11 Ways to Spot a Weak Strategic Narrative

Is your narrative holding you back or something else?

Building a business with a weak narrative is like trying to train for a marathon on a poor diet. You’ll encounter all sorts of problems along the way, some so dire that you can’t recover.

Like a poor diet, a weak narrative can present a variety of symptoms across the business. But how do you know if a weak narrative is the root cause, or something else? Today I’m going to show you how to find out.

Let me clear some things up about a narrative first.

Wait. What’s a Strategic Narrative?

A narrative isn’t the same as messaging. A narrative, or more specifically, a strategic narrative is the story that describes your category strategy. (A category strategy is your plan for creating a dominant, profitable, and defensible position in the market. Read more here).

Here’s a quick primer:

• Your strategic narrative is like your company’s constitution.

• It lays out the problem you solve, who you’re solving it for, and why the world needs a different solution to solve it.

• In short, it captures the unique Point of View (POV) about how your company sees the world.

Because a strategic narrative is a foundational document that guides the business, it can impact every department—not just marketing and product but even finance, sales, and HR. But a weak narrative can create all sorts of issues downstream.

How to Spot a Weak Narrative

What follows is a list of some of the most common symptoms I’ve found that point to a weak narrative.

This isn’t an exhaustive list. Nor is a weak narrative the only thing that could create these issues. But if you spot these in your own business (especially if you see more than one) then re-evaluating your narrative is a safe place to start.

1. Your executive team isn’t aligned

Do you have one vision for your strategy, but your CFO has a completely different view? Does your CEO have trouble picking a lane, because no matter what, someone on the ELT will say it’s a bad idea? Does your team have its strategy meeting each quarter, only to end in a muddy result? These are all signs that you’re building a strategy based on opinion, seniority, or the loudest voice in the room. A strategic narrative, though, forces you to build from first principles.

2. Sales relies too much on price concessions

You might have a great product, but if customers can’t see its unique value, they won’t have much reason to pay a premium for your brand over other options (or switch to your solution at all). As a result, sales teams rely too much on discounts or other concessions to win deals. That’s no way to build a legendary brand. A strategic narrative can crystallize what makes you unique – and give the sales team more firepower.

3. Table stakes messaging

You’ve seen this too many times already. If your lead value proposition is some version of “saves time” or “saves money” then proceed with caution. That can work for some brands (like GEICO or RyanAir, whose strategy is built on being the low-cost provider). But for everyone else, those propositions are table stakes. And they’re the same claims made by competitors. Instead, you need to find something more meaningful and distinct. When brands don’t know what that is, that’s a good sign their narrative needs work.

4. Buyers think your product is a commodity

Of course, they won’t say this directly. But if customers ask about price early and often in the buying journey, it means they’ve already decided what value you can bring. The only question that remains is how much it will cost them. This can happen even to novel products that aren’t backed by the right story to provide context. If you haven’t been explicit with buyers about why your solution is different from the status quo, then they’re unlikely to discover that on their own.

5. Your product actually is a commodity

Can you profit from selling a commodity? Chevron and Exxon do just fine. But in some industries, a commodity offering will never give you a sustainable, competitive advantage. And if competitors have caught up to you, then it’s time to start thinking about what to build next. Remember - a strategic narrative gives your team clarity on what problem you’re solving and who you’re solving it for. It’s the perfect lens for clarifying your thinking on the product roadmap.

6. You can’t attract the best employees

“A” players want to get paid well. But they want something bigger, too. They want to do meaningful work. They want to work for a brand that can make an impact, where their talents won’t be wasted. But brands without a good story will struggle to make that case. Especially when you’re in the early chapters of something new. However, having a strong strategic narrative shows prospective employees why the next few years of their lives will be a worthy challenge.

7. All hype, no revenue

Some brands can do a great job of getting potential customers excited for a bold new future. But when it comes to delivering, the product doesn’t live up to the hype. Yes, that can come from poor execution. But what can also happen is that your company hasn’t calibrated how it communicates its ambitions. Being too visionary, too soon, can set the wrong expectations for customers. A good strategic narrative hints at something exciting, but grounds the vision in something pragmatic and possible today.

8. Excitement depends on charisma

We’ve all seen that CEO who can woo an audience into seeing their vision for the future by oozing charisma. But if you ask anyone else to do the same, it fails. Don’t get me wrong, a charismatic CEO can be a huge asset. But what’s far more powerful is when anyone on your team can get the market to see things differently. Strategic narratives don’t rely on flowery language or a skilled orator; they build an unassailable case based on fact.

9. Investors can’t see past financials

Whether you’re a startup raising its next round or a public company trying to keep its stock price healthy, the challenge is the same. If investors don’t understand where you’re headed, they only have your income statement to rely on. But the right narrative can show investors what really matters - why your company will be the one defining the future. Stories like this are exactly how companies like Amazon got investors to tolerate years of losses early on.

10. Buyers don’t see what’s changed

Often you’ll see this happen when a company initially offers a point solution but evolves into something different or bigger. Buyers only know what they know. And if the last thing they heard is that you were just a small player with little to offer them, why should they think differently? If you can’t break this perception, you need a clear story about what’s changed.

11. Agencies can only deliver “meh”

Here’s the thing most agencies won’t tell you: without a clearly defined POV, you’ve made their work a lot harder. Sure, some agencies can create some temporary buzz with a clever campaign. But what you really want them to do is change the way buyers think. That’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pull off without a core narrative that captures why your business sees things differently.

Did This List Make You Uncomfortable? Here’s What To Do Next.

If you read this list and kept thinking, “This is us!”, then where do you go from here? I have three things to share with you.

First of all, don’t feel so bad. No company has a straight line to success. Even the best of them have had chapters of uncertainty and doubt.

Second, a caveat. I can’t tell you for certain that your narrative is the only thing you need to work on. You might have more systemic issues: a hostile board, a weak balance sheet, a toxic culture, or a merger gone bad, just to name a few. If your company faces an intractable issue like this, a narrative is unlikely to turn things around on its own.

The third is the most important.

Winning companies have one thing in common: they have clarity on why they exist and where they’re headed. And just as importantly, their entire team is aligned on the strategy and is executing it. At its heart, a strategic narrative helps you discover the right strategy and then galvanize your team on the path forward.

You can either work on your narrative yourself or find a partner to help you help you. Either way, you’ll be leaps ahead of your competitors who choose to simply wing it and hope for the best.