Too many marketing teams are still sleeping on a messaging goldmine.
I'm talking about your recorded sales and onboarding calls… y’know the ones that are sitting in Gong or Chorus or whatever call recording platform your team uses right now. In the Buyer Proximity Principle bullseye, these calls sit one tier out from customer interviews. And they're the sweet spot for messaging research.
Pre-COVID, it was harder to get our hands on these calls, so we had to rely more heavily on customer interviews. But now, in 2026, in a world where everybody and their mother is joining a call with a notetaker, those transcripts and recordings are freakin’ gold. Here's why:
If your org has already found product-market fit and you have a sales motion that's working relatively well already, then you have a deep well of actual prospect and buyer language to draw from. You don't have to go conduct net-new research. Instead, you can focus your limited time on curating and analyzing the data you’ve already collected.
Here's what you can get from your call recordings:
You hear the buyer reacting and thinking in real-time vs. after the fact.
You see when their eyes light up as they learn about the product.
You hear the questions they're asking before they see the product, and after.
You hear how they're talking about the problems they're trying to solve, the solutions they're looking for, the outcomes they want, the competitive alternatives they're considering and what they're switching from…
In other words, you get so much of what you need to form the backbone of a solid, grounded-in-data messaging strategy.
The approach is simple (but not always easy): analyze the calls, then triangulate your observations against interviews with your frontline team. Then, if you still have outstanding research questions about the buyer, shift to customer interviews.
If you're not already using your recorded calls as inputs for your messaging strategy, why not? (Genuinely curious, please tell me!)
'Til next week,
Carolyn
Off the clock…
A new section, inspired by a section in Gill Hill’s The Interrobang!?, because I'm nosy about what folks are into when they're not working. (Maybe you are too? 😉)
📕 Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks. Halfway through this one. I’m convinced practically anybody who picks up this book will be a better storyteller by the end of it.
📕 The Wedding People by Alison Espach. Also halfway through, really enjoying. A story that gets this close to the idiosyncrasies and strangeness of relationships is just plain ol’ fun to read.
🎥 Unchosen on Netflix. I had high hopes, but this one didn't deliver. The characters acted too erratically and without a strong enough narrative arc to make things make sense. Towards the end, I was often wondering, "Is this over yet?"
Before you go…
My firm (Boxcar) helps sales-led B2B software and tech companies build a messaging strategy that actually drives pipeline.
We also work with clients to operationalize their messaging strategy using AI 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.