The 5-Part Commercial Story FrameworkHere’s the framework I want you to use the next time you need executive buy-in: Problem → Stakes → Insight → Recommendation → Outcome 1. Problem: What is happening in the business?Don’t start with your project. Start with the reason the project deserves to exist. In our example, the weak version was essentially: “We need a new sales enablement strategy for next quarter.”
Technically true. Commercially weak. It describes the work, not the business problem. The stronger version was: “Sales isn’t getting the support it needs from our current enablement approach, and that’s creating friction in how quickly and effectively they can move deals forward.”
Now I know why we’re having the conversation. Before you prepare your next presentation, make sure you answer: What is happening in the business that makes this conversation necessary? If your first answer is about what your team has been doing, you haven’t found it yet. Side note: This part can be painful because you need to admit there is a problem and it likely happened on your watch. Do it anyway. It’s how you put the business above your pride and show executive maturity. 2. Stakes: Why does it matter?A problem becomes commercially important when you connect it to consequences. Revenue. Growth. Customer retention. Cost. Speed. Risk. Productivity. Market position. This is where many smart leaders stop too early. “Sales isn’t happy with the materials.” “Our process is manual.” “Customers are confused.” “Employees are frustrated.” These are all true, but senior leaders still need to know: So what? For our sales enablement example, the real stakes were bigger than whether Sales liked the materials. If sellers couldn’t easily find or use what Marketing created, we were making it harder for them to move deals forward and close business efficiently. You don’t always need a perfect dollar amount. But you do need to connect the issue to something the business values. Use this question: If we do nothing, what does this cost, delay, threaten, or prevent? That is where the commercial story starts getting weight. 3. Insight: What do you think is really going on?This is the piece that separates reporting from executive thinking. Anyone can surface information, but senior leaders add value by interpreting it. What pattern do you see? What do you believe is causing the problem? What are people misdiagnosing? What does the evidence actually tell you? In our case, we decided not to guess. We sent an anonymous survey to the Sales team and asked what they actually needed, what was missing, what was working, and what wasn’t. That mattered because an insight isn’t your opinion dressed up in executive language. It’s your interpretation of what the evidence means. The survey helped us separate what was already working from the three gaps that actually mattered. Now we weren’t presenting a wishlist. We had a point of view grounded in what the business needed. Before you present, ask: What do I interpert that isn’t obvious from the data alone? That answer is often where your executive value lives. 4. Recommendation: What should we do?If I had to put a number on it, I would say this is where a surprising amount of executive communication falls apart. You do the first 3 steps well enough and then end with: “What does everyone think?” Usually because you want to be collaborative and make sure you listen to other people’s opinions. And sometimes that is exactly the right question. But if you’ve been asked to lead the work, senior leaders usually expect you to have a point of view. So give them one. In our case, we recommended five priorities we believed we could realistically deliver that quarter, plus three additional opportunities if time, headcount, and speed allowed. That prioritization piece was important. We weren’t showing leadership everything Product Marketing could do. We were telling them what we believed mattered most now, with the resources we had, and in line with what Sales needed most. We named the tradeoff (what we won’t be able to deliver) and explained why we were choosing these initiatives over others. Strong recommendations don’t pretend there is no downside. They show that you’ve considered it. Use this question: If the decision were mine, what would I do and why? You can still invite discussion. But give people something worth reacting to first. 5. Outcome: What changes if we act?The last step is closing the loop. This is an underrated executive skill that I teach my executive clients and the entrepreneurs I work with. Show them the promised land. If leadership says yes, what happens? Not: “We’ll have a much better sales enablement program.” That tells me what you’re building. It still doesn’t tell me why the business should care. In our case, the goal was better adoption and use of marketing materials so Sales had stronger support to move more deals forward, faster. Where possible, we also estimated the expected business impact. Your ending should answer: What business outcome becomes possible if we do this? That is where an initiative becomes an investment and earns it’s place. Explaining The Work vs. Telling a Business StoryMost executive communication problems are not solved by using bigger words or swapping “sorry” with “thank you”. They are solved by changing your thinking, and using communication to translate your ideas into executive language. Here’s a side by side example to make it easy to compare: Explaining the work“We’ve spent the last quarter reviewing our sales enablement approach, gathering feedback, evaluating our existing materials, and identifying opportunities to improve how Product Marketing supports Sales.”
This is a great way to explain the work, but it is missing the commercial relevancy that makes it interesting for the leadership team. And it it is not showing your strategic thinking. Telling the business story“Our current sales enablement approach is making it harder for Sales to quickly find and use the support they need to move deals forward. Feedback from the team showed three clear gaps in what we provide today. I recommend we focus on five priorities this quarter that address those gaps, with the goal of increasing adoption of our materials and helping Sales close more deals, faster. We’ll know this was a success by [desired result/metric]”.
Same work. Completely different conversation. That’s commercial storytelling. The Skill Isn’t Just Storytelling. It’s Translation.This is why I think “communication skills” undersells what’s happening here. You don’t necessarily need prettier slides. You don’t need to become more charismatic. And you certainly don’t need to turn every presentation into a dramatic narrative arc. You need to translate: Activity → Impact Information → Implication Functional problem → Business problem Idea → Decision Your expertise lives in the details. Your executive value comes from knowing which details matter and what they mean for the business. | 
