The Importance of 'WHY'

"And XYZ..."

Too often, this is where Sales training stops. Yet, it is the most critical element of empowering revenue and account teams to establish trust and empathy with potential and existing customers.

Lenny Rachitsky recently interviewed Andy Raskin on Lenny’s Podcast. Andy dove into the importance of a Strategic Narrative in B2B SaaS. He touched on his path to becoming a consultant who emphasizes the potential impact of a well-crafted Strategic Narrative, not just on marketing and sales, but also on product development at SaaS startups.

Raskin encourages us to move from the standard Arrogant Doctor approach towards crafting narratives that resonate with a fundamental shift in the world. He references his work with Gong, which transformed their positioning by adopting a reality-driven narrative instead of an opinion-based one.

Gong's "Conversational Intelligence lets your team stop the guesswork and start using the words that work."

This concept is not all about just marketing. It is about creating a roadmap for your product's evolution. The Strategic Narrative becomes your purpose, the team's "why." And it should produce a healthy North Star that guides your product to align with an underlying shift in the world.

In my career spanning nine SaaS companies, the three that went IPO (a paltry 33% hit rate ??) nailed a strategic narrative painting a shift from old-world to new, which I have even more appreciation for now, as everyone in the org subscribed to the company mission:

Responsys: The New School Marketing approach. “The world has changed because consumers have changed.” Scott Olrich and the Leadership Team at Responsys were ahead of their time. The story we pitched most early in my tenure there (2010) depicted a story around how Marketing shifted from broadcast to individual relationships, and they coined the term “Cross-Channel Lifecycle Marketing (CCLM).” The most memorable piece of the narrative for me was "Southwest Airlines used to have their biggest ROI days when they ran a TV and Newspaper ad on the same day. Now, it's when they post on Social and send an SMS."

Box: "Simple, Secure Sharing from Anywhere. Box offers secure, scalable content-sharing that both users and IT love and adopt.” The messaging at Box aligned with the Enterprise Mobility/BYOD movement when the consumerization of IT was accelerating productivity and collaboration but posed security risks that only Box could solve. Additionally, they took out Billboards in the Bay Area with ???SharePoint. Microsoft was extremely painful for IT and knowledge workers alike, so much so that Box's success angered certified consultants, who made millions on the complexity of SharePoint.

Amplitude: “Helping Companies Build Better Products.” There was a notion that the world was sales-led, became marketing-led, and is now product-led, and companies are not prepared for this shift without instant access to behavioral insights. The narrative with clients early on was presented as outcomes over page views. A shot at painfully slow SQL queries and the lack of depth with Google Analytics. Spenser Skates frequently posed a question at all-hands meetings, "what is the leading indicator of a successful product?" To which we replied in unison, “The number of iterations!” That stuck with me. There is a karmic link with Amplitude. It is a product-led company delivering a product that helps product teams accelerate their success.

SaaS companies arm their Account Executives with a multitude of selling tactics, yet many still do not embrace competitive positioning that transcends a generic narrative. These narratives, typically drawn from board materials promoting the Total Addressable Market (TAM), often lead to disappointing closing ratios and smaller contracts. Implementing a Strategic Narrative is the most impactful thing a company can do to empower Sales teams to compete effectively. They can also compound multiples in their valuation if a company somehow crossed the chasm without a strong one in place.

I loved that Lenny referenced Anne Lamott 's concept of the 'shitty first draft.' It tied nicely into the work that Andy's clients often must put into the second meeting. (It also was a great reference because Anne is a close friend who even mentioned me in her book, Traveling Mercies, as the “coolest 14-year-old…” ??.) This is the most strenuous phase of implementing a Strategic Narrative because it forces teams to throw out many great ideas before they have something. This step is a necessary, albeit occasionally painful, process. Yet, the reward is organizational alignment and a powerful mission that strengthens your position in the market. A Strategic Narrative also has profound implications for scaling product development through streamlined decision-making. Andy shares that many feature requests are simply opinions, and if they do not align with the narrative, it is much easier for product leaders to deny them.

What are some of your favorite examples of Strategic Narratives?

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