Every article, newest first. Page 2 of 9.
Are buyers using AI to fact-check our sales claims?
Sixty-two percent of B2B buyers now use AI to check vendor claims against public sources, and 56% have dropped a vendor after it found a gap. The problem usually isn't lying. It's five assets telling five slightly different stories. Three tests show you what your buyer's AI sees.
How do we know if ChatGPT actually sent us a customer?
AI engines strip the referrer, so your AI-sourced buyer shows up as direct traffic weeks later. Here's the three-signal join that proves whether AI search sent you a customer, and what one of our own 24-day bookings showed.
There is no best B2B messaging company until you name the job you're hiring for
A CEO sent me the list ChatGPT gave him for 'best B2B messaging company.' Every list like it, ours included, is written by a firm that sells messaging. Here's how to read them, and the three jobs hiding under that one search.
Does our company need a new name, or just a clearer story?
Pure Storage renamed itself Everpure in 2026. Almost no B2B company should copy that. Here's the one condition that makes a rename the right call, what it costs now that AI engines file your reputation under your old name, and the cheaper decision most founders actually need.
Is calling our product AI-powered still helping us, or is the word costing us trust?
Every competitor can generate the same AI sentence for free, and as of August LinkedIn is demoting polish that lacks substance. Here’s the deletion test that tells you whether your AI claim is load-bearing, and what to do with the word when it isn’t.
How do we run April Dunford's first positioning step ourselves?
Competitive alternatives are what your buyer would do if you vanished tomorrow, and the list is usually a spreadsheet, an analyst, or nothing at all. Here's how to build it yourself in a week, with your own deal data.
What can't a go-to-market consultant fix for us?
A GTM consultant can extract, document, and pressure test your position. They can't make the decision, supply the conviction, force adoption, or fix a product gap. Here's the line, with data from 302 scored homepages.
We scored 10 real B2B positioning statements. One passed.
We graded 302 real healthtech homepages on the four parts of a positioning statement. Exactly one scored full marks. Here are ten of those cases with their real language, their real scores, and the one part nearly everybody drops.
One customer is half our revenue. Do we chase another like them, or sell to everyone else?
One customer at 40 or 50 percent of revenue is tracked as a financial risk and never as a messaging risk. Meanwhile the homepage, the case studies and the roadmap all describe that account's problem, so every other buyer reads material written for somebody else. Three tests to find out, and what to do about it.
Nobody copies the true part of your message
Last Tuesday a construction SaaS CEO sent me two homepages and asked which one was his. A competitor had lifted his headline, his three value props in order, even his customer outcome sentence. Then I asked him to point at one thing in it only his company could say, and he couldn't find it. That's the copyable claim, and almost every B2B homepage is built out of them. Here's the villain, three tests you can run in twenty minutes, and what to fix first.
Does StoryBrand work for B2B? Where it fits, where it breaks, and what a complex sale needs instead
StoryBrand works exactly as far as it promises: a clear page for one buyer who already believes in the problem. Roofers and HVAC companies prove it. A company selling AI-enabled RCM to a hospital committee fails all four fit conditions. Where it breaks, what the critics say, and what a complex sale needs instead.
What should actually be in our go-to-market plan?
Six decisions, each with one owner and one date. That's the whole plan. Here's what belongs in each row, what to cut, and the ten-minute test that tells you whether yours exists on paper or only in somebody's head.
Your AI needs two knowledge bases, and most companies have built neither
AI writes generic work for your company because it has nothing of yours to read. Real work needs a knowledge base with two halves: documented SOPs on the inside, an AI Brand Twin on the outside. Most companies buying AI seats have built neither, so the model fills the gap with the average of the internet.
Do we need a GTM consultant, a GTM advisor, or a fractional CMO?
Three roles, three prices, three completely different things in your hands when they leave. A consultant hands you a decision, a fractional CMO hands you execution, an advisor hands you a second opinion. Here's what each costs and how to tell which one you're actually short of.
What is an AI Brand Twin, and how does it shape what AI engines say about us?
Three narrators describe your company to buyers every week: your team, your AI tools, and the buyer's AI. You supervise one. An AI Brand Twin is the written source that makes all three agree, which is how it changes what the engines say about you.
Is a strategic narrative in our sales deck enough?
A strategic narrative in a sales deck only works in a room where someone presents it. Two of the three places a B2B deal now gets decided have nobody from your company in them. Here's what the deck can't reach, a ten-minute test, and what to build instead.
