The Old Way of Communicating Is Dead | Narrative as a Framework | Ben Rosner

My name is Ben Rosner. I advise Fortune 500 companies, military generals, UN diplomats, and founders just like yourselves to build narratives that create impact. And over the next 30 minutes, I'm going to walk you through the framework to unlock clarity and influence so that you can achieve that very same impact. So stick with me for the next little while, and I'll show you how to put your company in a trajectory to scale faster, than ever before. Sound good?

Yeah.

Fantastic. Before we start, I want to tell you about one of the more difficult moments in my military career. On October 7th, I woke up on a Saturday morning to the news that women and children were being burned alive, men were being shot on their front porches, And more than 200 civilians were being taken hostage by the terrorist organization Hamas. As the head of strategic and crisis communications, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to return to Israel and serve in reserve duty. But to be honest, it was no less frightening knowing that I was going to stare directly into the face of evil. And while there in a war room, I learned a lesson that applies just as much in battle as it does in tech, and that is that clarity under pressure is not a luxury. It is the difference between escalation and de-escalation, buy-in and breakdown. Let me tell you how that all came about. So after many days of getting barely any sleep, running on fumes, running on adrenaline, and the world's saddest pita bread with just A sliver of an egg in it, and if you squint, you might even be able to see a tomato. After several days of this, I finally had a chance to get some sleep, and it was really needed. But it didn't last very long. One of my lieutenants woke me up and said, Ben, there are reports that we struck a hospital, and the number of dead keeps rising. Fuck, was the very first thing that came to mind. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I started to read the media reports because This just didn't make any sense. It wasn't within the rules of engagement to strike an actively used civilian hospital. And the tensions were rising. Our allies and the press were asking, what are you doing? What is going on? And the issue is that movies make it appear as if militaries and intelligence services have complete and perfect information at the snap of a finger. But that couldn't be further from the truth. And I also want to take a step back and to help everyone understand, this was the most severe attack on the country in decades. And what also allows militaries the ability to freely operate is something known as just cause. In the laws of armed conflict, it's known as jus ad bellum. And this narrative that was now swirling around could have catastrophic consequences on that just cause and therefore the ability to operate, which means putting in jeopardy our ability to get back those hostages. And we're talking about mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, sons and daughters. There are even toddlers and a baby. And so we pushed and we pushed to get that information From the Air Force and from the field. And within 6 hours, we finally had the answers. And guess what? It wasn't a jet fighter that struck that hospital. Instead, it was an errant Hamas rocket that, as it reached the apex of its trajectory, misfired and shot straight back down to earth, setting that hospital ablaze. So it became very evident in that moment that this was a narrative that Hamas was creating in order to harm our ability to operate. And so now within that war room, we had clarity. We understood the stakes and we knew our objectives. And so we gathered the team and we began to frame the message. And we stripped away all military jargon because the only thing that mattered in that moment in time was to set the record straight. And so that means putting everything into plain terms in simple language. And by 9 AM the very next morning, my general stood in front of the whole world at a press conference and with 7 layers of proof, operational reports, infrared, and even signals intelligence that we burned, meaning a conversation between 2 Hamas terrorists where they discussed how they shot this rocket from a graveyard right behind that hospital. But these were the lengths that we were willing to go to to set this narrative straight. Within 24 hours, the headlines began to shift because clarity created alignment and narrative reset the frame. And so I learned another thing in that war room, and