Building Influence Across the Funnel
The Conversation Catalyst - Chronicle 40
Welcome back to The Conversation Catalyst, your weekly signal to slow down, look up, and lead the kind of conversations your buyers remember.
This week, we’re focused on one of the most misunderstood and underutilised skills in B2B: influence.
Not the loud kind. The smart kind. The kind that moves conversations forward and brings people with you.
In a world of go-to-market noise and GTM complexity, real influence isn't earned in a moment. It’s built across the funnel.
And it’s built with intention.
🔍 COS Playbook: Influence is a Full-Funnel Strategy
Pre-pipeline:
Influence begins before a deal exists. Your social presence, amplified through storytelling, makes buyers curious, not cautious. Share stories that position value and demonstrate impact in ways that resonate emotionally and logically. Influence starts with relevance, and stories bring relevance to life.
Mid-funnel:
Storytelling becomes a force multiplier. Great sellers don’t just pitch, they teach, reframe, and guide. They use customer stories to show outcomes, shift perspectives, and surface unseen opportunities. Stories help stakeholders visualise change and reduce internal friction. When you can tell the story your buyer wants to retell internally, you become unforgettable.
Late-stage & post-sale:
Storytelling aligns the broader buying group. It helps build consensus by making abstract value tangible. And post-sale? It empowers CS and AE teams to teach and reinforce success, driving adoption and future expansion.
BSG's Take:
"If influence is your strategy, then storytelling is your superpower. It's how you shift perception, reduce risk, and build momentum, internally and externally."
🚀 Success in Action: Matt, the AE
Matt used to rely heavily on his BDR and a single champion to qualify deals. After adopting COS, he took ownership of influence across his accounts, through storytelling.
He:
Crafted mini case studies as LinkedIn posts, focused on the challenges of finance and ops leaders in his sector.
Used stories in emails and in-person to uncover hidden opportunity and position value, that helped new stakeholders quickly “get it.”
Equipped his champion with a simple narrative they could retell internally.
When his main contact exited mid-deal, Matt’s influence held. His story had already been told. And when new stakeholders stepped in, they’d already seen him in action.
Result?
Not only did he save the deal, it grew 2.3x in ACV. And it didn’t feel like selling. It felt like partnering.
🔮 Coming Next Week: Detecting & Creating Micro-Signals That Support Multi-Threading
In Chronicle 41, we explore how GTM professionals can create, detect and act on valuable micro-signals that support their team in building multiple stakeholder relationships (multi-threading) inside their accounts.
From role changes to relationship mapping, and how your own activity can generate signals that build momentum.
👋 Final Words from the Bearded Sales Guy
If you want to build pipeline, build relationships. And if you want to build relationships, build influence.
But don’t wait until the end of the deal to do it.
Buyers don’t just need another salesperson, they need a trusted advisor to help them see new perspectives. And they don’t need a product champion, they need internal alignment. That means the people around them need to feel the story too!
So this week, where can you build more influence? Which story haven’t you told?
Until next time,
The Bearded Sales Guy