Decoding the Messages that Drive Authority, Revenue and Reputation in B2B Tech
Welcome back! I'm returning a little later than planned because the newsletter now has a more flexible structure, which lets us cover B2B tech communication more broadly. Each week will offer one or two insights under recurring sections across leadership comms, revenue comms, tech news and executive quotes, ending with a practical tip you can use immediately. The goal: equip tech leaders to drive influence everywhere. Glad you’re here. Let’s dive in.
LEADERSHIP COMMS
Stop Sugarcoating. How to Delegate Tough, Unwanted Projects
Leading a tech team is tough, especially when assigning work nobody wants. A common leadership trap: either using persuasion techniques to convince someone of the assignment's value or taking the gentle approach by making it sound temporary ("Let's just see how this goes for a month").
Research shows this ambiguity actually breeds resentment and delays mental acceptance. Instead of overselling a bad task, secure genuine buy-in through three steps:
Give them control over the how, even if the what is locked.
Explain the strategic logic behind choosing them.
Signal finality. (“You will be on this assignment for 12 months.”)
Ripping the bandage off with definitive communication is kinder and more effective than stringing someone along.
Source: HBR
The Best Leaders Refuse to Give Answers
In tech, you’re surrounded by exceptionally smart people. Your communication strategy shouldn't be about getting into the weeds; it should be about building their confidence in problem-solving.
Next time an issue is escalated, pause and flip the narrative with these questions:
"What have you tried so far? If you had to take a wild guess, what's the fix?"
"If you had unlimited resources, how would you solve this?"
"If you were in my shoes, what would you do?"
Stop providing the answers. Get better at asking the right questions.
REVENUE COMMS
Why The Word ‘Contract’ is Killing Your Deals
Stop telling buyers we’re moving into ‘contract negotiation.’ The word ‘contract’ instantly triggers a defensive, adversarial mindset. Instead, frame it as a ‘Commercial Agreement’ (in writing and in discussions with the buyer). This phrasing swap shifts the psychological focus from a potentially tough legal battle to a collaborative partnership.
Talking With Your Hands Makes You Appear More Competent & Persuasive
We’re doing an internal dry run for a multi-million-dollar pitch. Our brilliant lead SME is explaining the core architecture, but his hands are glued to his pockets. The room is flat. Nobody looks convinced. If our own team is tuning out, the actual buyer presentation will be a disaster.
The missing ingredient? Purposeful hand gestures. Research analysing over 2,000 TED talks shows that gesturing makes speakers significantly more persuasive. But random waving doesn't work. When hand movements visually represent spoken content, like moving a finger upward to represent a trend going up, the audience understands the message faster. That clarity instantly boosts the speaker's perceived competence.
Want to win the room? Tell your SMEs to get their hands out of their pockets – because the PowerPoint isn’t the expert, they are, and eyes will be on them.
MARKET PULSE
In The News
Are recent global and Australian ‘AI-driven’ announcements a genuine operating-model redesign, or a smarter way to sell layoffs as strategy, not weakness? Block is effectively signalling it can run a massive fintech with far fewer people, and it wants investors to reward speed and margin expansion. WiseTech is blunter: the unit of work is shifting, and traditional ‘manual coding’ is being devalued. Ocado and C3.ai hint at another subtext: AI as cover for cost triage, tighter R&D spend, and softer growth expectations. Time will tell whether the AI strategy is a durable reinvention or a rehiring loop. Either way, some roles may simply relocate, with Big Tech expanding in India as US H-1B constraints bite.
They Said
Zubin Appoo, new Chief Executive of Wisetech Global, said, “‘AI is going to be the biggest unlocker of productivity for business’ and called on the government to steer clear as companies realign their workforces.” Source: The Australian
Reading Between The Lines (according to Edith):
📝Productivity is the socially-acceptable wrapper for layoffs
📝A message to employees: "This is structural, not performance”
📝A pre-emptive strike against regulation and political heat
Phrase of the Week
If you haven't yet, get familiar with the term "Mechanistic Interpretability." The practice of ‘opening up’ an AI model to map the internal features and circuits that produce its outputs, linking hidden activations to human recognisable concepts and pathways. More here.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
”I don’t believe in throwing more heads at a problem. I believe in throwing the right heads at a problem.”
SOMETHING EXTRA
Turn Up The Creativity Dial: From Bland AI Takes to Unique Responses
If you’re getting boring takes from ChatGPT or any other AI tool, Tech Radar writer Eric Hal Schwartz has some tips you can apply:
Style Injection: Create a stylistic voice in your prompt by referencing a persona like a character in a movie, a historical figure, a sports star, etc.
Self-Aware Prompting: “Nudge ChatGPT to break the default format by directly calling out what it usually asks and asking it not to”. E.g. “Most of your answers are formal and neutral. I want you to bark out responses like you’re a highly trained police dog protecting its handler.”
Perspective flip: AI doesn’t consider alternative vantage points unless you ask. Shifting the narrator or point of view in your prompt helps AI generate fresher answers. This is especially helpful in B2B tech sales when you want to align your solution from the buyer's perspective: CEO, CFO, CIO, etc. E.g. “You’re (insert name of the CEO and company/org name), and your strategic objectives for this business transformation are (insert objectives). As the CEO, craft the value proposition statement for the success of the project.”
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For a different perspective, subscribe to my other newsletter, THE STATIC, a weekly, 4-minute read that decodes the nonsense in tech comms.