this once again applies just as much to Mean Battle as it does to everybody in tech, and that is that people will automatically assume the worst when the narrative isn't clear. And that could be your employees, that could be customers, that could be investors, that could even be that one person on your leadership team that maybe you just haven't communicated with very well. And this is more important than ever because you have the power to control how you come across. And this is the time to understand that because the old way of communicating is dead. You know, when we were growing up, we were taught to think like analysts, speak like experts, but somewhere along the way, we forgot what actually moves people, and those are stories. That's narrative. Here, help me out. How many of you have seen shitty ideas and crappy startups succeed while great ideas fail? It's not surprising. I've seen entire graveyards of amazing ideas that are never gonna see the light of day simply because they weren't able to communicate the value and what is it that they could do for their customers. I mean, you know, what happened to Quibi? I'm seeing a lot of blank faces, and there's a reason for that. This was a streaming platform that came about, I think around 2018. It was created by a co-founder of DreamWorks. They raised $1.75 billion with a B, but they just couldn't communicate to us why we needed yet another streaming platform to add to the list of dozens we already have. And they shut their doors within a year. What happened to Argo AI? This is a, an autonomous driving platform that had everything going for it. They were backed by Volkswagen, backed by Ford, raised $2.6 billion, but they couldn't communicate a clear path towards profitability or a clear path towards commercialization. And so they too shut their doors. Now compare that to Snowflake. When they came onto the market, they had such a clear and crisp message: unify your data across teams. They ended up having one of the largest software IPOs of all time. And similarly with Shopify, who were so focused on their ideal customer and not just throwing a product out there and saying, hey, you should use this, but talking about its value and how it's going to grow with their customers. And look, to be fair here, there's rarely a single reason why a company succeeds or fails. But when you look at the common traits between the companies that do succeed, it is evident that the executive teams have an unbelievable ability to be clear in their communication. And so your unfair advantage in a world full of noise is to have that level of clarity that puts you ahead of everybody else. And this is something that we need to take note of today because business is only going to get harder in 2025 and for the next decade for reasons I don't need to tell you. You already know. AI, political turmoil, economic turmoil, you name it. And Ray Dalio, who's looked at the economic indicators of today, has said they look very similar to the 1930s, and that didn't end very well. But there's good news, and that is that you're not alone in figuring out how to solve these difficult problems. You're all here together to figure out how do we build the companies of tomorrow. And it's also because you understand a fundamental truth. And that is, if you want to go fast, you go alone. But if you want to go far, you go together. And here's the best news. There are proven, repeatable frameworks that can put your company on that trajectory to where it is that you want to go. And all of that begins with our ability to influence. But here's the problem with influencing. Like, we as leaders, we want to change the world. We want to move markets. We want to create products that will be industry leaders. But the issue is that we need to create ideas and a vision, and we need others to latch on to that idea, and we need to steer them in the same direction. It's super simple, right? But I know all of you execs know that it's one of the toughest things in business. And the reason for that is that we're incredibly complex organisms. We're not made of ones and zeros. We have different backgrounds, different experiences. We speak different languages. And even within the same language, my British friends, we have different dialects and different nuances and meanings of words. And so with this massive challenge in front of us, how can we influence? How can we bring about clarity? Well, in my experience, the most effective way to communicate with clarity and influence is by employing narrative. So what is narrative? When I think of—

