You’re not losing because of your weak differentiation. You’re simply not starting enough new conversations at the right level of power, or failing to land your story once you’re in.
We hear it all the time:
“We need better differentiation. Our competitors are saying the same things we are.”
"We're being forced to compete on price as there is no differentiation in what we sell"
A simple question. Where does differentiation live: in your PowerPoint deck, your website, collateral or somewhere else?
Answer: Differentiation lives in the mind of the buyer because a story that a great sales or support person told resonated with them emotionally, and the buyer could envision themselves in a future state, having made the progress needed.
Too many teams are:
- Sounding like everyone else by the second sentence
- Losing the room in the first five minutes
- Walking away from deals without ever reaching a real decision-maker
This isn’t a product problem, and it's certainly not a problem that strict adherence to MEDPICCS can fix!
It's because your story lacks emotional power, and your team is underskilled in delivering it conversationally without leaning on PowerPoint.
💬 Strategic Buyers Don’t Buy Features.
They buy belief.
They buy confidence.
They buy clarity on what happens next.
And that doesn’t come from:
- Pitch Decks
- Discovery checklists
- Or half-formed use cases
The meetings that create momentum are the ones where someone senior says:
“Yes. I see it. And I’m willing to back this.”
That moment doesn’t happen by accident.
It happens when your story hits.
🔍 You Got the Meeting. But the Story Didn’t Land.
But if your message doesn’t land fast, you won’t be invited back.
How you sell matters more than what you sell.
And how you say it is what makes you different.
🔒 Access Dies Without Narrative Power
What we’re seeing again and again:
- Sellers relying on slide decks to do the work
- Conversations that feel like every other vendor call
- Buyers saying “we’re not ready” when what they mean is “we didn’t feel it”
What breaks the pattern?
Relevance. Insight. Credibility. Urgency.
In the first 5 minutes.
If your story doesn’t signal “this is different”, you’ve already lost.
✅ What Actually Works
We, along with thousands of others, have built a repeatable play to fix this.
It starts by interviewing the customers you’ve already won — not about your product, but about:
- What got them to take the first meeting
- What progress they were trying to make
- What nearly stopped them
- What changed after they said yes
That’s what builds the story your next buyers will recognise themselves in.
It’s how you create a signal that rides above the noise.
It’s how you earn access and keep it.
📌 Final Word
If you’re not getting meetings with real decision-makers,
If deals feel slow, transactional, or stuck,
If your reps are stuck below the power line…
This is not a product problem.
And it’s not one more enablement deck away from resolution.
It’s a narrative skill gap.
A storytelling problem hiding as a sales problem. Here's how to fix it:
- You need a story that will open doors at the Champion level.
- You need reps who can win the room in the first five minutes.
- You need a message that travels without you.
- You need a system that helps every seller earn trust with the people who matter most.
That’s what we help teams build.
If you’re trying to fix this now, let’s talk.