Your irresistible truth and how to tell it

Strategic narrative

Strategic narrative

I did some work with the founder and CEO of a group of travel companies. Part of the work was making sense of the group’s holding company. The holding company is not a customer-facing brand. Its main audiences are potential investors and potential acquisitions. My client wanted to tell a compelling story that both audiences would be eager to be part of. He needed a strategic narrative. In his words…

This brand will never sell anything to anyone, except sell a story.

Strategic narrative is a coherent and compelling story that rallies the troops. It’s a narrative that important stakeholders will get behind and get on board with.

Brand strategy in public and in private

When I worked in advertising, my strategies were executed in public in broadcast formats like billboards and TV commercials.

These days a lot of my work is discussed in private. I help CEOs get their stories straight for investor decks, elevator pitches, and change programmes. This is strategic narrative. And strategic narrative is a particular format for telling your irresistible truth.

No matter how important the situation, no matter how po-faced the audience, no matter how strong the resistance, nothing moves people like a good story.

Strategic narrative also works in public. It’s an effective discipline for bringing a positioning to life. You can make a product or service feel vital if it’s framed in the right way and the buyer feels seen.

A simple framework for strategic narrative

This type of work is always bespoke, but it tends to obey the general principles in the diagram below.


A Venn diagram showing the components of strategic narrative. The three circles say, "Framed by CONTEXT," "Anchored in SUBSTANCE," and, "Delivered with STYLE." In the centre, where the three circles overlap, it says, "IT WAS MEANT TO BE"
The basics of strategic narrative

It was meant to be

A strategic narrative should create a feeling of inevitability. Your desired outcome should feel like the only conceivable outcome. Doing business with you doesn’t just feel like the right thing to do, it feels like it was meant to be. A well-composed and well-delivered strategic narrative leaves your audience thinking what you want them to think and ready to do what you want them to do.

This is on the money. This is music to our ears. Where do we sign? We’re in.

Context

For your story to really hit home it has to work in CONTEXT. What’s going on in the world that makes this a story whose time has come? What’s changing out there that makes your story feel urgent and imperative? The choice of frame is important. It might be a wide-angle view of shifts in society or technology. Or maybe it’s better to zoom in on something that’s happening close to home for your audience. Whatever the frame, it’s context that makes your narrative strategic.

Substance

A good commercial story is rooted in SUBSTANCE. You need to be good at what you do. What you’re proposing needs to make sense. You have a solid track record. Maybe you have an insight that changes everything.

What are the solid reasons why you are uniquely placed to make this product, to offer this service, to capitalise on this opportunity, or to pull this off?

Style

For this kind of work, you can’t separate the story from its teller. The audience is buying both. Substance and STYLE have to work hand in glove. This is true if the storyteller is a person. This is true if the storyteller is a brand.

Some elements of style are essential to every strategic narrative. For example, conviction is always impressive, and you always earn credibility by being authentic. And, of course, some elements of style are unique to you, reflecting your values and personality.

The good kind of C-words

A strategic narrative should have:

  • > Clarity
  • > Coherence
  • > Credibility
  • > Context
  • > Character
  • > Conviction
  • > Compulsion

I get it. I believe it. It makes sense. It feels imperative. It feels right coming from you. I want in.

A worked example

Optima Connect is a firm of data science and data engineering consultants. They hired me to redefine their brand.

At the time they were facing some top-of-funnel issues – not enough of the right people knocking on the door basically. The bottom of the funnel was just fine. Their clients loved them. And they were good at converting prospects. But they needed more leads. Their brand wasn’t doing justice to the quality of their service. Their messaging wasn’t doing justice to their unique selling points. Their shop-window was letting them down. So they asked me to to sharpen their B2B value proposition, to overhaul their messaging, and to develop a crisp and compelling elevator pitch. What I helped to deliver is a good example of a strategic narrative.

Context

As one of Optima’s directors told me, the data engineering/data science market is used to being let down. The tech vendors and the big consultancies have a habit of massively overpromising and catastrophically underdelivering. They’d have you believe that all your data problems will disappear if you just buy the latest plug-and-play technology panacea. The reality is that many big data projects are never completed. Or they are delivered ridiculously late and shamefully over-budget. Many data projects are ill-conceived follies; a technical solution looking for a commercial problem.

There’s a huge disconnect between the utopian vision being peddled by the vendors and the big consultancies and the messy, expensive, dispiriting reality at the coal face of client-side data management.

You won’t get fired for hiring a big consultancy. You won’t get fired for buying an insanely expensive technology stack. But you will need to live with buyer’s remorse.

The context for Optima’s strategic narrative is widespread client FRUSTRATION.

Substance

In this context, Optima Connect is a breath of fresh air. I spoke to some of their clients, working at the sharp end of data project delivery in the banking, retail, and utilities sectors. They all had scars. They all had horror stories of data done badly. However, they all praised Optima for being a beacon of pragmatism and integrity in an industry in which those qualities are in short supply. Optima consultants make sure they are solving real, commercially valuable problems. Their solutions are practical and cost-efficient. They roll their sleeves up and deliver.

They make it happen. They make it real. They get it off the drawing board, from the ExCo slides to actual delivery.

Optima Client

Optima’s clients painted a consistent and compelling picture of a firm that:

  • > Does the right thing.
  • > Does things right.
  • > Gets things done.

In a market that is too familiar with FRUSTRATION, Optima brings important data projects to FRUITION.

Style

I turned this thinking into a brief for a copywriter. And I worked with my ex-colleague Gerry Farrell, who interpreted the strategic narrative as a brand idea: Data without the blah-blah. He also wrote chef’s-kiss copy that pushes all the right buttons at all the right touchpoints. In a market of arcane jargon and hyperbole, Optima’s style cuts through and sends the right signals to the right kind of prospects.


Screenshot of the top of the Optima Connect website homepage. The headline in the header panel says, "Data engineering and AI without the blah-blah." The copy underneath this says, "Too many data companies are all icing and no cake. We love the tech but hate the technobabble. Smart thinking. Straight talking. Hard working. That's us.

This is Optima’s irresistible truth. It’s a strategic narrative that positions Optima as the inevitable choice for clients who want something different, something with integrity, something effective.


Screenshot of Optima Connect's LinkedIn profile. The copy in the banner says, "Data without the blah blah." The company's bio description says, "Data engineering & AI without the blah-blah." The Overview copy says, "Too many data companies are all sizzle and no steak. Blinding you with jargon. Happy to persuade you that their latest, shiny thingummyjig will dissolve all your data headaches overnight. Until it doesn’t. At Optima we love the technology but we hate the technobabble. We know it’s data solutions you need, not Grand Designs. We’d rather ask good questions than give you easy answers. And when you talk, we listen. Because although we know our stuff, we need to know your stuff too. Once we get it, we don’t hang about. We get it done. And we get it done right.  No hacks. No hoo ha. For data without the blah-blah, go to optimaconnect.co.uk"

Optima doesn’t have its values on the wall. But it does have its brand idea, its strategic narrative, up there in big pink letters.


Photograph of an open plan office with desks, chairs and computer screens. On the wall is the slogan, "Data without the blah-blah." This is Optima Connect's strategic narrative.

Do you want something different, something with integrity, something effective? Do you need a strategic narrative?

Here I am on LinkedIn. Or email phil at philadams dot co (dot co, not dot com).