Can you hear me?

What just happened there? Why do you think I just left? Say it again. You just took a shot off screen. I just took a shot off screen. OK, what else? Why did I leave? What happened?

You panicked.

I panicked. OK.

Potential.

Anyone else?

You saw something we didn't see.

I saw danger before you. What we just experienced, what that was, is a visual experiment by the neuroscientist René Rodriguez. And he put that together in order to show that in the absence of answers and explanation, we create our own narrative. And that's what you might have done. For me as well. And so understand that narrative is what we use to fill the gap when there is no explanation. The thing is, you can create it yourself or others can do so for you. It's your choice. However, if others do it for you, it can have dire consequences, just like when I was in the military and just like when you're out there fighting for your company. And so how do we build a great narrative? I know for me, it was honestly incredibly overwhelming when I was looking at some of the greatest communicators out there, because they simply, they put the bar so high. But there is a breakdown of these. There is a way to approach this. And believe it or not, you all have the answers. In fact, you've You've been sitting on them all along. So do me a favor. Look underneath your seats. Yep, go ahead. And there you will find not car keys, because this is not Oprah, and we are on a tight budget in year one. In those envelopes, you're going to find this framework. This is the narrative framework. This is the framework that all successful companies employ today to scale, to achieve the impact that they want. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about why we use it, when we use it, and how we use it. So when it comes to why we use it, you might recall Pete's story. When you go into a store, You're buying a lamp, jeans, it doesn't matter. But just like every time as you begin looking around, out of nowhere you have a store assistant that pops up and they say what every store assistant says when they appear. And that is, hi, welcome in. What are you looking for? Is there something I can help you with? And like an answer that is absolutely ingrained into our DNA, we respond with, no, no, no, thank you so much. I am just looking. I am just browsing. But why do we do that? That concept, the reason we respond in this way, it's called buyer defensiveness, and it's because we do not trust this individual to help us. We do not believe they're there to serve us. And so the narrative framework is one of the most powerful tools that we have to overcome this buyer defensiveness and take a conversation from one of mistrust and distrust all the way over to one of genuine curiosity to actually hear about what is your solution. So that is why we use it. But when do we use it? If any of you thought, well, right after the criticality and rarity framework, bonus points for you. This comes only after we have a crystal clear understanding of who is our ideal customer, what are the pains that they go through and viscerally feel every single day. What are the risks that they face if they don't solve these risks? What are the macro-level issues that are causing these pains and these risks to occur? And lastly, what is your value stack, or in other words, the unique combination of skills and expertise and benefits that you bring to the table to help solve these pains and these risks? It is only after we have complete clarity on that that we can move on to narrative. So let's talk about now how we use this framework. There are 5 components to the narrative framework. They are paradigm shift, the storms, winners and losers, the common thread, and social proof. The paradigm shift is the big change in the world. It is something that's taken place that now shifts how we view markets or how we interact with markets. The storms are the new issues that have come about as a result of this big change in the world. The winners and losers are the monikers, the descriptors that we give for those who are going to succeed in helping solve these issues, these pains, these problems that have arisen as a result of this big change in the world. Then we have the common thread. This one is particularly interesting because You can have different companies, different industries, different sizes, but for some reason, there's something that ties them all together. They have been able to succeed in solving these pains and becoming winners in this new world because of an approach or a methodology or a unique combination of value. And so we are able to identify what those are. That's the common thread. And then lastly, we have the social proof. Which is the evidence that you specifically can bring about the change to help customers win and solve these pains. So that's what this framework looks like. Let's use it in an example, and I'm gonna use Andy Davis's favorite company, Stripe. Stripe is clearly, for all of us here, we know they're one of the most powerful fintech companies on earth. We're talking about a company that has service in 46 countries, 135 currencies. And it started with 2 brothers who in 2010 in Ireland came about and started to build this company. And while they didn't necessarily use the narrative framework on a one-to-one basis, their story fits in so well. So let's go through it. For them, when we looked at the issues, the paradigm shift for them, the big change in the world was that the internet was becoming the default platform for global business. So we're talking anything from launching a company to products and services. This was the massive change. Obviously today we have the internet. This is nothing new to us, but back then it became the default platform. The issue at the time, the storm, is that money wasn't moving at the speed of information, meaning that while we might want to do business, it wasn't as easy to actually make that happen. And for anyone who wanted to, you were stuck with these old and clunky intermediaries, and you had no choice but to go along with them. And it was slow and painful and frustrating. And when you look at the winners and losers, it was clear that those who were going to help companies succeed in this new world would be the ones who can help them scale fast, expand their geographic footprint, and make that impact they wanted. While the losers would be stuck with their fax machines. For the common thread, this is something that I think is particularly interesting. The companies who really did well at the time, when we look at what connected them, they didn't just sell a product. They sold a vision, one where you don't have to be stuck in your small little geographic area, but you can service anybody in the world. And you can transact with a click of a button. And what Stripe did wasn't sell product. They said, here's that future, here's where you are today, and we are that bridge. We will connect you from where you are, from your pain. We will make it go away and we will help you achieve this vision. That is what they did. That is what so many successful companies did at that time. And then when it came to their social proof, It was crystal clear, clean APIs, instant onboarding. They lived up to their promise that you only need 7 lines of code to begin transacting today. And then obviously bring on Amazon and Shopify and millions and millions and millions of clients. That is how they ended up becoming one of the most powerful companies on earth because they helped solve one of the most important issues in business. Getting paid. And so now you know the formula. You understand the foundations of the framework. But here's my challenge to you. As you are growing in revenue, new markets, the number of employees you have, ask yourself, is my narrative putting me on the same path that same trajectory to achieve the same success as Stripe? If that answer is anything other than a resounding yes, I highly encourage you to look to use this framework into your strategy, because the truth is, is that you may not end up changing the whole world, but you will have an opportunity to change the worlds of those who come into contact with yours by solving their pain.

