Why your B2B strategy should start with a story that builds trust

Technology can earn confidence, but only people earn trust. Performance might win the first deal — relationships win the next ten.

In a remote-first world, B2B leaders can’t rely on proximity to build credibility. They need stories that connect performance to purpose — and people to people.

The two kinds of trust

There are two types of trust in B2B:

• Short-term: You trust a technology or a machine. It’s episodic — confidence can rise or fall after each transaction. Performance is the name of the game and efficiency is a powerful lever.  
• Long-term: You trust a partner with your welfare. This kind of trust has deep roots. Its responsibility is more than temporal. It is born of human interaction.

One is the key to your present. The other is the key to your future.

How trust is built — and rebuilt

Before business went remote, trust was earned in person. You’d travel, be there physically, take a walk between meetings, grab coffee, talk about family and trade ideas for solving a thorny problem.

Those moments told a story — that you were there to work tirelessly for your client’s success. You might work for another company, but the client understood they were your priority.

A CEO once told me that the greatest benefit of doing business with a supplier was their salesman. “He’s part of our team,” he said.

“Part of our team” is a gift only the client can give. The question now is: how do you become part of your customer’s team when everyone’s at home staring at a screen?

Dig deeper: How to harness storytelling’s impact in B2B marketing

Storytelling helps bridge that distance. When you tell a story where the customer is the hero, you humanize your message and align it with their success. It’s a story told with intelligence, transparency and commitment.

As Abdulaziz Alnaghmoosh wrote in Forbes:

“(Stories) are often more memorable and engaging than other communication styles. Effective stories can transform complex data into digestible information, make messages that stick and build trust with your audience and create relationability.”

Storytelling brings empathy into the conversation. It’s grounded in understanding your customer’s challenges and showing how you help solve them. It nurtures relationships — and in B2B, relationships are measured by profitability.

Here’s an example of how the right story can connect seller and buyer through humanity and trust.

The story that connects seller and buyer

Company A manufactures advanced barcode scanners for warehouse use. Everything in a warehouse has a barcode, and their devices outperform others — faster, lighter, more accurate and more ergonomic. For warehouse managers, that translates into measurable gains in productivity, accuracy and worker safety.

A new generation of technology now allows each device to capture additional information. Aggregated across the fleet and analyzed through proprietary dashboards, the data provides management with powerful insight into opportunities for improvement. Company A is introducing this technology as a SaaS offering. It is their future.

But their competition is formidable. For decades, warehouses have relied on scanners made by the technology titans — heavier, older and already installed.

Developing the brand concept

The first step was to conduct qualitative interviews with senior management, marketing, sales and partners to understand their view of Company A’s ideal customer profile, mission, vision, products, competitive evaluation and value proposition.

Consensus centered on the productivity gains enabled by the scanners. That became the foundation for brand development.

Developing the brand story

An effective story begins with a deep understanding of the customer:

• The challenges they face, both episodic and ongoing.
• How they define success.
• The points of emotional and practical resonance. 

It must be relevant at every stage of the consideration journey and continue to evolve throughout the customer relationship.

The next step was qualitative interviews with prospects and customers to:

• Establish buyer personas.
• Gain insight into the buying process.
• Uncover the challenges they face.
• Learn how they define success. 

The brand concepts were then tested — run up the flagpole to see who saluted.

The result was clear: Company A is about the people on the shop floor. With Company A’s scanners and technology, every worker becomes more productive, more accurate and safer.

Dig deeper: B2B buyers need a reason to believe, not a list of features

Developing the brand library

A deep library of content was required for two important reasons.

• Most of a prospect’s consideration journey happens before direct engagement. 
• Customers now expect the instant gratification of accessible content that fully satisfies their needs — whether it’s a how-to video or a detailed research report.

This library would serve both employees and storytellers, as well as prospects and customers. Areas of development included:

• Thought leadership and research.
• Vertical content to illuminate industry applications and demonstrate key benefits.
• Use cases that show specific advantages on the shop floor — for example, improvements in health and safety.
• Case studies that prove the promised productivity gains.

Developing the brand storytellers

A major undertaking was the creation of a brand messaging guide — a unified resource built on all prior research and development. It set the guidelines for every message and communication with Company A’s prospects and customers.

The guide included:

• A detailed look at customer challenges: From warehouse productivity to inventory management, supply chains and sudden spikes in demand, the challenges are complex and interconnected.
• A deep dive into the story Company A’s storytellers need to tell — and why.
• A clear view of who the company sells to and how they buy: This includes buyer personas, the buying process and the critical waypoints of consideration.
• The measurable impact of Company A: The guide documents the full span of use cases, improvement metrics and proof points.

Telling the story

The inaugural campaign divided the market into two tiers, with three waves of promotion to each.

The offer was developed from the initial interviews. Company A had learned that if they could get the workforce on their side — if workers became champions — the sale was far more likely. The same offer was extended across both tiers and all three waves.

• “We challenge you to a scan-off. Your warehouse. Your workers. Your inventory. Our scanners versus yours. Let the best scanners win.”

Tier A: Specific warehouses and companies were selected according to the ideal customer profile.

• ABM implementation: Targeted roles included warehouse management, innovation management and purchasing.
• Dimensional package: Hand-delivered to each executive.
• Theme: “Formula One — Win the Race to Productivity.” The package included a toy F1 car and Company A’s wearable scanner (with the accompanying glove).
• Messaging across the three waves:

• How we bring value to your vertical.
• How we have brought value to companies like yours.
• How we can bring value to your warehouse.

Tier B: Email distribution targeted at decision-makers and influencers within the selected verticals.

• All electronic delivery — without the car premium or scanner.
• A three-wave nurturing campaign for those who were interested but not yet ready to buy.

When trust becomes the differentiator

Championing the workers proved both distinctive and effective. Workers bought into the story and became champions for the brand. In their hands, the brand story expanded to include their own environment — safety, technology and personal productivity.

If you can get the scanners into the warehouse and into the workers’ hands, the odds of a sale go up. The ergonomics, light weight and advanced scanning capabilities all resonate. As one partner said, “When you make a sales call, go in through the dock, not the front door.”

The increases in productivity and accuracy are dramatic — and critically important to management in a hyper-competitive environment. Their key KPI is OTIF: shipping on time, in full. These scanners help ensure customer satisfaction.

Selling scanners into the warehouse is straightforward, involving few decision-makers. The software, however, is new. Customers haven’t seen this kind of data before, so more stakeholders need to be involved. The software story will likely gain strength as proven use cases accumulate. 

Dig deeper: Bridging the gap between mental availability and momentum in B2B

Your story of success

This case study illustrates how a story that champions humanity as the path to success can create compelling competitive differentiation. The technology will evolve — perhaps even be surpassed — but the trust it established will endure.

You can’t build trust without personal relationships, and you can’t build relationships without trust. Those relationships drive long-term profitability. This story mindset will only grow more powerful as business becomes more remote and efficiency-driven.

Storytelling builds a bridge over remote and troubled waters, carrying the message that you’re personally committed to your customer’s success. You’re on their team.

The place to start is content — for three reasons:

• Most of a prospect’s consideration journey happens before engagement. Embrace them early.
• Customers now expect instant, informed answers to every question. Even a short how-to video can reinforce your credibility and commitment.
• Succeeding in generative search — which is already here — is a different game. Its principles align closely with storytelling. It’s time to review, update, or rebuild key content.

Do it now. It’s the first chapter of your next success.

As Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers wrote in “The Overstory:”

“The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s point of view. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”