy isn't optional, it's foundational. I've read some of your blogs as well. So why does it matter so much today? Is the market moving fast? Are they are in the world of AI is the too many products coming in, too much is happening? Do you think?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's going to be part of it. You know I ah, I think you just gave me a good idea for a future blog post.

Speaker B: But um, you can cite me there.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it's a little bit cliche but I think it to say this but I think it's just as doesn't detract from its truthfulness. Ah yeah, I mean things are moving a lot faster. Um, I think the way that this is more of like a probably a 30 year trend or so but uh, you know, VCs role in creating uh, startups and the expectation for what they need to accomplish to be successful certainly changes the stakes. Like there's not this, at least for a VC backed startup. And I work with businesses outside of this sphere as well. But you know, it's not really interesting to just have a business, uh, that's growing, you know, single digits or you know, low tens, you've got to be much more aggressive than that. And it means teams that have to move very quickly and they have to move very intentionally. Um, and so the faster you can get uh, a team pointed in the right direction and align on where they need to go, that's a, I would call that a strategic advantage. Um, and you, you can see it's when you understand like what happens when a business starts to kind of get fractured in its aim. You could start to see them from a mile away. And it's, it's interesting to observe these examples play out. Net is one that I've been paying attention to recently. But we can talk about that if you like.

Speaker B: And yeah.

Speaker A: Somewhere else though.

Speaker B: Yeah, but, but, but I, I, I, I definitely think that you know, we like especially now, wallets are shrinking. Right. We, the, the pressure is on to, to get the returns faster. And then people think that, you know, by creating a category we could possibly hold that pressure and, and we can guide the conversations in the boardrooms and you know, what's happening with my dollars that I gave you a year ago, what's going on now? So I think, I think that that is a different conversation. Maybe we can have. Uh, I'm, I'm going to get off track because I'm really passionate about what happened, was not, shouldn't have happened and what's happening now is just a ripple effect of all that happened three years ago, four years ago. So um, I think people have great products, you know, and one of the frustrations I hear from founders is we've got the great product but no one gets it, you know, um, and I don't think it's a product problem. Right. It becomes a market perception problem. And that's where those narratives are very important. So have you ever experienced in where you, you did everything that the steps tell you to do and even then you know, the product is great but um, there's still slow adoption and uh, where do we go in that entire I think journey of when there's a product, is there, you think that you created a category but again the adoption starts to fail just because there are new entrants in the market. And now the marketplace has become very Crowded, competitive, et cetera. Um, what is your take on that and how do founders go back? Do they create a new category now or do they kind of, you know, re look at their narrative again, or what do they do? Or is it just a product enhancement problem?

Speaker A: Yeah, and look, I think we should clarify that for the folks listening. Creating a category is not always the right strategy. Um, it can be, but it's only when it works in your favor, when it improves your odds of, of success almost. You know, just as, as soon as a new category evolves, whether you, or comes into being, whether it's you or somebody else, it very quickly turns into a race to win that space. M Back to what we were saying earlier about winner take all dynamics. Um, so the challenge I see a lot of businesses make, and I see this a lot in B2B SaaS in particular, it's when they're in a, they're in a space where like, it's already evolved to a point where there's a leader that's starting to emerge. And maybe it's not at the, like the salesforce versus everybody else level, but it's at a point where that leader is, is perceived as that brand. And there's something that really, really interesting that happens when that, when that break starts to happen. The, the leader in this space, if they're smart, what they'll do is they'll take whatever advantage they have and they'll, they'll try to compound that advantage over time. So here's an easy way to think about it. If you are, um, the perceived leader in a, like a pick whatever SAS product you'd like. Okay. What does that mean for you when you, when it goes to, um, to getting deals? Well, the first thing that means is you're probably going to be in the consideration set regardless of what you've done, uh, through advertising or campaigns. Like you're just, you're going to. People will see you at the top of review sites or people will hear about you from your, their friends or elsewhere. So your cost of just getting the opportunity is already lower. Okay. So the second thing is, um, it's always safer to buy the leading product. Like whether it's the best or not. You won't get in trouble for buying the leader. This is the old saying of like, nobody gets fired for buying IBM. So if that's true, then your close rate is probably higher than your competitors too. Okay. And then you can probably charge a little bit more for, yeah, you can charge a premium. So you put those three things Together it costs you less to get into a deal. You win more of those deals and you can charge more. So even if you, um, win the same number of deals, uh, as a competitor, you had less.

