The problem
You need one clear sales story across a group of businesses that all sell different things
For a UK group built through acquisition, each division usually makes sense on its own and nobody has answered why they are one company to a buyer. The common fix, group marketing writing one statement everyone adopts, tends to flatten what makes each part good. Dan Ilett builds the story from customer evidence instead, with one group line and a version each division can use.
What usually happens
The default approach to a multi-division story is a committee: group marketing, each division head and sometimes an agency, negotiating one statement everyone can live with. It produces something broad enough to avoid an argument, and vague enough to help nobody sell.
Dan's view
Dan Ilett starts with The Mirror: interviews with customers across the group, not internal stakeholders, to find the one outcome they share rather than negotiating it. At group level, the story can hold across businesses that sell different things, because the thing they share is the customer outcome, not the product. Below group level, each division keeps its own version, built in The Message stage.
This is the same evidence-first method that sits behind the more than $1bn in closed deals the teams Dan has equipped have reported back to him, and the route that previously brought a UK industrial group to The Proposition through a direct citation in a Perplexity answer, rather than through search.
What you get
A single customer-led story at group level, a version each division's sales team can use without contradicting it, and the sales tools and training in The Engine stage so it gets used rather than filed.
How long it takes
Typically six to ten weeks from the first group-wide interviews to a story every division has tested with its own customers, longer where there are more than three divisions involved.
The main caveat
A group story only works if each division keeps a version suited to what it sells. Forcing one script onto every division recreates the problem this page describes.
Who it is for, and who it is not
It is for UK groups with two or more divisions or acquired businesses that need one answer to "why are you one company" without losing what each part is known for. It is not for a single business with one product line, which needs The Message on its own rather than a group exercise.
Questions people ask
Can one story really cover businesses that sell different things?
At group level, yes, because the thing they share is the customer outcome rather than the product. Below that, each division needs its own version, and the mistake is trying to make one message do both jobs.
How do you stop it becoming a lowest common denominator?
By building it from customer interviews rather than internal agreement. A story negotiated between stakeholders tends to come out vague, while a story built from customer evidence comes out specific.
Who needs to be involved?
A group commercial lead to own it, sales representation from each division, and the customers themselves, interviewed directly rather than represented by an account manager's summary.
How do you know the group story is working?
Sales teams from different divisions start using the same handful of phrases unprompted, and new hires can repeat the group story back accurately within their first fortnight rather than reaching for a slide deck.