And this is—

and that's why this is so critical. And it's an amazing thing to achieve a Series A. It's an amazing thing even to achieve $50 million ARR. But to grow beyond demands a vision that is bigger than ourselves, and it demands leaders who can show with clarity where it is that you need to go. And one of my personal frustrations is seeing Just like we talked about earlier, amazing ideas and great companies start on this process and just simply stop because the steps got difficult. And look, maybe I'm just yelling at my younger self here because I almost stopped and almost didn't write my narrative when the steps got difficult. The thing is, I'm not really meant to be speaking with all of you here today. It's an improbability. I was born into conflict, and some of my first breaths on this earth were through a ventilating system because Saddam Hussein was launching Scud missiles at my home. I'm speaking to you in my third language. My first was Hebrew, my second was Danish. I was born in the middle of nowhere Israel in a small farming community without a clear path for much more than that. And when I was 8 years old, I moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where I lived in silence and pain and loneliness from not being able to communicate with anyone because I just simply couldn't speak any English. But that changed because I just simply chose to rewrite my narrative. It was a tough life, but you have to make the right decisions for yourself. And so that little boy was able to not just find the right words for himself to build the life that he wants, but help senior leaders do the same. And so if I can do it in boardrooms, in war zones, at the UN Security Council, I promise you that you can do the same. And if there's one single thing you take from this entire conversation, is that the only thing between where you are today and the scale and the impact and the success you want, the only thing between where you are today and that ideal future is the clarity of communication to bring everybody with you on that journey. Thank you.

Yeah. So Pete and Ben are now going to have a chat. I've got the mic, so if you want to ask a question, just put your hand up and I'll give you the mic. But just kick on.

I have a question for you.

Yeah.

The framework that you shared at the end, is that the framework that you used to build the presentation?

Yes, it was. I started with my own paradigm shift. If you even look at the conflict that I talked about, at least in the beginning of the war when I was there, everything was, you know, going smoothly is not exactly the right term, but we had clarity, we had the information we needed, we knew what was going on, everything according to battle plan. You know, once we were able to respond was going well. Obviously, we were pretty shocked at the time. But this attack on the hospital, it was a massive, massive shift because now we're going from a situation where the world is looking at the situation and saying, oh my gosh, we had— there are 1,200-plus people murdered in their homes. I don't wish like these sights on anybody. We're talking about houses that were soaked in blood. There's pools of it everywhere. And there's clearly the just cause that we talked about. It's what really gives armies the freedom to operate and to go in and to defend the country, get, get control of the borders, go in and rescue these hostages. And again, this, this attack on the hospital threw so much of that narrative into disarray because there's an accusation that you're now no longer taking What we would call proper action in the laws of armed conflict. It almost seemed like it's not defense. You're not taking care of your civilians, but instead you're harming the other ones. And so that's why there's this big paradigm shift. There were the issues that arose because of it. Our allies, the people that just a few days ago said, you know, tell us what you need, do you, let's share intelligence, they're asking what is going on. And so in this situation, we also had the winners and losers. And here, it would be the ones who would be able to bring clarity as fast as possible. And it's— I don't need to tell everybody here the pace at which news travels. And the problem that we faced as a military is that we have much different standards to uphold truth and to be able to provide facts. And so many, many newspapers and publications came out saying, You know, Israel attacks hospital, X number of civilians dead, comma, said Gaza Health Ministry, which is just a facade for the terrorist organization. But we couldn't come out and immediately say that is false.

Hmm.

We had to verify it. And so that is something that slows you down and in not just the actual battlefield, but the battlefield of opinion and public opinion, it's very, very problematic.

And I'm supposed to be asking you about narrative, but I do have a more personal question.

Sure.

Which is, how do you manage a team, a media team? I understand they're trained soldiers, but nevertheless, how do you manage a media team when presumably you're viewing content which is horrific. You're also under enormous pressure, as you were describing at the beginning. How do you keep— how do you do the clarity bit? Now, I think your message to everyone here was you'll be under enormous pressure, and I think we all understand that it wouldn't be quite the same as battlefield pressure, but we all have moments where, are we going to make payroll? We have moments where, are we going to win this customer? We have moments where, shit, the The product has gone down. What on earth are we going to do about it? So in those moments, how did you manage your team to deliver that kind of clarity of thinking without turning them all into kind of traumatized wrecks?