Speaker B: You're always winning. You're already winning.

Speaker A: Right. M. At the end of the day, you have more money in your pocket. Right. So now I can take that money and I can reinvest it in whatever I want, brand, product, hiring, better talent, et cetera. Then I just keep doing that over and over again and then my advantage actually speeds up and I, and I can pull away. I, I don't see enough. Um, startups understand this dynamic. Mhm. Okay. And so they're trying to compete in that situation that I just described with, you know, best practices or some new tool or being a little bit more scrappy and maybe you can get lucky and, or maybe like that leader makes a big blunder and leaves the door open for you. But like, that's not the, um, that's not the bet that I would want to make.

Speaker B: And so again, that's not done.

Speaker A: That's, that's not the bet that I would want to make.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, um, so in other words, they're playing a game where the odds are kind of stacked against them. And these are just like laws of physics type things. These are not like subjective statements. So what, what I would think about instead is like, well, how can I play a different game? Okay, maybe that's creating a new category. Um, maybe it's niching down within this space. Maybe it's, it's going to be a huge space and I can occupy, uh, a corner of it that's more profitable than trying to, you know, compete against the leader. Um, anyway, that's, that's where, that's where we have to start asking those Right.

Speaker B: Questions.

Speaker A: Yeah, please go ahead.

Speaker B: I'd say, I'd say you could, you know, as you said you could pivot, but you could also evolve a category. Right. There could be somebody, a category that people are doing really crappy job and they're still leading that crappiness. And because people don't, the buyers don't have options. Right. They're still there and they're waiting for somebody to come in and evolve a category. So I think looking for those opportunities also is very important because, um, I think I come across a lot of, um, I invest in some brick and mortar businesses and I come across scrappy businesses where they're leading because nobody else is touching them. Right. So I think those categories are also important to talk While we are Talking about fancy SaaS businesses, I think there's a lot of other businesses which are needed, much needed and have a higher adoption rate. If there's um, somebody who can evolve a category and you know, I think there's this time to change that, that mindset also that we, we don't as investors don't have to always stay in the SaaS category options as well.

Speaker A: Right? Yeah. Ah, CarMax is a great example of that by the way. Yeah, I mean there's like very little technology involved, maybe more so now with their websites and ordering vehicles across the country, but it's really just a uh, fixed pricing model.

Speaker B: I wonder if VC studios and venture, uh, VC firms and PE firms will start acquiring businesses who are not as tech savvy, but technology could possibly help and evolve those businesses given all that we have been exposed to. I think that would be fun, that would be fun to watch, but again, has to be profitable, has to be sustainable and has to stay relevant to the end users. Right. So.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, great. So we talked a little bit and I, I think we didn't finish that loop on measuring the impact of your narrative. Right. So what are the signs that a narrative is landing in the market and uh, in the sales process? Process. And uh, uh, what would you measure?

Speaker A: Yeah, so this is something I'm um, still exploring. So I'm not going to claim some definitive answer here, but a couple of things that um, I'm testing out, um, with some brands now. One, um, is um, like trade shows are a great place to validate this. And what I want to see is if, if we can get people who are walking the floor at the booth pitch a version of their other narrative. Um, and we, we kind of want one or two things. One is people like now their heads. Like this is great. I agree. But it's also really interesting if people like vehemently disagree. I think that's actually really valid, um, because you're probably not trying to come up with a narrative that pleases everybody in the world. It's probably, um, not that you need to be polarizing intentionally, but if you have something that kind of moves your space forward, then people will see things differently. What you don't want is people to kind of just kind of like say, oh yeah, that sounds nice and like, kind of leave it at that, like there's no engagement. Um, another thing that I'm looking at, um, is when can we see, um, people outside of our own employees Echo language that is either, you know, verbatim what we are trying to seed in the market or at least in the same spirit of what we're trying to get across. So if we come out with a, uh, message or a point of view around a problem that we see and we can find people say, on, on LinkedIn or in a, uh, um, in a webinar saying that same language back or using their own terms on it, that's hugely validating. Um, if, if we keep shouting into the void and like nothing is, is landing, then maybe we've missed something or we, we're not phrasing it in a way that people can understand it. Um, so it's a long way of saying, I'm looking for signals of people, um, either replicating this language or, or these ideas or um, saying them back to the, to us on their own.