Your reputation doesn't cross the border
Last Tuesday a cybersecurity CEO showed me six months of flat German pipeline and told me the problem was the rep he'd hired in Munich. I asked him one question: who is the buyer in Munich paying right now to do this job? Nobody on the team had an answer. That's the Home Field Message, and almost every company carrying one finds out at the border. Here's the villain, three tests to run before your next market entry, and what to fix first.
Explaining is the tax you pay for a story you never published
A rep I listened in on last Thursday spent eleven minutes explaining what his company does. The buyer already had the answer open in another window. She'd asked an AI three days earlier, read what came back, and booked the call to check it against a human. He never got to that conversation, because he was still doing the introduction. That's the Live Rebuild, and most B2B companies run it on every first call. Here's the villain, three tests you can run on calls you've already recorded, and what to fix first.
The week a competitor raises is the week your category gets decided
A funding round doesn't hand your competitor the market. It hands the category a few weeks of attention it won't get again all year, and whoever answers the buyer's question most clearly during that stretch becomes the reference point everyone else gets compared to. Most CEOs respond by going quiet until the noise passes. Here's why that's the expensive choice, three tests to run this week, and the one thing that lets you move in days instead of quarters.
Why isn't our go-to-market working, and how do we tell which layer broke?
A go-to-market has five layers, and they fail downward. The break almost always sits above the layer you're staring at, because the layers with dashboards are the ones at the bottom. Here's the day-long diagnostic that finds the real one.
Which positioning framework should we use, and where does each one break?
Seven positioning frameworks compared by their breaking condition rather than their reputation, with the input each one quietly assumes you're bringing, and a 302-homepage finding that explains why most rollouts stall.
How we use AI before and after a sales call
A practical routine for preparing with evidence, asking better questions and catching what you missed before you follow up. From Greg Rosner’s conversation with Paul Kirch.
Your chief of staff is the only copy of your company story
Every artifact that carries your company story has a deadline and an owner. The story underneath them has neither, which is why it gets rebuilt from scratch every quarter by whoever has the board deck due, and why the company's narrative memory quietly becomes one person's working files. Here's the Rebuild Tax, three tests to measure what it's costing you, and the structural fix.
Does our AI company need brand strategy, or just a better model?
AI founders keep choosing between the next model release and a real positioning rebuild. The model is the one part of your company a buyer never sees, and the language around it is the only part an AI engine can read. Here's how to tell which one is actually blocking your pipeline.
Your forecast knows the message is broken before marketing does
Deals keep moving their close date and every one of them arrives with a reason about a calendar. Budget cycle, a new VP, a reorg. Those reasons are true and they are almost never the cause. The CFO is sitting on two years of evidence about why buyers don't move, filed under scheduling, and nobody has ever asked to read it that way.
We finished a brand transformation sprint. Why hasn't anything actually changed?
A brand transformation sprint changes what you've decided and how clearly you say it. It doesn't change what your team does in week nine when a big wrong-fit deal shows up. Here's the honest accounting of what a strategy sprint delivers, what it leaves to you, and how to tell six months later whether it took.
Which of our products should have their own brand, and which should just be features?
Most products shouldn't have their own brand. One earns a name when it has its own buyer, its own budget line, and its own competitor. Here's the test, what a stray name costs you in sales and in AI visibility, and which architecture actually fits a $5M-$75M company.
Our champion just left. Do we work their replacement or re-open the problem?
A founder called me Tuesday about the best deal in his quarter, eighty percent in the forecast for two quarters running. Then his champion took a job two states away and the replacement went politely, permanently quiet. He didn't lose a relationship. He lost the only person who thought the problem was worth solving this year. Meet the Borrowed Deal, why chasing the successor is the one play that guarantees a slow no, and three tests to run on your forecast this afternoon.
Nobody put the founder's story in the handover
A new CEO takes over from a founder and everything transfers cleanly: contracts, roadmap, comp plans, brand guide. One asset never got written down, because it lived in the founder's head, so nobody put it on the list. What he wrote keeps working for about two quarters, which is exactly long enough for everyone to agree the handover went fine.
Do we fix our positioning, our messaging, or our website design first?
Brand strategy has three steps and they only work in one order. Position, then message, then design. Here's what each step actually produces, and what 47 homepage audits say about companies that start at the end.
How do we build a brand style guide our team and our AI will both follow?
Most brand style guides document the layer anybody could copy by looking, and skip the layer only you can write. Here's the order that makes one followable by people and machines.
Our buyer says they'll build it in-house. Do we fight the build or the delay?
