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The Stress Test

Why you aren't selling and what to do about it.

A one day workshop that exposes the weaknesses in your story, your growth motion and your change performance. Before the market does it for you.

See The Stress Test dates How it runs
Dan Ilett, founder of The Proposition
The challenge

You think your story holds up. You think your growth motion is working. Both rarely do until someone trained to find the lines that will not hold pulls them apart. Better me than your buyer, your board or the press.

The diagnosis

Most leadership teams have a story they have told a hundred times and a growth plan they have never had stress-tested by someone who has run one.

The story sounds fine in your head and it sounds fine to people who already agree with you. It falls apart the moment a smart sceptic asks the obvious follow-up. Investors notice. Buyers notice. Journalists definitely notice.

The growth plan looks tidy in the deck. Under operator scrutiny it usually has three constraints nobody has named and a transformation programme that will not survive contact with reality.

I have worked every side of the commercial table. As a journalist interviewing CEOs for the Financial Times, newspapers and online media. As Commercial Director at Virgin Money and at Thomas Cook running transformation programmes inside FTSE companies. As an advisor to teams at IBM, Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Cognizant on deals, messaging and sales strategy. This workshop brings all three lenses to bear on your business in one day. You leave with a story that holds and a growth plan that survives Monday morning.

What we do in the room

Seven angles on your narrative.

  • The opening. Can you say what you do in one sentence that lands.
  • The why. Why this, why now, why you.
  • The numbers. What you claim and what you can actually prove.
  • The market. Who you are really up against and how you sound next to them.
  • The hard questions. The ones you hope nobody asks.
  • The team narrative. Whether everyone in the room tells the same story or three different versions of it.
  • Camera and recording. We put it on tape so you can see what the buyer sees.
Walk away with

Three things you walk away with.

  • Every weak line in your story exposed and rebuilt.
  • A tightened narrative the whole team can hold under pressure.
  • Footage you can review and benchmark against.
Who it is for

B2B tech founders and exec teams about to raise, pitch, launch, sell or face the press.

Anyone whose next six months depends on telling a story that holds.

Who it is not for

One group should book a different room.

  • Anyone looking for media training in the soft sense. This is interrogation, not polish.
Format

Live in London.

Founder plus core team. Up to eight in the room.

Format

Live in London

Attendees

Up to 8

On camera

Yes

Booking

One company

From the room
“The Stress Test was utterly brutal but within 30 minutes we knew exactly why we weren't selling and where the product was wrong. Dan is very honest which is painful at times, but it's saved us a fortune in waiting around to find out the even harder way.”
Ben Lilly · CEO, Giant Leap Digital
Book The Stress Test

Next available dates.

Private session. One company per date. See available dates →