I wish I had an answer because I was asking myself the very same question. Because you're in a situation where every single person there knows somebody who was murdered, knows somebody who was affected. For those who may not know, the Israel Defense Forces is a conscript army. So you have a lot of 18 to 21-year-olds. And now you're asking these 18 to 21-year-olds who have gone through trauma, are going through trauma, to put all of that aside and understand that they have a mission to do. And it's something that I think as leaders at the time, we try to do our very best to tell them, like, you need to put put that aside. And sometimes it wasn't the easiest conversation to have. And also as leaders, we tried to take the burden of that pain away in the moments where we could. And the one example I can give you is that, I don't know how many of you know this, but there is something that is dubbed like the video of horrors. And it is a 43-minute-long video, raw, not even dubbed. of just GoPro video, security camera footage from Hamas terrorists that were killed when they were in Israel that we ended up putting together into one movie to create one narrative. And the reason for that is that there were so many disparate little horror videos that were flying around all over Telegram and WhatsApp, but there was no story, no narrative. And so One of the things that I took upon myself with the team was to view over 30 hours of footage and horrors and some of the most vile and disgusting things I've ever seen in my life.

People—

terrorists taking axes to people's heads, shooting dogs in these small farming communities, the bloodbath and just doing so, so callously. And it was, I mean, I'll be frank, it was very traumatic even for me to say I'm going to take this on and I'm going to not let any of the more junior soldiers watch this because they're going through enough. And I think part of the burden of leadership is to take on that extra pain and to understand that if there is a mission to be accomplished, It's on your shoulders. It's on— and that's kind of how that came about. And I think for me, deciding what the highlights look like to be able to tell a proper story and a proper narrative from start to finish. So from people sitting around a table having tea and cakes to getting into their Jeeps, coming over the border and committing these atrocities, that narrative was was probably one of the most important things probably that I'll ever do in my career. And again, it wasn't just me. There was tons of video editors and all that, people who really are experts. Because I think it was Eisenhower who, when he saw the atrocities of the Holocaust, said that he personally wanted to witness the bodies and what took place. Because for him, he said, if anyone was ever to question what happened here, I want to be a witness to that. And so this— and he— because he thought it would take, you know, decades for anyone to even question it. We were questioned about the veracity of what took place within like 19 days. And so I think this particular video that told this narrative was one of the most powerful tools that we had, that Mayunica put out, to help memorialize the atrocities.

Wow. incredibly impressive that you would take that on your shoulders. What— I think you've told me this before, but for everyone here's benefit, am I right that there was— there's a particular psychological method that the IDF used subsequently to help you to come to terms with some of the things that you've seen, which presumably are things that can easily trigger PTSD symptoms? I don't remember what it's called or anything about it, but am I right about that?

Yeah, I'm blanking on the exact acronym, but it's like EMDR, something along those lines. And at the time, we tried to do everything we can for the soldiers. So there were psychologists, there were around psychotherapists. There was even this VR headset that at some point we made sure that each of the soldiers kind of wore for about 15 minutes. 15 minutes before they went home. And for EMDR, it's just a protocol. It's a way to— I wouldn't say it was widely, widely used, but it's one of the methods that you can bring these issues to the fore. And so instead of constantly having a film in your head, so when you have this trauma, everything narrows down and you can't see anything except this moment of horror, which is the reason you can't function. And think, something that Simon can explain a lot better than I can. But the long and the short is that with this method, you're able to click pause. You're able to click the mute button. So you're no longer seeing these horrific images in front of you, and it's just quiet. And so that you can return to normal life. But I'm— I am sad to say that there are hundreds of people who've gone through trauma. Again, either from experiencing people who have been murdered all the way to having gone into battle.

Thank you. Going back to your framework, the bit that you began with, you called the perfect storm, I think. And for the people out here thinking about the narrative for their own organization, how do you— when you work with an organization, how do you help them to come up with the perfect storm? Maybe I should also, before you answer that question, just explain that some of you, I'm sure, will have seen The Perfect Storm movie starring George Clooney. set in Gloucester, in Massachusetts. I used to live just around the corner in Rockport, Massachusetts, which is where they actually filmed it. And the idea of The Perfect Storm was that there was the remnants of a hurricane that came up the East Coast. There was then, very unusually, a particular wind coming across from Europe and another one coming down from the Arctic. And it was the confluence of these 3 storms that created the perfect storm. And the movie was set in Boston. When the fishermen went out from Gloucester, they were perfectly capable of dealing with the remnants of a hurricane or even either of the other 2. What they hadn't expected was all 3 at the same time, and that's what drowned the boat and caused them to lose their lives. It was the layering of different moments of real tension that caused the problem. And so that's why we used that. Phrase, that expression in the framework. When you experience this, when you were in service in Israel and the perfect storm happened to you, you told the story, you built the narrative, but this was all true, it was all happening. How do you go about identifying as a B2B software business that there is something so significant happening that change is necessary? necessary and that people must act. But how are you building that early part of the narrative?

