Don’t Bury the Lede”

One of the greatest challenges I continually face building an organization’s branding and marketing strategy is what journalists call "burying the lede."

This means failing to highlight the most significant or compelling part of a story upfront, obscuring it instead behind less critical information that makes the organization feel good about itself.

In a business context, this phenomenon occurs when companies overlook the most compelling stories within their organizations — the client-centered narratives that indicate a major differentiator an organization provides to its constituents.

In my experience, businesses too often talk about what they do and how well they want everyone else to believe they do it. While important to some degree, this approach neglects the crucial narrative hook – how the company's services or products solve genuine customer challenges.

When the real value proposition — the actual "lede" — is hidden or glossed over, potential customers lose interest quickly in your marketing. They click away from your website, your social media post. The lasting perception of your organization is one of many, and you have missed an opportunity to elicit the “aha moment” that could have helped your client or prospect think differently, and most importantly, been curious about continuing their internal dialogue with you.

When I am invited into an organization to refine their branding, the most challenging part of the job is finding the powerful stories already hidden within.

This is because the best narratives aren't immediately obvious to those who are immersed in an organization’s day-to-day operations. It typically takes external perspective and deliberate questioning to uncover these stories and the insights they illuminate.

What might initially seem mundane to those inside a company, say a seemingly routine customer service transaction, can often serve as an incredibly compelling marketing piece.

Why does this happen so frequently? Quite simply, companies and their employees are typically too close to their own processes and outputs to recognize the true newsworthiness of their customers' stories.

Organizations tend to operate within siloed bubbles, what I have frequently labeled as “navel gazing.” They often mistake internal pride and satisfaction with external relevance and tend to forget their prospects’ and clients’ daily struggles and the solutions they need to get back to their main goal – running a viable, growing, profitable organization.

The fundamental shift required is moving from an inward-looking focus ("We are great, and here's why") to an outward-looking perspective ("We understand your challenges, and here's how we can help").

This will sound familiar to anyone who has ever participated in Challenger Sales training. Great Challenger salespeople inherently understand the importance of researching their prospects, that prospect’s competitors and the industry they operate in to better understand what challenges they may be facing.

Challenger salespeople ask insightful, probing questions designed to get prospects talking about the specific issues they face, and knowing what their answers likely will be, direct prospects to reconsider their current strategies. The "lede" here is what is impeding a customer on the path to achieving their business goals, not the salesperson’s product.

Organizations should adopt this Challenger mindset in their broader marketing and branding strategies as well. Rather than burying the real lede—the client's struggles and how your organization uniquely addresses them—companies should deliberately surface and spotlight this perspective early and often.

This reorientation transforms all forms of marketing from shouting about generic capabilities, into a more interactive, relevant conversation that resonates powerfully with audiences.

The number one reason organizations miss opportunities to develop compelling content is because they don't use their listening tools properly to look for patterns about what their clients are struggling with. They also don’t “connect the dots” between those patterns and the services they offer.

Failing to listen to client feedback intently and with an open mind creates an organizational lack of empathy, and this lack of empathy creates the marketing and communications disconnect. No wonder then that so many of my clients struggle to craft compelling web copy, testimonials, and social media content.

One practical way organizations can better uncover and highlight these stories is by actively listening to and documenting customer interactions, feedback, and experiences.

These stories typically involve emotional resonance because they highlight genuine problems and the relief or success achieved through the company's involvement. By amplifying these narratives, organizations stop burying the lede and start leveraging it to powerful effect.

Businesses should continuously ask themselves questions like:

• "Why did THIS client choose us over our competitors?"

• "What specific issues have we successfully solved for them and how did they measure/value an improvement?"

• "What benefits have our solutions brought to their lives or businesses?"

Answering these questions honestly and thoroughly can provide the foundational elements of a productive sales pitch, webinar presentation or website service page copy.

If you want to supercharge your ability to find these “ledes” more frequently and build them into compelling marketing and sales tools, consider training key members of the teams who have access to this information.

Client management team leaders, stellar sales producers and top performing frontline customer service reps are your most obvious team members capable of helping you uncover these stories and help you edit the final product.

Employees should be encouraged to think like journalists—continually searching for and recognizing the "lede" in customer conversations. By fostering this culture of curiosity and storytelling awareness, organizations can dramatically improve their ability to consistently produce impactful content and messaging.

By adopting an external, empathetic perspective and consistently positioning customer challenges and company solutions as central narratives, organizations can dramatically enhance their relevance, impact, and connection with their intended audiences.

Remember, the real "lede," is always about how effectively you solve your customer's challenges—not merely how great you think you are at doing it.