Buyer's guide
How to tell if your messaging is working
Messaging is working when prospects describe your company back to you in the words you chose, when the sales team says the same thing without the deck open, when deals stop stalling at the stage where a decision maker you never met reads a summary, and when the win rate on deals that reach a decision moves. Website traffic and brand awareness surveys tell you almost nothing. Sales conversations tell you everything, and the first signals show within a quarter.
The seven signals
1. Prospects play it back
The clearest test. On a second call, ask the prospect to describe what you do. If they use your sentence, or something close, the story has landed. If they describe your product category, it has not. Keep a tally for a month before and a month after.
2. Five salespeople, one answer
Before the work, ask each salesperson to describe why customers choose you. Count the distinct answers. Repeat it 60 days after. The number should fall to one or two.
3. Deals stop dying upstairs
Map where deals stall. Messaging problems show up late, when the deal goes to a decision maker who was never in the room and reads a two-line summary. If the stall point moves earlier, or disappears, the story is doing the job the salesperson could not do in person.
4. Discovery calls get shorter
When the opening sentence is right, prospects qualify themselves. First calls get shorter and second calls get more specific. Measure average first-call length and the share that convert to a second call.
5. Discounting falls
Discounts close gaps the story leaves open. If the average discount on closed deals falls while the win rate holds, the proposition is carrying more of the weight.
6. Inbound enquiries ask the right question
Watch the wording of inbound enquiries and the search terms that bring people to the site. When they start using your language, your problem statement has reached the market.
7. Win rate on decided deals
The lagging indicator, and the one the board cares about. Measure win rate on deals that reached a decision, not on the whole pipeline, and compare quarters. Expect it to move after the leading indicators, usually two quarters in.
What to ignore
Page views, time on site, LinkedIn impressions and brand awareness surveys. They can all rise while the number stands still, and they can all fall while deals close faster. Messaging exists to change what happens in sales conversations, so that is where to measure it.
How soon to expect movement
Signals 1, 2 and 4 within the first quarter. Signals 3, 5 and 6 within two quarters. Signal 7 by the end of the second quarter after launch, on a sales cycle of three to six months. Longer cycles take longer, which is why the leading indicators matter.
If none of it moves
Three usual causes. The story was never tested with real buyers before launch. The sales team was given the words and never practised them. Or the diagnosis was wrong and the problem is product, pricing or process rather than story, which an honest consultant will have told you at day 30. The Growth Story Score is a four-minute check of where you stand now.
Sources
On speed and sales conversations, Harvard Business Review's audit of 2,241 US firms, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, found that replying to an enquiry within an hour made a real conversation about seven times more likely, which is why signal 4 above uses first-call and second-call data rather than web analytics.
Questions people ask
How long before messaging shows up in revenue?
Two quarters on a sales cycle of three to six months. The leading signals, how prospects describe you and how consistently the team says it, move within weeks.
Can you measure messaging without a CRM?
Yes. A spreadsheet with the stall stage of every lost deal, the discount on every won deal and a monthly tally of prospects who played the story back is enough.
Should we A/B test messaging on the website?
Only after it has been tested in sales conversations. Website tests measure clicks, and clicks are a weak proxy for what a CFO believes.
What if the sales team says the new story does not work?
Listen, then check. Sometimes they are right and the words need adjusting. More often they have gone back to the old pitch under pressure, which is a practice problem rather than a story problem.
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