I think a big part is— so there's a difference between like the military and the tech. Let's focus on tech since that's what we're here for. For me, when I work with companies, when we work with companies, it's really to look at what is taking place in the world that has significance and relevance to that specific company. And so, for example, one of the clients that we work with It's how has data changed in the way that we view it, in the way that we function with it, and how it affects our companies. So for example, I think one of the narratives that we ended up coming up with is that, you know, data ended up, it was important, it became essential, and now data's everything. You know, I think so many people talk about like companies are made of people. I've gone through a ransomware attack. When there's no access to data, like there's no company. Like you can't do anything. And so we came to the conclusion, at least in this big narrative, that data really now is everything. And so if it is everything, what are you doing to protect it? Because with it, you have no company, you have no way to operate, you have no way to progress. And so that is a way where we've— where we can start talking about the shift, the big change that's taking place in the world as it relates to data. And so I would look, and I would encourage everybody here, To think about what is the big shift that's happened in the world that is relevant to your company and how you interact with that change in the world and why you are important in fixing the issues that have come up because of this big change in the world.

Thank you. I'm going to open up for questions in a moment. Monty, how long do we have until the break?

17 minutes.

Wow. Thank you. So 17 minutes are plenty of time.

Good news.

Before I do, I have one more question of my own. Now, I know in the interest of time, you deliberately shortened the framework, but in the middle, there's this idea of success framework.

That's right.

And you gave a success framework in the middle. You set up this idea in your talk that things can go really badly wrong. And when they go really badly wrong, some people win, some people lose. The winners, what is it? What's the common thread that they follow that allows them to be the winner and not the loser? That see— they see opportunity and not risk. And then obviously you skipped forward deliberately to the social proof, but there's that bit in the middle which was, I think, when you got everyone to look under the seats, which is, here's the framework. that you follow. How, again, how do you go about, like, what does that mean? What is a success framework? You gave everyone here, these are the 5 symbols that are your success framework, but how should an organization build it for themselves?

Yeah, well, this, so much of this comes from the criticality and rarity framework. It comes from that value stack. So it's your company's very specific approach expertise, knowledge, benefits, integration, services, the way in which you go about solving this problem. And so what one of the, again, the strongest parts of this narrative framework when it comes to sales is that you're not, it doesn't actually feel like selling. When you're speaking to a prospect, you're just trying to get onto the same page. So you're at a point where you're saying, here's what's changed in the world. Here's the new, here are the issues that have come about, like the companies that are gonna succeed or fail. are going to be able to do this or not do this. Here's what ties them together. And now this is how you succeed. This is how you solve pains. And it just so happens that they use this framework that ties to our company. This is how we go about it. This is our approach. This is our methodology. This is the literal success framework. And that's when you can actually bring in everything that makes you unique critical and rare to be able to help solve that. You know, do you have any examples that you might be able to bring from, from your experiences doing this one?

Yeah, I think, well, the bit I was gonna say is the narrative framework that you've shared for me is, should be embedded into all the key moments inside a buyer process. So we might do a demo it should use a lot of those techniques. We might do a discovery, should use a lot of those techniques. But the core, the moment when you give a presentation a little bit like the one that you gave, although I suspect most of us would struggle to give it quite as eloquently as you did, but when it's the time to give that, that presentation, I have a goal in mind, and the goal is to drop the buyer defense. You referenced this with the shop assistant example. And so what should happen in the sales process is you do the discovery. You discover that they have certain pains. By the way, discovery should not be about qualification. So you discover they've got certain pains. You then move forward into a bit where what most people would do is give the sale, give the demo. You might ask a few questions, and then you're like, let me show you my stuff. And that is a little bit like the shop assistant saying, hi, can I help you? And you saying, get out of my cave, like, leave me alone, I don't want to talk to you. So the way to get around that is instead of saying, how may I help you? It's instead to draw them in with that narrative.

Mm-hmm.