A VP of Sales sent me the recording with a note that said "tell me where this went wrong." Thirty-eight good minutes, then the prospect's engineering lead unmuted and said "honestly, we could probably build this." The rep had a cost breakdown ready. Five months later the deal was dead and nothing had been built. Meet the Phantom Build, why arguing capability hands the room to the wrong person, and three tests to run on your pipeline this week.
A new marketing leader inherits a brief nobody ever wrote
A new CMO gets ninety days to prove they were the right hire, and the fastest way to look productive is to ship something visible. A campaign, a site refresh, a rebrand. Every one of those sits on a story the company never actually decided. Three tests to run in week one, before you spend your credibility on the wrong layer.
What does brand strategy consulting actually deliver, and what should you refuse to pay for?
Three things are worth paying for and four common line items aren't. Here's the week-twelve test that tells them apart before you sign anything.
Which branding services do we actually need at $5M, and which can wait until $50M?
A $5M company needs a decided position written down. A $50M company needs that plus the machinery to enforce it across forty people. The branding menu looks identical at both ends, which is how founders at both ends buy the wrong row.
Our brand feels dated. Is a refresh enough, or do we need a full rebrand?
A refresh fixes expression. A rebrand reopens meaning. Both problems feel identical from the corner office, which is why most CEOs buy the cheaper one and get a nicer version of the same confusion. Meet Brand Lag, the measurable distance between the company you've become and the company your brand still describes, plus the four questions that tell you which layer actually moved.
We sell services, not software. Do we narrow the story or keep every door open?
A managing partner sent me his homepage: eleven service lines in a grid under the sentence "trusted expertise across the product lifecycle." His two toughest competitors had ten and twelve, in the same grid, under roughly the same sentence. Then he defended the list. Meet the Breadth Penalty, why an accurate description of a services firm now costs more than it earns, and three tests to run this week.
Do we need a branding agency or a marketing agency?
Both firms put messaging in the proposal and mean different artifacts by it. Here's what each one actually sells, three checks that name the gap you really have, and the four things to settle before you sign either contract.
A brand consultant owes you a decision, a marketing consultant owes you a system
The two titles overlap enough that reading profiles won't sort them. What sorts them is the accountability object, and one sentence you write before you talk to anyone.
The branding agency decision gets made before you meet a single agency
Five capable firms will hand you five different theories of who your company is, and you'll pick the one that sounded best on a Thursday. The decision that matters happens before the first pitch, and it's yours.
How can our team share AI employees without everyone building their own version?
Research. Prospecting. Proposals. Invoicing. A practical guide to sharing specialized AI employees, with human managers and clear handoffs.
We're raising prices. Do our customers re-buy or re-shop?
A CEO read me the price increase letter his lawyer had already cleared. Three paragraphs: thanks for the partnership, rising infrastructure costs, here's the new number. I asked what a customer gets for the extra nine percent and the line went quiet. Meet the Cost Confession, why the friction that used to protect a price increase is gone, and three tests to run before the letter goes out.
What actually happens in a two-week brand sprint, and what does it leave unfixed?
A two-week brand sprint is ten working days and it buys articulation: your leadership team's existing beliefs, said well. Here's the day-by-day agenda, the dependency hiding in each stage, and the four things ten days structurally can't reach.
How long does a B2B rebrand take, and what does each phase cost?
A full B2B rebrand runs four to eight months and $65,000 to $260,000 across six phases. Here's the timeline and the cost of each one, plus the phase that decides whether the other five stay on schedule.
How do we run a repositioning without breaking what's already working?
A B2B repositioning runs in six steps, and five of them are easy. Here's the sequence, the decision that sits inside each step, and the equity you protect on the way through.
We're pivoting. Do we announce the new story or grow into it?
A CEO told me his company had changed completely in eighteen months, then shared a homepage that still described the company he started. He wasn't lazy. He was waiting to feel ready. Meet the Trailing Story, and the three tests that tell you how far behind your evidence actually is.
Which sales coaching framework fits a founder-led sales team?
GROW, Sandler, MEDDIC, Challenger and Command of the Message each coach a different layer, and four of the five assume a shared story your team may not have yet. Here's the twenty-minute test that tells you which half of the problem you're in.
What actually separates the top brand messaging agencies on Clutch?
Clutch ranks brand messaging agencies on reviews, headcount, hourly rate, and project minimums. None of those predicts whether a firm will fix your positioning. Here's what the directory can't see, the four axes the good firms actually differ on, and the forty-minute pass that sorts a shortlist of three.
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