Speaker B: Yeah. Language adoption is such a great metric, I would say, you know, and, and maybe it is in your sales calls or your trade shows, as you said. But I also find that, you know, when your competitors are using the same terms that you started to kind of use, I think that's a big one for. That's a big indicator as well that something is shaping up there. Um, I also like, uh, you know, taking and listening to our. Now that with AI, we are listening to our uh, conversations and sales calls. Right. You could possibly take on those sales calls and see what questions are prospects asking and are they using certain language. Right. And are they asking category centric questions? So I think those are good indicators for us and that's what we've been guiding, kind of guiding and coaching our customers to see how to measure if you've, you've really established something or not.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Well, this has been so interesting and rewarding. We're kind of coming to an end. Um, so I want to ask you a question which is more from our, from a listener's standpoint, you know, who are thinking this is all, you know, everything makes sense that you're talking about you both. Right. But I'm really swamped right now. Okay. And especially in the scrappy, I would say startup where you've got the VC funding, but you gotta have to see how to use this better, get to get to your revenue goal faster and get the roi. Um, what's the one thing that they can do maybe in the next 30 days, um, that'll at least give them a head start for the remainder of the year.

Speaker A: Okay. To define the problem that they're solving. Okay. And you'd be surprised how few brands cannot say that in a way that's not some version of, you know, our product is better, faster, cheaper than. Mhm. The competitors. Yeah.

Speaker B: If they're not ready to overhaul their overall, go to market, I would say the simple exercise is to test whether their narrow dev is shifting, hitting, missing, and if it is, that's my take, you know, and if they're in the midst of everything. But, but those are great. Uh, those are the two action items we can leave our listeners with. So one, um, last question again that just popped up is looking ahead narrative in the age of artificial intelligence. Right. So as we are in the midst of everything, faster cycles, and AI assisted everything, um, how do you see strategic narrative evolving?

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I'll go back to something I hit on earlier. The point of doing the exercise is really to give a team the space to discern where their business should go. And a AI can never discern for you. Mhm. So what if, if there was a version, uh, of the future where AI could write the perfect narrative for you? It wouldn't matter. I mean, it wouldn't change what I do that much because we really have to have, um, we really have to go through a process together and explore and debate and disagree and um, I think humans are uniquely equipped to uh, work with each other on that.

Speaker B: Yeah, there could be necronomic here. Explore, debate, disagree. Um, and I think we need to give each other space. And I think anybody who's trying to do this exercise with their teams, give them this overarching question ahead of time so that they give some thought to it and, and make sure that in bold you say do not use help from chat GPT. Um, envision and envision and vision. Be the visionary. So that's great. Uh, John, is there anything that I haven't asked you?

Speaker A: No, you were very comprehensive. Thanks for all your thoughtful questions today.

Speaker B: Awesome. I really hope this was, um, this is helpful for our listeners. I truly enjoyed it and this has been such a master class. So thank you very much. Uh, strategic narrative isn't just about the words we use. It's about how we show up, how we align, how we lead our teams and kind of, you know, pivot, evolve. Either you already have a category or you're trying to create one, or you may not even create a category, but again, reflect, think and bring your teams together on that journey. And thanks again for joining me, John. And for those of you who want to connect with John, please find him on LinkedIn. We'll have the link to his LinkedIn and he has, he has an amazing newsletter that he really, uh, writes thought provoking content around category creation and category strategy and category design. So thanks again, John for joining me.

Speaker A: Thank you. Roshi, thank you for listening to the Fuel youl Marketing podcast. For more episodes, visit www.fuelyourmarketing. Com.