And so what I tend to tell organizations to do is to say something like, hey, you know, before we even, like, look at whether this is a good match between our 2 organizations or show you product or anything like that, it's probably useful for me to explain why we even built this in the first place. And it's a nice segue into the narrative. And then there's probably about 15 minutes, a little bit shorter than your longer example, 15 minutes where you're able to go through those steps. The perfect storm, the winners and losers. There's a common thread that joins the winners together. Often that's a key phrase that's almost hashtaggable. Then You get to the success framework, which I'll come back to, and then it's the social proof. By the time you get to the social proof, you have done that bit which has changed the mind of the buyer sufficiently that buyer defenses drop away. Now they want— they're curious and they want to find out what it is that you do. How can you help? I also see this problem, and usually when you get to the end, there's one of two responses. Either response 1, that's awesome, we are thinking like that too, can I have a copy of your deck? This is perfect, it's like we've met our perfect partner. Response number 2, gosh, we haven't thought about it like that at all, this is fascinating, can I have a copy of your deck? And by the way, how do you actually help with this? Like, what do you do? That's the invitation to pitch. And what I tell revenue teams is there should never be a sales pitch without the invitation. Because if you don't get the invitation, those defenses are going to remain up. They might be polite, especially in the UK, they'll be very polite to you, but you'll never see them again. So you need the invitation. And the bit that unlocks it for me is that success framework. And so what we work with organizations on is once they've built those value stacks and we've gone through that process, then there's this moment where— what is it that your customer should do to succeed? And we're often met with a sea of blank faces. What do you mean? What is the framework? And so a little bit like yesterday when I shared that 7-step process for building a sales pitch, what is the underlying framework that allows your customers to succeed? Because you're going to walk them through it, and once they see that framework, they're The response should be, wow, that's exactly what we need to do. How do you guys help? And that gives the invitation to pitch. So for me, that's really at the heart of it, is the unlocking of the biodefenses. Anything you wanted to add to that?

Solid.

Any questions from anyone out there? Jamie, I see you.

I have a question.

Sorry, I'll leave you to be the compère.

I remember the story about the hospital and the way that it was managed and And obviously well played, amazing under pressure. What was the kind of consequence of being successful in that narrative? Did it kind of give further verification to the IDF that they were telling the truth? Did it have any consequences afterwards?

So let's talk about the negative consequences of not being able to immediately refute it, and then we'll get to that. So as I said, it took 6 hours to even like understand what was going on, and then we had to wait until the next day because this was about— this was in the evening. When we understood the news. And so we had to wait until the next day, 9:00 a.m. Israel time to be able to have that press conference to bring everybody together. But by the time this even began, there were demonstrations around the world, in Turkey, across the Middle East. And so it was— I can't even begin to explain how problematic it was because now there are people who are demonstrating And obviously upset because they thought that civilians were being killed at the hands of the military, which obviously wasn't the case. And so I've— I had many, many, many difficult conversations with editors of some of the biggest publications in the world telling them, you are single-handedly responsible for these demonstrations around the world. this misinformation that's going on. And as you can imagine, especially publications like the BBC, the Times, the Wall Street Journal, they stand by their coverage. And their responses was, well, you know, we put the comma after the— and said the information came from, you know, this source which were the terrorists. And so there's a lot of damage that was done at that point. So those were the issues in the beginning. What it did help do, however, however, once we were able to prove it, is buy us some credibility with these journalists to say, okay, you know what, maybe we'll wait just a little longer. Maybe we'll ask a few more people in the government or the military what actually took place before we continue. And so that, that was some goodwill that we bought. Didn't last very long, but at least in that moment, that is what that allows you to do. And again, it's just— this is what happens when you just operate with different standards of reporting.

Thanks for a really great talk. I run a company called Digby, and we're trying to change the narrative of the entire mining industry in the world.

I'm sorry, I can't hear where he was.

I'm not sure.

I don't think it's on.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay, cool. So I run a company called Digby and I've— my background is in mining finance, financing the mining industry, and we're trying to change the narrative of the mining industry in the world. Now, mining is effectively the energy of the future, yet the industry has basically got a completely messed up legacy and narrative. It's complicated. I guess my question is, it's very clear, and I'm really trying to relate back to what you've got above you there, trying to bring the whole— everybody with you on the journey. The pain is very clear. The industry has gone from a 14 times cash flow to a 3 times cash flow. It's irrelevant. It's less than 2.5% of the MSCI. There's massive reluctance with the industry. There's almost a glass ceiling that they're prepared to accept what they're in at the moment. There's not a massive energy. to try and change where they are. So how would you advise me or effectively the industry to effectively go around and change that narrative? Because while it's to some extent easy to understand, follow your framework, the reluctance that has been built up within this, the almost generational position, yet the forward-looking position of mining which relates to every single human being on this planet, is frankly becoming quite frustrating to me. So really the question of that, and is it— I suppose as a subpoint to that is, is framing the negatives as opposed to— as your comment just there, is that one of the core goals with which— or not necessarily goals, is that one of the core areas with which one should really delve in on in order to begin to kind of reverse? Hopefully I got that across.

