March 7, 2026 | Read online
I was in Mexico this past weekend/week with some good friends for a 50th birthday party.
A few of them happen to be incredible storytellers. The kind of people who can turn a simple dinner conversation into an event.
Their timing, detail, tension, and delivery are so engaging that before long, the entire table is locked in because they know how to build the moment and land the punchline.
One of them is so good at telling stories that you can never tell if it’s real or if it’s a joke. Half the time, he’s telling a long joke with you as the punchline, but you get so enthralled in the story that you don’t realize it until the end.
I consider myself a decent storyteller, too, but mostly when it comes to business. Not because I studied storytelling or follow some formal process, but because most of the stories I tell come from real experiences.
I usually tell stories about deals that went sideways, clients who surprised me, meetings that completely went off the rails, and situations that were awkward, frustrating, funny, or all three at the same time.
Those are usually the stories that resonate the most.
They’re real, specific, and they usually carry a lesson with them.
While we were sitting around talking last week, it also hit me that storytelling is about to become one of the biggest differentiators in B2B sales moving forward.
AI is making content cheap. Emails are easier to write, research is faster, follow-ups can be automated, and decks and summaries can be produced in seconds. That sounds like a good thing, and in many ways it is. But there is a tradeoff.
When everyone has access to the same tools, a lot of the content starts to sound the same.
AI is good at structure, organizing information, and producing a decent starting point. But AI doesn’t have lived experience. It doesn’t have the scars, timing, judgment, or perspective.
It doesn’t have your story.
You can already see this in other industries. Music and film have more content being produced than ever before, but the human stories are still the ones people connect with. They are the ones people remember and talk about afterwards.
Sales works the same way.
Don’t get me wrong, facts, data, and proof still matter, but stories are what make those things stick. Stories create context. They create emotion. They help someone picture themselves in the situation you’re describing.
When a buyer goes to explain your solution to their boss later, they rarely repeat your feature list. They repeat the story about another company that was dealing with the same challenge and what happened when they fixed it, or they share an example of the challenges they are dealing with and how the solution could solve it.
That is why storytelling still sells.
However, not everyone is great at storytelling, and I’m not an expert in it either, so I used AI to identify the top storytelling structures/frameworks that we can all study and use to become better storytellers, and wanted to share them with you in this week’s newsletter.
Here are the 3 that stood out to me that I thought were especially useful for B2B sellers.
- Strategic Narrative
This framework focuses on selling change rather than selling a product. Instead of starting with your solution, you start with what has changed in the market. You explain why the old way of doing things is becoming less effective and what the new world looks like for the companies that adapt.
AI is a perfect example of this. AI has made outbound easier than ever. At the same time, it has made lazy outbound cheaper than ever. Buyers are now flooded with generic outreach that feels automated and impersonal. That shift creates an opportunity for sellers who bring real insight, judgment, and perspective to the conversation. Framing the conversation around that shift is an example of a strategic narrative. You are telling the story of what is changing and why it matters.
- Customer Story Framework.
This one is all about proof. Instead of making the story about your company or your product, you make the customer the hero. You describe who they were, what situation they were dealing with, what was at stake, what they tried to do about it, and what happened after they solved the problem.
Specificity is what makes these stories powerful. Saying you helped a company improve efficiency does not create much impact. Explaining that a CRO was missing the number, sales and marketing were blaming each other, and leadership needed alignment before the next board meeting is a very different story. That level of detail helps the listener visualize the situation and see how the outcome could apply to them.
This is why I think it’s so important to read through your case studies and learn how to tell those stories.
- ABT (And, But Therefore)
This is one of the simpler structures I came across. This framework forces you to structure your message in a way that creates context, introduces tension, and delivers a clear takeaway.
For example, you might say that buyers today have access to more information and more tools than ever before, and sellers now have AI tools that make outreach faster and easier, but most outreach still sounds exactly the same. The sellers who can bring perspective and tell meaningful stories are the ones who stand out.
That structure is incredibly useful because it forces clarity. It works in emails, cold calls, meeting openings, and presentations.
If you want to go deeper into these frameworks, I put together a Companion Guide (generated by AI) that breaks each one down with examples and practice exercises. You can download it here.
One other thought on storytelling that connects directly to prospecting.
Prospecting itself is a form of storytelling.
Too many sellers treat outreach like a series of disconnected touches. One email. One voicemail. One LinkedIn message. Each one is operating independently.
That approach misses the point.
Prospecting is not about one touch. It is about the narrative you build across multiple touches.
The first message might introduce the idea. The next one might add context. Another might introduce a customer example. Another might connect the problem to a business outcome. Over time, you are building a story that makes the conversation worth having.
That is actually one of the reasons I like Apollo as a prospecting platform.
A lot of tools can help you create a basic cadence. What I like about Apollo is that it helps you design a true multichannel sequence where every touch has a role in the larger narrative. Emails, calls, LinkedIn touches, and tasks all live in one place, so the outreach feels coordinated instead of random.
When you think about prospecting as storytelling instead of simply sending messages, the sequence itself becomes more thoughtful. The first touch gets attention. The next builds relevance. Another adds proof. Another reinforces the business impact.
That kind of structure makes the entire outreach process stronger.
If you want to see how I think about building sequences and contact strategies this way, you can check Apollo out here.
One last note on this topic.
As I said, I used AI to help research storytelling frameworks while putting this newsletter together. It helped me organize ideas and surface useful resources. But the reason this topic resonates with me comes from years of real experiences with customers, teams, and deals that did not always go according to plan.
AI can help organize information, but it cannot replace experience, and that experience is where the best stories come from.
As AI continues to raise the floor on content creation, storytelling will be one of the skills that raises the ceiling.
The sellers who know how to tell meaningful stories will always stand out.
I would love to hear from you on this one.
What is a story you tell in sales that always seems to resonate with buyers?
Send me an email with your favorite (business) story, and I’ll highlight the best one in a LinkedIn post next week.
#MakeitHappen
