Growth Insights for CEOs

Outsider Insights | You Built Something Different. Your Messaging Made It Sound the Same.
Executive Takeaways
- Real differentiation often goes unsaid because messaging leads with inputs, not the outcome buyers pay for.
- When the story changes by segment, buyers have no throughline and compare you on price.
- Buyers won’t work out your advantage on their own, so the message has to state it.
- Quick test: remove your logo and see whether a buyer could still tell it’s you.
Outsider Insights
Across Chief Outsiders, we talk to hundreds of CEOs every month. In this series, we explore the trends and challenges we’re hearing from these discussions – and what you can do if you’re facing the same issues in your business.
Recent Posts

An Inward Focus: How One Company Redefined Itself for Success
Mon, Feb 7, 2022 — It’s always interesting to me when the proverbial emperor is in search of new clothes. Like the time-honored fable, Cask – an innovative company that lives and works in the ServiceNow ecosystem – had done an outstanding job of enabling digital transformation for its clients. But when it came to telling their story and harnessing digital marketing tools to promote itself, it wasn’t quite as masterful. The story of how Cask evolved its brand and turned digital marketing into a dominant force in the ServiceNow space – leading to 40 percent year-over-year growth for four consecutive years – is an object lesson that is worth studying for any B2B leader.