Let me start because actually I want you to answer it. The long and the short, relevance and to whomever it is that you're speaking to. We always have to make it clear and specific to the audience. And it actually reminds me exactly of what Pete talked about yesterday, where when we talk about like global warming, global change, climate change, all right, it'll happen in 20, 30 years, why should I care? But it's very different, as Pete said, if the water's lapping on your doors. And so trying to figure out how you make it relevant.

Yeah.

is super important. So I think that actually makes a lot of sense for you to speak to.

Yeah, thank you. Um, well, first of all, uh, I think there's 2 different things to talk about, and the first of them is not narrative. If you come back to some of Jeffrey Moore's work that we listened to yesterday on Crossing the Chasm, there is going to be a subset of people who are like-minded as you, but probably not as entrepreneurial as entrepreneurial as you who will listen to that story. You probably all know the technology adoption curve that runs innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards. I often tell people that my father is an innovator, an early adopter. We were the first people in the street to have a microcomputer in the early '80s. I remember my dad being the first person to have a DVD player. My father-in-law recently bought a DVD player in Asda for £19.99. He was very proud of himself for getting it for such a good price. I'm like, Dad, everyone is using, like, Netflix. Why don't you do that instead? Anyway, he's a laggard. My father's an innovator. He's got this technology adoption curve. If you talk to my father-in-law with your presentation, you won't budge him at all because he's stuck in the mud. If you talk to my father, you might have an opportunity because he might think a little bit like you. So it's taking that ideal customer profile and slicing it so that we have casualties that want to get ahead. They see that there is competitive advantage in going first and being pioneering. I made this mistake myself in my very first startup. I was sent to the US. It's when I lived in Rockport, just outside Boston. I remember going to the city of Gardner, a tiny little city in Massachusetts, and And I spoke to the mayor there, a guy called Rob Hubbard. And I said, what we're looking for is pioneers, people who want to go first on the East Coast. And he said— I can't do the accent, sorry everyone. But he said to me, you know what happens to pioneers, Pete? They get shot in the back by Indians. So I never used that in a pitch ever again. But that was— I thought I was— I thought I had it nailed down. Anyway, you are looking for those early individuals. And then when we come on to the second part, the shaping of that narrative, then the narrative can land with them. Because the difference between the casualty who is an innovator, an early adopter, and the casualty who's in the majority or even a laggard is that they will respond very differently to that story. And so my argument would be, what is that perfect storm where when we land the pain that has such a high degree of risk that I need to get ahead of it, and I see the proximity, impact, and propensity of that risk, we need to get ahead of it. What is the story that will walk me through that, knowing that if I go to the wrong casualty, it's not going to land with the same efficacy at all? So my encouragement would be to go back, and we haven't, um, got a session on that, on that over the next few days, but happily talk to anyone about this afterwards. I would go back to the 9-box ICP matrix that we use. In fact, I mean, it's in the manual, so look it up and have a look. There's a 9-box ICP matrix, and what it encourages you to do is filter your potential market until you get to a very, very small number of organizations that we believe will respond to the narrative that we're going to tell. The problem in our market— it's a problem with acronyms in general— is that people talk to me about ICP all the time, and they'll say things like, oh, we've got like 7 ICPs. And to which my response is, if you're a big company, maybe. Otherwise, you're using the wrong acronym. What you mean here is you've got 7 groups of customers. customers or prospects that you're going to talk to. But the I stands for ideal. There can't be 7 that are ideal. There can only be one that's ideal, unless you are a much, much larger organization. So what is the ideal customer profile of a mining organization that believes that this change in the world is going to cause winners and losers, that they want to be a winner, and they see that they might have to take some preemptive steps to get ahead of that? so that you can get that early cohort of customers that will then allow you to slowly go across the chasm, go up that technology adoption curve. So for me, it's a confluence of 2 things: building the narrative, but understanding very, very acutely who that narrative is for. Did you want to add anything?

No, that's great. What an amazing hour that was. A massive round of applause, please.