Specificity goes beyond problems and outcomes. The stories we tell matter too.
(You are telling stories in your marketing, right?)
One of our clients has standardized conversation starters for live events that go beyond just problems and outcomes. Their team is trained to tell a relatable story about the moments when the prospect faces the problem head-on in their day-to-day, condensing it into a few sentences (just the big beats). This story also sets up their product as a no-brainer solution.
The typical prospect response? “Oh yeah, that happens every single week.” (Bingo!)
And there's a reason the team had the confidence to tell this story in the first place: it was built on real prospect conversations. The story itself came from a frontline salesperson who heard it from prospects and recognized a pattern. We’re confident in the level of specificity because it's built on actual customer intel and validated by frontline team members (in this case, Sales), rather than boardroom guesswork.
Here's the technique you can use the next time you’re chatting with a prospect:
“We typically hear from [specific role] that, in practice, their week goes a little something like this…”
Then you describe the specific story in a couple of big beats.
Then: “Does that sound familiar?”
The prospect will either say “yeah, that sounds familiar” or “actually, for me, it looks more like this,” and they tell their own story.
Either response is valuable. You're either getting validation or gathering new intel.
'Til next week,
Carolyn
How I can help you:
Boxcar helps marketing leaders at sales-led B2B tech companies fix their messaging. We start with why it's not working and end with a messaging strategy that actually drives pipeline.
I also work with a small number of clients to operationalize that strategy using AI, building tools their marketing team can actually use to create high-quality, on-brand outputs. (If you’re curious about this, mention it when you reach out.)
Interested in working together? Reach out by filling this form.
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